Matthew 8:18-22 Half Baked on the Outside, Mushy on the Inside

You are listening to Recast Church of Madawans podcast. Join us as we are in a sermon series entitled Not Your Average Savior, a study in the book of Matthew.

I'm glad that you're here. Thank you for taking the time again in your busy schedules to come and join us on a Sunday morning. Make yourself comfortable. One more chance to get up and anytime during the service really to get up and get some coffee, some donuts or whatever it takes to kind of keep your focus.

I say that but what it will be a little distracting if everybody got up and started, you know, playing cards in the back or something like that. So I say that, you know, but it really it's for the focus of God's Word.

So I don't want anybody to kind of just doze off on me. Although I would totally understand if that happens. So hey, you know, that's what that's what happened. Have you ever wondered why we do the things that we do at church though?

You know and what does that look like to somebody who's never been to church? If you maybe you're here and you weren't raised going to church and so you're kind of like, you're coming, you're checking things out and you're like, well, I guess this is what they do.

Why do I get up and speak each week? Is it because I like to hear my own voice? Well, it's not only that. It's really because we believe that God's Word has the power to change our lives. And so as we dig in we read from God's Word and then I take some time throughout the week to study.

I actually take a pretty large chunk of time during the week to study, to research, to figure out how does this text then translate into our modern culture that we might apply it to our lives. So we believe that this is the tool, the primary tool that God uses in our lives to change us.

This is how he grows us in faith by taking in God's Word and then going out and living God's Word throughout the week. So that's how we grow in faith. So here at Recast we talk about, you'll see on our sign, where faith, community, and service meet.

We talk about growing in faith, coming together, hearing from God's Word, and letting that change our lives. So growing in faith, growing in community. We do that through our small groups. Somebody just approached me this morning and said, I'm interested in being a part of a small group.

I'm like, yes. Because it's not just coming. We could sit and listen. How many of you know we can sit and listen to our iPods or listen to the radio and get God's Word in us or sit and read our Bible on our own and get some of God's Word, right?

Couldn't we do that? So we come together in community, but obviously a larger group we're not going to necessarily connect with everybody here. So we have these small groups that meet during the week.

You get an opportunity to share a prayer request, to talk about what's going on in your life, to one more time to take in God's Word in a smaller setting, to interact with other people and get to know each other socially.

The last thing is growing in service. That's one thing that I've been excited about is just to see some opportunities out in our community. I mentioned in my sermon last week about some chances to interact with our culture.

We had four people from here at Recast yesterday morning show up at the new food pantry that's going in up on the top of the hill by Matawan Community Church there. And we had a chance to meet people who need food and they came through and we got a chance to walk them through and get trained in how to do that.

And that's becoming a community-wide effort where Matawan Community Church has been doing that. They are stretched to the max of their ability to handle that ministry and now people in the community, ourselves and one of the credit unions, is coming behind that and we're making it a community-wide food pantry.

A great opportunity for us to get involved. So there's opportunities to grow in service out in the community using the gift talents places where God has put you to do that. But we don't address, we don't come to God's Word like a how-to manual, right?

It's a lot more like a love note. And here we're going to see, how do you read a love note? Is that different than a how-to manual? You know, do you read that different than your your VCR manual? How many of you could even find a VCR DVD?

You know, the technical manuals for your TV, you know, maybe a handful of you. Okay. Well, of course Peter you can find it and you've read it and you have it tabbed and marked and highlighted. I'm sure.

But most of us can't even find those manuals, right? We don't even know where they are. But how many of you have a box of love notes from your spouse or from someone?

Okay, maybe. Okay.

Okay, my wife does. Yeah. All right.

Okay, we're different and we're weird and that did not illustrate well at all. So, sorry. How many of you read a love note different than you read your TV manual? You read that differently? Okay. All right.

There we go. When we come to God's Word, that's the way that we pour over. We read it. We read it and we see God in it. His love, His care, His concern for us. Here in Matthew, we're going to see that Jesus had a very unique interaction with two men, two people that we're going to see in the text, who said that they wanted to follow Him.

They actually said that. One of the men was on the outside. He was on the outside of the community, of the religious community of the time. But he says, I want, or on the outside of Jesus' followers rather.

