SPEAKER_01: Matthew chapter 8 is where we'll be this morning, verses 18 through 22.
SPEAKER_01: Let me go to the Lord one more time in prayer before we begin.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we do ask for your wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: We ask for your conviction that can only be brought by your Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So you're meditating on the words as Don played them.
SPEAKER_01: It is sweet to trust in you.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we live in a world where the reality is often persecution.
SPEAKER_01: As Tom mentioned, there's much of the world where the reality is who will go to jail today?
SPEAKER_01: Who will care for the kids of those who are in jail?
SPEAKER_01: So we pray for the so sobriety of that to hit us as we look into this passage this morning, which is a challenging passage.
SPEAKER_01: Pray that we'd be convicted by it and that you would use it to cause us to love you more.
SPEAKER_01: We ask this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: When I was at the University of New Mexico, I went to a Bible study for athletes there that played for the school from all different sports.
SPEAKER_01: It was not an official, you know, like para-church Bible study.
SPEAKER_01: It was just a kind of an unofficial gathering at a home of one of the soccer players.
SPEAKER_01: And um, but people from all different sports came.
SPEAKER_01: And there was this girl I met there named Heather.
SPEAKER_01: She played volleyball at the university, and uh over the course of a few weeks I got to know her a little bit and realized that she is not a Christian.
SPEAKER_01: She had never given her life to Christ yet.
SPEAKER_01: And she she was coming to this Bible study week after a week.
SPEAKER_01: And I was a new believer, I'd been saved, you know, about a year at this point, and I was in this phase of my Christianity where I would witness to anything and anyone.
SPEAKER_01: You know, I'd share the gospel of the fire hydrant.
SPEAKER_01: You know, I wanted everybody to come to faith.
SPEAKER_01: And so I got to know Heather and was asking her to become a Christian, and and she wouldn't, and she finally told me that she would not become a Christian because of how much she loved volleyball.
SPEAKER_01: And my initial response to this was kind of, I guess, anger with it.
SPEAKER_01: Like, how that doesn't make sense.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, do you what do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: You certainly God is uh more important than volleyball, and if the gospel is true, it should be more precious than volleyball is.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the beauty of Christ's forgiving of your sins or the beauty of a sport, I mean, come on, and you know, she just said she loved it too much, and she was positive that if she became a Christian, that God would take it away from her because she loved it more than Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And so that made me upset for different reasons, too.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, what I tried to tell her God is not some kind of cosmic killjoy that will find what you take the most pleasure in in the world and remove it from you just to teach you a lesson.
SPEAKER_01: That's not the way God works.
SPEAKER_01: And um, I was pleading with her about this, and she she wouldn't listen.
SPEAKER_01: She loved volleyball too much.
SPEAKER_01: She thought that if she became a Christian, God would cause her to tear her ACL or something so that she couldn't play, and that way she would love Jesus more.
SPEAKER_01: And she disappeared, stopped going to Bible study after a few months, and I never saw her again, never seen her to this to this day.
SPEAKER_01: But I'll tell you this: over the years since then, I have actually grown more appreciative of her reasoning.
SPEAKER_01: Um, what I dismissed at the time with God's not a cosmic killjoy, rah.
SPEAKER_01: Now the sobriety of what she said is starting to settle in on my heart.
SPEAKER_01: It is true.
SPEAKER_01: She had a certain element of her objection that was absolutely true.
SPEAKER_01: If you love something more than Christ, why bother being a Christian?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's what she saw through.
SPEAKER_01: If you have a competing affection and you say, you know what, at the end of the day, I actually do love this sport or this person or this job or this sin or this whatever, this X, I actually love this more than I love Jesus, then Christianity, frankly, is not your thing.
SPEAKER_01: It's not for you.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what I've learned from here all these years later.
SPEAKER_01: This morning's passage in the Bible, Matthew 8, verses 18 through 22, describes two different conversations with Jesus that very closely represent that conversation with Heather so long ago.
SPEAKER_01: And let me give you an outline as we go through these verses before you read it.
SPEAKER_01: This is a cautionary tale for almost Christians.
SPEAKER_01: A cautionary tale for almost Christians.
SPEAKER_01: And this phrase, almost Christians, it is a biblical phrase.
SPEAKER_01: I got it from Matthew Meade, the Puritan author who wrote the book, The Almost Christian Discovered.
SPEAKER_01: But it's a phrase that he borrowed from Acts chapter 26, you know, where Paul was in prison and he'd gone before Festus, and Festus determined that Paul was likely out of his mind and insane because of his whole vision of the light and his conversion.
SPEAKER_01: And the crowd outside wants Paul to be put to death.
SPEAKER_01: And so King Agrippa comes in and he tries to mediate this dispute, and he calls for Paul himself and listens to Paul, and Paul appeals to Caesar, and Agrippa decides, you know what?
SPEAKER_01: Festus is wrong.
SPEAKER_01: Paul's not crazy.
SPEAKER_01: The crowd is wrong, he doesn't deserve any punishment at all.
SPEAKER_01: And then Agrippa tells this memorably to Paul.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Paul, you almost persuade me to become a Christian.
SPEAKER_01: And you remember Paul's response in his winsome way.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says, Almost?
SPEAKER_01: Are you kidding?
SPEAKER_01: I don't want you to almost be a Christian.
SPEAKER_01: I wish you were like me in every way, King, except for these chains.
SPEAKER_01: And King Agrippa goes on, never calls for Paul again.
SPEAKER_01: Lets him go his way, and that's how that story ends.
SPEAKER_01: A really sad ending.
SPEAKER_01: And we see two other similar stories like that this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Let me give you the first point of your outline before we read the text.
SPEAKER_01: The first of this cautionary tale for almost Christians is one authority.
