Most of us never decide to quit following Jesus. That is the strange thing about half-hearted discipleship. It rarely announces itself with a slammed door or a renounced faith. It shows up instead as a slight shift, a small reservation kept in the back pocket, a willingness to keep walking the road as long as the road stays reasonable. We don’t turn around, but we leave just enough room to turn around in case the cost climbs higher than we budgeted for.

Luke hands us one sentence that exposes exactly that reservation in us, and he does it by showing us a man who had no reservations.

“When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51)

A single verse, and the whole Gospel of Luke turns on its hinge here. Everything Luke has been carefully building toward, every title he has stacked on Jesus, now bends toward one city and one outcome. To understand why that sentence should unsettle us, it helps to feel the full weight of what Jesus was walking into, and why he could not have done anything else.

A Vision for the Local Church That Treasures Christ Above All

What’s the most foundational question that every local church must answer? Here’s what I mean. Before we ask what our services should look like, plan our outreach calendars, wrestle over budgets, buildings, and brochures, there is one question that should come before every other one:

Why does the church exist at all?

The shortest, truest answer is this: the church exists for the glory of God. We exist because God is infinitely worthy of being known, loved, trusted, and enjoyed because He has graciously bound Himself to a people who would treasure His Son above every rival treasure on earth. The church is not first and foremost a service provider, a social club, or a community of like-minded people. The church is a blood-bought people gathered around a glorious Christ, learning to find Him more satisfying than anything this world can offer.