The Cost of Discipleship. (Matthew 8: 18-22)

What is a Disciple?

Let’s pick up at verse 18 

18 And when Jesus saw great multitudes about Him, He gave a command to depart to the other side. 19 Then a certain scribe came and said to Him, “Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go.” 20 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” 21 Then another of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” 22 But Jesus said to him, “Follow Me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”  (Matthew 8: 18-22)

After giving these miracles that prove that Jesus is the Messiah Matthew then gives us some information about what it means to follow Christ. He talks about discipleship, and he gives us a story of two men who came to Christ to talk about following him or being his disciple. Now let me pause at this point and say because most of you have been with me on this biblical journey for a while now you will know by now there’s a difference between sonship and discipleship, sonship is you’re a child of God, discipleship is you are a student of Christ a learner. The Greek word disciple means learner and there’s a difference between being a child and being a learner or as every parent knows not every child is a good learner. So now we are not talking about becoming a child of God we’re talking about becoming a disciple a follower of Christ, a learner or as William Barclay describes it with probably the best word to communicate it in contemporary language English is to become an apprentice of Christ.

Jesus Responds to Two Disciples.

The first of these men comes and says, teacher, I will follow you wherever you go. Now he’s not saying I’ll just follow you on your next tour of Galilee he’s saying I’m going to be committed to you for the rest of my life and listen to the unusual response Jesus gives to this statement by the man.

And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head. (Matthew 8: 20)

I understand what you’re you just said, Jesus says, I hear that you say you are going to follow me, you know who I am, I’m the Messiah. By the way, we’ve just proved that, but Jesus says I have no place to lay my head. So, what does that mean? It means, if you’re going to follow me this is not exactly the life of comfort and ease, the life of difficult being a disciple is costly and he’s telling them in essence there’s going to be physical discomfort, at that time it meant he would have to sleep under the stars, even a fox at least has a hole and the birds have a nest, but if you follow me you will have none of those things. It’s going to cost you. Then a second person comes and says.

21 Then another of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” 22 But Jesus said to him, “Follow Me, and let the dead bury their own dead.” (Matthew 8: 21-22)

This person, by the way is somebody that started to learn and the fact that this is a disciple who doesn’t go on to be completely committed disciple is an indication that maybe there are degrees of discipleship. Maybe some of us have learned some things from the Lord but we really haven’t learned all that we should. A disciple somebody that’s already become a learner says to him, Lord let me first go bury my father, now that sounds like his father had just died and the answer Jesus gives sounds rather cruel. “Let the dead bury the dead”, well if your father had just died that kind of harsh to say that to somebody, as matter of fact if his father had in fact just died then he had to be buried within 24 hours and the grieving ceremony usually lasted a week. So, what he is really saying is just give me a week and Jesus says nothing doing, let the dead bury the dead.

I don’t think that’s everything that’s going on here, I think there’s something else going on, you see to say, let me bury my father first doesn’t necessary mean he just died, language experts have pointed out that he could have been very much alive and he’s really saying, look I can’t make any commitment like that until my father passes away and that could take years. In other words, this is an issue of priority, he says first let me go bury my father and Jesus is saying if you’re going to follow me you got to have your priorities straight. You got to count the cost and you got to get your priorities straight. I must be a priority in your life, and I have to come before your father and mother.

The point with this example used by here is the same as when he uses other example elsewhere is that we have got to get your priorities straight first. That’s the point so when he says let me go bury my father, he is in fact saying let me wait until my father dies, I fact I am told to this day that this is a Middle Eastern expression still used today sometimes. I have heard of an example of an exact example of this. I don't think we talked like that in the West today but I read a story of a of a student who was talking to a guy from the Middle East and he suggested to him that after he finished his university education he take a gap year and to a tour of Europe and the young man explain that he couldn’t do that,  I have to bury my father first. The other student said, oh my condolences I didn’t realize your father died, and he said no he hasn’t died yet and then he explained I must fulfill my obligation as a son before I am free to decide like that. It’s so imbedded into cultural thinking in many parts of the word outside western Europe and North America that it is no longer necessarily expressed in that way, but It would still be seen as unacceptable to finish and education or training and then immediately think you are free of you obligations and can go off and do exactly what you want with your life.

Two Types of Death.

That I believe is what’s going on here, which is why Jesus said to him let the dead bury the dead. “Let the dead bury the dead” does that strike you as a little odd, how does a dead person bury a dead person, well Jesus is using the word dead here in two different ways in the one sentence. The dead meaning those who are spiritually dead, burying the dead those who are physically dead 

I once read somewhere that sometimes the man driving the hearse can be physically alive but spiritually dead, separated from God, but and the man in the back of the hearse in the casket is physically dead, but spiritually separated from his physical but spiritually alive and present with the Lord. That’s what Jesus means here.

So we’ve worked are way the it what’s the first 22 verses of this chapter over the last couple of day, and I think this is a good place to stop and remind ourselves again of the point of chapter 8 and 9. The point of the passage is really rather straightforward in that it is saying simply that Jesus is the Messiah, because he fulfilled prophecy and therefore you ought to follow him. A message that would have been particularly relevant to Mathew’s main readership at that time. Jews awaiting the return of the promised Messiah and now he warns them that following him will cost you and you’ve got to put him first.  So that’s my conclusion but let me finish today by making three observations.

