The Truth Abouth Following Jesus (Matthew 8:18-22)
The Truth About Following Jesus
Matthew 8:18-22
As you know, we are in a very pointed section of Matthew’s gospel.
It is impossible to read chapters 8 & 9 and not see what Matthew is doing.
He is revealing the awesome power of Jesus.
8:1-4 Jesus cleans a leper
8:5-13 Jesus heals the centurion’s slave
8:14-17 Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law
8:23-27 Jesus calms the storm
8:28-34 Jesus casts out a legion of demons
9:1-8 Jesus heals the paralytic brought by 4 friends
9:20-22 Jesus heals the hemorrhaging woman
9:23-26 Jesus raises Jairus’ daughter from the dead
9:27-31 Jesus restores the sight of two blind men
9:32-34 Jesus casts out another demon
And of course aside from these focal miracles,
There are other verses sprinkled in for added proof.
Matthew 8:16 “When evening came, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed; and He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were ill.”
Matthew 9:35 “Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.”
And so, it is blatantly obvious that Matthew is showing you
That Jesus is in fact the Messiah.
Matthew even spelled it out in 8:17
Matthew 8:17 “This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: “HE HIMSELF TOOK OUR INFIRMITIES AND CARRIED AWAY OUR DISEASES.”
Jesus is the One Isaiah spoke of who can carry our sin away,
A feat proven by the fact that He carried our infirmities away.
Could there be any doubt at all as to who we are dealing with here?
No rational human being could come to any other conclusion
Except that Jesus is indeed the Messiah of God.
When you witness all that Jesus did,
You must come to a belief that He is indeed the Messiah.
However, there is more to the equation than that.
There is more to it than just believing that Jesus is the Messiah.
YET SADLY THAT IS ALL MANY DO.
Let me ask you if this sounds familiar to anyone in this place.
“If you want to be saved, all you have to do
Is believe that Jesus is the Son of God.”
My guess is you have heard that before.
And generally following that statement will be the quoting of a few verses.
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
John 6:29 “Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.”
And the preachers would simply tell everyone that all you have to do
In order to be saved is “Believe in Jesus”
Some seek to clarify that by saying, “Ask Jesus into your heart”,
(Which is a little bit of a confusing statement since it is found nowhere in Scripture.
And in reality it is actually puzzling as to what that actually means.)
But none the less, I think you understand where I am coming from.
And the promotion of such a doctrine
Literally pushed the wide gate even wider.
All one has to do today is walk the streets of their town and begin asking any number of carnal, pagan, immoral people if they believe in Jesus, and you know as well as I, that many of them will tell you “yes”.
They may be people living in blatant immorality…
They may be people with no semblance of righteousness…
They may be people with no love of God or His people…
And yet, it is astounding how many of them
Will tell you that they believe in Jesus.
SO ARE THEY SAVED?
Now some, wishing to hold their ground, would say, “Yes, if they believed in Jesus, they are saved.”
It would probably do good at this point
To ask just exactly what they were saved from.
They obviously haven’t been saved from sin.
They obviously haven’t been saved from immorality.
They obviously haven’t been saved from selfishness.
Yet somehow we declare them saved.
Or could it be that when Jesus said, to “believe in Him” that perhaps He had more in mind than just some intellectual assent?
Now, obviously, I in no way wish to undermine the truths
Of the passages we just quoted.
I simply want to explain them in light of the rest of Scripture.
And that is what this passage provides for us this morning.
Because while Matthew spends two chapters and 10 specific miracles
In order to prove to you the power of Jesus.
Matthew also nestles in between the miracles
The various responses of the people.
In fact Matthew will give us three different responses.
In Matthew 9:34 we get the response of the Pharisees
Matthew 9:34 “But the Pharisees were saying, “He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.”
In Matthew 9:9 we get the response of Matthew
Matthew 9:9 “As Jesus went on from there, He saw a man called Matthew, sitting in the tax collector’s booth; and He said to him, “Follow Me!” And he got up and followed Him.”