SPEAKER_01: The story begins with one authority.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to read all five verses for us here, beginning in verse 18.
SPEAKER_01: Now, when Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side.
SPEAKER_01: A scribe came up and said to him, Teacher, I'll follow you wherever you go.
SPEAKER_01: 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.
SPEAKER_01: Another of the disciples said to him, Lord, let me first go and bury my father.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus said to him, Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.
SPEAKER_01: There's a thread that unites all five of these verses.
SPEAKER_01: It's a refrain that is brought up in each of these verses, and it's the authority of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: You don't see it at first reading, but it is the really the only thing that's mentioned in all five verses.
SPEAKER_01: Let me draw your attention to it.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 18.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus saw the crowd around him.
SPEAKER_01: He gave orders.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is the only one in this narrative that is giving orders, and this is typical Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He speaks with authority.
SPEAKER_01: He is the leader on the scene.
SPEAKER_01: He is the one that is charting the path.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody else is responding to him.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the nature of his life.
SPEAKER_01: From the beginning of his baptism all the way to his arrest in the garden, he is always the one who is in charge.
SPEAKER_01: He is the one that compels the response from others.
SPEAKER_01: He has unique authority.
SPEAKER_01: He tells others what to do.
SPEAKER_01: And you see that here.
SPEAKER_01: He's the one giving orders.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 19: a scribe comes up to him and says, Teacher, I'll follow you.
SPEAKER_01: This is an unusual thing to say.
SPEAKER_01: Scribes might recognize the authority of a Pharisee or the authority of a religious leader, but you don't follow a person.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus is not like normal people.
SPEAKER_01: And here the scribe comes up to Jesus and says, I will follow you.
SPEAKER_01: This shows the uniqueness, the really the clarity with which Jesus teaches.
SPEAKER_01: He is the one with authority.
SPEAKER_01: You remember after the end of Matthew 7, after the end of the Sermon on the Mount?
SPEAKER_01: The crowd is gobsmacked by the way Jesus taught, and they marvel and they say, He teaches like one who has authority, not like the scribes and the Pharisees.
SPEAKER_01: He speaks differently.
SPEAKER_01: And this scribe understands that.
SPEAKER_01: And so this scribe's takeaway is, Jesus, I will follow you.
SPEAKER_01: In verse 20, Jesus describes himself as a son of man.
SPEAKER_01: We'll talk more about that title later.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 21.
SPEAKER_01: This disciple addresses Jesus as Lord, which is a way of saying, I'm submitting myself to you.
SPEAKER_01: You are exalted.
SPEAKER_01: I am beneath you.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 22.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said to him, Follow me.
SPEAKER_01: Earlier I said it would be strange to tell somebody, I'm going to follow you.
SPEAKER_01: It's equally strange and off-putting to command someone to follow you.
SPEAKER_01: You don't get to look at somebody and say, Follow me.
SPEAKER_01: Devote your life to me, or as Jesus will say later, love me more than father and mother.
SPEAKER_01: Love me more than family.
SPEAKER_01: Love me more than your possessions.
SPEAKER_01: Love me more than your very life, Jesus says.
SPEAKER_01: Lay down your life, pick up your cross, and follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Taken together, do you understand?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus presents himself here as the one with authority, and no one else has authority like him.
SPEAKER_01: The scribes had a derived authority.
SPEAKER_01: Even me as a pastor, if I have any authority, it's derived from accurately teaching the Word of God.
SPEAKER_01: My authority is derived.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus' authority is not derived, it is inherent in who he is.
SPEAKER_01: All of our human structures of authority are all delegated or derived authority.
SPEAKER_01: You understand this in the military perspective.
SPEAKER_01: Someone's authority is not based on who they are, it's based on their rank, it's based on their position, their job, their assignment, the task that they have been given by someone else.
SPEAKER_01: The top of the food chain is the commander-in-chief who has his position by virtue of an election being voted.
SPEAKER_01: His authority is delegated from the people, derives not from his own personal identity, but as the result given to him by the people.
SPEAKER_01: And that flows all the way down through every delegated structure of authority in our society.
SPEAKER_01: Law enforcement has authority based on their uniform and their badge and the authority that's given to them by the government.
SPEAKER_01: Every form of human authority is like this.
SPEAKER_01: Do you appreciate that Jesus' authority is not like that?
SPEAKER_01: He has authority because of who he is.
SPEAKER_01: Period.
SPEAKER_01: This is called the doctrine of Assyody, that God has life in and of himself, that he is the only one that doesn't need borrowed life.
SPEAKER_01: Your life comes from somewhere else.
SPEAKER_01: God's life does not.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, Jesus' authority is based upon his eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: He is the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: He's the one who can say, follow me.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're here this morning and you're not a believer, understand that this command, this authority of Jesus Christ goes all the way to you.
SPEAKER_01: He can command you to follow him because he alone has that kind of authority.
SPEAKER_01: The authority is really what of Christ is what holds evangelism together.
SPEAKER_01: We're supposed to go into all the world preaching the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: This is the Great Commission.
SPEAKER_01: Go into all the world, preaching the gospel, baptizing people in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey all that I've commanded you, and I'm with you always, even to the end of the age, Jesus says.
SPEAKER_01: But did you notice I skipped a phrase?
SPEAKER_01: The Great Commission begins with Jesus declaring, All authority has been given to me.
SPEAKER_01: When we evangelize, we go into the world and we tell people to follow Christ because he alone has the authority to make that kind of command.
SPEAKER_01: It's a cult leader who says, Follow me.
SPEAKER_01: It's Jesus Christ who can say it because it is true for him.
SPEAKER_01: You must follow him.
