Set Your Face Toward Your Mission

In one paragraph

Ray was away this Sunday, so Eric Wachob, one of the elders at First Baptist, stepped in and took a look at Luke chapter nine. He focused on two ideas: how Christ understood his own mission on earth, and what that means for how we as Christians should understand ours. Eric opened with a personal illustration about needing glasses. He described putting on his first pair as a teenager and suddenly...

Read together

1. Luke 9:18 disciples asked who the crowds say Jesus is
2. Luke 9:21-22 Jesus charges disciples to tell no one, foretells his suffering, death, and resurrection
3. Luke 9:51 Jesus sets his face to go to Jerusalem
4. Luke 9:57-58 man says he will follow Jesus anywhere, Jesus replies foxes have holes but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head
5. Luke 9:59-61 two men ask to first bury father and say farewell before following Jesus
6. Luke 8:19-21 Jesus told his mother and brothers are outside, responds that his family are those who hear and do the word of God
7. Mark 3:21 Jesus' family attempts an intervention, saying he has gone off the deep end
8. Matthew 16:21 parallel to Luke 9:51, Jesus begins to show disciples he must go to Jerusalem to suffer and be raised
9. Luke 13:31 Jesus says he must go on his way today and tomorrow, for a prophet cannot perish outside Jerusalem
10. Matthew 22 the great commandment to love God with all heart soul and mind, and neighbor as self
11. Matthew 28 the great commission to go and make disciples of all nations

Talk about it

1. Eric talked about putting on new glasses and suddenly being able to see the trees and branches on the mountains clearly. When did you first experience that kind of moment spiritually, where things came into focus for you about who Jesus is?
2. Peter answered Jesus with 'You are the Christ of God,' and Eric pointed out that Jesus renamed Simon 'Peter' so that every time someone called him by his new name, the truth of that confession was reaffirmed. How do the things that define you day to day either reinforce or pull against your understanding of who Jesus is?
3. Eric used the image of expensive homes in Jackson being oriented to face the Grand Teton, then contrasted that with a tourist staring at his phone while the mountains soared above him. What does it look like practically when we settle for a small substitute instead of fixing our eyes on God?
4. In the three encounters on the road in Luke 9, each man had what sounded like a reasonable hesitation before following Jesus. Eric said Christ was exposing a divided heart. What reasonable-sounding things in your own life compete most with putting God's mission first?
5. Eric laid out four mission statements: the great commandment, the great commission, the historic answer that the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, and First Baptist's own statement of loving God and loving others through Christ. If someone asked you right now what your personal mission and purpose are, what would you say?