Only Those Who Follow Christ Can Love Him

Introduction

There is a moment, in your relationship with God, when you realize you no longer love him the way you did on the first day. Not because he has changed, but because routine has settled in. You still pray, you still worship, but something has gone flat. That is where this sermon by Pastor Malu BIALUTA at ICC Montreal begins.

The title sets the tone: "Only Those Who Follow Christ Can Love Him." This is not wordplay. It is an invitation to step out of a lukewarm faith, a surface level attachment, a relationship with Jesus that looks a little too much like a fifteen year marriage where husband and wife have become "brother and sister at home."

The base text is Luke 9:57-58. A man says to Jesus, "I will follow you wherever you go." And Jesus, instead of welcoming him with enthusiasm, tells him that the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. Why this answer? Because Jesus knows exactly what he is doing when he removes comfort.

Outline of the Sermon

1. Our relationship with God is like an aging marriage

The pastor opens with an observation everyone can relate to: we live with God the way some people live with their spouse. A marriage, when it goes well, moves through four phases. The first three years are the passionate phase, the butterflies phase: strong emotional and physical connection, lots of enthusiasm, but also the risk of idealizing your partner. Around year seven comes disillusionment, the phase of reckoning, with the mental load, young children, tension. At ten years, another shift. And at fifteen years, if you are not careful, you become a couple of friends: brother and sister at home.

The parallel is direct. In your relationship with God, without effort, you fall into routine. God's presence is taken for granted, your assurance of being a child of God is taken for granted, and little by little your prayer, your worship, your time with him go flat. What the pastor already shared last year about first love comes back here: routine is the first thing that eats away at first love. Except in marriage, you do not have to try to fall into routine, and it is the same in the Christian life.

2. You cannot love Christ by yourself

The turning point of the message is this phrase the pastor received in prayer: "The problem is, you cannot love me by yourself." Before you even tell God you love him, you need to ask him for the grace to love him. Ask for God's own heart in order to be able to love him.

Loving God is not something you understand through emotions. It is spiritually that you experience a discharge of his love. It can come like water, like fire, like wind. It grabs hold of you and you do not understand what is happening. But the condition is first to detach the love of God from the idea we have of love between humans. You also cannot love Christ if you do not know him, and you cannot know him unless he himself grants you the grace to know him. That is what Jesus tells Peter: "Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you."

To illustrate, the pastor uses the image of a popular film, Coming to America. Jesus did what Prince Akeem did: he left his throne, he stripped himself, he made himself poor. And because he came disguised in our condition, we struggle to grasp the greatness of his love or his glory. It takes grace to see who he really is.

3. Following Jesus means entering a movement

The pastor opens Luke 9:57. A man says, "Lord, I will follow you wherever you go." What a claim! And Jesus' answer is surprising: "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head."

To understand this, you have to read Luke in context. Luke is writing around a movement: Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. Going toward Jerusalem, for Luke, means taking the road of salvation. And this text sits at the moment when Jesus has already announced his departure. Near the end of his life, he genuinely needs disciples. He needs you and me today.

Following Jesus, then, is not about staying still. It means entering his movement, agreeing to go with him toward the cross, with everything that costs, walking with him, carrying his cross, and not looking back. Following Jesus is not simply coming to church. The man in the text wanted to follow Jesus but did not understand what that implied.

4. Jesus removes comfort to reveal what drives you

Jesus exercised the word of knowledge and discernment. He knew that this man came with specific self interests. He shows no leniency for anything that could kill the soul. So he removes anything that could be a source of comfort: "If I remove this source of comfort, will this person still follow me?"

It is the same strategy he used with the rich young man. When Jesus asks him to sell everything he owns, he is not saying you need to be poor to follow him. He is asking the real question: "What drives you when you follow me?" For the rich young man, the challenge was his relationship to money. And, the pastor adds, we are a generation of rich young men. Today it is very hard to see a Christian willing to lose everything for God. The first disciples went all the way to martyrdom.

The question becomes personal: what do you need to lose in order to be able to follow Jesus? It is not the same for everyone. For some, it is money. For others, it is an emotional anchor, a source of pride, a sense of security. God wants you to let go of something.