SPEAKER_01: In the middle of this, verse 20, Jesus identifies himself as the Son of Man.
SPEAKER_01: The Son of Man.
SPEAKER_01: This is his most common self-designation.
SPEAKER_01: Over 80 times in the gospel, he refers to himself, as in the Gospels, he refers to himself as the Son of Man.
SPEAKER_01: As I said, this is the title Jesus takes for himself more than any other title.
SPEAKER_01: When Jesus identifies himself to crowds or to individuals, he goes with this title.
SPEAKER_01: He is the Son of Man.
SPEAKER_01: That title is from Daniel chapter 7, verses 13 and 14.
SPEAKER_01: And Daniel says, I'll read it to you.
SPEAKER_01: I saw in his, Daniel was having a nightmare.
SPEAKER_01: It's translated in the ESV, a night vision, but if you know you're familiar with the story, it's a nightmare.
SPEAKER_01: I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, Daniel writes.
SPEAKER_01: To him was given, listen to this, to the son of man was given glory, a kingdom, dominion over all peoples, all nations, and all languages, that they should all serve him.
SPEAKER_01: His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away.
SPEAKER_01: His kingdom is one that shall not be destroyed.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that is very clearly a proclamation of deity.
SPEAKER_01: That the Son of Man, the one who Daniel sees in his vision, that Son of Man has a kingdom that has no beginning and no end, has dominion that is everlasting and has authority over every nation, every tribe, every language in the world.
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever even heard of somebody claiming that kind of authority?
SPEAKER_01: The most despotic king or emperor might claim absolute authority over everyone in his empire.
SPEAKER_01: Alexander the Great claimed authority over what he perceived as the known world.
SPEAKER_01: He thought he had conquered the entire world.
SPEAKER_01: But he didn't.
SPEAKER_01: But even Alexander the Great didn't claim authority over the very existence of languages.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus claims that kind of authority for himself.
SPEAKER_01: Language serves him, nations serve him, kingdoms serve him.
SPEAKER_01: Every human being is designed to serve him.
SPEAKER_01: That's the Son of Man.
SPEAKER_01: And so when he identifies himself as the Son of Man, he is claiming that authority.
SPEAKER_01: And it is a statement of authority.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, Daniel says in the vision the Son of Man was given dominion.
SPEAKER_01: That's another word for authority.
SPEAKER_01: He has authority over everyone.
SPEAKER_01: And it's all hinging on authority here.
SPEAKER_01: At the end of Matthew 7, as I mentioned, the scribes were flabbergasted about the authority of Jesus because he taught with not a delegated authority, it was his own authority.
SPEAKER_01: He said, Forget what the Pharisees said about the law, shred the Pharisees' statements about the law, replace it with my own statements, and everybody's wondering who has that kind of authority.
SPEAKER_01: Well, the Son of Man does.
SPEAKER_01: Notice the title, Son of Man, just how comprehensive it is.
SPEAKER_01: It's certainly a Jesus attesting to his own humanity.
SPEAKER_01: He's the Son of Man.
SPEAKER_01: It highlights his humanity.
SPEAKER_01: He is a human being.
SPEAKER_01: He has a human nature.
SPEAKER_01: He was born to Mary.
SPEAKER_01: He's incarnate in human flesh.
SPEAKER_01: He is a human.
SPEAKER_01: It also highlights his deity.
SPEAKER_01: He is the Son of Man.
SPEAKER_01: You guys are all sons and daughters of Adam.
SPEAKER_01: You're all sons and daughters of God in some sense.
SPEAKER_01: But none of you are the Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: None of you are the Son of Man.
SPEAKER_01: You aren't elevated.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, he's even better than Adam was.
SPEAKER_01: Where Adam failed, Jesus succeeds.
SPEAKER_01: Son of man accomplishes that.
SPEAKER_01: It shows his unique relationship with God, and it shows his true human nature.
SPEAKER_01: It shows his humility, that God, the very God with all the glory and kingdom and dominion in Daniel's vision, becomes a human.
SPEAKER_01: And it shows his exalted nature and that he possesses all that authority.
SPEAKER_01: This is why it's the perfect title for Jesus to use of himself.
SPEAKER_01: It highlights his deity, his humanity, his glory, and his humility all in one title.
SPEAKER_01: If Jesus would have walked around saying, hey, just so you know, I am God, they would have killed him.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, the few times he did say it that clearly, they tried to kill him.
SPEAKER_01: I think in Matthew chapter 12, John chapter 7 and 8, where he says, before Abraham was, I am Yahweh, and they pick up rocks to stone him, saying, You being a man are always making yourself out equal to be God.
SPEAKER_01: The Jews were monotheistic in the sense they had no concept of the Trinity.
SPEAKER_01: And here comes Jesus, who says that he is the Son of Man.
SPEAKER_01: So if you have a problem with Jesus making himself out to be God, by him using the title of Son of Man, your problem is really with Daniel, because he's the one that had that title.
SPEAKER_01: Daniel saw someone with the glory of God who looked like a man.
SPEAKER_01: And so by Jesus calling himself the Son of Man, he's telling the Jews, You want to pick a fight with me because I'm God?
SPEAKER_01: You're going to have to go after Daniel first.
SPEAKER_01: Eighty plus times he refers to himself as the Son of Man.
SPEAKER_01: And do you know what's interesting about those eighty uses?
SPEAKER_01: Almost all of them, he's talking to non-believers.
SPEAKER_01: It's his way of confronting non-believers or crowds with his identity as the authoritative God of the universe.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what he's doing here.
SPEAKER_01: Now let's see the two people he's talking to.
SPEAKER_01: We've seen the one authority.
SPEAKER_01: Now let's look at the two excuses.
