No Benchwarmers in the Kingdom
Samuel Prime · Tidal Church Moncton · June 15, 2025
Samuel Prime looks at Luke 9:57-62, where would-be followers say "but can I" to Jesus. Comfort, delay and distraction hold us back, and following Jesus means wholehearted obedience, walking in honest community, and stepping off the bench into His mission.
Topics: Relationships, Mission & Outreach, Discipleship
Transcript
[0:00] I'll never forget the day that I made the decision to sign up for rugby in my grade nine year. Now, me being me at this time in my life, I was a little bit prideful. I thought more of myself than what I actually was. And I'd made the decision to join a sport that brings 250, 300 pound guys to their knees with injuries. Like, I've seen it happen. And I had the mindset of, "I don't care who the biggest guy on the field is. I can take him 'cause I'm jacked." And for reference, this is me when I was in grade nine, I will tell you right now, I was not a big guy. And the reason that I actually joined rugby is I watched my brother play and I thought, wow, that looks kind of cool.
[0:45] I think I'd be really good at that. I could probably do better than he did. And it also, my parents were like, "Don't do it, buddy." And I was like, "I gotta do it." So I probably also joined so that I could annoy my dad a little bit, 'cause we had that kind of a relationship where any chance that I had to get under his skin, I would take it. And so I remember my first game distinctly, we didn't have that many subs on our team and I think we had three to be exact. And so kickoff happens and the ball's flying through the air and somebody catches it. And then within two minutes we had our first injury, somebody broke or sprained their ankle, so they hobbled off the field. And our first sub went in and I'm starting to get a little scared 'cause I realize, and I look and I was like, there's not too many of us left.
[1:34] So then sure enough, the game continues and then somebody else is being taken off the field. And another one of our subs goes in with, the guy had like a broken nose and there's kind of blood everywhere. And it was kind of gross. And I was like, this is not settling well with me. I am regretting my decision more and more. And so again, five minutes pass and somebody has a concussion. And it was like, oh, that means we get one more injury and I'm in the game. And sure enough, five minutes pass and there's another injury. We're not even really that far into this game. And I have a moment where I really realized that I wanted to be on the team, but I didn't want to be in the game that I really wanted to be on the team, but I didn't want to be in the game.
[2:20] And so what ended up happening is I ended up going onto the field, and my coach was like, "Prime, you're in." And I was like, "Okay." So I'm like running around with a, like, a chicken with my head cut off, not really knowing where to go or what to do. And I yelled back to my coach 'cause I realized I didn't even know what position I was going in to fill in for. So I said, "Wait, what position am I?" And he's like, "13." I was hook. I didn't know how to play 13. I had no clue what that was. So I'm like running around and one of my teammates tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Prime, it's okay. I know you don't know what you're doing. I'm gonna yell things at you. You go and do them." And I just had a moment where I realized that that's the kind of attitude that a lot of us carry into our faith.
[3:09] That's what a lot of us carry into when we think about following Jesus, where we want to be kind of in, we wanna be on the team, we wanna be kind of on the sidelines watching, but when it comes time to actually be in the game, many of us don't actually wanna do that. And you might be like, "Okay, like, what do you mean by that?" Well, the idea that we're gonna be uncovering and unpacking this morning is that there are no benchwarmers in the kingdom of God. More importantly, or furthermore, to hit that home a little bit harder. There are no benchwarmers when it comes to following Jesus. And what we're gonna wrestle with this morning is our mission statement as a church is to go the distance to bring people closer to God, which means that through intentional friendships and relationships in our workplaces and in our schools and in our neighborhoods, that we will form intentional relationships which cost us something, which is why we go the distance so that we can prepare the way for God to do a deep and redeeming work in their lives so that they may become passionate followers of Jesus Christ.
[4:23] And that costs us something. And so we're gonna be in Luke chapter 9 this morning, kind of towards the end of the chapter. And what we're gonna uncover is we're gonna uncover that there's a few guys that really wanna follow Jesus. And they say, like, "Jesus, can I follow You?" Or Jesus says, "Come and follow Me." And then Jesus kind of follows up. They follow up with something like, "Hey, can I go do this first?" And then Jesus has a response that although may seem harsh, really cuts to the core of our hearts once we actually know what Jesus is saying. And so we're gonna do something a little bit different this morning. If I could, I'm actually gonna get you to stand for the reading of God's Word this morning if you're able, because what we see in the scriptures is we see before we see all throughout the scriptures that there's a posture change that happens intentionally while we approach the Lord.
