Matthew chapter 8:18-22 (continued)

“And when Jesus saw great multitudes about Him, He gave a command to depart to the other side.  Then a certain scribe came and said to Him, ‘Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.’ Then another of His disciples said to Him, ‘Lord, let me first go and bury my father.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘Follow Me, and let the dead bury their own dead.’”

Last time we discussed service. It is important for the Lord’s people to be involved in service.  People who are not wholly invested in the Lord’s church have no connection to it and no loyalty to it or to Him for that matter. One cannot profess to be loyal to Christ and not be loyal to His New Testament church.

After all He died to build it and it is He that empowers and sustains it.  You cannot be fully engaged in the service of the Lord outside of the New Testament church. Sadly we have a lot of people who are in the New Testament church and are still not involved; they attend by they  do not participate.

Today we will address the issue of the cost of discipleship. Most people are ready to be involved in the Lord’s churches and the Lord’s work until some kind of cost is involved. We assign value to an activity by what we are willing to invest of our own time and money? For instance, we may be involved in a sports league; in Canada as with many other places, hockey is very important to the lives of people.

People will get up early, stay up late, drive for countless hours and spend an enormous amount  of money on hockey. Often you can hear parents complain about the cost of the game; fees, equipment, food, travel, tickets and on and on, but each year they still sign up the kids for the sport. Why? Because they deem that it is important.  Someone, either mom or dad loves the sport; maybe they play it as well and they get the kids involved and foot the cost no matter what.

I work in the automobile industry in addition to my work as a pastor, and I cannot tell you  the number of parents who come in to buy a car because they need the room for the hockey bags. Imagine that people come to buy a car simply because they need more room for the sports equipment.

What if we in the Lord’s churches had the same kind of commitment? What if we made decisions about all of our purchases, all of our schedule and even vacations around the work of the Lord? What if the Lord’s work and ministry controlled our lives like hockey controls  the life of these parents? Imagine how the Lord’s churches would prosper?

Why are people so wholly invested in the things of the world? This is a legitimate question because a lot of the Lord’s people will forgo church to attend the hockey tournament or the soccer tournament; so they have made a choice to say that the temporary benefits of the tournament are more important than the Lord and attendance to His church. Think about that.  But are we not all in a similar boat? How many of us stay out late on a Saturday night repeatedly, knowing that we will be tired for church and unable to give the Lord our all for worship?

How many of us will be to church late each week, but we are first to work on Monday? We have determined that we do not owe the Lord punctuality. How many of us pay all the bills first and then give the Lord the “leftovers” which is often nothing?

Earlier I asked why are people so wholly invested in the things of the world? The simple answer is this: They perceive that there is a return on their investment. The kids are happy, they may get a trophy. They may be discovered and be the next Gretzky or Crosby or Pele. Who knows. So parents invest hours and money into the temporal world for the chance to gain a bit of glory? Glory that is fleeting at best and limited to one location or city.

What are you willing to give up for Jesus? Verses 18-20

This is the questions of the ages to us. What will the choice to serve the Lord Jesus cost us? If you truly want to serve the Lord, there will be a cost. In these verses we find a scribe, he would have been a man of some means. He would have had a home and a warm bed to rest in at night.

Scribes ruled alongside the priest. They were mainly writers; their job was to make copies of decrees and documents in the age before printing. We see scribes being used in passage like Jeremiah 8:8 and Esther 8:9—to make official copies of edicts for the king. Thus the scribes were usually well paid, as they worked mainly for the king. But in the time of Jesus, there was no Jewish king in Israel so the ruling class were the priests.

So the scribe had a good job, with good income and had some degree of respect and regard among the people. Jesus on the other hand was despised and rejected by men. Jesus had nowhere to lay His head and no bed of His own. In Luke 8:1-3 we find that Jesus’ earthly ministry was supported mainly by women,

“Soon afterward he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good  news of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him, and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s household manager, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their means” (Luke 8:1-3).

Jesus explained to this scribe that the cost of discipleship was extreme. Was he willing to give  up his home, his bed, his position and his pride to take on the call of Christ? God will not tolerate any type of duality in His people. He established this in the first commandment, Exodus 20:3, “You shall have no other gods before me.”