And the third is the passage we read this morning.
So nestled in the midst of the healings,
Matthew also takes opportunity to show you
How the crowd is responding to the Jesus who worked them.
And what we learn here is that the same Jesus who said, “believe in Me”
Obviously meant more than just come to an intellectual belief in Him.
Let me put it to you this way.
JESUS NEVER INTENDED FOR JOHN 3:16
TO BE A VERSE WHICH ENABLED PEOPLE TO SIMPLY “BELIEVE”
AND BE SAVED WHILE POSSESSING NO OTHER FRUIT.
HOW DO I KNOW THAT?
Because the same Jesus who spoke John 3:16
Also spoke the passage we study this morning, and as you will see,
There is much more to it than simple intellectual belief.
That is why I tell you that there is more to the equation.
You see, only half of the equation is coming to a knowledge of the truth.
What you do with that truth is the other half.
And this is what Matthew focuses on here.
He not only wants you to know that Jesus is the Messiah,
But he also wants you to know what you must do with that truth.
And so we see the first of three moments of response
That Matthew includes in this section of his gospel.
That being said, let’s look at our text this morning.
And the first thing we have to see is sort of the context.
(18) “Now when Jesus saw a crowd around Him, He gave orders to depart to the other side of the sea.”
Please don’t just read over that as though it were some sort of insignificant filler.
DID YOU CATCH WHAT JUST HAPPENED?
It is truly a bizarre statement.
When the crowd came Jesus gave orders to depart.
I thought we were supposed to try and draw a crowd…
I thought the crowd was the goal…
Aren’t we trying to draw a crowd
So we can reach as many people as possible?
If we are, then someone had better tell Jesus that He is doing it all wrong,
Because the second the crowd shows up, He decides to leave.
OR COULD IT BE THAT JESUS KNOWS SOMETHING
ABOUT MAKING DISCIPLES THAT WE DON’T KNOW?
And by the way, this isn’t the only time this happened.
After the feeding of the 5,000
John 6:15 “So Jesus, perceiving that they were intending to come and take Him by force to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone.”
Other times, when the crowd arose,
It was obvious that He was purposely trying to thin them out.
Luke 14:25-27 “Now large crowds were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.”
Even if getting a crowd was OK,
That certainly wasn’t the type of message designed to keep them.
Jesus obviously though that the best way to lead men to salvation WAS NOT by getting as many lost people together as you could,
And then offering them all salvation.
Jesus was much more thorough than that.
We have all seen the types of mass-hysteria, and hyper-response
That can be gained during invitations at large evangelical events.
I’ve even been a counselor at some of those events,
And have talked to people who have no clue why they are coming,
But just got caught up in the moment.
(Dan went for: Church Membership, Salvation, and Rededication)
And that is just one of thousands of illustrations
Of the kind of spiritual nonsense that goes on
With the “so called” mass conversions that take place when crowds come
Mobs form very easily, and people (like sheep) will get caught up in the moment
And do all sorts of things, most of which do not last beyond the walk to their car.
It is obvious that Jesus wanted nothing of those types of decisions.
And that is why Jesus either avoided crowds
Or at times even seemed to try and thin them out.
And this ministry style indicates something about Jesus.
He believed that salvation was the work of the Father,
Not the work of manipulation.
Consider what He told the crowd of John 6
John 6:37-4 “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. “This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. “For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” Therefore the Jews were grumbling about Him, because He said, “I am the bread that came down out of heaven.” They were saying, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does He now say, ‘ I have come down out of heaven’?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.”
Jesus knew that it was God who was at work saving men.
He simply longed to be used of the Father.
If that is not enough.
Jesus went on from there to preach a very convicting message
About eating His flesh and drinking His blood.
It was a message that startled people, and they started leaving.
John 6:60-71 “Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this said, “This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?” But Jesus, conscious that His disciples grumbled at this, said to them, “Does this cause you to stumble? “What then if you see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before? “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. “But there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him. And He was saying, “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.” As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore. So Jesus said to the twelve, “You do not want to go away also, do you?” Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. “We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.” Jesus answered them, “Did I Myself not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil?” Now He meant Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray Him.”