SPEAKER_01: Two excuses.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna find two people here.
SPEAKER_01: We read it earlier, you know them.
SPEAKER_01: And these two people are opposites.
SPEAKER_01: One of them says, Jesus, I want to follow you, and Jesus says, Go home.
SPEAKER_01: The next one says, Jesus, I want to go home, and he says, No, follow me.
SPEAKER_01: Let's see the first guy.
SPEAKER_01: First of all, verse 18, Jesus saw a crowd around him.
SPEAKER_01: He gave orders to go to the other side.
SPEAKER_01: Remember what's happening here.
SPEAKER_01: He finished his sermon on the mount.
SPEAKER_01: Thousands of people are following him at this point.
SPEAKER_01: He goes back to Capernaum, he heals the leper, the centurion servant, he preaches in the synagogue there in Capernaum.
SPEAKER_01: This is described in Mark chapter 1, casts out the demon-possessed man there.
SPEAKER_01: Then he goes to Peter's mother-in-law's house, which is where he was staying.
SPEAKER_01: He heals all kinds of people there.
SPEAKER_01: There's the guy lower to the roof, he heals him.
SPEAKER_01: There's just everybody is the the gates have opened up, all the sick and all the demon-possessed people are flooding to him.
SPEAKER_01: And so he decides to get out of town because he didn't come to heal, he came to preach.
SPEAKER_01: And this is described at the end of Mark 1, the start of Mark 2.
SPEAKER_01: He says, I've got to go to the other side of the lake where I can teach more in the open again and get away from these masses of people.
SPEAKER_01: And so he goes to the lake, and what's happening is as he's going to the lake, this crowd is still following him, but now it's excuse time.
SPEAKER_01: It's excuse time.
SPEAKER_01: Why they can't go to the 8 o'clock service, so to speak, excuse time.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody's got a story about why they can't go across the lake.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I can't go across the lake because of this, and I can't go because of that, and I'm on the lake.
SPEAKER_01: It's and don't picture an ocean here.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you can see across the Sea of Galilee here.
SPEAKER_01: It would take a day to walk around the thing, but they've got excuses why they can't go.
SPEAKER_01: And so this is the first guy.
SPEAKER_01: This guy actually starts out by saying he wants to go, and Jesus commands everyone to go over to the other side, by the way, in verse 18.
SPEAKER_01: So they're on the way to the boat, and a scribe comes up to him.
SPEAKER_01: And this is an unlikely convert here.
SPEAKER_01: You wouldn't expect a scribe to be following Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And he says to him, Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.
SPEAKER_01: Now, a surface reading of that, it sounds good, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_01: Teacher, I'll follow you wherever you want to go.
SPEAKER_01: That sounds so good.
SPEAKER_01: Let's baptize him right now.
SPEAKER_01: But as you start to peel back the layers of what he's saying, and you look at Jesus' response to him, you realize that all is not well in this scribe's soul.
SPEAKER_01: First of all, your first warning sign here is that he addresses Jesus as teacher.
SPEAKER_01: Now, a scribe is an academic position.
SPEAKER_01: He's familiar with a university kind of environment, you could say, and so teacher.
SPEAKER_01: It's a turn of phrase he would use and be familiar with teacher, he calls him.
SPEAKER_01: But it's noteworthy in Matthew's gospel, lots of people call Jesus teacher, and none of them are real converts to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Usually it's an excuse to avoid submitting to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: For example, the rich young ruler, Matthew 19, 16, good teacher.
SPEAKER_01: What must I do to inherit eternal life?
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus goes right after him and says, Who told you I was good?
SPEAKER_01: The Pharisees in Matthew 12, 38 refer to Jesus as the teacher.
SPEAKER_01: Tax collectors call him a teacher in Matthew 17, verse 24.
SPEAKER_01: The Herodians, the political party of the Herodians, dismiss Jesus as a teacher in Matthew 22, 16.
SPEAKER_01: The Sadducees call him a good teacher, I mean a teacher all over Matthew 22.
SPEAKER_01: So, in other words, all these groups of people that are antagonistic towards Christ dismiss his teaching by referring to him as a teacher.
SPEAKER_01: It's almost condescending.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, if he comes on the scene and says that he is the Son of Man and He has authority over your life and over your soul, and you need to sell all you have and follow him, and your response is, wow, this guy is a good teacher.
SPEAKER_01: You're not getting it.
SPEAKER_01: He's not trying to be a good teacher.
SPEAKER_01: He's declaring that he's the Lord of the universe.
SPEAKER_01: So don't pat him on the head and say, oh, what a great, what a great lesson today's was.
SPEAKER_01: See you back same time tomorrow.
SPEAKER_01: That's not what he's after.
SPEAKER_01: He's the Lord of the universe, not a good teacher.
SPEAKER_01: But that's how the scribe starts.
SPEAKER_01: And then he goes on to say, I will follow you wherever you go.
SPEAKER_01: You almost have to be Peter to say something that outrageous.
SPEAKER_01: Through thick or thin, Lord, I'm in.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing will separate me from you.
SPEAKER_01: I know out in the DC world we follow politics, but I got a little LA in me still.
SPEAKER_01: Did you hear that last weekend Nicolas Cage got married?
SPEAKER_01: You know Nicolas Cage, the actor from the Left Behind movie that you haven't seen, Nicolas Cage.
SPEAKER_01: Got married last weekend and filed for an annulment of his marriage on Thursday.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't make it four days.
SPEAKER_01: And I read that story and I think, what kind of wedding vows did he say?
SPEAKER_01: Like, I will be with you in sickness and health, for better or worse, richer or poorer, or until Thursday.
SPEAKER_01: I love you no matter what, babes, but then Thursday happens.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, come on.
