Matthew 8:14-22 - An Inconvenient Faith

Our faith is more than a creed, it’s a way of life. We are saved by grace through faith, and life is freely given to all who believe but there’s a cost to following Jesus. The full life comes to those who are willing to live wholeheartedly and as a result, inconveniently.  Sometimes living in the Jesus way means giving up the comfort of home, time, and certainly a life that keeps us at the center. We’re in Matthew 8:14-22, the part of the story where Jesus takes care of a friend and later challenges people’s understanding of what it means to follow him.

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Our faith is more than a creed, it's a way of life. We are saved by grace through faith, and life is offered freely to everyone who believes. But there is a cost to following Jesus. The full life comes to those who are willing to live wholeheartedly, and as a result of that, inconveniently. Some of us are called to leave the comforts of home or to give up time, and certainly anything that resembles a life that's built around self. On that happy note, welcome to Meet Me in the Word. I am delighted that you've joined us today. We're in Matthew chapter eight verses fourteen through twenty two. It's the part of the story where Jesus takes care of a dear friend and then challenges people's understanding of what it means to actually follow him. Go ahead and open up your copy of the Word to Matthew chapter eight, and we'll read this short little section with kind of two mini accounts inside of it together. But before we do anything else, let's pray. Jesus, thank you so much for this wonderful day that you've given us. God, thank you for the breath of life. Thank you for every opportunity that comes. Thank you that you are with us no matter how life is going. Be with us now. We're here to meet with you. Amen. All right, so Matthew chapter eight, verses fourteen through twenty two. When Jesus came into Peter's house, he saw Peter's mother in law lying in bed with a fever. He touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she got up and began to wait on him. When evening came, many who were demon possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word, and healed all the sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah. He took up our infirmities and bore our diseases. When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go. Jesus replied, Foxes have dens, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head. Another disciple said to him, Lord first, let me go and bury my father. But Jesus said to him, Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead. Let's take a moment to pause and listen to God. If you need a little more space, go ahead and pause this podcast, and then we'll jump into the text together. All right, let's make a few observations about what's happening here in our short little section of Matthew's gospel. I kind of like how there is this uh incredible section of teaching that we just completed a couple of weeks ago with the Sermon on the Mount, and it has its own flow, and then we move into uh not just the things that Jesus said, but the things that he did, and just the way it kind of clips along in a in a different sort of a way. So the first little section here is the stuff that happened at Peter's house. And and I think it's just a good way to kind of look at this through uh through location. So verses 14 through 17. And it's really, I don't know, I guess grounding or earthy in my way of thinking about it, that he comes in and he's not just healing strangers, uh, because we certainly see him do that. Uh strangers approach Jesus throughout the gospels. Uh, friends bring strangers to Jesus, he encounters people that he doesn't necessarily know from you know from day-to-day life, you know, from beforehand, and brings about healing or sets them free or whatever needs to happen. But in this case, it's one of his disciples, Peter, Peter's mother-in-law, and she's in bed and she's with a fever. And we don't know the severity of that fever if it was life-threatening. Certainly, uh, fevers uh can do that, even today that can be an issue. But certainly back then it would have been uh a bigger deal with what they had uh available to them, you know, medicine-wise. But uh yeah, so she's that's her condition. And and he just comes over, it says there in verse 15, and and he he touches her hand and it says the fever left her. And then that she got up and and began to wait on him. And to me, this is just a beautiful expression of of the healer coming in and making somebody well, somebody that I don't know how close um Jesus would have been with Peter's mother-in-law necessarily, but but there would have been something there, right? There would have been some kind of connection and and certainly with Peter. There's a relationship there. And and so this isn't just about, oh, the gospel is for everybody else and not for you. No, it's it's for you too. Uh, you, the people that I'm doing life with, I care about you, I care about your family, and and let's um let's do this well together. And then her response, I think, you know, was maybe in certain ways expected culturally speaking, like that would have just been a normal thing for you know the woman of the house to do. But I would imagine that there was this sense of gratitude in her where she's responding uh not just to somebody who she respects, but somebody who has like just made her feel better, and uh, and she begins to to wait on him. I would imagine that meant uh bringing probably some food, something of that variety, and and uh and all that's that's taking place. So that happens, and I just I love the way that this part of the account starts off, that it's personal and uh and and just kind of a neat thing. Because the next little bit here is sort of back to these, like I don't want to say the masses, because that might be over overstating how many people came, but it says many, right? When evening came, verse 16, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with the word and he healed