[5:20] And I think that the scriptures and as we approach the living Word of God, that is no different in how we should treat it. It's also a thing of respect, right? Like, we stand to pledge allegiance to the flag. Maybe that's an American thing, but we do stand for the Canadian anthem and we should do the same for scripture as we change our postures from what we normally do when we're sitting. And in Luke chapter 9 and verse 57, we read, "As they were walking along, somebody said to Jesus, 'I will follow You wherever You go.' But Jesus replied, 'Foxes have dens to live in and birds have nests for the, but the Son of Man has no place to even rest His head.' He said to another person, 'Come follow Me.' And the man agreed, but he said, 'Lord, first let me return home and bury my father.' Jesus told him, 'What the spiritually dead bury their own dead.
[6:13] Your duty is to go and preach the kingdom of God.' Another said, 'Lord, I will follow You, but first let me say goodbye to my family.' But Jesus told him, 'Anyone who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for the kingdom of God.'" This is the Word of the Lord. You can go ahead and grab a seat. And so when you hear that, it feels a little bit harsh, like, "Hey, Jesus, can I go back and bury my father?" And Jesus is like, "No." When you hear those things, it sounds really harsh, but, one thing that I wanna touch on is your view of scripture and of Jesus will directly impact how you follow Him. Like, if your view of Jesus is Jesus is just some, like, passive spiritual hippie, then that's gonna impact how you follow Him.
[7:06] If your view of God is just like, where Jesus in the flesh is just like, yeah, man, like surf up, like God is love and that's all that He is. Or like Jesus is my boyfriend. I've heard people say that instead of Jesus has all spiritual power and authority on heaven and on earth, but He's the way, the truth and the life, then when we open these Scriptures, it's gonna drastically impact what we get from them. And I humbly asked this morning as we dive into these Scriptures that maybe we change our posture to say, Jesus, You have all power and authority on heaven and on earth, and whatever it is You wanna speak to me, I will listen.
[7:59] And something that we kind of gotta understand about this passage is these individuals before they follow Jesus, have a "but can I" moment. What do I mean by a "but can I" moment? What? Like, what are you actually saying there? Where the invitation is there to say, Hey, come and follow Me. But they say, "But can I go do something else first?" And I think a lot of us have that moment before we follow Jesus, where we say, Jesus, I will follow You, but can I go chase the desires of my heart first, or Jesus, I, like, I really wanna follow You, but but can I hold on to the love of money and stuff that I have? Or, Hey, Jesus, I wanna follow You, but I still wanna be able to sleep with whoever I want. Or, hey, Jesus, I wanna follow You, but can I actually still be my own authority in my life and be the hero and the main character in my story?
[8:55] And what we're gonna see is we're gonna see that Jesus responds in a way that is still relevant and pierces, at least it pierces my heart here today. And there's something that we get wrong about following. We have an idea that following is just doing what it is Jesus did. And the illustration that I give for this, that I probably use a little bit too much, is when I was a kid, we'd get these, like, big snowstorms. We get these big snowstorms. And so our house was here and the garage was probably, I don't know, like 10 or 15 feet away. And my brother and me and my mom would never wanna be the ones to make the trip from the house to the snowblower or the shovels.
[9:41] We never wanted to be the first one to go. And especially when you're little, you would know that when you go into the snow, it's like as tall as you are, so you can't really, like, get through it or you struggle to. So what would happen is, my dad would always be the first one to go out into the snow. And my dad being a fully grown man, he would just be, you know, walking normally and maybe sometimes he would maybe step just a little bit higher than he normally would. And me and my brother, who wanted to go to the garage and wanted to help and and wanted to follow my dad, what we did is since we were so much smaller, we would jump from footstep to footstep to footstep to footstep. And sometimes we'd, like, fall over and my dad would have to, like, come pick us up, so we didn't run us over with a snowblower, and sometimes we didn't look like he did.
[10:30] And sometimes it was kind of like, it was just unfortunate. And the difference between just following in and, like, wanting to do what somebody did, and the difference between following Jesus is following Jesus isn't just about doing what He did. It's about one, every core, to the core of your being, wanting to be like He is. It's not just doing what He did. It's about every single desire that you have within inside of you wanting to become like the person of Jesus. And there's a big difference. The first just says, you know what? I can kind of do this on my own. The second says that I have to approach Jesus in the Scriptures with an intentionality of what am I prioritizing in my life?
[11:19] And I think that's the question that we all have to wrestle to is what is the thing in our life that we are prioritizing? What are we prioritizing in our day-to-day life, when we're going through the rhythms and and what are our desires in the places that we don't actually wrestle with the question, Do I want to become like Jesus? Where we don't wrestle? What are the places in your life where you no longer wrestle with, Hey, what is the priority in my life? And all of us have the "but can I" moment. And this passage confronts us with something. It says, there are things within all of us. There are things within all of us that are a "but can I" moment.