The women mentioned in Luke gave of their own money; they understood and were wholly invested in the work of the Lord. Yet this scribe was unwilling to give up house, home or the comforts of his life for the cause of Christ. Sadly too many of us are of the same mindset. We do not expect there to be a real cost to serving the Lord. After all “Jesus paid it all.” We rarely quote the second phrase, “All to Him I owe.”

For too many of us, Jesus is still paying and we are freeloaders on His grace.

We are still children looking for handouts from the Lord rather than adults investing our livelihood and lives in His eternal Kingdom. I live in a comfortable home; I have cupboards and a fridge full of food.  I drive a decent vehicle and sleep in a comfortable bed each night. For the most part there has not been this kind of call on me to give up these things.

I am not here to make myself look better than you, rather I want to express to us in the New Testament churches of the West that just maybe we have become too accustomed to our comforts and they have become our gods. Many of us would find it hard to give up these things for the Lord. I hope that all of us would give them up. I hope that I would give them up if called.

Nothing in our lives can be allowed to be more precious that Jesus and His work. No possession, no person and no position can be more precious to us than Jesus. This is the cost of true discipleship. What if we were as committed to the eternal kingdom of Jesus as many of our friends are committed to sports and their hobbies?

What would the work of the Lord look like? Would it ever lack for funds? Would we see new recruits each week? Would we have to build bigger arenas (churches), expand our worship times and squeeze more services in each week to accommodate the masses? Well this is what happens when people are committed and invested. This is what happens when Jesus is more important than hockey or money or loved ones or whatever we have as our idols.

Let the dead bury the dead, verse 20

Those are harsh words. Wow, Jesus where is the compassion? Where is the sympathy for this man? His father just died and He won’t even let him go and bury him? This does not sound like the Jesus of the gospels, the one who cried over Jerusalem and wept over Lazarus. Where is the Jesus who had compassion on widows and orphans, the one who healed the sick and befriended the outcasts?

The Jesus in Matthew 8:20 appears to be cruel, hard hearted and insensitive, “Let the dead bury the dead.” Don’t even mourn your father—just let him go and come follow me. Who wants to follow this Jesus? Who wants to follow this stone hearted Jesus?

This is where we have to study the Bible to make sense of the things that are said. This man did not say to Jesus, “Hey Lord my dad has just died, please let me go and bury him and then I will come follow you,” No he wanted to go back and wait until his father had died before he would follow Jesus.

What are you waiting on to line-up before you serve Jesus and simply follow Him?

Is it the new promotion? Is it the university education? Is it the new man, new girl, birth of  your child. We can name a thousand things we are waiting for before we serve the Lord wholeheartedly. This man Jesus spoke to was going to go back home and wait until his father had died before he would follow Jesus.

We don’t even know if his father was ill.  He could have been in perfect health and may have lived for decades, and this man would be wasting his youth, his talents, his energy and his life waiting for something to happen.

How many of us are like that? We are waiting for some life-altering event to happen before we push ahead for Jesus. In the meantime we waste the resources of our youth and youthful energy on nothing.

What are you waiting for? Are you waiting for the raise before you begin tithing? How much of God’s money will you waste before you simply give Him what is His?

I have nothing against university educations, I have two degrees and I have siblings who attended and graduated from university. But a lot of people in the Lord’s churches are so focused on that they have no time to serve the Lord. It is all about getting the degree and the good job.  Not about being available for Jesus.

Jesus does not need your degree to use you; in fact by the time many young Christians have graduated they are so in debt they don’t have any time to give Jesus. They need to work and pay the debt down. Many don’t often end up working in the field for which they studied and so the time invested is often time ill invested.

While we are getting ahead we kind of put God off to the side. (He can wait while we get ourselves established and secure and then when we have it all squared away; then, we can finally give ourselves to Jesus.) This is idolatry. When Jesus called the apostles, the Bible says they left all to follow Him.

Peter makes that very statement in Matthew 19:27, “Then Peter said to Him, “Behold, we have left everything and followed You; what then will there be for us?”

