Let the Dead Bury Their Dead (The Battle Cry of the Sanctified)

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So after a person dies, think about after a person dies, their cell growth immediately ceases, right?
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So whenever you die, your cells stop growing. However, as the corpse dehydrates, the skin shrinks and contracts around the skeleton.
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This shrinkage makes the hair and nails appear longer, which gives the illusion that some life remains.
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So a lot of times when someone dies, they may say, oh, their hair and nails look longer, they're still alive. They're not, it's just their skin contracting. To my knowledge, none of you work as a mortician or work with dead bodies, so any of your exposure to this would probably come through reading about it or hearing about it on television.
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Coroners and morticians, they see this phenomenon every day in their daily job when they deal with dead bodies.
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Therefore, they aren't fooled into thinking that a spark of life remains in the corpse. Taking care of dead bodies is the focus of their lives.
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When they prepare the body for a viewing, they dress the corpse, they add cologne or perfume, and they comb its hair.
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This may make the body look more lifelike, but it's as dead as the dust to which it's returning. It's a dead body.
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Expecting a dead body to perform any action is foolish. It's just simply foolish.
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What do dead bodies do? They decompose and they decay. Like whitewashed tombs, they can only impress from a distance.
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So if you see a dead body from a distance that's in a viewing, maybe it looks good, but when you get up close, it's not impressive, obviously. Spiritually dead people pursue the rusty trinkets and the fleeting fame of this world.
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That's what they do. Since we are alive in Christ, our goal must be to attain the resurrection of the righteous.
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We're not to be like dead people. How foolish it is for those of us who have this living hope to focus on collecting dead things and chasing the empty praise of men.
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I titled this sermon, Let the Dead Bury Their Dead, The Battle Cry of the Sanctified. The first part of my title comes directly from the mouth of our
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Savior, and the second is how it applies to our lives. Our victory is assured in Christ, so we fight for living hope.
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Unbelievers must bury their plans, their possessions, and their purposes because they are decaying along with this deteriorating world as well.
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For our text today, I would like to look at two parallel texts that are found in the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew and Luke.
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Please turn in your Bibles to Matthew 8 and we'll read verses 21 through 22 together. I'll be reading from the
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New King James Version. Then another of his disciples said to him,
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Lord, let me first go and bury my father. But Jesus said to him, follow me and let the dead bury their own dead.
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Now please flip over with me to Luke's Gospel. We're gonna read the parallel text there. So please go to Luke 9 and we're gonna read verses 59 through 60 together.
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Then he said to another, follow me. But he said, Lord, let me first go and bury my father.
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Jesus said to him, let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.
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Please bow your head and pray with me. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, this text we're about to embark on today,
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Lord, sanctification is the work of all of our lives, Lord. It's the Christian hope. Lord, we wanna become more like you.
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Lord, we are to pursue holiness. Without holiness, we won't see you. Thank you, Lord, for this text. Pray that you would use my words for your glory,
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Lord, and that you would help us to lift up and magnify our wonderful Savior, Jesus Christ. In Christ's name, amen.
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In these verses, we are presented with a conversation between two people. Jesus is talking to an unnamed person who was most likely part of the crowd that followed
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Jesus throughout his ministry. I believe you can break this text up, or rather these two texts, we're looking at two today, into four discrete sections.
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First, we're going to see Jesus' command. Followed quickly by the man's excuse. Next, we have
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Jesus' charge, followed by man's duty. Sanctification is best summed up,
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I think, as a gradual replacement of earthly priorities with heavenly priorities. Our soul is on an upward trajectory, while our body is on the decline.
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If you think about spaceships, I love space. I don't, on spaceships, rockets, anything about space, my wife will tell you that.
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When spaceships break out of, get out of the Earth's atmosphere, they dump their fuel tank. They just drop it off, and it goes all the way back down the
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Earth, and they pull it back in. Actually, Elon Musk and Space X are working on a way to kind of actually have the fuel tank bring itself back down and land on a launch pad.
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It saves the government a lot of money. But I think that's an apt illustration for our life. Our body is to get us to heaven, and then, of course, the
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Lord will one day raise our body back up, but our soul goes out of this life, and our body stays behind. In a similar manner, our physical needs must be subordinate to our spiritual growth in Christ.
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Before I start, I'd like to make some quick observations on the differences between these two texts. That's the nice thing about having multiple
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Gospels. You can compare multiple texts and observe differences. Luke gives us no identity for this man, but Matthew says he was a disciple.
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So where were you without Matthew? We wouldn't know this guy was a disciple. This term implies the man was not just a mere onlooker, but someone who either had expressed interests or spent some time following Jesus, right?
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Jesus had poured knowledge into this man. We don't know how much knowledge, but he had poured some knowledge because the guy's a disciple, right?
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And now he expected to share it with the world. Matthew, or Levi, was an eyewitness to many events recorded in the
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Gospels, while Luke is commonly seen in church history as having interviewed eyewitnesses for his Gospels.
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Church tradition actually states that Luke, possibly one of his sources, was actually Mary, the mother of Christ himself.
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So that was a very key witness there. Since Matthew knew this man's status as a regular follower of Jesus, it's not far -fetched to think he also knew his name.
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Matthew might have known his name. It's unlikely that he was one of the 12 disciples, but it is possible. Maybe he was part of the 70 disciples that Jesus sent down in Luke 10.
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Even if he wasn't part of the 70, he was duty -bound to pursue sanctification. Matthew combines
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Jesus' command, follow me, and the charge, let the dead bury their dead, into a single sentence.
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He puts them together. We see more of the dialogue in Luke, since Jesus' command and his charge bookend the man's excuse.
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Luke's order shows the exact chronology, because Matthew 8 .22 is clearly a reply to Jesus. If you look at Matthew 8 .22,
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Matthew doesn't give us what Jesus said first, but by the man's response, you can tell he's responding to Jesus. So Luke actually shows the time period there.