But he said, I want to follow you. He had some half-baked ideas, however, of what it meant to be a follower of Christ. The other man was already a follower. He was on the inside, so to speak, in the inner circle.

But he shows a mushy sense of what it means. And I don't think the title is on there, but I titled this, Half-Baked on the Outside, Mushy on the Inside. And that's what we're looking at, these two people's lives and what that looked like for their approach to Christ.

The Cost of Following Jesus

So open your Bibles, Matthew 8, 18 through 22, a little bit smaller chunk of Scripture this week than we're used to. That's page 692 in the Bible, in the seat back in front of you. I say this every week.

I don't want to sound like a broken record. If you don't own a Bible, take that Bible that's in the seat back in front of you home with you. That's what they're there for. Follow along as we read 8, Matthew 8, 18 to 22.

Now when Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. And a scribe came up and said to him, Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go. And Jesus said to him, well, foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.

Another of the disciples said to him, Lord, let me first go and bury my father. And Jesus said to him, follow me and leave the dead to bury their own dead.

Let's pray.

Father, as we have an opportunity to come to your text this morning, we see Jesus talking about what it means for people to be followers of him, that there's a cost that is involved in that. That it is not just something that we give lip service to.

Oh, I will follow you wherever you go without first considering where you go. So Father, I ask that you would be with us as we consider discipleship. Some here are your disciples, some here are trying to figure out what that means.

And we have an illustration of both here in the text. I ask that you would speak to us all about discipleship, what it means to be your followers. I ask that you would lead some to become your followers this morning, and I ask that those who are your followers would be in a deeper walk with you.

That we would receive some obstacles in our relationship with you removed this morning in Jesus' name. Amen. If someone came to you and said, I am committed to you, committed to you, to you, and I will follow you wherever you go.

What would you say?

How would you respond? The last time somebody said that to me, I married her. Okay, sweet. Really? You mean it? You like me that much? You're gonna go with me wherever I go, and you're gonna be with me for the rest of my life?

Sweet. Awesome. Now, some of you are thinking that in a creepy sense, like, okay, stalker. Okay, that's, you know what I mean? That's weird. So I can understand if you're thinking of it from that standpoint.

No way. Stay away. But this is a good thing that this guy is suggesting to Jesus. He comes to him and he's saying, I will follow you wherever you go. From our perspective, we're gonna see Jesus do a couple of strange things in our text, where somebody says, I want to be committed to you, and he's gonna, in essence, put a barrier in front of them.

But first, we need to set the stage. Jesus had been performing miracles up in Capernaum. You remember? He was up in the hills north and west of the Sea of Galilee, and he was up in the hills teaching.

He came down into the town of Capernaum, where Peter, one of his main followers, lived. He went to the house. He had dinner there. And then, we find that he's now surrounded by crowds in our text. The implication that we see in verse 18, now, when Jesus saw a crowd around him there, is that he was so pressed in by people that he now issues a command in verse 18.

Now, that's to his inner circle. He makes a command to them. He says, to those 12, that he wants them to make preparations to head to the other side of the lake. They're on the seashore, the edge of the Sea of Galilee, and he says, I want you to prepare a boat, and I want to go to the other side of the lake.

We know that Peter and Andrew had access to a boat, right? They were fishermen. So did James and John, and they would have been there in the crowd. So, access to a boat there in that town, that little fishing community, where these guys were stationed, would have been readily accessible.

They had a couple of boats available to them. He says, get the boats ready. We're out. These crowds are pressing in, starting to get a little crazy. It's been all day. He's been teaching. He's been doing all this stuff.

He's like, we're going to the other side of the lake. So, they're making preparations, and everyone in the crowd just heard that they're taking off when a man approaches Jesus from the crowd. So, he presses forward.

Can you imagine going against the flow of the crowd, and he's pushing his way through, and he finally breaks out of the crowd, and there's Jesus standing there, and he's going to say something extremely amazing.

This crazy declaration that he's going to make. He says, teacher, I will follow you wherever you go. In context, it seems like maybe this guy's ready to jump in the boat with them, you know, literally to get on board with Jesus.

Right? And they're heading to the other side. He's like, I want to be in with this. If you're heading across the lake, I want to be heading across the lake. But there are a couple of unique things that we need to see about this man that brings his comment to Jesus into focus.