[12:07] And as we turn to the Scriptures again, we see the first thing that we hold onto. And really, we were like, Hey, I wanna follow Jesus, but I don't want to give up comfort. Comfort is one of the biggest things that we hold onto when it comes to following Jesus. Where this guy says, Jesus, I'll follow You. And Jesus just bluntly responds with, "Foxes have holes, birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to rest His head." And we like to be comfortable. I mean, as we sit here in these beautiful, cushy red chairs, right? Like, it's like, this is good, this is comfortable. But the call of following Jesus goes far beyond sitting in this room. The call to be like He is goes far beyond what we experience here.
[12:58] And I think the thing that we have to wrestle with is we have this mindset that's been created, which we think that the primary way of service to others, that we think the primary way of service to others, and evangelism and discipleship happens within the walls of these, this church. And the Scriptures confront us with something that if that's what we think, we've become comfortable, we've become comfortable. And I get it, right? I get it because it's, it's hard. When we are comfortable, what begins to happen when we become comfortable, we get a mindset of, oh, hey, somebody else will do it. Somebody else will be responsible for it. Somebody else will take care of it.
[13:46] And we get stuck in the comfort of what people think of us. And we don't give it a second thought of what God might have asked us to do, what God might be speaking to us, what God might be asking us to leave behind. Because comfort, what it does is it soothes our pride. It soothes our pride. Comfort says, Hey, you don't actually have to change anything in your life. You don't have to put in work. Comfort is the thing that says you're just perfect the way that you are. The second thing that we see in the Scriptures, and if I'm being maybe a little bit too honest this morning, this is the one that I struggle with the most. And it's delay.
[14:33] This is one of the things that keeps us back from being fully devoted followers of Jesus, which is delay. This has come, "Follow me." Or Jesus, "I wanna follow You." And Jesus replies with, and this guy replies with, "Let me bury my father first." And Jesus replies to something that is seemingly harsh. He says, "Let the dead bury the dead. Your job is to go and preach the kingdom of God." Scholars would suggest that this man's father wasn't actually dead, but rather he was dying and that he wanted to go back, be with his father, wait till he passed away, and then come and follow Jesus. So maybe like, "All right, what are You saying here?"
[15:27] The reason that this one is the hardest one for me is because what if we missed a move of God in our families, in our neighborhoods, in our lives? Because we said, "Just wait, Jesus, just wait. It's okay. That can wait till later. God, I can spend time with You later. I'll get around to it. God, that thing in me doesn't need to change right now. I can deal with that later. It's not that big of a problem." What if the thing that you've been waiting for, a move of God in your life, hasn't happened because you've been delaying?
[16:19] And that just hit me this week. It hit me that delayed obedience is still disobedience. And we wrestle with that, right? We wrestle with it. It's like when you know, when you're a dad or a mom or a parent and you say to your kid, "Hey, will you go take out the trash?" And they're like, "Yeah, yeah, just like five minutes," and then five minutes pass. They don't take out the trash, and then you wait another five minutes and then they still don't take out the trash. Like you're like, "Why aren't you being obedient to me?" Delayed obedience is still disobedience. And I have to be honest, I wrestle with this one. I wrestle with it because delay is something that kills your intimacy with Jesus.
[17:04] "Yeah, yeah, Jesus, I'll do that later. I'll forgive them later." Like, yeah, "Jesus, I could totally do that at a more convenient time." And then Jesus confronts us with, oh, when we say, "Hey, Jesus, can I follow You?" And He confronts you with this, you're like, "Oh, you mean like right now? Like right now? Can I come back at a more convenient time when I'm in a better place, after I bury my father?" And Jesus's invitation is, "Come follow Me." Because the only way you're gonna get to that better headspace, to that better place, is through Jesus, through a deep relationship with Him. And another one that's super common that we see and we see in these scriptures is distraction.
[17:54] We see distraction, right? "Jesus, come follow Me." "Can I follow You?" Jesus then says, "Can I go?" He says, "Sorry. Hey, can I say goodbye to my friends and my family?" And then to which Jesus replies, "No one can keep their hand on the plow and look back and be fit for the kingdom of God." And that hit me, that struck me this week too. It struck me that there are things in our life where we're like, "Jesus, I wanna follow You, but this other stuff looks pretty good." That there are things in our life that we go, "Yeah, Jesus, I wanna follow You, but I'm scanning for something better." And the call of Jesus in these scriptures is, there is nothing better. There is nothing better than following and being obedient to King Jesus.
