DON’T BE HALFHEARTED—LET US FINISH WHAT GOD HAS STARTED! Luke 9:57–62 The Eighth Anniversary Message of Pastor Kyev Tatum, Sr.
DON’T BE HALFHEARTED—LET US FINISH WHAT GOD HAS STARTED! Luke 9:57–62 The Eighth Anniversary Message of Pastor Kyev Tatum, Sr.
Family, what a whirlwind of a week this has been in the life of New Mount Rose and in the work of the church!
First, the Cook Children’s Health Plan team stopped by the Rose to award us a $10,000 grant to help bring a computer center to Morningside. That center will help make New Mount Rose the Digital Front Door of 76104.
Then Brother José and Sister Soledad kept growing a food forest in the middle of a food desert. They’ve been growing cantaloupes in Cowtown while building a Royal Chicken Coop—getting ready for our children to raise Cowtown chickens and gather Southside eggs.
On Thursday, we hosted the Ministers Justice Coalition and our Guns to Gardens partners as we prepared for the Blessing of the Chop Saw and March for Mercy in Morningside on October 1, 2026. Everyone is welcome. We’ll gather at 11:00 a.m. for the march, with the blessing beginning at noon.
That would be enough to call it a full week. But that was only the beginning.
On Friday, eight members of Team Jesus at New Mount Rose traveled to College Station to walk the land with the Ross family. They still own the family farm established by their patriarch, Jack Ross, a man who escaped enslavement in the mid-1800s.
Jack Ross was a brilliant blacksmith. His skill was so valuable that white people in the area did not want him to leave. They sold him land in the floodway to keep him nearby. He began purchasing more than 127 acres for one dollar a year.
Jack could neither read nor write, so he marked a tree each year to remember when he had paid. After twelve years, a group of white men cut down that tree and made him pay for the land again. In the old Jack Ross fashion, he didn’t say a word. He found another tree and started paying again. He ended up paying for the same land twice.
One might ask, “Why would he pay for it twice?”
Because he knew the value of the land.
As we walked that land, I discovered that the land is a lot like the church. The family and our guides explained how to survive off the land. We learned that what we need to live is either already there or can be grown from it.
Many phrases stayed with us, but one stayed with me: “If you take care of the land, the land will take care of you.”
New Mount Rose, I stopped by this morning, on the eighth anniversary of our leadership here, to tell you: If we take care of the church, the church will take care of us.
But we must align ourselves with people who are committed to the church—not merely interested in it. Interested people may work at it halfheartedly. Committed people give their whole hearts to following the Lord.
And yesterday, I traveled to Abilene to represent the New Mount Rose Buffalo Soldiers 4-H Club and to serve as chaplain of the Texas Buffalo Soldiers Association. Our commander, RosieLeetta Reed, was featured at the historic Texas Parks and Wildlife Buffalo Soldiers Heritage Trail celebration. Buffalo Soldiers interpreters and frontier enthusiasts came from across the state to celebrate the legacy of the Buffalo Soldiers.
As we drove home, I thought about their commitment to preserving that history. Then I wondered what the church could become if we gave the church—and the community we serve—that same kind of commitment.
I thought about how far the Lord has brought New Mount Rose in these eight years.
We started with very few members and very little money. But a little becomes much when God is in it. No one could have prepared us for what we were about to experience.
In 2018, New Mount Rose became the site of Community Peacemakers, a community mediation training where law enforcement officers and community members learned together how to de-escalate situations before they became uncontrollable crises.
In 2019, New Mount Rose was invited to help lead one of the largest mobile medical ministries ever to visit our city. More than 10,000 members of our community received medical and dental care, along with many other services, through Your Best Pathway to Health—a volunteer-run humanitarian initiative sponsored by the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
What an amazing way to begin our time together as a church!
Then the Lord shook up the world when a life-changing pandemic spread across the globe. For the first time in our lifetime, people were told it was not safe to gather in large, crowded places—schools, churches, businesses, or community events. COVID-19 was deadly, and there was no vaccine to help protect the nations. Churches closed their doors to in-person worship.
While churches could not meet in person, many—including New Mount Rose—began meeting online.
But that was not all the church was called to do. New Mount Rose helped churches become information hubs and distribution centers for vulnerable populations in the middle of the crisis.
Because of my background in community organizing and emergency management, we birthed the New Mount Rose Food Bowl in partnership with Coach Vint Hargrove and the Redemption Bowl. We helped train church and community leaders to serve the Lord with gladness as we navigated the worst pandemic of our lifetime.
We provided essential information, services, and goods. New Mount Rose traveled throughout the city, showing how a church could operate as a Christian distribution center where vulnerable people could access medical services and food.
New Mount Rose became a Clinic Without Walls, meeting people where they were and offering love, care, and hope that brighter days were coming.
Through that clinic, and thanks to one of my former students, Joslyn Tatum, New Mount Rose became the only church in Tarrant County to offer monoclonal antibody infusion therapy to people who did not have a primary physician.