Too many of us are busy building a kingdom here on earth. Our hearts are tied to our possessions, our families, our wealth and our money. These things really define us and not the treasures in the kingdom of God. We simply don’t have time to store up treasures in heaven; we are fully involved in the treasures of this earth. And so Jesus has to wait for us to bury our fathers, marry our wives, raise our kids, graduate school and buy a house and on and on and then we can serve for Him…

He will not wait! We simply lose out on the opportunities and benefits of serving the eternal kingdom of God.  We trade the wealth of heaven for the gold of earth. We forget that gold is so plentiful in heaven that they use it to pave the streets. Climb up on the cross for a second, look at His perspective, is His cause worth it?

“ But if it doesn’t please you to worship Yahweh, choose for yourselves today the one you will worship: the gods your fathers worshiped beyond the Euphrates River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. As for me and my family, we will worship Yahweh.” (Joshua 24:15)

Missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca

www.mississaugamissionarybc.com

Matthew chapter 8:1-17 (continued)

“When He had come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed Him.And behold, a leper came and worshiped Him, saying, ‘Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean. ‘Then Jesus put out His hand and touched him, saying, ‘I am willing; be cleansed.’ Immediately his leprosy was cleansed. And Jesus said to him, ‘See that you tell no one; but go your way, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.’

Now when Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, pleading with Him,saying, ‘Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, dreadfully tormented.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘I will come and heal him.’ The centurion answered and said, “Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed.For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.

When Jesus heard it, He marveled, and said to those who followed, “Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel! And I say to you that many will come from east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ Then Jesus said to the centurion, ‘Go your way; and as you have believed, so let it be done for you.’

And his servant was healed that same hour. Now when Jesus had come into Peter’s house, He saw his wife’s mother lying sick with a fever.So He touched her hand, and the fever left her. And she arose and served them.When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick,that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: ‘He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.’”

Last time we ended our look in chapter 7 with the call the “build our lives on the Rock.”This Rock of course is Jesus.We are called to build all of our life on Jesus. He is the “bedrock” of our existence and any form of existence without Him only leads to unfettered calamity.We all face troubles in life, death, disease, hurts, loss and the other storms that come as a part of the fallen human condition.In Jesus we have the firm foundation to withstand anything and when all is said and done to give God the glory and honor.

We will begin our look into chapter 8 today and we will see the power of the Jesus displayed and hopefully be moved to become more and more dependent upon Him. He is the same today, yesterday and in the gospels.This is somewhat hard for us today as we have become so self-sufficient or we like to think that we are.We have the idea of the “self-made” man and woman and of course there is no such thing.We live in and work in communities; we all have families and friends that make sacrifices for us. But in the Christian life it is important for us to surrender to the Holy Spirit. Only God can make us in His image, we cannot make ourselves in Him image.

He Touched Me, Verses 1-4

Leprosy was a serious thing in the biblical days.It is not as prevalent today in first world countries and has cures and manageable courses of treatments today. Lepers in Jesus’ day had to live outside of the main city.If they were approached by people they had to cry out “Unclean, unclean” so that the one approaching could change directions or move over to the other side of the street.

The leper had to be about 6 feet from anyone and if the wind was blowing in their direction then they had to be at least 150 feet from any other person.Even their own families were not allowed to be near them.We find the rules about Leprosy in Leviticus 13.They are very explicit and the Jews took these rules very seriously as did God.

AA contagious disease could eradicate a community in a short time.In Mark 1:40-45 we find another rendering of this account and what stands out in these two account of the same event, is that Jesus touched this man.

We do not know how long he had been leprous.But for the time that he had been leprous he had not felt the touch of another human. He would have been alone and living as an outcast. But Jesus touched him, in the account in Mark’s gospel; we see that Jesus “had compassion on him” touched him and healed him. What did that touch feel like to a leprous man? It must have felt like water to someone who had been stranded in the desert. Like the kiss of life to one who could not breathe.

This is how God is with all of us; we are diseased with sin, eaten to the core with evil. From birth we are like Adam and Eve hiding from God crying ‘naked, naked’. Shame is our only covering. But one day Jesus came by and heard our cry, He had compassion on us, He reached out and He healed us. He cured our disease of sin and we are no longer separated from God by evil.

We are now eternally connected to God in Jesus.He bore our sorrows and the disease of sin in His body to the cross. He who ‘knew no sin became sin for us’ so that we could have His righteousness. Have you felt the touch? I did, on a Monday night 34 years ago when I cried out to Jesus and He had compassion on me. He reached out and touched me.