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Many theological scholars have noted that Matthew's Gospel is arranged thematically. Matthew is a thematic
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Gospel, meaning it's not always in order. Luke's is more chronological, it's actually arranged in the order it occurred.
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And that doesn't make Matthew any less the word of God, that's just how Matthew likes to write. You see this in movies, books, you may see people write different ways.
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Matthew had one way of writing, Luke had another. Luke mentions that Jesus told the man to go and preach the kingdom of God.
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Well, Matthew omits that detail. Like a cliffhanger in a movie or TV show, if you think about a cliffhanger, it'll stop you and say, come back next week, and you'll see what the reply is.
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Neither Gospels record the man's response, right? And in the movie industry, when they use cliffhangers, why do they do that?
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They wanna hook you so you return for the sequel. In this case, I think the cliffhanger is designed so that we turn our focus inward, right?
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So putting that man aside, how will you follow Christ? Don't worry about this man, how are you gonna follow
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Christ? That's what Jesus wants us to focus on. It reminds me of how Jesus was talking to, I believe it was
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Peter and John, and Peter said, what about this disciple? And Jesus said, if I want him to remain until I come back, what is it to you?
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You follow me, you don't worry about this other Christian over here. These accounts were written for our spiritual instruction.
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They're not to satisfy our curiosity. Will you leave dead pursuits to the spiritually dead, and will you hasten the coming of God's eternal kingdom in your own heart?
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When I started this series on holy violence, my two main verses were the parallel verses of Matthew 11, 12, and Luke 16, 16.
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For those that weren't here, I'll give you a quick synopsis. Both of them talked about the emergence of the kingdom of heaven, and how the kingdom of heaven came violently.
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Those that forced themselves in the kingdom, or were violent in their sanctification, were the ones who obtained the eternal crown.
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Do you have a pulse of spiritual life? If so, God expects you to grow that desire into a full -fledged obsession for him.
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You need to leave the dead worthless things of this world to the spiritually dead. You need to gird up your loins, and you need to follow
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Christ. I like what John Piper writes here. He says, your job day by day is to say to the old nature, dead.
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You are to say dead to your old nature. Leave it behind, and let the dead bury their dead. You follow
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Christ. Jesus is commanded, we see this in Matthew 8, 22a, and Luke 9, 59.
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What is the command that Jesus gave to this disciple? He gave his disciple, and also by extension to us, because when
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Jesus gives a command in scripture, it's not just a command for that person, right? It's a command for all of us.
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He said, he gave him a two -word sermon. He said, follow me. This command is an imperative sentence because the verb precedes the subject, right?
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Most sentence type follow a subject -verb pattern, right? When you think of, when you try to obtain information from someone interrogative, or when you're declaring someone, when you're transmitting ideas declarative, your subject comes first, and then the verb.
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An imperative sentence is very different from its more common cousins. An imperative sentence is forceful, it's punchy, and it places the ball squarely in the hearer's court, right there.
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These sentences don't generally have a lot of adjectives or adverbs because of either the authority of the speaker or the urgency of the matter.
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You think about a surgeon in an operating room. He doesn't have time to impress the nurses. He doesn't say, use flowery language and say, oh, give me, he says, hand me the scalpel, or maybe even better yet, he says, scalpel, right?
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Just give it to me. Impressing people may cost the patient their lives.
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Our focus must be on maximizing the spiritual benefit to our audience in a limited amount of time. Therefore, short summaries are important.
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They're very important in evangelism, they're important in teaching others, and they're also very important for retaining key scriptural concepts.
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Following Jesus is a phrase that's very, that's bandied about flippantly by the world we live in. People just say, oh, I'll follow Jesus. When we evangelize or teach, we must be very specific about which commands we are referring to.
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The disciple in our narrative, he heard Jesus preach many times. I'm assuming he at least heard him a few times. Therefore, when
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Jesus said to follow me, the disciple was not missing context. This wasn't a contextless sentence.
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Jesus preached, and then he looked at a disciple, follow me, right? In today's culture, we must clearly delineate what it means to be a
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Christian. Do you love God's law? Do you see the greatness of your sin? Is your delight in God and things of God?
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Do you mourn over your sin and desire to be holy? Would heaven be hell if Christ were not there?
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These are all helpful questions to pierce men's heart. Once we get people to reflection, then we must bring them to the spiritual fork in the road.
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What will you do with this information? What's the outward sign that separates the seed of the woman from the seed of the serpent?
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True obedience to God's command can only come out of a heart that loves
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Christ. This is the dividing line between the world and true Christians, it's obedience to God.
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Listen to the charge that Joshua gives the Israelites after he entered the Promised Land. In Joshua 24, 15, he says, "'But if serving the
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Lord seems undesirable to you, "'then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, "'whether the
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God your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates "'or the God of the Amorites in whose land you are living. "'But as for me and my household, we will serve the
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Lord. "'Are you gonna serve the dead gods of the nations "'that were driven out before you? "'Are you gonna serve the dead gods of the
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Egyptians "'who couldn't keep you? "'Or are you gonna serve the living God "'who gave you this land "'and drove the people out before you?'
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Elijah says the same exact thing. First Kings 18, 21, Elijah came to the people and said, "'How long will you falter between two opinions?
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"'If the Lord is God, follow him. "'If Baal is God, follow him.' But the people answer not a word."
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Why did they didn't answer a word? Because they were embarrassed. Is the Lord God? Yes, he is. Baal had eight hours to burn up the sacrifice.
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He couldn't do it. As soon as Elijah finished praying, the Lord sent the fire. So why do you send shuffling about between two opinions?
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There's the line, pick your side. You know, I love the fact that even though the commands of Joshua, Elijah, and Jesus, even though they live hundreds of years apart, maybe thousands in the case of Moses, they're all almost identical, right?