SPEAKER_01: That's this kind of claim from the scribe here.
SPEAKER_01: I will go wherever you go, Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Through anything.
SPEAKER_01: As I said, scribes are academics.
SPEAKER_01: They have soft hands.
SPEAKER_01: They parse Greek words.
SPEAKER_01: They don't work in a field.
SPEAKER_01: They are soft people.
SPEAKER_01: They're accustomed to they're experts at Their stories published in peer-reviewed journals.
SPEAKER_01: They're really good at being invited to be guests in all the right talk shows.
SPEAKER_01: They're really bad at enduring persecution.
SPEAKER_01: They're horrible at picking up their cross and following Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: But this scribe wants to try.
SPEAKER_01: And you think, what's going on in his mind?
SPEAKER_01: After all, Jesus just exposed the scribes and Pharisees as frauds in the Sermon on the Mount.
SPEAKER_01: And so it seems likely that this scribe sees that, and what's he going to do?
SPEAKER_01: Go back to the synagogue at Capernaum like the Sermon on the Mount didn't happen?
SPEAKER_01: Just go back to his normal, you know, Jewish teaching as if Jesus didn't just destroy all of it.
SPEAKER_01: So it might be in his mind like, hey, let me follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He's a better teacher than the Pharisees are.
SPEAKER_01: He's a better teacher.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the guy goes to a synagogue led by a Roman centurion who built it.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is not a good day for scribes in Capernaum.
SPEAKER_01: So he he sees the way to get out.
SPEAKER_01: Let me follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: After all, he has more authority than the Pharisees.
SPEAKER_01: If I get in on the ground floor of this, I can be in when he gets big.
SPEAKER_01: It's almost like that kind of thinking.
SPEAKER_01: So he wants to follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And there are those, by the way, to this very day, I'm sure in this very church listening to this very sermon, there are those who come to church because they think it will help their lives.
SPEAKER_01: And you hear it differently.
SPEAKER_01: It's not necessarily the scribe who says, you know, you destroyed my, you nuked my last job, so let me try to catch on with you now.
SPEAKER_01: But the way you hear it today is by people who say, you know, now that my wife and I started having kids, we really wanted our kids to have a nice moral environment to grow up in, so we joined the church.
SPEAKER_01: Or, you know, the world is just falling apart, and the church has like a corner on morality, and there's such clarity on moral issues, and so we're we're gonna go to church.
SPEAKER_01: Or, you know, some of my boss goes to my boss goes to this church.
SPEAKER_01: It's a great opportunity to have relationships with him, and you know, it's a lonely world out there, and I need I need friends, and the church is such loving people and they're friendly people, and so I'm going to church.
SPEAKER_01: It'll help in those ways.
SPEAKER_01: And you hear people say things like that, and it really is.
SPEAKER_01: This is the what I call the best life now heresy.
SPEAKER_01: The idea that becoming a Christian or going to church helps you in this world, it helps you deal with your issues, it helps make your life more enjoyable, helps your relationships.
SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you, this is a unique danger to living in a country where it's acceptable to be a Christian.
SPEAKER_01: It's cultural Christianity.
SPEAKER_01: Like it's okay to be a Christian for the time being.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't cost you your job.
SPEAKER_01: You know, you might have a hard time finding a chicken sandwich every now and then, but that's I mean, what a contrast with the missionary we prayed for earlier, who's, you know, the church meets to figure out who's gonna care for whose kids that got sent to jail.
SPEAKER_01: Do you see the difference?
SPEAKER_01: Nobody joins that kind of church to make their life better.
SPEAKER_01: But it's a unique danger in this kind of American-style Christianity.
SPEAKER_01: You've heard the phrase, join the Navy, see the world.
SPEAKER_01: You almost see the expression in the church.
SPEAKER_01: Become a Christian, improve your life.
SPEAKER_01: You should follow Christian ethics because it will make your life better.
SPEAKER_01: That's not true, though.
SPEAKER_01: By worldly standards, becoming a Christian can make your life worse.
SPEAKER_01: If you want to improve your life, join a country club.
SPEAKER_01: You want to improve your life, move to a better neighborhood.
SPEAKER_01: You want to improve your life, get a hobby.
SPEAKER_01: It reduces your stress.
SPEAKER_01: It's great, I hear.
SPEAKER_01: But following Jesus is not a hobby.
SPEAKER_01: Following Jesus is not designed to improve your life.
SPEAKER_01: You follow him because he's Lord of the universe.
SPEAKER_01: You follow him, frankly, because you love him.
SPEAKER_01: A scribe is about to learn this lesson the hard way.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus responds to him and says, Foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests, the son of man has nowhere to lay his head.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's great.
SPEAKER_01: You want to follow me across the sea?
SPEAKER_01: Are you gonna are you prepared to sleep outside, Mr.
SPEAKER_01: Scribe?
SPEAKER_01: Scribes love satin sheets.
SPEAKER_01: They don't love sleeping on rocks.
SPEAKER_01: And what's gonna happen when his you know high thread count pajamas get snagged on a thorn on the road of persecution?
SPEAKER_01: And do you get in here that Jesus has no middle class comforts here?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus doesn't have a house.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't even have a small apartment, he's got nothing.
SPEAKER_01: And the scribe says, Oh, I would love to, I would love to minister with a guy with this kind of authority.
SPEAKER_01: This is gonna be great.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says, You're gonna sleep on dirt.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, Okay, peace out.
SPEAKER_01: Nice sailing.
SPEAKER_01: It's sad, but he goes away.
SPEAKER_01: Now it doesn't say he goes away.
SPEAKER_01: It's I think it's more clear in Luke that he goes away with the contrast words in Luke, but the point is we don't see him again.