[18:45] There's nothing better. Jesus has all authority in heaven and on earth, and yet we treat Him, when we come to the scriptures and when we say we're gonna follow Him, and we chase after Him as an afterthought, I think we do. And I've been wrestling with that this week, but that we become more interested in managing our own appearances than cultivating obedience to Jesus in our lives. So Jesus says it plainly, if you're gonna follow Me, don't look back. Don't live divided. Put your hand to the plow and go, because distractions may not feel dangerous at first, but over time, they pull you away from the path that you were intended to walk.
[19:32] And what Jesus is exposing here is He's exposing what holds them back. Jesus, to be clear, isn't rejecting these people. He's making it clear you can't carry comfort, delay, and distraction into a life of obedience to Christ. You can't do it. And so my question for you is, what is your greatest desire? What is it that your heart really wants? Is it to go where Jesus went? Is it to do what He did? Is it to become like the person of Jesus, where the desires of your being from the core are to be like He is? And the thing that's tough for us to wrestle with, that is uncomfortable, is that Jesus didn't come and save you so you can stay sitting.
[20:23] He didn't come to this earth and die a painful death on a cross so that we can stay seated. He didn't die a painful death on a cross so you can live your day to day life and act and actually have nothing in you that looks like Him. He didn't hang on a cross so you could check a spiritual box and keep living your own life and building your own life the way that you want to. He didn't rescue you from sin so you can settle into a belief that costs you nothing and changes no one, including yourself. That is not why Jesus died. He didn't rescue you for that. He didn't just ask for belief. What Jesus asked for, He says, "I need you to come to Me with not only a belief, but a faith.
[21:09] I need you to come to Me with a faith, because belief says, 'I think it's true,' where faith says, 'I'll build my life upon it.' Belief says, 'I think it's true,' where faith says, 'I will build my life upon it.'" So whether you've been in church for a long time or you've barely made it through the doors this morning, the invitation is the same. The invitation is the same. Come off the bench, come off the bench. Don't settle for safe. Don't settle for almost, because the truth is, Jesus didn't just invite you. Jesus didn't make the invitation of "I want part of your life." Jesus wants to make your life whole.
[21:57] And in Luke 10, chapter 10, verse 1, we read, "The Lord now chose 72 other disciples and sent them ahead in pairs to all the towns and places He planned to visit." And this struck me this week. Later on, Jesus is gonna tell these 72 to go and be sent, but before He does that, He sends them out in pairs. Why is that? Well, if I'm being honest this morning, I think when we think of following Jesus, we think of it as costly because of time, energy, money. But I think one of the biggest things when it comes to following Jesus that we miss the mark on, one of the biggest things that I think that we miss the mark on is vulnerability.
[22:44] I think it's vulnerability and just wanting to protect the image that we have created for ourselves. And what Jesus is saying here is He's saying, "You can't do that. You Have to be vulnerable. I think He sends them in pairs. And I think that's intentionally why we see in the Scriptures why things are done in community. I think that's why we see it's costly to do life with somebody, but it's more costly to do life alone. And there's so much that I could say, but I need you to know that isolation is a tactic that the enemy still uses today. If he can get you isolated, he can get you insecure. If he can get you out of community, that he can get you out of calling. That's what he did with Adam and Eve in the garden.
[23:31] That's what he does today through shame and distraction and fear and busyness. Because once you're alone with your thoughts, once you're out of honest conversations, once you're out walking out of accountability, you're vulnerable, you're easier to discourage, easier to pick off. And obedience is costly. That's what this is about. It's about obedience. Isolation is deadly. And following Jesus requires sacrificial friendship. Jesus says later on in Luke chapter 10 that He's sending them out like lambs among wolves. And He doesn't say that to be like cryptic or like super poetic. It's not a poetic way of saying it might be tough. Jesus is saying, you're walking into a fight, you're walking into a battle, and there are spiritual forces that want your faith weak, your passion numb and your influence non-existent.
[24:29] And if you think that you can stand in obedience and take ground for the kingdom without not only facing resistance, but opposition that you can take on your own, you're not in the mission yet. Because the truth is, when you're not walking in accountability with somebody else, when you're not walking in a discipling relationship with someone, the temptation to shrink back into yourself or give up is real. It's real. And I think that's why a lot of us, if we're being honest, that's why we struggle to follow Jesus, because we don't have somebody in our life. We're not a pair that knows the deepest desires of our hearts. And I think if we're, you know, really being honest, as we look around the culture around us and we look at others, we see that we are an incredibly individualistic culture, right?