5. Happiness or being happy? The difference changes everything

The pastor insists: God's goal is not to give us happiness according to the world, but to make us happy. That is not the same thing. Happiness, in this sense, is an outward state, a set of pleasant circumstances, the achieving of goals we have set for ourselves. Being happy is an inward state. You can appear to have happiness without being happy.

Proverbs 16:20 puts it this way: "Whoever gives thought to the word will discover good, and blessed is he who trusts in the Lord." Two different Hebrew verbs. "Gives thought" translates sakal, which means working on yourself through introspection in order to prosper and succeed. It is the same word used in Genesis 3 for the tree that was "desirable to make one wise": the woman used her own reasoning to pursue her personal happiness, and we know what happened next.

"Trusts," on the other hand, translates batach: to take someone as a confidant, to cling to someone, to follow them. It is a relational verb. Whoever clings to God is happy on the inside. It is not big houses that make people happy. We see millionaires take their own lives, while poor people cling to life. North America is among the regions with the best quality of life and, at the same time, among the heaviest mental health struggles. There is a happiness people chase after that actually keeps them from following Jesus.

6. Following Jesus requires commitment, a resolve

Jesus warns against any impulsive commitment, against people who lack roots, whose word falls away and whose heart is shallow. To follow Jesus, you need commitment, you need a resolve. Like Daniel who, in Daniel 1:8, "resolved that he would not defile himself," and who found favor in the eyes of the chief eunuch. Resolve is what allows you to find favor.

You can appear sincere and still lack roots. The pastor invites us to stand before Christ as before a mirror, and say, "Lord, I recognize that I may love you, but there is this and that which keeps me from truly following you." That is where attachment begins, the batach that makes you happy and that, according to Psalm 22:5, keeps you from shame: "They trusted in you and were not put to shame." Not the promise of an easy happiness, but the promise of never remaining in confusion.

Key Takeaways

• Routine is the first enemy of first love, in marriage as well as in your life with God.
• You cannot love Christ by yourself; you must ask him for the grace to love him.
• Following Jesus is not coming to church, it is entering his movement and walking with him toward the cross.
• Jesus sometimes removes your comfort to reveal what truly drives you.
• God does not aim for your happiness according to the world, he wants to make you happy on the inside: "blessed is he who trusts in the Lord."
• Without a firm resolve, like Daniel's, faith stays impulsive and without roots.

Personal Application

• Which "phase" is your relationship with God in today: passion, disillusionment, reckoning, or a friendship that has become routine?
• When was the last time you asked God for the grace to love him, before even telling him that you love him?
• What might Jesus be removing from your comfort right now, and why?
• Are you chasing an outward happiness that is actually keeping you from following Jesus?
• Can you, like Daniel, set a clear resolve for this week: "I resolve to..."?

Verses Cited

• Luke 9:57-58 - The first candidate for discipleship.
• Proverbs 16:20 - Happiness and being happy.
• Genesis 3:6 - The woman and the tree desirable to make one wise.
• Psalm 22:5 - "They trusted in you and were not put to shame."
• Daniel 1:8 - Daniel resolved not to defile himself.
• Matthew 16:17 - "Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you."
• James 2:19 - The demons believe and shudder.

FAQ

Why does Jesus seem to discourage the man who wants to follow him in Luke 9:57?

He is not discouraging him, he is testing him. By pointing out that he has nowhere to lay his head, Jesus strips away the illusion of comfort and exposes the man's true motive. He does the same thing with the rich young man. The real question underneath is: what drives you when you follow him?

What is the difference between "having happiness" and "being happy" according to Proverbs 16:20?

The pastor shows that the verb translated as "gives thought" (sakal) describes an act of introspection aimed at personal success. The verb translated as "trusts" (batach) describes attachment to someone, trust in God. The first is an outward state; the second, an inward state that does not depend on circumstances.

Practically speaking, how do I start loving Christ again when routine has set in?

Three steps emerge from the sermon: ask God for the very grace to love him; stand before him as before a mirror and name what is keeping you from following him; and set a firm resolve, in the manner of Daniel 1:8, rather than making one impulsive decision after another.