SPEAKER_01: He's out the back door.
SPEAKER_01: Second guy we see, verse 20, or verse 21, another of the disciples, and this word disciple, remember, in the in the gospels, disciples abroad word, it doesn't mean the guy's regenerate.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't mean he's a born-again believer.
SPEAKER_01: It means that in some way he's associating himself with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The crowd of people who listen to a teacher are called disciples of that teacher.
SPEAKER_01: This guy's listening to Jesus' teaching.
SPEAKER_01: And he comes up to him, and here's his excuse to avoid crossing the sea with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Lord, that's a better start than teacher, at least.
SPEAKER_01: Let me first go and bury my father.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I suppose it's in the realm of possibility the guy's dad died that morning, okay?
SPEAKER_01: They would do burials this day of, they didn't do burials tomorrow.
SPEAKER_01: There was no funeral next Wednesday.
SPEAKER_01: If somebody died, they buried them that day.
SPEAKER_01: Unless it was on the Sabbath and they waited the next day.
SPEAKER_01: Other than that, you got put in the ground that very day.
SPEAKER_01: And so maybe the guys on the shore are about to get on the boat and the messenger comes up, your dad died, Lord, I got to get off and go bury my dad.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't seem to be likely, especially based upon Jesus' response here.
SPEAKER_01: It's also true that I have to go bury my father is a very common idiom.
SPEAKER_01: Even in the Middle East to this day, it's a common idiom, and it has a positive and a negative connotation.
SPEAKER_01: The positive side is you're saying I need to go care for my parents.
SPEAKER_01: They're in declining health, they're at the end of their life, they're in old age.
SPEAKER_01: This is a world without nursing homes, a world without hospice.
SPEAKER_01: It's if your parents are sick and unable to care for themselves, you care for them in this world.
SPEAKER_01: And so it's an expression.
SPEAKER_01: I need to go care for my parents while they're dying.
SPEAKER_01: Once I bury them, I can I'm freed up.
SPEAKER_01: I can come to you.
SPEAKER_01: That's the positive way.
SPEAKER_01: The negative side of it might be you know, I need to be around them and care for them until they die, so I get the inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: You know the whole old expression, my rich uncle is on death store, and I'm praying God pulls him right through.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe that's what he wants, is his parents' inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: It's not really clear.
SPEAKER_01: Either he's wants to go care for them or he wants to go get their inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: You think of the prodigal son story?
SPEAKER_01: The older brother meant it in the positive way.
SPEAKER_01: He wanted to be around his dad to do the right jobs at home until his dad left this world peacefully, and the younger brother just wanted the cash.
SPEAKER_01: Cash is out.
SPEAKER_01: We don't know which way this guy means it.
SPEAKER_01: But the bottom line is he doesn't want to get on the boat because he wants to go bury his father and mother.
SPEAKER_01: With both of these guys, I can't help but thinking of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you know?
SPEAKER_01: Food, shelter, friendship, self-esteem, self-fulfillment.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus just says you're missing something.
SPEAKER_01: The cross.
SPEAKER_01: Nice pyramid.
SPEAKER_01: Where's the cross?
SPEAKER_01: The cross is more important than burying your parents, the cross is more important than where you sleep.
SPEAKER_01: The cross is more important than your food.
SPEAKER_01: The cross is more important than your shelter.
SPEAKER_01: The cross is more important than letting your parents out of this world in a kind way.
SPEAKER_01: The cross triumphs over all of that.
SPEAKER_01: Over all of it.
SPEAKER_01: Now I think both of these are excuses.
SPEAKER_01: Both of these are recorded here to let you know why they won't get on the boat.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus' response to both of them is that the claims of the gospel are absolute and immediate.
SPEAKER_01: When Jesus commands you, you obey.
SPEAKER_01: You do not give an excuse.
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, the excuse, I've got to go bury my father, we have the American equivalent of that also.
SPEAKER_01: Only our culture is more debauched than the Roman culture was in many respects.
SPEAKER_01: The Romans would, their excuse was I've got to go bury my father.
SPEAKER_01: What's the American excuse?
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I don't want to be a Christian now.
SPEAKER_01: I want to go to college and party it up.
SPEAKER_01: I want to go try all the sins that I haven't experienced.
SPEAKER_01: I want to experience all the evil things in the world, then I'll become a Christian.
SPEAKER_01: Notice how debased our culture is.
SPEAKER_01: We don't even give the excuse of I can't follow Christ because I gotta bury my parents.
SPEAKER_01: We're like, forget about my parents.
SPEAKER_01: They're paying for this college trip.
SPEAKER_01: But it's the same level of excuse.
SPEAKER_01: I can't follow Christ because I want to be in control of my life.
SPEAKER_01: And you realize that's the common thread.
SPEAKER_01: I said they're opposites.
SPEAKER_01: One says I want to go and Jesus says stay, and one says I want to stay and Jesus says go.
SPEAKER_01: But there's a commonality between the two of them.
SPEAKER_01: Both of them are saying they will not follow Christ unless they can be in control of their future.
SPEAKER_01: The first guy says, I won't follow you unless I can be in charge of where I sleep.
SPEAKER_01: The second guy says, I can't follow you unless I can be in charge of when my parents die and when I get their money.
SPEAKER_01: I need control over those things.
SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, I cannot follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And you listen, the main point of this is you can, this is why I call they're pathetic excuses.
SPEAKER_01: The main point of this is that you cannot follow Christ while being in control of your own life.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot do that.
SPEAKER_01: You have a choice to make.
SPEAKER_01: Are you going to be in control of your life or are you going to surrender your life to Christ?
SPEAKER_01: You cannot do both.
