Audio of the sermon is here:

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I think we’ve been deceived. We’ve all been deceived. You and I have been deceived into thinking we can have it all. Isn’t that what the American Dream is all about? Having it all? You can have the perfect family and the perfect job and the perfect house and the perfect life. You can have it all. Isn’t that what every single commercial is about? Buy this, eat this, drink this, and you can have it all. Don’t wait; get it now. And of course, it’s not just about what we can buy and consume and acquire. The deception goes deeper than that. We have been deceived into thinking that we will never have to choose between some good thing that we want and Jesus. This is the deception: you can have two gods. You can serve both God and money. You won’t have to choose. You can get all the good life now, and get Jesus thrown in at the end. Seek first the kingdom of this world, and maybe Jesus will be added to you. We have been deceived into thinking that we won’t have to choose; we can have it all.

But Jesus cuts right through the deception; right through the deception of this world, and our self-deception. He’s on His way to Jerusalem; He has set His face to go to Jerusalem. And while He’s on His way, he talks to three people. The first one says, I will follow You wherever You go. Yes! Another follower of Jesus! But Jesus says, You know, foxes have holes; they have dens; and birds have nests where they can live, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head. You might have to choose between comfort and Jesus. The next person Jesus asks to follow Him. But the man says, Let me just go and bury my father. But Jesus says, Leave the dead to bury their own dead; you go and proclaim the kingdom of God. You might have to choose between responsibilities or traditions and Jesus. The third man says I will follow You; just let me go say goodbye and take leave of those in my house. But Jesus says, Anyone who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is not well-fitted for the kingdom of God. You might have to choose between your family and Jesus.

These are not exhaustive, of course. Maybe those aren’t the choices you will have to make. Maybe it will be something else. But whatever it is, Jesus says it even more strongly in Luke 14: If anyone does not renounce all he has, he cannot be My disciple. Do not be deceived. But every one of us has looked back, looked to the side, looked around at what others have and wonder why we can’t have that. Why do I have to choose? Why can’t I have everything? Why do I have to give up stuff now? Doesn’t God want me to be happy? No, we are not naturally well-fitted for the kingdom of God. We can barely go a few seconds without getting distracted by this or that, having our heads turned by some vision of the good life. Do not be deceived.

Jesus, however, is never distracted. He sets His face to go toward Jerusalem. He sets His face, so much so that the people of Samaria do not receive Him. They aren’t going that way. But Jesus will not be deterred. He will not be turned aside to the right or to the left. He is going to Jerusalem, and He has set His face. He has set His face toward the cross and toward your salvation.

And He sends angels before His face, as He is going. Angels, of course, are just messengers. He sends messengers to all those who are not well-fitted for the kingdom of God. To all the stones that will not fit into the building of the kingdom, the messengers say, Look! The kingdom of God—His reign and rule by which He puts all things under His authority—here He comes! Here He is! And Jesus doesn’t go by and look at all the ill-fitted stones and say, No. He doesn’t come up to us and say, Ah! Here, I choose this one because he already fits well. I choose this one because she is already perfect. No, He takes up all the stones He can find, ill-fitted for the kingdom of God, and He makes them perfect. He takes all the stones and says, here, I am the Rock of Ages, cleft for you! Hide yourself in Me while the wrath of God passes by. In My side, pierced with a spear. In My hands, pierced with nails. Here, I wash you. Here, My Spirit shapes and forms you and fits you to Me. You are being conformed to Me, and I am the Image of the invisible God. And the messengers, the angels, are here to tell you that: Here is the kingdom of God! He comes near to you; He is here!

And the fact is, you can look back all you want, but you can’t go back. In 1 Kings 19, when Elijah throws his cloak over Elisha’s shoulders, Elisha says something very similar to what the third man says here in Luke 9: he says, Let me first go back and kiss my mother and father and then I will follow you. And Elijah says, basically, I’m not stopping you. Now, obviously, everything has changed now that Jesus has come. That’s true. But what does Elisha do when he goes back? He had been plowing with 12 yoke of oxen when Elijah put his cloak on him. When he goes back, he slaughters all the oxen and throws a big party. That means that even if Elisha wanted to go back, he couldn’t. He can’t go back to plowing the field, because all the oxen are dead.

And you can’t go back either. You are with Jesus on the way. He has marked you with His Name. You are clothed with Him, joined to Him, fitted to Him. All those choices you could have made, many of them are no longer open to you. Because you’re in Christ, there are lives you cannot live. There are things you cannot do. There are choices you cannot make. You are being shaped and formed by the Holy Spirit of the living God to be well-fitted for the kingdom of God, into which you have been transferred by the word of Jesus. Who knows what you’ll have to choose, or what you’ll have to give up. But eventually you’re going to give up everything. You’re going to renounce everything. You are seeking first the kingdom of God. But when you come to the end of the road, where your cross will lead you, you will see what Jesus makes of ill-fitting stones. You will see the Jesus who loves you, and who gave Himself up for you. You will see the Jesus—who Himself became a stone rejected, and then the cornerstone—who has cleansed you by the washing of water and the word, to present you before Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, holy and without blemish, perfectly fitted for the kingdom of God.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7).

– Pr. Timothy Winterstein, 6/27/25