That commitment and compassion helped establish New Mount Rose as the Holy House of Health and Hospitality. By the end of the pandemic, New Mount Rose had distributed more than one million masks and over $25 million in supplies and medical support across the nation. Much of those supplies came from FEMA and USDA Farm to Family boxes.
In the middle of the worst possible situation, the Lord allowed us to rebuild. Our church flooded during the winter storm of February 2021. We had to Restore the Rose in the middle of a pandemic.
Thanks to the few members who made sure the insurance was paid, God blessed us to complete the renovations by December 12, 2021—just in time for the homegoing service of one of our founding members, Sister Wilma Cary, who had contracted COVID.
Through it all, New Mount Rose became a church committed to caring for our community, our county, and our country—and to helping people regain their confidence in Jesus Christ.
Brothers and sisters, New Mount Rose showed the world what God can do with a few committed members who are willing to serve the Lord with gladness. We could not have made it with halfhearted leadership. God started a work here, and God has brought us this far.
That is the message I came to share this morning: Now is not the time to give up on God. Now is not the time to give up on each other. And now is certainly not the time to give up on the church.
Don’t be halfhearted; let us finish what God has started!
Jesus is looking for whole-hearted followers who are willing to put it all on the line—no half-stepping, no shucking and jiving, no lagging, dragging, or lollygagging. Church, now is not the time to be halfhearted with the Lord.
The first message I taught when I was invited to lead Bible study on the first Wednesday night in May 2021 was “Plow Forward,” from Luke 9:62. The church was without a pastor, and Tonya and I were without a church home. It seemed like a match made in heaven.
And eight years into this journey, I’m still reminding the church: Don’t follow God halfheartedly. God has started a work in us and through us. Let us finish what God has started!
Earlier in Luke 9, Jesus says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”
That can be a tough pill to swallow because most of us don’t want to deny ourselves. We want to be served. Sometimes we are self-serving and self-righteous. We may not want to serve, much less bear the cross of Jesus.
But I stopped by to remind you: Now is not the time to become halfhearted. God needs us now more than ever.
Our children need us. Our seniors need us. People experiencing homelessness need us. Our families need us. And sinners need us to show them the way to Jesus Christ.
New Mount Rose, I’m not sure who needs to hear this, but God is not looking for tired-out followers who have quit the work. He is calling committed saints to put their hands on the gospel plow and hold on!
That brings us to Luke 9:57–62. Three people encounter the call to follow Jesus. Each one has something to consider before following him. Jesus answers each person plainly, showing us what wholehearted discipleship requires.
1. DON’T LET COMFORT KEEP YOU FROM THE CALL
Luke 9:57–58
The first person says, “I will follow you wherever you go.”
Jesus answers by reminding him that even foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.
Jesus is telling him to count the cost. Following Jesus does not come with a promise of comfort, ease, or a place to settle down. The question is not whether the road will always be easy. The question is whether we will follow Jesus even when the road is hard.
It is easy to say, “I’ll follow you,” when everything is going well. But wholehearted discipleship says, “Lord, I’ll follow you even when I don’t know where I’ll sleep, how I’ll get there, or what it will cost me.”
New Mount Rose, God has brought us through too much for us to turn back because the work gets difficult. We know what God can do with a few faithful people who keep following. God began this work, and we must trust God to lead us as we continue.
2. DON’T LET DELAY KEEP YOU FROM OBEYING
Luke 9:59–60
Jesus says to another man, “Follow me.” But the man replies, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.”
Jesus answers, “Let the dead bury their own dead. But you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
Jesus is not teaching us to stop loving our families. He is showing us that the call of God cannot always be put off until the timing feels convenient. The man wants to follow—but first, he has something else to do.
How often do we say, “Lord, I will serve you—but first…”?
There will always be something competing for our time, our attention, and our obedience. Don’t let delay keep you from doing what God is calling you to do.
Our children need us now. Our seniors need us now. Our neighbors need us now. The work God has given us is happening now.
3. KEEP YOUR HAND TO THE PLOW AND YOUR EYES ON THE PROMISE
Luke 9:61–62
Another person says, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.”
Jesus answers, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
That person wants to follow Jesus while still turning back toward what he is leaving. Jesus makes clear that discipleship requires a settled commitment. You cannot plow a straight row while constantly looking behind you.
Looking back while trying to move forward will make a mess of your progress.
We can remember the past without living in it. We can honor where we came from while trusting God with where we are going. The past may have taught us, shaped us, and strengthened us—but we cannot let it pull our hands off the plow.
Keep your eyes on the promise. Keep your hand on the plow. Keep moving forward.
New Mount Rose, God has started a work in this church and in this community. There is still more to do. Don’t be halfhearted; let us finish what God has started!
I’m so glad Jesus finished what he started.
He came down through forty-two generations. He gave his whole heart from beginning to end. He did not turn back. He kept his hand on the gospel plow and kept moving forward.
If you give God your heart and commit yourself to his service, you too can serve the Lord with gladness. When we follow Jesus wholeheartedly, we can trust that God will show us what the end is going to be.
One day, he will say, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a few things. Come on up a little higher, and I will make you ruler over many.”
So, New Mount Rose, don’t follow Jesus halfheartedly.
Let us finish what God has started!
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