SPEAKER_01: And let me switch to my narrator of voice here for those of you who say, I want to be in control of my life.
SPEAKER_01: If you choose that one, you're not really in control of your life.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot follow Christ while your arms are filled with the cares of this world.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot follow Christ while trying to pretend you're sovereign over where you're.
SPEAKER_01: You can't tell Jesus, I'm going to follow you as long as you don't tell me to be some missionary and somewhere gross.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm not going to do that.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to follow you as long as you don't tell me to go be, you know, evangelize people in my work.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's just frankly off limits.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to follow you as long as you don't tell me to live lead a kind of holy life that all those self-righteous Christians lead.
SPEAKER_01: Gross.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to do that.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot be a Christian while you're maintaining that kind of self-styled sovereignty.
SPEAKER_01: It's appalling to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: It's logically contradictory.
SPEAKER_01: Either He's the Lord of your life or you are.
SPEAKER_01: But don't try to pretend it's both ways.
SPEAKER_01: Hands that are full of concerns cannot pick up a cross and follow Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Which leads to the third component of the story.
SPEAKER_01: It's a morbid ending.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says to him, Follow me.
SPEAKER_01: And let the dead bury their own dead.
SPEAKER_01: This was not an idiom back then.
SPEAKER_01: This shows Jesus' mastery over the language that he invents a phrase right here that becomes an idiom.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus invents this phrase, let the dead bury themselves.
SPEAKER_01: It's funny to read non-Christian commentaries that don't get this.
SPEAKER_01: They stumble over how can dead people bury dead people?
SPEAKER_01: Rrrr.
SPEAKER_01: His point here is that if you are concerned by the spiritual things of this world, sorry, the worldly things of this world, you are spiritually dead.
SPEAKER_01: This first disciple is concerned about where he's going to sleep.
SPEAKER_01: He's the walking dead.
SPEAKER_01: Go back to your nice pillow.
SPEAKER_01: The second so-called disciple is concerned about when his inheritance is going to come in.
SPEAKER_01: Go back to your parents then.
SPEAKER_01: Get your inheritance.
SPEAKER_01: You're a walking dead man.
SPEAKER_01: Let the dead deal with themselves, Jesus says.
SPEAKER_01: Both are half-hearted for different reasons.
SPEAKER_01: Both of them are the walking dead.
SPEAKER_01: Even though on the outside they express some superficial desire to be around Christ, on the inside they are spiritually a graveyard.
SPEAKER_01: And so Jesus says, you know who does best at dealing with spiritual graveyards?
SPEAKER_01: Dead people.
SPEAKER_01: You want to go back and deal with your parents, go back.
SPEAKER_01: You're dead.
SPEAKER_01: Let me deal with a question right out the gate that people will ask.
SPEAKER_01: Is it okay to care for your parents in your old age?
SPEAKER_01: And the answer is obviously yes.
SPEAKER_01: Honor your father and your mother so it goes well with you in the land.
SPEAKER_01: This is the first command with the promise.
SPEAKER_01: It's Ephesians 6, 1 through 3.
SPEAKER_01: 1 Timothy 5.8.
SPEAKER_01: If anyone does not provide for his relatives, especially for members of his household, he's denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
SPEAKER_01: So the Bible makes it clear: care for your parents.
SPEAKER_01: Do not use that as an excuse to keep from following Christ.
SPEAKER_01: You care for your parents as an expression of your faith in Christ, not as an excuse to avoid following Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Do you see the difference?
SPEAKER_01: It's so easy to let your life be consumed by the cares of this world.
SPEAKER_01: There's always an excuse to avoid following Christ, isn't there?
SPEAKER_01: The high school student says, I'm so worried about where I'm going to go to college.
SPEAKER_01: And that care drowns out his love for Christ.
SPEAKER_01: The college student says, I'm so worried about what I'm going to major in, it drowns out his love for Christ.
SPEAKER_01: The 20-something says, I'm so worried about who I'm going to marry, and that drowns out their love for Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Why I'm not married yet?
SPEAKER_01: The 30-year-old, why don't I have this job?
SPEAKER_01: Why don't I take that job?
SPEAKER_01: And that care drowns out their love for Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Where am I going to live?
SPEAKER_01: Where are my kids going to go to school?
SPEAKER_01: And it drowned that kind of concern drowns out your love for Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Later on, when am I going to retire?
SPEAKER_01: That drowns out your love for Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Which of my kids am I going to move next to?
SPEAKER_01: And that drowns out your love for Christ.
SPEAKER_01: How am I going to pay for college?
SPEAKER_01: That drowns out your love for Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Those are important things to understand.
SPEAKER_01: You have to make those decisions.
SPEAKER_01: You've got to choose what job you're going to have.
SPEAKER_01: You've got to choose who you're going to marry.
SPEAKER_01: You've got to choose when you're going to retire.
SPEAKER_01: But when those cares and those concerns start choking out your love for Christ, then it has crossed the line.
SPEAKER_01: And they do so so subtly.
SPEAKER_01: So subtly.
SPEAKER_01: The cares of this world are like a noxious gas that fills the room.
SPEAKER_01: And at first you don't notice it.
SPEAKER_01: At first you say, Oh, I'm just making decisions about life.
SPEAKER_01: Making decisions here.
SPEAKER_01: That's all I'm doing.
SPEAKER_01: And you start to breathe in the cares of this world.
SPEAKER_01: You start to breathe it in.
SPEAKER_01: And then your spiritual eyelids get droopy.
SPEAKER_01: Your spiritual heart monitor, the batteries die in it.
SPEAKER_01: Then you think, I'm alive spiritually, everything's fine spiritually.
SPEAKER_01: I just got to sort out these issues.