And there Jesus reveals it again.
He wasn’t looking to bring in the crowds.
He wasn’t looking for mass conversions.
Jesus was looking for the person that God was drawing.
And in order to make sure God was the One drawing them,
Jesus even seemed to periodically put deterrents in people’s way.
In short Jesus seemed to make salvation harder for people,
Not because He didn’t want them saved,
But because He wanted them truly saved.
And He knew that if He could scare someone away from a decision with the THREAT of hardship, then the devil could certainly
Run them off later with the REALITY of it.
So instead Jesus purposely thinned the crowd.
He was looking for the person whom God was drawing,
Because that person would be under such conviction from the Father,
That nothing and no one would be able to deter them.
And when Jesus found one of those, He marveled.
I tell you that because it is obvious Jesus does that here.
• First because He purposely leaves the crowd behind.
• Second because of the conversation He has with two men who approach Him.
And so, after setting the stage,
Let me just show you the truth about following Jesus,
So that you will not accept on false pretenses
And be prone to either fall away, or live a life of utter fruitlessness.
So we see here two examples.
Two men who obviously believe in Jesus,
But two men who also happen to be idolaters.
Let’s look at the first man.
#1 THE MAN WHO LOVED COMFORT
Matthew 8:19-20
So Jesus has just healed Peter’s mother-in-law
And several others who came as soon as the Sabbath was over.
But because the crowd is growing Jesus wants to leave,
And He gives orders to get in the boat and cross the sea.
But before He can get away, he is caught by someone.
First you will notice who we are dealing with.
“Then a scribe came”
And this, in and of itself, is a bit peculiar.
After all, you remember that Jesus commonly
Lumped scribes in with Pharisees as hypocrites.
And so needless to say there weren’t many scribes
Who were coming to Jesus.
But, like the Pharisee Nicodemus, this man comes and greets Jesus
With the same title that Nicodemus used, “Teacher”
And while we know Jesus is much more than a teacher,
This is still an astounding statement of respect given by this scribe
For the scribes were the teachers of Israel,
And would have never shared their title with someone like Jesus, unless they were convinced that there was more to Him than meets the eye.
I’ve heard it said that “A preacher will travel half way around the world to preach a sermon, but won’t walk across the street to hear one preached.”
There is some truth to that, and so the fact that this man
Is willing to call Jesus a teacher is astounding in itself.
Furthermore, unlike Nicodemus who came at night,
This man makes his claim with a crowd gathering.
And the point to that is this.
OBVIOUSLY THIS MAN WAS INTELLECTUALLY CONVINCED
AS TO WHO JESUS WAS.
If he hadn’t been absolutely certain as to who Jesus was,
He never would have approached Him, would not have called Him teacher,
And would never have done both in public.
Even more astounding when you hear what the man tells Jesus.
“Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go.”
• A Scribe
• In Public
• Calling Jesus a Teacher
• And declaring to follow Him
THAT IS QUITE A SCENE.
SO IS HE SAVED?
Today people would unequivocally say “Yes”.
(20) “Jesus said to him, “The foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”
Now let me just state the obvious here and tell you that disclosing such information is NOT A GOOD WAY to inspire people to follow you.
Jesus, in effect, was saying, “I’m homeless.”
Do you really want to follow a homeless man?
If you get in this boat to follow Me,
You can kiss your comfortable life goodbye.
NOW WHY WOULD JESUS SAY THAT?
Because Jesus knows what we do not.
John 2:24-25 “But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man.”
When Jesus looked at this man He saw an idol in his heart.
This man loved his comfort.
This man loved his prestige.
Did Jesus not reveal this later in Matthew’s gospel?
Matthew 23:1-7 “Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to His disciples, saying: “The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses; therefore all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds; for they say things and do not do them. “They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger. “But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men; for they broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments. “They love the place of honor at banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues, and respectful greetings in the market places, and being called Rabbi by men.”