Faith That Even Makes God Marvel, Verses 5-13

Jesus is a Jew. He came to the nation of Israel.He was prophesied about for 2000 years before He showed up. He sent the nation signs, prophets, preachers, Psalmist and any array for warnings that He was coming. And come He did, exactly where He said he would come and in the way He said He would come. Yet the Jews rejected Him, not every Jew obviously, but for the most part the nation of the Jews rejected their Messiah. Sadly many Jews still reject Jesus today.

When we read the account of the centurion in Matthew we don’t get a lot of details about the man but in Luke 7: 1-10 we find some more information about this man.He was a “good man” as attested by his servants; he had done many good things for the Jews including building synagogues.Jesus actually went with his servants to the man’s home and the Centurion methim outside the home because he did think he was worthy to have Jesus in his house.

This was not some kind of fake arrogance, but an honest sense of humility in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ.This centurion was a man with some degree of power and he understood the power that God had.He understood that power of the “of God.” The spoken word of God was very powerful. He understood that God’s words were filled with power and a simple word spoken about his servant’s health would make his servant well.

Jesus marveled we are told in the accounts.How does one make God marvel?It would be amazing if you and I had the same faith; the kind of faith that makes God marvel. This man simply took God at His word. He humbled himself, realized that he could not help himself and that he needed God’s unique help. He understood that God, Jesus, did not have to help him but that He would.

The Jews as an entity had not yet and still have not come to acknowledge the power of Jesus. The refuse to accept Him as God, and yet this Gentile saw Him as He is and revered Him as the Living God with power over life and death, One who could simple issue a command and the universe would obey.Sadly I am often more like the Jews that the centurion.How about you? What is your faith like? Like the apostles we need to ask God to “increase our faith.”

It was His Mission, Verses 14-17

Here we see Jesus coming into Peter’s home and healing his mother-in-law. He simply touched her and her fever left her and she began to serve them. We will come back to this dear lady in a minute or two. But we see then that the people brought all of their sick and diseased relatives and friends and Jesus simply healed them.This was His purpose.

Yes, He came to take away our sins and pave a path to the Father in heaven. But more than that Jesus came to show us that God has compassion on our human condition.We, like Esau, sold our birthright for a bite of food. We gave away our dominion because we thought that God had cheated us and held back on us.

Jesus came to show us that God loved us and was compassionate towards our human frailty and weakness. He did not design our bodies to feel pain or to be sick and weak. He designed us to reign and conquer. Jesus came to bare our sorrows, our sicknesses and our pains. He was a man “acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:5) and He had compassion on us.The God of the universe was moved to the inner parts with love for us.Oh what a God we serve.

Speaking of service let us go back to Peter’s mother-in-law, she was healed and immediately she began to serve.You know one of the things that we do a lot of in the New Testament church is have people sit and do nothing.You don’t see this in the Bible; once one is redeemed it is time to serve.People must invest themselves into something to be committed to it.People can be greeters, huggers, hand shakers, hand out the bulletins and collect the offering and a host of other jobs in a church.They must be invested or they will not have a sense of belonging and ownership.

My wife and I have a 2 year old who always wants to help.We can either limit her because of her abilities or we can expand her abilities.She can carry a bag from the car, she can put a cup in the sink and she can pick up a piece of paper and put it in the trash.She can do something.She will fail, she spills things, sometimes she breaks things; she falls, she misses the sink, but the most important part is that she is invested.She is actively doing something to contribute to the family.

Churches need to see each person this way.Get them involved.Make them feel invested and important, that they are an intricate part of the cogs of the wheel.If they don’t feel important then why be faithful to the cause?If no one misses them then why go?

Jesus had the disciples involved from the very beginning, they did stuff.They failed and He had to ride to the rescue, but they were doing the work and investing themselves in the Kingdom. What about you? Are you invested in the kingdom of God?

Are you actively involved in the effort to expand the Kingdom and to help find all of those that would say “YES!” to the gospel?Can you do more? Can you give more? If you have been healed from the curse of your sins, then get up and serve others. This is the most basic and fundamental result of redemption, the desire to serve other.

Luke 10:27 “He answered: ‘the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.’”

Missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca

www.mississaugamissionarybc.com