SPEAKER_01: These things are so important to me right now, I gotta sort them out.
SPEAKER_01: And before you know it, you've fallen asleep to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Before you know it, you're spiritually dead.
SPEAKER_01: Killed by the cares of this world.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't happen in an instant.
SPEAKER_01: It's a vine, as I said, that grows up your legs and chokes out your lungs so you cannot breathe in the love of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: I plead with you, don't take your eyes off of the glory of Christ to fixate on the stillborn cares of this world.
SPEAKER_01: As I said, it happens gradually.
SPEAKER_01: So let me give you a non-gradual way to think about it.
SPEAKER_01: I've said this before and I stand by it.
SPEAKER_01: Do you understand that Jesus calls worry a sin?
SPEAKER_01: Do you know why worry is a sin?
SPEAKER_01: Because Jesus says not to do it.
SPEAKER_01: That's why.
SPEAKER_01: Do not worry about tomorrow, he says.
SPEAKER_01: It's sufficient for its own self.
SPEAKER_01: Let tomorrow deal with itself.
SPEAKER_01: You worry about how you're going to follow Christ today.
SPEAKER_01: You got decisions to make.
SPEAKER_01: Use biblical principles to apply and make the best decision you can, trusting the result to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: That's Christian living.
SPEAKER_01: Non-Christian living is letting the worries of this world choke out your love for Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Don't let your concerns about food, clothing, houses, caring for parents, inheritance, paying for college, where you're gonna live and sleep, to use the example from this passage.
SPEAKER_01: Choke out your desire to follow Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Don't use them as excuses to avoid the mission field, to avoid evangelism, to avoid holy living.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing is more important than following Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing.
SPEAKER_01: You combat those worries.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, we all live in a world with worries.
SPEAKER_01: Because of the curse, the ground produces thorns, family has conflict.
SPEAKER_01: That's the reality of this world.
SPEAKER_01: And because of that reality, life is hard and there are worries, and so you go to war against them.
SPEAKER_01: And the way you battle them is by focusing on the beauty and the glory of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Speaking of gazing at Christ, time is is well past.
SPEAKER_01: But speaking of gazing at Christ, the turn of phrase that he uses here stands out.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Foxes have holes, birds have nests, but the Son of Man, here's the turn of phrase, has nowhere to lay his head.
SPEAKER_01: An unusual phrase.
SPEAKER_01: You don't see it again until the cross.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the phrase that John uses to describe Jesus on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: He's lifted up, he is bled out, the wine comes up to his mouth, he declares it is finished, and then John says, at that point he breathed his last, and the ESB says he bowed his head.
SPEAKER_01: It's the same word.
SPEAKER_01: He lays his head to rest.
SPEAKER_01: You can tell this phrase here is stuck in the disciples' minds.
SPEAKER_01: They knew Jesus had no place in this world to lay his head.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, he was staying with Peter's mother-in-law.
SPEAKER_01: He had a he had a some sense of domicile, but he's going out in the wilderness, he's sleeping on the ground, in some sense, he has no place to lay his head.
SPEAKER_01: But a strange way of putting it, a strange turn of phrase that sticks in their mind, and so they look at him, bloodied and crucified on the cross, and they finally say, Now he has a place to lay his head.
SPEAKER_01: Now he has done his job.
SPEAKER_01: Now he can go to sleep.
SPEAKER_01: He has borne our sin.
SPEAKER_01: He has carried our sorrow.
SPEAKER_01: Now he has atoned.
SPEAKER_01: Now he's done what God has sent him to do.
SPEAKER_01: God didn't send him to live in a nice house.
SPEAKER_01: God didn't send him to wear nice clothes.
SPEAKER_01: People in king's palaces have nice houses.
SPEAKER_01: People in king's palaces live in nice clothes.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus didn't have any of those things.
SPEAKER_01: Instead, he had one job to make atonement for sin.
SPEAKER_01: And when he did that, he laid his head down finally in the place that God had given him to rest it.
SPEAKER_01: The problem it was on Golgotha.
SPEAKER_01: That was his pillow.
SPEAKER_01: And if you want to follow Christ, understand that could likely be your pillow as well.
SPEAKER_01: The call to follow Christ is absolute because his authority is absolute.
SPEAKER_01: It is clear because his voice is clear.
SPEAKER_01: It is unique because no one else can forgive you of your sins.
SPEAKER_01: You can make excuses to avoid it.
SPEAKER_01: But at the end of the day, they are just that.
SPEAKER_01: Excuses.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we pray.
SPEAKER_01: In light of the clarity of the gospel call, if there's anyone here today who has never given their life to you, that today they would lay their excuses down at the foot of the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Today they would stop being a half-hearted disciple and would be a full-throated follower of you.
SPEAKER_01: We do know that the sins of this world are ubiquitous, the cares of this world are everywhere.
SPEAKER_01: They grow up in the garden of our mind before we even realize it.
SPEAKER_01: But Lord, wake us up.
SPEAKER_01: Wake us up spiritually.
SPEAKER_01: Help us be aware of the danger they present.
SPEAKER_01: Help us lead bold lives for Christ.
SPEAKER_01: We ask this in your son's precious name.
SPEAKER_00: You have been listening to Emmanuel, Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: You can find more resources like this at IBCBA.com.
SPEAKER_00: Here is the parting word of Pastor Jesse.
SPEAKER_01: If you have any questions about what you've heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it's about crisis, please visit our first website, IBCBA.com.
SPEAKER_01: If you're not a member of the local church, we'll just know what you're seeing.
SPEAKER_01: We'd love to have you worship with us first.
SPEAKER_01: We'll love to more information about where you know where we work.
SPEAKER_01: But no matter where you went, I hope that everyone needs to fall.