Jesus knew that this scribe loved comfort.
He knew this scribe loved honor.
And with the crowd not able to get enough of Jesus,
It is highly possible that this scribe saw Jesus as an opportunity
For even more of the things he loved.
And so Jesus burst his bubble.
If you think you are going to find comfort, fame,
And prestige by following Me, you are gravely mistaken.
You see, while most would have signed this scribe up as a great asset to the gospel ministry, all Jesus could see was rocky soil.
Matthew 13:20-21 “The one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away.”
That is what this man was.
You see, you can’t follow Jesus with the comfort idol in your heart.
Jesus promises too much difficulty for anyone to assume
That following Him will be a life of comfort.
And this is the real tragedy to packing people in padded pews with central heat and air, and allowing them to make a short walk down a carpeted aisle to pray a quick prayer, and then get in a heated baptistery.
If you love comfort more than you love Jesus, you’ll never make it.
The Man Who Loved Comfort.
#2 THE MAN WHO LOVED MONEY
Matthew 8:21-22
Here we have the second man Matthew alludes to.
(Luke gives a third, but since Matthew did not see fit to include him, we won’t either)
This man has a money idol, and Jesus spots it,
Not because of who the man is, but because of what the man says.
“Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father.”
Now, first let’s do a little clarification work here.
• They buried people the same day, so this man was not at a funeral.
• Jesus wouldn’t have had to wait long, this man could have caught up.
• THIS WAS A FIGURE OF SPEECH.
“Let me finish working the family business
To get my share of the inheritance.”
You see, this man was worried about his future financial security.
And notice Jesus’ response.
(22) “But Jesus said to him, “Follow Me, and allow the dead to bury their own dead.”
And I hope you caught his insinuation.
Those who are living for money are DEAD
And there are plenty of them around.
So why don’t you leave all them behind
And let those dead wait like vultures to bury the dead.
You live for more.
You see, by this man’s statement Jesus recognized that
He was dealing with weedy soil.
Matthew 13:22 “And the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the word, and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.”
And if you remember Jesus already had one weedy hearted disciple (Judas), He didn’t need another one.
He didn’t need a man who would follow Jesus
Only after He had amassed a fortune.
He needed people who would love Him more than the riches of this world.
And those who cannot deal with that
Make lousy followers of Christ.
Just ask the Rich Young Ruler, who prompted Jesus to say:
Matthew 19:23-24 “And Jesus said to His disciples, “Truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. “Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
And so you get the point.
Here were two men who intellectually believed in Jesus.
They knew who He was.
Yet they were not saved because they had idols in their heart.
Obviously Jesus wants more than just for you to believe
He is the son of God, the Messiah, the Savior of the world.
Jesus desires you to love Him more than anything else.
The gospel message never started with the word “believe”.
The gospel message began with the word “repent”
It was John the Baptist who preached repentance.
And when Jesus did finally preach do you remember His first sermon?
Matthew 4:17 “From that time Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
The first call of the kingdom was to rid your heart of all its idols.
You see, you can believe all day long that Jesus is the Christ.
But that belief means little if you love other things more than Him.
And this is undoubtedly what Matthew wants you to see.
Believe that Jesus is the Christ!
Absolutely! How could you deny it after all the miracles?
But believe it so much that
You let go of everything else in order to follow Him.
Now hopefully you noticed something else
About these two illustrations.
Matthew doesn’t tell us what they did.
We don’t know if they followed or not.
(Many have asserted that they didn’t, merely because of their absence from future gospel stories, but we don’t know)
And Matthew didn’t see the need to tell us.
DO YOU KNOW WHY?
Because their response doesn’t matter.
Not now, and not to you.
All that matters is your response, and my response.
Matthew included enough of the story
So that you and I would know what Jesus required,
And that is really all we needed to know.
You must believe in Christ, but you must also
Repent of any idols that keep you from following Him.
So what is it that keeps you from following Jesus?
Matthew 16:24-25 “Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”
