*Title:* Put Your Hand to the Plow — Pastor Kyle Baldwin, August 15, 2026

“No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” Pastor Kyle Baldwin opens with that saying from Luke 9 and the question it raises: is Jesus telling His followers to stop working their fields? Hardly — only the week before, the congregation had heard Paul’s blunt rule that the one who will not work should not eat. Jesus’ point is not about leaving our labor; it is about focus inside His. In the verses just before the saying, Jesus meets three would-be followers in a row: one who volunteers loudly, one who wants first to go bury his father, and one who wants first to say farewell at home. Each answer raises the cost of discipleship a notch higher — until the plow saying explains them all.

The first volunteer gets the coldest reception, and Pastor Baldwin shows why. Drawing on Ellen White’s account in *The Desire of Ages*, he identifies the eager “I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest” with Judas — the disciple who wanted wealth, power, and control, who carried the money bag and helped himself, and who eventually hoped that betraying Jesus would force Him onto David’s throne, with Judas taking the credit. Jesus read the motive and answered, “Foxes have holes… but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.” From there the sermon draws the plowing picture in full: with an ancient plow, the farmer had to fix his eyes on a point chosen ahead, because one glance aside bent the furrow, and a bent furrow is hard to straighten. Our fixed point is the blessed hope; our plowing is preparing the soil of hearts around us — family, coworkers, neighbors — to receive the seed of the gospel. And when the work draws opposition, as Nehemiah’s wall did, the answer is Nehemiah’s: “Remember the Lord, which is great and terrible” — strong, powerful, unstoppable — and don’t look to the right hand or to the left.

The sermon closes where the saying finds its deepest example: Jesus Himself. In John 12, days before the cross, Greeks came asking to see Him — sincere, receptive people, and a real chance at a harvest among the Gentiles. It was, Pastor Baldwin notes, the devil’s most diabolical temptation of all: a genuinely good thing, offered at the one moment it could have turned Jesus aside. Jesus answered with the grain of wheat that must die to bear fruit, and the confession, “Now is my soul troubled” — and then He set His face like flint toward the cross, because only by dying could He bring sons and daughters to God. With a new school year about to fill the calendar, the appeal is plain: even good things can distract us from the true cause. Our first work is for Him. Will you put your hand to the plow today?

*Key texts:* Luke 9:57–62; John 12:3–6, 20–26; Nehemiah 4:14; Philippians 3:14; 2 Thessalonians 3:10 · *Also referenced:* Ellen G. White, *The Desire of Ages*, on Judas and the would-be disciples

*Watch:* https://youtu.be/nV4ql709nPw · *Listen:* https://cloud-1de12d.becdn.net/media/original/5f65d2c66fc969e2a187a12f1fd067c4.mp3