all the sick. And so there he is, he's healed uh Peter's mother-in-law, and now he's healing the sick, he's setting people free. Uh, and then thirdly, he's doing all of this and fulfilling uh the prophecy from Isaiah. Uh, and and he's just you know taking taking care of people. And I actually had a moment where I stopped and thought, why is this here? Like, why is the Isaiah part in here? Why did Matthew include that? Uh I don't know if there was a moment in in the event itself, like when Jesus is healing everybody and casting out demons. Like in that moment, was there a uh a time when he stopped and said, Hey, this is to fulfill what uh what Isaiah said? I I doubt that highly. But Matthew is writing this gospel. Remember, this is this is a document or a letter of sorts, it's a testimony about who Jesus is. And it had Jewish people in mind. So they'd be reading this story and they'd be like, Yeah, I remember Jesus, especially like the early people who lived during this time and would have been maybe the first readers of Matthew's work. But they would be like, Oh, yeah, he's pointing that out. I've I've read Isaiah, I've heard Isaiah at synagogue, I understand what this is all about. And so he's pointing out uh Jesus not just as this rabbi, not as just somebody who they should put their faith in because of the miracles that he did, but because in the doing of those miracles, in the healing of these people, he was fulfilling the prophet Isaiah, and that was a reason to place your faith. By the way, it's still a reason to place our faith in him, regardless of our own heritage, but just kind of reminding ourselves that that this isn't just like a random story about Jesus. This is Matthew's presentation of who he is, and uh he's inviting his readers, including us, to place our faith and our hope in in Christ. And so that's what this is all about. So that that whole that all happens, and then it you know it kind of moves on in my uh in the INVE, which is what I was reading from, it segments it out a little bit to the next thing, and we don't necessarily know how much time is between verse 17 and verse 18, but regardless, the next thing happens. And and we just call this section by the lake. We were at Peter's house. Now we're by the lake, right? This is kind of life with Jesus. It's not just an intellectual game. We're kind of on this journey, we're walking alongside him, so to speak. That's what Matthew invites us into. And uh, and as the crowd gives, you know, gathers around, he moves, moves everybody uh, you know, to the other side, and and they they're kind of working all the logistics part out. But then it says in verse 19 that a teacher of the law came to him and and he and he just said, like he just volunteered it, I'll follow you wherever you go, right? And uh, and we're gonna call this teacher of the law naively eager, right? And he just I we're gonna take his uh his offer at face value and say that it's not something that was like cynical necessarily, but he just he was invested, he wanted to know more. Uh and then Jesus comes back and says, Look, it these animals, they have a place to lay their head, but I don't. Do you really want to follow me? Do you understand what you're offering? Do you understand what you're saying? Because if you're really wanting to follow me, then you're gonna be walking around and you're not gonna really have a place that's home. That's gonna be taken away from you. Are you sure you want to do this? Right? And so he he answers that naively eager offer. And then another disciple that says in verse 21, it says, Um, Lord, first let me go and and bury my father. And Jesus said, Follow me. Let the dead bury their their own dead. And so there is that balance. He doesn't want us to be naive or to not understand what it is that we're committing to. Jesus talks about these sorts of things in other places in all of the gospels, really. But in in this case, he's he's looking at him and he's just saying, Look at you, you need to uh to be willing to be all in with me, right? Follow me, come with me. And when he says, let the dead bury their own dead, I don't think he's Jesus as being cold-hearted or distant or any of those sorts of things. He just recognizes that this person is half-hearted. He's recognizing that this person is sort of looking for a way out. Jesus, I I like what you're doing here. I've seen the miracles, I've I've listened to your teaching, I find it, you know, encouraging, you bless my soul, right? That kind of an idea. But Jesus isn't asking for that. He's not asking for us to feel good about him. He's asking us to follow him. And following him means that we're we're willing to leave the rest of life behind. We're willing to stop making excuses and just go all in for him. And that can look different for all of us in in the context of our of our lives, but that really is what this is all about is are we willing to follow Jesus with all that we are? Are we willing to follow Jesus inconveniently? And and that's a that's a pretty big question for all of us to work through. All right, I'm gonna leave you with just one thing to think about as you take a look at uh whatever whatever else it is that the Lord has for you today. And it's simply this how is Jesus moving you from comfort into service? How is he taking your life as it is and inserting a little bit of inconvenience? What part of you, or is it all of you, is being challenged into living differently than you would otherwise? Hang on to that thought. How is Jesus moving you from comfort into service? I'll pray for you. Uh would you please join me as we do that together? Jesus, thank you for for not only teaching well, but for living well. Thank you that we can look to you as our authority, but also as our example, and you have invited us to follow you in in no uncertain terms. And so, God, I just want to pray for for everybody who is listening to this or watching this as they process this for themselves. Lord, would you give them the grace of clarity and courage to show us what it looks like to follow you with all that we are. Amen.