A couple of things about the culture, the history that's going on here. First, this man is identified as what in the text? A scribe. He is a scribe, a teacher of the law. He not only had the privilege of being book learned, he could read, he could write.

That made him head and shoulders above the rest of the crowd that was there. So this is a significant thing in that day and age, to be able to read, to be able to write. But the title of scribe also indicates that he was likely the primary teacher at the local synagogue, the Jewish place of worship, so that he would have been the one who stood up and taught in public at that synagogue that was there, and actually has been excavated, and archaeology has identified where that synagogue was located there in the town of Capernaum.

He's a devout Jew, a keeper of the law. And the second important thing is the way that this man addresses Jesus. Where all consistently throughout the Gospel of Matthew, we see followers of Jesus refer to him when they are speaking to him as Lord.

This man uses a term that is never used for Jesus by a follower of his, a generic term, teacher. This Greek word is not used anywhere in the Gospel of Matthew as a title for Jesus by one of his followers, someone who has thoroughly and completely committed to him.

Now this man is, we're going to see later that the second man of him, it says, another disciple. So the word disciple is a very generic, diverse word in Greek that can apply to the vast crowds that were gathered.

It can apply down to the 70 who Jesus commissioned to go out and perform miracles and to share the good news throughout Israel, or it can apply even to the inner circle of 12 that we talked about, the.

Disciples.

Right, so this is a diverse word, so that this man can be called a disciple in the sense that he is trailing around the fringe of the crowd watching and being with Jesus, but he is not committed to him yet.

Does that make sense to everybody? You see how that works with this title and all of this? So what would you expect Jesus to say to this man who steps forward and says, I will follow you wherever you go?

What would you expect?

Okay, great. Come on board. Awesome. I'm glad you're committed. Or what about, welcome aboard a scribe? We really need a scribe. Awesome. We've been hoping one of your group would commit to this cause.

We could use somebody who's book learned. We could use somebody with your education, with your experience, with your prestige. We could use somebody that is in your place in this society. Doesn't that seem like maybe what we would tend to do with somebody like this?

Maybe this prestigious person shows up at recasts. Oh, you have your pick of the seats, right? And do you see how, I mean, that would be our tendency to do something like this. A scribe, please join in.

But what does Jesus say?

Jesus says, whoa, dude, breaks on. Hold on a second. Do you know what you are signing up for? Have you considered this? He says that to the scribe. Jesus says, foxes have a place to run for shelter. Birds have homes up in trees.

But the Son of Man, which is Jesus' favorite title for himself, by the way, he has no place to lay his head, which is another way of saying he doesn't have a consistent place to rest. Now, how many of you have a consistent place to rest that you kind of favor?

Like, how many of you, when you're on the road, you're like, there's one thing you're thinking about, and that's your own bed in your own room? I'm that way. I like my bed. I don't like to be in hotels.

I don't like to be out on the road. I like to be at home. The Son of Man has no place to lay his head. Ironically, this discussion is happening in the context of Jesus trying to get in a boat to get away from the crowds that are pressing him.

He has no rest. Do you know what we're going to see him doing in just a few verses in next week's sermon? What is he going to be doing in that boat? Sleeping. Sleeping in the bow of a boat in the middle of a storm.

This guy is exhausted. Jesus has had an exhausting day. Rest was on Jesus' mind as he's having this interaction with the scribes, because this had been a killer long day. From preaching to walking several miles down from the hills to Capernaum, healing people all along the way.

We see that in the text. Healing his cook so that he could have dinner. Remember that? He healed Peter's mother-in-law, who then got up and prepared their dinner. Then it says on into the evening people were bringing the demon-possessed and those who were ill and he was healing them.

And finally he's been pressed and he's down by the seashore and he's like, let's get in a boat and head to the other side. We're going to see him actually get some rest here in a minute. Where? In a boat out on the water.

You see, when a disciple chose to follow a rabbi, when they chose to follow a teacher like the scribe is trying to do here, they could expect to gain some material sustenance from that decision. They could expect some material gain from it.

They would gain some authority. They would gain some social standing. They would even benefit from living with that rabbi, following him along and benefiting from the gifts that he would receive. So Jesus apparently was able to determine that this man's motive or this man's motivation and instead of enthusiastically accepting him, Jesus makes sure that the scribe understands the true call of being his disciple.