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Why is that? It's because the same Holy Spirit that lived in Joshua and that lived in Elijah was guiding
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Jesus as well. It's the same Holy Spirit. That Holy Spirit cuts through culture, it cuts through degrees of revelation, it cuts through language, and it cuts through location to all generations of men and women on this earth receive the same exact command, follow me.
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That's the command God gives you. And then the corollary, let the dead bury their dead. Next, follow me shows the authority of the one who issued the command.
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If you flip nine chapters back in Luke's gospel, or three in Matthew's gospel, we come across the story of the centurion with great faith.
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I love that story, that's an excellent story, wonderful story of a gentile man who loved Christ. This centurion knew that Jesus's power was not constrained by his physical body.
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His power goes outside his body. Additionally, he believed that Jesus would have compassion on his suffering servant.
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These are two ingredients that will be present in every sanctified heart, maybe in different degrees, but they will be there.
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If you love Christ, you will have those two. Are you discouraged with the progress of your growth in grace?
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Doubting God's power, or underestimating his love for you, will inhibit your sanctification.
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If you doubt his power, or don't think about his love, you will not grow in grace. Read Hebrews 11, six, be with me.
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I love Hebrews, it's one of my favorite books in the Bible. I have probably Hebrews and Romans. But Hebrews 11, six says he who comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.
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You see what the key component is that links the first and second clauses of this verse? Trust, you must trust
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God. Do we really believe that God rewards those who seek him? Do we really believe that, or just say that?
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Or do we know it in our heads, but it hasn't completely percolated down to our hearts? Do the spiritually dead trust
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God? No, they cannot trust God. And even if they had the natural ability to trust
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God, they would not trust God. Trusting God's word is the spiritual heartbeat of the believer.
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Are we prepared to trust God when he leads us through the valley of the shadow of death? This loyal servant, does he follow his master when things are good, or when things are bad?
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It's just when things are good. By definition, the disloyal person is only loyal when he benefits.
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Unbelievers joyfully serve Satan when he's giving them temporal rewards. So if you serve God joyfully when things are good, you're just doing what the unbelievers do.
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We must praise God in both the good times and the bad times. I like what chapter 115 of Psalms says.
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It says, the dead do not praise the Lord, nor do any who go down into silence, but we will bless the
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Lord from this time forth and forevermore. Praise the Lord. Although this text is describing physical death, we can draw an application to those who are spiritual dead as well, right?
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As believers, we are not those who go down in silence. Our mouth should be full of praises to God while we sojourn on this earth.
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After we take our final breath in this life, we will finally emerge victorious in heaven. In that place, we'll be unfettered by sin, we'll be no more constrained to physical nature, and our praises will ring out like the loud peals of a bell for all eternity.
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The dead bury their dead in this life, but the living praise God now, and they praise him forevermore.
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That is the purpose, and that is the job of the living. Praise God. Living a life of praise is a very important part of our sanctification.
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If talking about God's glory is defined as explicit praise, we can talk about God's glory, then sanctified lives are implicit praise.
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Hypocrites may occasionally be the first to gain approval of men. We talked about this in Sunday school today. Hypocrites will sometimes use their mouth to praise
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God, but they will never be sanctified in their heart because their heart is fixated on what?
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It's fixated on the dead things of this world. They don't care about God in their heart. They serve God for what people think of them.
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A soldier's uniform may show his allegiance, but his bravery in battle shows what?
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His devotion. Your uniform means nothing if you're not willing to lay your life down on the line. Cowards have worn a uniform.
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True soldiers die for their country, and in this sense, truer soldiers die for Christ. Did you know most Medal of Honor recipients are gifted the award posthumously?
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Look at the Medal of Honor recipients, read through the list, and you'll find 80 % of them get it after they're dead because they've done such great exploits, they've actually laid their life down as part of it.
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It's very rare, I think only about 20 % or 25 % last time I checked get it when they're living. Though they are physically dead, their actions remain as living proof of their bravery and dedication.
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Their actions still speak. You see how brave they are. You say, wow, he got a Medal of Honor, he laid down his life, that's why he can still think about that.
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Similarly, a sanctified life can serve as an inspiration to others long after that person has passed on to glory.
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I like what Charles Spurgeon said here. He said, a father and mother's holy life is a rich legacy for your sons.
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You wanna be sanctified? Be sanctified first for Christ, but second, be sanctified for your kids because they're gonna remember long after you're dead, they're gonna remember your example, and they're gonna say, look, my father was a sinful man, my mother was a sinful woman, but you know what?
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She loved Christ, she put Christ first. Christ was the center of her life. That's what you want your kids to think after you're gone, and that's how you live a lasting legacy.
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You know, godly parents, and I know not everyone has them, but if you don't have godly parents, then be a godly parent.
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If you don't have kids, be a godly spouse, but you can live a legacy for many generations by living like that.
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Stop dithering about and serve the Lord, right? We know how to follow Christ, but often aren't we too slothful to put this wisdom in practice?
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We know what to do, we just don't wanna do it. If you're a bedridden patient, and you don't get out of bed, and you sit there, and sit there, and sit there, you will soon lose the use of your limbs, and a
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Christian that doesn't pursue sanctification will be vulnerable to even the simplest or the weakest temptation.
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The biggest obstacle we face in pursuing God is the excuses that are manufactured in our own bosom and our heart.
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The unknown disciple in our story fell into this exact same trap. How many of you have gone to the doctor for some illness and been offered a doctor's note?
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You know, I've been to the doctor sometimes, do you need a doctor's note? It's a signed piece of paper or an email today, most communication now is electronic, that validates your reason for missing work or school.
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In a culture that classifies lies, this is a white lie, this is a big lie, there's no classification of lies, they're all sins against God, right?
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But people's word can't be taken as their bond anymore, because people talk about little white lies, it's a little white lie, right?
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Lying is no little sin to God, it's a trade of devils. All the misery and humanity, all the misery and wretchedness which humanity was plunged into can be traced back to the first lie told by the father of lies himself.