Summary (3 Observations)

Observation #1, This passage is teaching that Jesus is the Messiah, and how do we know that Jesus is the Messiah, we know because he fulfilled prophecy. We’ve only looked at one today so far in this chapter, the one in Isaiah 53, there are many others. Jesus Christ fulfills all those OT prophecies, there’s many more, some he will fufill in his first arrival and some he will fulfill when he comes back again. There are hundreds, let me just quote a few for you, and these are just the ones quoted in the New Testament as applying to Jesus and considered to be fulfilled in his first coming.

Daniel 9:24–27

Deuteronomy 18:15

Ezekiel 37:24, 25–27

Hosea 11:1

Isaiah 7:14,  8:14, 8:22–9:2, 9:6,7, 11:12, 28:16, 53:5

Jeremiah 31:15

Micah 5:2

Psalm 2, 16, 22, 34, 69, 110.

2 Samuel 7:14

Song of Solomon 2:12–20

Zechariah 9:9

Imagine all those people doing those hundreds of years before he even appeared. There’s nothing like in any religion there’s nothing like that in any other book of literature, there’s nothing like that in any other philosophy, there’s nothing like that on this planet. Just one way we know that Jesus is the Messiah is the fact that he fulfilled the Messianic prophecies, and he did miraculous things.

But wait a minute other people did miracles, didn’t they, that’s true, not just in the Old Testament, but the New as well.  What makes the miracles of Jesus different, didn’t Elijah and Elisha both raised people from the dead. The Old and New Testament character even the disciples in the New Testament and the in the Book of Acts did it by praying, Jesus did it by saying “I say to you Lazarus come out” Jesus said at his tomb.  God may have given some mortal man the power to do miraculous things, that but no mere mortal could stand up and do it in his own power. Jesus is the Messiah because Jesus did it in his power nobody’s ever done anything like that, before or since. That makes him unique.

Observation #2.

Secondly you should become his disciple by decision. Now let’s think about this and not get emotional let’s just be cold and rational about it, because if Jesus is the Messiah, then we should trust him as our savior and follow him as our teacher right?  Frankly if he’s not the Messiah and he didn’t come back from the dead, then as the Apostle Paul said, we are still in our sin and we might as well eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die. But if Jesus is the Messiah don’t waste your life, you should make a decision to follow him.

A heard a sermon in the preparation of this message where the preacher said, Jesus had no servants, yet they called him master. He had no education, yet they called him teacher. He had no medicines, yet they called him healer. Had no army, yet they called him kings. He won no military battles, yet he conquered the world. But on the other hand he committed no crime, yet they crucified him. He was buried in a tomb, yet he lives today.  I feel honored to serve such a leader and blessed that God by His Holy Spirit has revealed the truth of his Messiahship to me.

Observation #3.

If Jesus is the Messiah and he is, we should follow him and we should decide to do that, but if you do that you will have to count the cost. Let me be very clear about this, going to heaven is a free gift, the Bible says that in plain English, “The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” Romans 6: 23. It’s by faith, and faith alone, in Christ alone. It’s a gift and I think that’s the most needed message on this planet today. Because I think the greatest human need is to know your unconditionally loved, I believe a lot of psychological problems are result of not knowing you’re unconditionally loved, the knowledge of that unconditional love is also free. Romans says we’re justified freely by his grace, got that, but make no mistake about if you want to learn what life is really about that means becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ that means becoming a learner and that is costly in that means there’s going to be some discomfort along the way. That means that you got to put him first and that is only the beginning. As we walk through the rest of this Gospel of Matthew, we will see just how stringent these requirements are but I’ll tell you up front you need to count the cost and the cost is everything. Salvation may have cost you nothing, but it costs Christ everything. 

Discipleship in this life will cost you something because making Jesus Christ the authority in your life will have it price. If you really want to go on that journey of discipleship with the Lord, you have got to be prepared to understand the toll that journey will take. You know Jesus does not want us to be carried away by the tide of emotional feeling which quickly ebbs and flows, yes, he wants to connect with you emotionally at you point of need and that my involve great joy or indeed great tear, but he then want you to make a decision to follow him.

A few years ago, I read a biography of the explorer Ernest Shackleton and when he was building up his team of intrepid polar explorers he was inundated with people offering their services, but he had to weed out the romantics, and the unrealistic by saying, great to have you here, but are you prepared for the snow and the ice for the exhaustion and the weariness of it all.

When a young person wishes to become an elite athlete in any sport needs to say, great you love to play your chosen sport but are you prepared for the self-denial and self-discipline that alone will win the race or raise the cup.

There is no thrill like the way of Christ and there is no glory like the end of that way, but Jesus never said it was easy. The way to glory always involves a cross and the best of us. Naturally we are inclined to be lazy, naturally we are inclined to procrastinate, we will experience fear and indecision and often the moment of fine impulse is never turned into action. For some of you it might be God speaking into your heart and saying get out of this present life before it is too late, at any cost, get out of it. Be brave, don’t wait, and ay God give us that strength of decision that will save us from the tragedy of an unseized moment. I say to Jesus Christ is the son of God the Messiah and that says there’s no cost too great for us to follow him to be happy in this life but better still to be rewarded in the next.