And it is not an easy road. I want you to notice though that the scribe is not the point of the text. But it's more something about generic discipleship. We don't know this scribe's name. We don't know anything about his history, and we don't even know his response.

Look at the text. It doesn't even tell us whether this guy got in the boat or not, whether or not he chose to follow Jesus. Matthew records this story for us as a broader picture of what it means to be a follower of Jesus, something that really does apply directly to our lives.

Did he say, I'm willing to follow you without fame? Without a consistent place to stay? We don't really know. But I would say this, as a person who studied this passage throughout this week, it just seems unlikely that this man chose to follow Christ with the stipulation that was put on.

We never hear again in any of the Gospels about a scribe, someone of that high standing. It seems like they would be mentioned again. Just likely. Of course absence doesn't mean that it didn't happen, but it's just unlikely because we would expect to hear about this scribe again later.

The scribe who had given his life over to Jesus at the shore of the Sea of Galilee and Capernaum. Never mentioned again. Now, I don't know, maybe he wasn't into camping. Some people are campers, some people are not campers.

Maybe he didn't like the idea of sleeping out under the stars, and that was what put him off. I don't know. Any of you guys here into camping? So what is the point of the way that Jesus handles this man?

Are we to go around questioning people's motives for wanting to follow him? Is that what that is? Are we supposed to question people's motives for being here at church this morning? Should we put J. Weber at the door greeting people, asking them what their motivation is for being here, and strong-arming people back out the door if they don't have the right response?

If you're not here for the right reasons, you're out! That wouldn't be very cool, would it? J. would not want that job. He's like, oh, maybe, I don't know.

Maybe, I don't know.

How many of you would have the sense about you to leave a place that had that kind of paranoia? I hope you'd have the sense to disperse or something, find some place that's not going to have that level of paranoia about you.

And it would, I think it would certainly be rough the very first Sunday that I showed up at the door and I didn't pass J.'s test, and I wasn't allowed in, and then you're looking for somebody else to preach on a moment's notice.

When you hear scripture, we hear scripture, when we read scripture, when we take it in, the best thing to do is to apply it to ourselves first. But I think our human tendency is to look at it applying to others first.

Do you get me? So that we should look at ourselves in this and ask ourselves, have we counted the cost of discipleship? Have you considered what it might cost you to be a follower of Jesus? Far from being a cushy life of rose petals and fame and perpetual sunshiny days, the life of following Christ requires surrender, requires sacrifice, and it often requires at least some level of persecution.

If you're ready to say to Jesus, I will follow you wherever you go, we ought to take some assessment of where he went. We have that recorded for us, don't we? If we're going to say, I'll follow you wherever you go, wherever you will go, if that's the cry of your heart, ask yourself, have I considered what I'm actually saying?

Am I just giving lip service to this, or is this a real commitment I'm willing to follow through? Jesus traveled without a home. Listen to this. This is the places that Jesus went. If you're saying I'm going to follow you, listen.

He traveled without a home. He was transient. He was virtually homeless, stealing moments of sleep in the middle of a storm-swamp boat. Consider further even, where his life led? Where did it end? Are you willing to follow?

His path led him up through the streets of Jerusalem as crowds spit on him and mocked him and laughed at him. Will you follow him wherever he goes? He went to that hill outside the gates of Jerusalem where they nailed his hands and his feet to a rough wooden cross.

Will you follow him and die to yourselves? He hung on the cross naked, shamed, and mocked. Will you follow him by letting go of your reputation and your fear of speaking the name of Jesus? Are we committed to following him?

Ask yourself that question right now. Am I willing to follow him wherever he goes? I feel convicted about the way that I present the gospel when I look at Jesus' interaction with the scribes. He's calling us all to come follow him and not follow him so that your life gets better, but follow him and die.

With him.

So often I can stand up here and make it sound like you should decide to follow Jesus so that your life will go well. You'll have love and joy, and now we go for the hard sell. You know, the centerpiece of our gospel is so often you will find purpose in life, and you will find peace.

Right? Isn't that what we sell the gospel with? Is you're going to find peace in life, and it's going to go good? Is that what we do? I am guilty of doing that often. Holding out peace in life as the ultimate purpose for why you would accept Christ.