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Satan brought a lie up, told him we're all in the sin of misery today. It's possible the man in this passage was lying, but since the text doesn't state that,
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I prefer to interpret his reply to Jesus as an excuse. So I'm not gonna read into the text, I think it actually was, maybe his father actually did die.
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When the devil can't get us to lie, he often resorts to what? He gives us excuses. If Mr.
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Lie was a person, then Mr. Excuse would be his first cousin. In this passage, what does the unknown disciple do?
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He takes refuge in an excuse. He said, I will follow you, Jesus, but let me first go and bury my dead father.
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That was his excuse. Now, on the surface, when you read that, wanting to bury your father seems like a noble request.
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I mean, that's not something that we'd say, oh, that's so terrible, he wants to bury his father. I don't care what religion, social status, occupation, ethnic background, everyone here understands the importance of, when your relative dies, you go to the funeral, especially if it's your father.
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However, in this circumstance, that excuse fell flat. Is honoring a dead person more important than obeying your living savior?
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Is it really more important? No, it's not, it's definitely not. This man saw Jesus in the flesh, received a personal command, and yet what did he do?
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Put his hand in the plow, he looked back, instead of looking forward. When a wife dies, or a husband, the remaining spouse is free from their commitment to her and you're allowed to remarry.
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You're no longer committing adultery. Similarly, when your parent dies, the fifth commandment is ended for that parent.
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There is no more fifth commandment. I mean, yeah, it's nice to honor their memory, but they're gone, there's no more honoring them, but your savior's sitting right before you.
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Honoring their memory is proper, I'm not saying it's bad, it is proper, but it's not required by the fifth commandment.
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I think it's very unlikely that people in eternity know about events that are happening on earth. I just think the
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Bible doesn't say that. If you think about the saints in heaven, they're preoccupied with praising God. I doubt they're sitting here fixated on earth.
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And the saints and the sinners in hell, they're fixated on their own punishment. So even if those people can glimpse earth's history unfolding, it's unlikely to occupy much of their thoughts, right?
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They're gonna be thinking about suffering forever or praising Christ forever. Jesus's death on the cross does not remove our duty as under the first four commandments.
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That's the difference between Jesus and a parent. For the Christian, Jesus's death freed us from sin, and thus we are under a greater obligation to him than unbelievers.
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How can we worship idols when our God took on flesh to save our souls? The name of Christ is far more precious than any other name on this earth.
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It should pain every Christian's heart when you hear a person using Jesus's name flippantly or as a curse word, and you're a
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Christian, that should pain your heart. Meeting with the saints every Sunday is a privilege, and those who love Jesus delight to go to God's house.
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Finally, the Bible gives us no description of how Jesus Christ looked during the time on this earth. Do we dare go beyond the
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Bible and fashion Christ in our own image in direct violation of the second commandment? These commandments should now be written on our hearts.
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I think as Jeremiah said, it's on our hearts now. And that's much more durable than a stone tablet. The first set of stone tablets was smashed by Moses because of the golden calf.
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And the second are no longer in existence. We don't know where those are. But God's purpose has not been thwarted. Just because those stones are not around,
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God's purpose still stands. Every living Christian is a walking set of commandments to a dying world.
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If you are a Christian, you are a walking set of commandments to them. What else do you notice about this excuse? Let me bury my father.
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Do you notice anything else about it at all? The disciple pits the first commandment against the fifth commandment, right?
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That's a very common strategy Satan uses, and our own sinful flesh brings up to tempt us to disobey
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God. The Pharisees did the exact same thing. They would twist the first commandment to get out of supporting their parents as commanded by the fifth commandment.
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So if you look at Mark 7, we're gonna read verses 10 through 13 together there. For Moses said, honor your father and mother, and he who curses father and mother, let him be put to death.
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But you say, if a man says to his father and mother, whatever profit you might have received from me as Corbin, that is a gift to God, then you no longer let him do anything for his father and mother, making the word of God of no effect through the tradition which you have handed down, and many such things you do.
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Some people erroneously say the fourth commandment has been abolished, and it's no longer relevant for modern
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Christians. This is utter foolishness. God didn't write his law in stone. He wrote it in stone the first time, and now it's in our hearts.
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The heart inscription of it's still there. All the commandments are there, but we serve the Lord out of gladness now. We don't serve him to earn salvation.
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The order of commands in the Ten Commandments is just as important as the actual commands themselves. Consider the order of the commandments.
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The decalogue, or the word for the Ten Commandments, the decalogue, it's not a haphazard list of rules thrown hastily together. You may make rules for your kids at your house and say in this house you do this, this, and this.
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You're not considering the order. You're just throwing rules up on the board, but God did not do that when he laid these down.
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Order is important. The order in the commandments, they mark their importance in the Christian life, and they mark their logical progression.
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You must love God more than all of your earthly relatives if you hope to gain heaven. Jesus left this heavenly family to save you, and you owe
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Jesus that exact same allegiance. Can you really live in harmony with men if you don't have a true love for God?
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No, you can't. The Pharisee or carnal man, they attempt to keep the commandments, but with no love for God, they can never truly love their fellow man.
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They can't do it. The correct order is confused in their lives. True love for God is the foundation of a godly household.
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If you whitewash your soul and the Holy Spirit's not indwelling you, you simply give the master of the house more to destroy when he comes back from his wanderings.
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Clean up your house all you want. The devil comes back, or the demons, or whatever your sinful soul in this case, and comes back and tears it up, and you gotta go back at it again because the
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Holy Spirit's not living inside of you. You remain the devil's slave, and your last state is worse than your first without Christ.
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I like how John Owen summarized this up. He said, if we wish to get out of the road that leads to death, let us take heed to our own affections.
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Your affections will kill you if they're not brought under the control of the Holy Spirit. Your affections are not something, they're not something to be trifled with.