[25:23] Like everything we do is about us. Like everything that we desire is about what we want and what we think and what we desire. And when you start walking with somebody else, that naturally begins to shift. And what I think of is, I think of my dad, when I was a kid, I used to have a thing where I would play video games, I would watch movies, but I would be doing it in the dark. I'd be doing it in the dark. And what would happen is this would be sitting there and my eyes would come adjusted and I was in the dark, but I didn't even really know I was there. I didn't. So my dad would kind of come in and he'd flick the lights on and I'd go, oh, like my eyes, like, why'd you do that?
[26:12] Turn the lights back off. And I think if we're being honest, it's the same in our lives. I think we're sometimes living in darkness and maybe there's just like a little bit of light shining from the TV, not much, just a little bit. And we're walking around going, you know what? I'm living and walking in freedom and in a life, but really what's going on underneath? There's just this thing that you just can't get rid of that's hidden, that's unnamed, that you've confessed to God, but you just can't seem to shake and you keep walking through life thinking that this, that this is all there is, that there is no freedom. That there is no peace, that there is no joy, that there is nothing more to this life.
[27:04] And what happens when you walk with somebody else, when you go in pairs as James 5:16, I believe it is, talks about confess your sins to one another. What's happening is you're essentially turning on the lights. And what you begin to uncover is that there's McDonald's wrappers, everywheres, and there's Kit Kats. And there's crumbs, everywheres. And you can see the laundry that you kind of shoved under the bed that you're hoping nobody else would see. And you're like, man, I gotta clean this up. And the beautiful part about walking in pairs is when you are walking alone, when the TV is on and there's just a little bit of light in your room, you are blind.
[27:52] You are blind to some of the things in your life that may not necessarily be sinful, but God is calling you away from. And what happens again is we begin to walk with somebody and that light begins to shine, the darkness kind of expels, it goes away. And what happens is we're uncovered and we feel vulnerable. And then that person then comes alongside of us and helps us clean up the mess. And I think a big reason that so many people don't experience freedom in their life is because they've never actually turned on the light. I think the reason that a lot of people struggle is because they keep it to themselves and it never fully comes to the light.
[28:43] The biggest, biggest, biggest weapon that we have against shame and guilt and fear and anxiety and depression is to name the stuff that lives within us, to name it to somebody else, to walk with us in pairs and accountability. Because if we are going to be on mission as a church to go the distance to bring people closer to God, have to be people walking in the light, we have to flick the light on and see the garbage and see the stuff that lives deep within the shadows and have somebody else help us clean up the mess. And maybe today, again, you've been walking around with just a little bit of light thinking that this, that this is it and this life and on this earth, and you for the very first time want to turn on the light and just name the stuff that's going on within you.
[29:45] Name the areas of shame and guilt and hurt, and lay that down at the feet of Jesus. We're gonna have our prayer team come up and the team is gonna lead us in a moment of worship. And maybe for some of you, for the very first time, you're gonna come forward and you're gonna pray with somebody and you're gonna name those things in your life, and we're gonna pray over you that those things, that the light would shine through them and that shame and that guilt and that fear that is within you would dissolve, that it would no longer have a hold on your life because we believe that we have an opportunity to experience the kingdom of God here on this earth.
[30:33] And so if the prayer team will come on up, I'm just gonna lead us in a moment of prayer. And if you just feel just a prompting of, if anything that God's been speaking to you, this service, my call for you would be don't delay. Don't wait until next week or the week after or the week after. 'Cause I don't know about you, but when I put something off, it never happens, never gets done. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, wonderful Counselor, Almighty God, we come before You humbly today, We come before You humbly today.
[31:24] And we acknowledge that when God moves in our lives, we're not always ready for it. We don't always expect it. But God, I would just pray that You would move in the hearts of people here, maybe even for some of us, for the very first time. And as You do that, God, if there is comfort, if there is delay, God, if there is distraction, I pray right now that those would not have, they would not have the ground to stand on in this place this morning. There's people come forward, and as they pray and maybe name stuff, whether it's pride or ego or what, or even if it's just stuff that they're struggling with, whatever it is, God, I just pray that we would place it down at Your feet, and that like this lamp, God, as we pull it up, that the light would shine into the darkness and that we could experience the kingdom of God here on this earth right now.
[32:32] And so, heavenly Father, I ask humbly that we would see You move as Your Scriptures say, "Create in me a pure heart." Oh God, come, Holy Spirit, come. It's my prayer as I hold out. The light created me a pure heart, oh God. And come, Holy Spirit, come.