How is that different than wealth or prosperity or health or any of these other things that some preachers will present as the end of the gospel? You'll find peace. Some people don't. Did you know that some people give their lives to Christ and they find persecution that leads to.

Death?

We don't experience that a lot here in America. But in many countries to accept Christ and to follow Him is to put your life in jeopardy. In China, in Saudi Arabia, in North Africa, many places in Sub-Saharan Africa, many places in this world where to declare, I will follow Christ and to follow through on it means almost certain death or running for your life.

Will you follow Him? Come to Jesus, we say, and He will make your life good. No. That is self-service masquerading as the Christian faith. The gospel is that Jesus calls us all to come and die with Him, to die to our plans, to die to our goals, to die to our sins, to die to our pride, and to die to the love of.

Ourselves.

Anybody else here have that disease, that sickness of self-love, where you serve yourself first? I go through a cafeteria line or a lunch line and I believe that the biggest piece of pie was there for me.

They cut that piece for me. Do you feel that way sometimes? You sort through them till you get the biggest one, right? Because I deserve that piece of pie. I serve myself. The good news is that Jesus calls us to die and in that radical humility of following Christ as our Lord and Savior, He does promise us a new life.

And it's a life that is so far above this life that words cannot describe it. But it is a new heaven and a new earth and an eternal relationship with Him. Jesus used a scribe with some half-baked ideas about following Him to teach us that becoming His disciple is much more than just lip service.

It's costly, but it is worth every penny. Now Jesus is ready to get in the boat, but one more man comes to the front of the crowd. This man also is declared to be among those who were the disciples of Christ.

But it's important to note that the word is, I mentioned already, the word disciple is used in a variety of different ways. So that applies here. He says another disciple. But this man is different from the scribe.

First, in the way he addresses Jesus in verse 21, look there. What do you see in verse 21? Another of the disciples came to him and he says, Lord, he says Lord. He's been hearing this conversation about following Him.

And he's like, I'm following you, but let me do something first. But he calls him Lord and he requests a delayed following of Jesus. He says, just can I delay this crazy forsaking of my life thing just a little bit here.

He says, first I need to go and bury my father. He has an important funeral that he needs to attend. But he says, when that's over, I will follow you, Jesus. I will take my commitment to you seriously after I get some things in my life in order.

So how long do you think this man wants to delay his discipleship from the text? What are you thinking?

A while? Okay.

Three days? A couple days? Something like that? Well, it's interesting because understanding the culture changes our understanding what this man is literally asking for. When we study first century culture and we really dig in, we find that he's asking for something different than what our minds wrap around the very first time we hear it.

Because what we have a tendency to do is fill in the gaps. When we read the word funeral, you think of a funeral that you've been to. Your mind automatically gravitates towards what it means to go to a funeral in the West.

How many of you have been to a funeral before? Probably most all of us have been to a funeral. So we think of it as kind of like this day thing that happens and and that's it. When we understand their culture a bit, we begin to understand that this man is asking something more from Jesus.

I don't believe this man's father is even dead. Imagine that. So he's talking about burying his father and his father's not dead yet. How can that be? Well, I come to this conclusion because if this man's father has died, then the funeral in that culture would follow very soon after his death.

Usually within 24 hours a person dies. Their body is prepared. They didn't have an embalming process. They had to get the bodies in the grave quickly. So usually within the first 24 hours of death being pronounced, they're in the grave on the stone.

So it would have been within 24 hours. And as a son, if this man's father has died, his role in society, his responsibility in society, is to be in isolation in an official formal mourning process with his family.

Not standing out on the shoreline having a discussion with Jesus about burying his father. That's thoroughly uncultural. That would be unheard of in that culture for this man to even be seen out in public if his father had just died.

He would have been there with the family. Does that make sense to you? That is just their culture. That's understanding what it would have been like to go to a funeral, what it would have been like to have a family member pass on in that ancient culture.

You didn't go out in public. There was an official mourning period where you were with the family, and obviously this man is family. So what does it amount to that this man is actually asking for? What I believe he is saying in essence is, I have an elderly father that I need to care for.

When my obligation to him is done, and I've seen him into the grave, then I will come and follow you. See what he's saying? Got some family issues I need to take care of. I need to take care of my family first.