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They're like rattlesnakes, like bleach, like deadly poison, like a loaded gun. If you play with your own affections, you will have problems.
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Stay away from them. Get them in order, and get them under the order of Christ, under the rule of Christ. There are several vignettes or scenes from Jesus' life that illustrate how we should approach the relationships with our own family in the light of eternity.
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The first miracle Jesus did, turning water into wine, that was the first miracle of Jesus' ministry. Do you remember what
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Jesus said to his mother when she brought this problem to his attention? She said, Jesus, they ran out of wine.
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What are you gonna do about it? What did Jesus say? He said, woman, what does your concern have to do with me?
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My hour has not yet come. Jesus didn't come to this earth to be a bread king or a wine king.
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That's not what he's here for. Redemption of sinners, not satisfying their mere physical hunger and thirst was his mission.
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Although Jesus did accede to his mother's request, he did actually turn water into wine. He gently admonished her for misunderstanding the reason for his incarnation.
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He said, woman, and that wasn't a disrespectful thing. That was just showing him that I'm an adult. The relationship has changed.
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I have a mission. It's not giving people more wine. But I will do this in respect of you. I like, consider how
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John and James responded to Jesus' call. It said when he had gone a little further, he saw
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Jesus in this case in Mark 1, 19 through 20. He saw James, son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, their boatman, in their nets.
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And immediately he called them and they left. Who did they leave in the boat? Does anyone remember who was left in the boat?
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They left their father, Zebedee. They had a living father sitting in the boat and they left the living father to follow
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Christ. They're called the sons of thunder. Their impulsiveness in wanting to destroy a village.
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We think when they were going to Jerusalem, I think they went to a Samaritan village. And that Samaritan village said, you're going to Jerusalem, we want nothing to do with you.
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And they said, destroy the village right now, right? So that was their impulsiveness used for the wrong reason. But here, we see their impulsiveness used for a good reason.
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Jesus can utilize all of our personality traits for good. He said, follow me. They left their father, they follow
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Christ. Does anyone here think they made a foolish choice leaving their father to follow Christ? Does anyone think that?
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No, they didn't. Leaving the father to follow Christ was the best decision they ever made. Our New Testament would not contain the gospel of John, John's three epistles, or Revelation had
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John stayed in the boat with his father. If they had stayed with their father, we would be missing four books in the Bible. They left dead fish behind, and what did they embark on?
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A lifetime of fishing for eternal souls. Finally, let's consider the example of our
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Savior. Jesus has everything you need to know in your life. You can find an example in Jesus' life. This is a great example of the proper role of family in the
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Christian life. We're reading from Matthew 12, 46 through 50 here.
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While he was speaking to the multitudes, behold, his mother and brother stood outside, and they were seeking to speak to him.
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And then one said to him, look, your mother and brothers are outside seeking to speak with you. But he answered and said to the one who told him, and not just the one who told him, but the crowd, and by extension, all of us here today.
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And he said, who is my mother? Who is my brother? And he stretched out his hands and said, here are my mother and here are my brothers.
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For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven, you are my brother, you are my sister, you are my mother.
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That is the correct attitude to have for family, not going out to bury your dead father. Jesus would not let familial ties distract him from his preaching.
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Would he stop preaching? No, he wasn't gonna do that. His family could wait. The perishing souls in front of him could not.
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It is probable that most of his family members were probably not saved at this time. I think most, I don't know about Mary, but I think his brothers at least, because they made fun of him, were probably saved later in life.
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Therefore, what were their minds fixated on? The dead things of this world. Jesus is our brother, let's go talk to him.
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But that's not what Jesus had time for. He didn't come to this life to talk to his dead brothers about dead things. He came to this world to die for our sins and to tell people, flee from the wrath to come.
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Christ was laser focused on eternity. Their minds were fixed on the dead things of this world. If you leave battle to go see your family, what is that, without leave?
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That's desertion. Jesus would not desert. He would die before he deserted his foes. He said, my foes is here, preaching the word of God.
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I can talk with them later. And see, that's loving, and that's your priorities are right. The first four commandments come before the last six.
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Next we see Jesus' charge. After we finish the man's excuse to see Jesus' charge. Let the dead bury their dead.
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That's a masterful synopsis of sanctification. You can't think of a better one, in my opinion. No person was ever better at telling parables or using spiritual analogies in Christ.
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He's it. He is the apex of everything. How many of you love the reformers or puritans for their pithy and impactful quotes?
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I do. I really love reading those quotes. Jesus is the well from which they drew their water of inspiration.
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They get their inspiration from Jesus. They read the Bible over and over, and they pour over the Bible and they memorize it.
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And then when they do their impactful quotes, it comes from Christ himself. I could not resist using
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Jesus' words as title for this sermon, because it's a perfect summary of these verses. If you are a
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Christian today, Christ is calling you to leave spiritually dead pursuits to spiritually dead people.
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That's what he's calling you to do. When my grandmother was dying, she was worrying about her HVAC running at her house and costing her more money.
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That's what she was worrying about. Isn't that a sad story? She was entering eternity, and she was grasping for the nickels and dimes of this world.
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That's a fool's errand. Don't worry about your HVAC. Worry about your eternal soul. That's what you need to worry about.
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We don't believe she was saved. Maybe, I mean, no one really knows, but unfortunately, the Bible doesn't show a lot of deathbed conversions outside of the thief on the cross.
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But we hope she made peace with God in her final moments. But don't be like that. Don't follow her example. A similar command is also found in Matthew 16, 24, one of my favorite verses of the
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Bible. I think I just got my van out there. In this case, the command was given to a group of disciples. So it's not just one disciple here, but the message is the same.
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Let's read it together. Then Jesus said to his disciples, if anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, let him take up his cross, and let him follow me, right?
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The verse and our sermon's text, they both contain Jesus' command to follow me. In Matthew, Matthew substates the phrase in this chapter with deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.