And then I will come and be committed to you. Where the scribe we see is overzealous with his words, but his commitment was weak. This man, this disciple, is weak with his words and his commitment. At least he's honest.

He says, I want to follow you later. Really, ultimately both are a bit mushy. So this man was saying, I will follow you, but let me take care of my father first. He wanted to delay his commitment a few years.

The scribe had not counted the cost. This disciple had counted the cost and wavered at one point. He said, well, I understand what it's going to cost for me to follow you, and I'd like to just delay that a little bit here.

Can you relate to that? Can you understand what this guy is asking for from Jesus? Jesus gives what amounts to a dramatic and even somewhat harsh statement about this proposed delay in this disciple's commitment.

He says, in no uncertain terms, in the form of command, follow me. This man, this disciple, has standing before him the one that matters most. He is the Lord, he is the Savior, he is the King over all, and he's standing there on the shore.

And this man is saying, well, maybe. I'll follow you later. Right now I've got some other more pressing, more pressing than you, Jesus. Some issues in my life that are more important than you. Thank you very much for the offer of discipleship, but I think I will go do some other things first.

Do you hear what he's suggesting to Jesus? He has the Lord, the Savior, the King over all in front of him. He says, follow me and leave the dead to bury their own dead, like Night of the Living Zombies, Shaun of the Dead, or something like that.

I don't know. What's going on here in Jesus' mind? Do dead people bury other dead people? Do they? Everybody's kind of looking at me blank. Really, they don't, do they? I'm like, do you know something I don't know?

Because I expected a resounding no on that. I believe that Jesus is mixing a literal use of the word dead with a figurative use of the word dead here. One is literal, one is figurative. Those who are not following Jesus are sometimes referred to as those who are spiritually dead.

Jesus uses this as a figure of speech in the parable of the prodigal son. How many of you are familiar with the parable of the prodigal son where a man goes to his father and says, I don't want to live with you anymore.

I want my inheritance now. So the father obliges. The father is a picture of God. The man is a picture of all of us. He says, I want my inheritance now. He goes away and squanders his money on wild living.

Famine hits the land. The man has nothing left to his name. He's wasted all of his money on wild living. And now he's like, oh, what am I going to do? What am I going to do now? So the man goes, hangs his head, and goes back to his father and says, I will be your servant.

I know I'm no longer worthy of being your son, but I'll at least be your servant. And what does the father say? A picture of God. He says, you who once were dead are now alive. The guy wasn't literally dead, was he?

He was spiritually dead. And you have been made alive by coming back to the father. A picture of spiritual versus physical death. So what is Jesus saying here? Let the spiritually dead bury the physically dead.

In other words, to draw the whole statement out and interpret it as a figure of speech, let those who are dead be concerned with the things of the dead. Let the things of the dead be the realm and relation of those who are spiritually dead.

But let those who are alive be concerned with what? Following Jesus. Let those who are spiritually alive be concerned with what matters most, and that is following Jesus. So what is Jesus saying about our obligations to our family?

Isn't honor your father and mother one of the Ten Commandments? Isn't that really important? I believe it's fully possible to honor God through caring for ailing parents. Probably actually a good thing.

But what we must pay attention to in this account is that this man was putting this responsibility above the call to follow God. Not synonymous with, not saying, I will follow you by caring for my ailing parents.

I will follow, I will care for my ailing parent instead of following you. I'll put that off later. Do you see the difference? He's wanting to put it off for a time. And nothing should hold the place in our life above following God.

Following Jesus is first, foremost, it is the most preeminent responsibility of a disciple of Jesus Christ. We should not allow anything to hinder or come first before that priority. I hope you can see then that this is an intense call of Jesus on the lives of those who desire to follow him.

Do you see that? Intense call. We must count the cost of following him. He has called us to a life of dying to ourselves. He has called us to a life of placing him as the priority in our lives. So the question is where is Jesus in your life?

Where is he? Are you speaking the words, teacher, I will follow you wherever you go, without first giving thought to what a deep, deep, significant commitment that is? Have you considered where a commitment like that could lead you?

Have you? Have you thought about where that could take you if you were to really say, I will follow you wherever you go? Jesus has led some people to leave jobs, to leave families, to leave wealth and homes, to leave in squalor and filth in Calcutta, India, the privileges of what it means to live in America, and they've left that behind to go minister in remote corners of the world.