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But I think deny yourself, take up your cross, that can also be lumped under let the dead bury their dead. That's those two put together.
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Let the dead bury their dead. Deny yourself, take up your cross. Daily self -denial and love for Christ are two key signs that someone has been born today, has been born again.
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Those two must not be separated. Self -denial and love for Christ should not be separated. Many, many false religions, like Catholicism and Buddhism, they practice extreme asceticism.
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They deny themselves things of the flesh. They sleep on hard floors. They drink water. I'm not gonna eat any sugar.
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I'm not gonna drink any alcohol. And where does that get them? Do they earn salvation through those?
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No. Rotten fruit comes from a dying tree. And when a Buddhist and a
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Catholic does that, it's rotten fruit in the eyes of God. The only true fruit is Jesus' sacrifice on the cross.
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That's it. The Christian denies himself. Well, and these actions, we'll go back one step.
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These actions are filthy rags to God. That's what they are. You're giving Jesus dirty rags, wipe around your toilet, hand them to Christ.
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That is what your actions are to Christ and God outside of Christ's perfect work on the cross. The Christian denies himself because he loves
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Christ. He denies himself because he knows justification is assured. When trouble comes his way, he accepts it joyfully because he knows what?
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Who went through worse on our behalf? Jesus went through far worse on our behalf. So I'll cheerfully go through this trial.
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It's enough for a servant to be like his master. Is it not enough for us to be like Christ? And Jesus learned obedience through what he suffered.
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That's what the Bible says. So how much more should we seek to become conformed to the image of Christ?
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That should be our daily desire to be conformed to Christ's image. I love Romans 8 .13.
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We're actually reading John Owen's mortification of sin in our men's Bible study. And it focuses on this one verse.
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This is an excellent description of sanctification. Probably the best in the whole Bible. For if you live according to the flesh, you will what?
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You will die. But if by the spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live.
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Paul is not describing justification in these verses. He's not talking about your justification before Christ.
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You are saved if you put your trust in Christ. You are judicially saved for Christ. You were saved from eternity past.
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He's talking about our sanctification. So those who cried for Christ died, even though they're not born, generations from now, they are as secure now as the saints are in heaven.
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I like what John Owen says here. I took it straight from his book. The connection between dying and living, sorry, living to the flesh and dying, and by the spirit putting to death the deeds of the flesh and living.
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He says the connection between mortification and life is not properly of cause and effect. For the gift of God, what does
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Romans 6 .23 say? The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. This connection is rather of a means and an end.
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God has appointed the means for an end. We live according to the spirit. We put to death the deeds of the flesh.
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That's what it is. This verse is talking about the difference between the lives of who? Believers and non -believers.
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Believers show their heavenly heritage. They put sin to death every day. Unbelievers are dying daily as they become more and more of the image of their father, the devil.
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Buried in dead pleasures, the sinner does not want to be disturbed. They do not want you to disturb them.
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If you disturb them, they'll get angry. Let them pursue these activities alone, and I'm not talking about not evangelizing, but I'm saying don't join them in pursuing the same activities.
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Self -denial and sacrifice are hallmarks of those who are alive in Christ. Why do people bury things?
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Think about why you bury things. Generally, it's either to keep them safe or maybe conceal the process of decay.
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There's two main reasons I thought of. Decay that it consumes everything in this world, everything you see in this world is gonna decay, is gonna rot and burn.
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How often do people bury treasure and then forget where they placed it? Metal detecting hobbyists come across caches of coins that were either forgotten or they were never retrieved by the owner.
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Did burying those valuables keep them safe for the original owner? Well, clearly not, because someone else has their money now, right?
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God often takes the riches for a purpose the owner never intended. I like what Proverbs 13 says. But the wealth of the sinner is stored up for who?
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The righteous. That's who the wealth of the sinner goes to. It goes to the righteous. Science estimates that squirrels never find 74 % of the acorns they bury.
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That's a high number. I looked it up. I was like, I wonder what that percentage is. I was thinking low 30s. 74 % of the acorns they bury are never found.
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But, so that's the thing. Many of these oak forests you see out here, they started as squirrel pantries. The squirrel buried things, forgot them, and now you have a forest.
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Like squirrels with acorns, the dead people of this world, they bury their goods for the benefit of another. They don't bury them for themselves.
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Someone else benefits from them. Rust and these will come for earthly treasures eventually. But no man can take away the spiritual treasure that Christ has given us.
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Living treasure is protected by a living God. And no one can snatch us out of God's hands. Let's read what
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Proverbs 30 says. It says the grave, the barren womb, the earth is not satisfied with water, and the fire never says enough.
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Two processes, a childless person and a grave are listed as having an insatiable appetite for more.
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More, more, more, I'm never satisfied. The grave is never satisfied, and neither is the soul of man without Christ.
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Burying treasures is a lifelong obsession for the world. That's all they do all their lives. Bury the treasure here, bury the treasure there.
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Get stocks, get bonds, get a 401k, get a bigger house. Save up, save up, save up.
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And Jesus says to many of them, you fool, this night your soul will be required of you.
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Sin's cruel paradox is that dead men will never ever be satisfied with protecting their dead things.
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Their carnal heart cries more, more, more. And like dutiful slaves, unredeemed men rush to obey it because they are held captive to a sinful soul.
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When a human drinks salt water, it does not slake your thirst. Have you ever wondered why that is? Try drinking salt water sometime.
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I mean, there are benefits to a small amount of salt water, but I'm talking about just glasses of it. Drinking salt water dehydrates your body because your kidneys require water to filter out salt in your bloodstream.
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The process reduces the net amount of water in your body while the net amount of salt increases. You drink salt water, you lose water.
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You drink more because you're thirsty, you lose even more water. It's a vicious cycle. Eventually, your kidneys will collapse from being overworked and you will die.
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I mean, I guess you get dialysis, but if you don't have dialysis, you're dead. If you drink salt water, you're gonna kill yourself.
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Such is life for those who are dead in their sins and who pursue dead treasures. Their obsession traps them in a vicious cycle that eventually dooms them to eternal separation from God.
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J .C. Riles says this, others may think enough to mourn over dead bodies. For my part, I think there's far more cause to mourn over dead souls.
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That's what's important. The dead father, he's an attorney. First comes death and the judgment. Your soul is here, get to work.
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In leaving the dead things in this world behind, though, we should never lose compassion for dead souls.
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Christians must be marked by truth and we must be marked by love or we are not being like Christ.
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Warren Wears reframed it in this way. He said, truth without love is brutality and love without truth is hypocrisy.
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Don't be brutal, don't be hypocrites, be like Christ. Put to death the love of earthly things, but plead to God to save the dead souls found in your social circles.
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The heavenly -minded person is emphatic for sinners and unyielding and standing for truth.
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That's the heavenly -minded person. In this way, what does a Christian do? He fills a duty to who?
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To God and to man. He's not just filling one, he's doing both of them. The unregenerate man buries his talents and refuses to use them to glorify
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God. Please turn with me to the parable of the talents in Matthew 25. I want to focus on the unfaithful servant.
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So I'll be reading verses 18 through 19 and then I'll be reading verses 24 to 25. We're gonna skip a chunk.
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But he, or the servant in this case, who had received one talent, went and dug in the ground and hid his
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Lord's money. After a long time, the Lord of these servants came and settled accounts with him.
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Let's get me down to 24. Then he who had received one talent came and said, Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed.
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I was afraid, so I went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, here you have a church. You have it back.
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The talents in this parable can be viewed as either our lives or the skill abilities the Lord gives us on this earth. It's kind of funny that their unit of measurement was a talent and then we use talents and they talk about our skills that we have.
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That is kind of a unique thing. But they're not related, obviously. The carnal, some use their talents to glorify
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God. They encourage Christians in Christ and they bring unbelievers into the kingdom. The carnal man takes his talent and buries it by using
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God's grace and mercy for what? His own benefit. That's what the carnal man does.
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He buries it for himself. Selfishness drives the unbeliever to turn opportunities for praising
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God into a platform for himself. That's what they do. Consider this parable.
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The servant said that fear drove him to hide his talent. Is fear a good reason for neglecting to pursue salvation?
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Is it good to just say I'm afraid so I'm not gonna pursue salvation? No, it's not. Resist the urge to feel sorry for this unfaithful servant, the parable.
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His fear of God was insincere, like Esau's tears or Judas's remorse. It was not a sincere fear.
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The true fear obeys God for what he is, for who he is, and what he has done for us.
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False fear avoids God so it does not become convicted when pursuing pet sins. Godly fear is medication that cures a disease.
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Carnal fear is as foolish as a person who forgoes healthy eating habits because death is certain.
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I'm not gonna eat healthy because I'm gonna die. That's foolish. So is carnal fear. Spiritual fatalism is just as deadly to souls as works -based righteousness or love for the pleasure of this world.
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Don't be spiritually fatalistic. That is gonna doom your soul. Men also bury things to hide the process of decay.
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The Egyptians pioneered the process of embalming to slow down the decomposition of the corpse. But no human can stop the effects of the fall in this life.
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Decay grips the human body and it grips all the works of our hands. Peeling paint, rusting metal, fading ink on documents, rupture concrete, lost memories are all witness to the transitory nature of our own existence.
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You will die, things will burn, and they will fall apart. Garbage is often buried underground to hide it from sight and to mask the smell of decay.
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And then dumps, after they do that, they cover it with several layers of dirt and then turn it into a green space. They can use it for something else.
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The activity of animals and men will continue above, oblivious to decaying rubbish below. You can take a dump, turn it into a green space, and no one will be the wiser.
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Without Christ, mankind ignores his conscience and buries his thoughts on the brevity of life beneath a pile of activities, beneath a pile of pleasures, beneath a pile of relationships.
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When these roads fail, what do men turn to next? They go to alcohol, they go to drugs, they try to drown out their conscience, they try to drown out the
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Holy Spirit conviction, and they're gonna drown out sobering thoughts of eternity. The process of decay is meant to point us to Christ.
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It's not meant to lead us away from Christ. If decay takes you away from Christ, that's the devil talking to you.
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Decay should point us to Christ. The Christian has a glorious hope of eternal life with God.
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Evidence of bodily decay should heighten our yearning for the day when we finally meet our Savior.
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Christian hope reaches higher and higher and higher mountains of joy when the world is being shaken around us.
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What does the Holy Spirit say to the pen of the Apostle Paul? Therefore we do not lose heart, even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.
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David Brainerd, the godly evangelist to Native Americans, he was a godly man, I think he died in his 30s.
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He wrote this about the believer's peace in this way. He said, whenever my mind is taken off the things of the world, and whenever it's set on God, then my soul is at rest.
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He probably recalls what Augustine said. Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you. And that's why
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Augustine and Brainerd are pretty different guys, but you know what? They had one Savior they were leaning on. Finally, let's talk about the believer's duty.
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Only Luke records this in Luke 9 .60, right? He says, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.
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He exhorts his disciple to go and preach the kingdom of God, and it's very similar, if you look at Matthew 11 .12
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or Luke 16 .16, we see the kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God language there. Those that are violent for Christ are expected to tell the world about him.
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We are not told if this disciple was, he wasn't a pastor, most likely, but he wasn't a theologian, he wasn't a deacon.
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We don't know his age, we don't know his ethnicity, we don't know his, you don't even know the gender of the disciple, it could have been a woman, you never know, but this command is not given to church leadership alone.
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When he says preach the kingdom of God, that's given to everyone, as some have suggested. If you're a disciple of Christ today, this command is given to you.
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Breaking the fourth wall is a television term. You don't see it much today, but when someone turns and looks at the camera and talks to you, that's called breaking the fourth wall.
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You see it rarely in TV, sometime on stage. This technique pulls the audience in and makes them feel like an active participant.
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You're just watching something and someone turns and says something to you. I think the Twilight Zone, they do it some, but I'm sure there's other movies that do it too.
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It pulls you in. We should apply our verse, and this makes you feel like an active participant in the drama rather than a casual spectator.
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We should apply this verse to our lives today. Picture Jesus turning toward you today and saying, you go, you go and preach the kingdom of God.
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This is your responsibility to your Savior. Before I go further, though, I wanna offer a quick caveat. When Jesus says preach the gospel of God, he's not referring to a pulpit ministry.
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This does not mean that anyone can preach from behind the pulpit. The Bible is clear this responsibility is given to qualified adult men and no others.
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Looking at other translations besides New King James showed this to be the case. I actually, this is one case where I don't like New King James as much.
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The ESV or NASB says proclaim the kingdom of God. The CSB says spread the kingdom of God, and the
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ASV says publish abroad the kingdom of God. So the words they use there show it's not just a preaching behind a pulpit.
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It's a preaching by your life. I actually prefer those. I mean, when I was looking at the translations, I'm like,
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I actually don't like the New Kings as much in that one. I like, prefer the other ones. When we are witnessed, we are speaking to spiritually dead men and women.
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They have no more ability to respond to a gospel message than a dead person in a crypt. Those that are of this world have no ability to discern spiritual life from other people.
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The average person thinks that longer nails, hair means a body has life. Carnal people think that seeking to be a good person is evidence of spiritual life.
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Like non -morticians, they also conflate physical life with spiritual life, since they do not understand that all men have a body and all men have a spirit.
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The citizens of this world lack heavenly wisdom and discernment, and they can never understand what it means to have true spiritual life.
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Leonard Ravenhill summed this up best. He said, there are only two kinds of people in this world. There's only two kinds, not black or white, not rich or poor, but those that are dead to sin and dead in sin.
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Those are the categories. Make sure you're not dead in sin. You should be dead to sin. In contemporary evangelical culture, evangelism is almost extinct.
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Of the minority that evangelizes, a majority of that minority goes about it in an entirely wrong manner.
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Their routine says, just tell people God loves them, and say, make God a part of your already happy life.
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When Jesus presents it as an accessory or an optional upgrade, you know what that does?
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That cheapens the work of Christ, and that destroys the offense of the cross. I hope this title serves as a call to action for believers, and it provides a template for the life of Christ for witnessing to those that we meet.
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In evangelism, your frankness in delivering biblical truth must trump your fear of causing offense and being rejected by the world.
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It must do that. And I know it's not easy. It's not easy. I mean, I'm more of an outgoing person. I would say, it's tough for me, but you must be frank with them.
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Don't be harsh, but be frank. You have sin. What are you gonna do with it? If you die without Christ as your savior, you will go to hell.
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That's what the Bible says. Cultural Christians who pursue the dead things of the world are not a threat to the devil's kingdom.
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If you share the same goals with the world, guess what? You're gonna be at peace with the citizens. However, if you seek to pursue the things of God, then you will face intense spiritual opposition.
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Spiritually, that people can still persecute and harry you, and they do that. Disciples of Christ will be persecuted by the spiritually dead.
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This is their home field. Ours is heaven. We were talking about Team Satan Sunday School. We're on Satan's home field here.
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Heaven is our home field, right? You're gonna have persecution. When chickens sense a physical difference in another chicken, what do they do?
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They torment the other birds by scratching or pecking it every day. I know the Harris's see this a lot because their chickens, one chicken had a clipped wing and the other ones just peck it to death.
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These birds, they're quite minor. Usually they're missing feathers, maybe they're limping. But in their simple minds, they have a very small brain for the size of their body.
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Anything different is a threat to the established hierarchy and order of their lives. So when a chicken's missing wings, sorry, when a chicken's missing feathers or a chicken's limping, they persecute that chicken because it's different.
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The threat is imaginary. Their response is not. Unlike chickens, a sanctified
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Christian is a significant threat to the kingdom of the dead. When you live for Christ, your life is gonna show the folly of the world system and it's gonna show that their actions are sinful and that's gonna convict them.
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We are a saver of death unto death to most of the people we encounter, let's face it. If you are a Christian, most people you encounter, you're gonna be a saver of death unto death.
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Our lives and words must show people that they are dead sinners burying their dead treasures.
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We must tell them, don't bury your dead treasures, leave your father, leave your dead father, follow
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Christ. I'd like to end with a quote from John Flavel. John Flavel, the
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Puritan, he's got a lot of good quotes, but this one's particularly good. He said, as Jesus cures us of the guilt of sin by pouring out his blood for us, so he cures his dominion by pouring out his spirit on us.
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Justification is the cure of the guilt. Sanctification is the cure of the dominion of sin.
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If you are sanctified, you are beating back sin's dominion in your life bit by bit. Jesus has cured you of the guilt, but you need to sanctify and fight back the dominion, because if you just leave it there, it's gonna come back and cause you problems.
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What is the battle cry of those who are being sanctified? Let the dead bury their dead. That's what I wanna leave you with today.
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We fight for a living savior, and our dominion over sin and hell is now assured. Please bow your heads and pray with me.
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Dear Lord, I thank you for this text today, Lord, I thank you for your life, your mission, Lord, how you were single -heartedly focused on our salvation.
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Lord, thousands of years before we were born, Lord, you dedicated your life to a mission, to die on the cross and to save us from sin, and you had our hearts set on us.
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Lord, we can never repay you enough for that, but Lord, we pray that as we live sanctified lives as Christians, we would put away dead things, we would bury the dead things of this world, and we would pursue the things that are living,
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Lord, that we would store up our treasures, Lord, where moth and rust do not corrupt, and where thieves cannot break in and steal, and Lord, that we would live as children of the light and not children of this dark world.