Trust ME
Matthew 8:18-22
18 When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. 19 Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”
20 Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
21 Another disciple said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”
22 But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”
AT first sight this section seems out of place in this chapter. This chapter is about miracles. We have studied the healing miracle of the leper, the healing the centurions servant, and the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law. And now we come to this dialogue with two would be followers and Jesus. At first sight these verses do not seem to fit, so why then does Matthew put them here?
I think Matthew may be telling us something important about following Jesus.
Have you ever heard the expression, “nothing succeeds like success.” Well that is what we are seeing here. Jesus has been successful. Very successful. He started out with just a few followers, but now we hear Matthew describe this followers as a multitude. People were coming in droves to see this great miracle worker. The people were coming out in such mass, they looked like an ocean of people. But Jesus does not want to leave them believing it was easy to be one of His followers. In fact, he said, it is hard, very hard.
Jesus needed to say this is torrent of people, this life is no bed of roses.
In his book, “Cost of Discipleship,” Bonhoeffer puts it this way.
“The cross is laid on every Christian. As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with his death–we give over our lives to death. The cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”
And Stephen Brown said, “I believe God entered time and space to make a nonverbal statement. He didn’t come to keep us from suffering; He came to suffer as we must suffer. He didn’t come just to keep us from being afraid; He came to be afraid as we are afraid. He didn’t come just to keep us from dying; He came to die as we must die. He didn’t come to keep us from being tempted; He came to be tempted as we are tempted.”
Can I suggest to you this morning the reason Jesus has this exchange in the middle of all these miracles is Jesus is saying, “if you want to follow me, the road is rough and filled with uncertainty, but you have to trust me.”
First he said, Trust me with your present.
Trust Jesus with Your Present
18 When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. 19 Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”
20 Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
This Teacher of the law comes to Jesus and says, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Wow, what a commitment. But then Jesus begins to investigate how deep his commitment really was.
Jesus said to him, “look at the foxes, look at the birds, they have the security of a home, they have a place to rest their head. What I offer to you is eternal life, but not security in this life.”
Can hear you the conversation inside this scribes head.
“Wait a minute, I have a nice home, good job, a place in the community. I have worked hard to amass this kind of security, do I really what to give up all I have to follow this preacher out into the wilderness. He does not even have enough money to spring for a motel. I have to be concerned about my present security. I think I will wait to follow this Jesus, maybe later, he will soften the requirements.”
This scribe was so concerned about keeping control in that present moment he lost out on really eternal security.
We too are often so anxious about controlling our world, our current situation, we lose out on what Jesus has for us. Some of you are drowning in a deep-sea of worries.
Bruce Larson said, "Years ago I saw a sign in a psychiatrist’s office which said, `In two days, tomorrow will be yesterday.’ That’s a healthy perspective, especially if we let God control today.
Another way to put it is, “Today, is the Tomorrow you worried about yesterday.”
Jesus is saying to us, as he said to this scribe, Trust me with your present.
But not only is Jesus saying trust me with your present, he is also saying to Trust me with your future.
Trust Jesus with your Future
21 Another disciple said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”
22 But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”
You are saying, “What does burying a father have to do with the future. Let me explain.
The man’s asking for permission to bury [his] father, however, did not mean that his father was already dead. The phrase was a common Near Eastern figure of speech that referred to a son’s responsibility to help his father in the family business until the father died and the inheritance was distributed. Obviously such a commitment could involve a long period of time, thirty or forty years or more if the father was relatively young.
The expression is still used in parts of the Middle East today. A few years ago a missionary asked a rich young Turkish man to go with him on a trip to Europe, during which time the missionary hoped to disciple the man. When the young man replied that he must bury his father, the missionary offered his sympathy and expressed surprise that the father had died. The man explained, however, that his father was alive and healthy and that the expression “bury my father” simply meant staying at home and fulfilling his family responsibilities until his father died and he received his share of the inheritance.
This guy in our story wanted to be sure to be around for the reading of the will. He said, “I trust you Jesus, but I want to hedge my bets with my inheritance.”
Where the scribe was putting his hope in the present, this fellow was putting his hope in the future.
But we have learned the future is uncertain.
Remember when a magnitude-8.7 earthquake struck off the shore of Indonesia recently, frightened residents ran to the hills fearing another killer tsunami like the ones in December 2004. Several organizations issued warnings, but no giant waves appeared. The highest waves recorded by Japan’s Meteorological Agency measured off the coast of Oman were only 12 inches. Immediately, scientists set out to find out why this quake did not generate waves like the earlier one.
Keiji Doi from Tokyo University’s Earthquake Research Center summarized his findings saying the size of a tsunami essentially depends on two factors: the volume of sea water above the site of the quake and the extent of the movement. Doi said the most recent quake occurred in shallower water and impacted a much smaller section of the seabed. Doi explained that his answer was an educated guess based on current data and further studies were planned. He said, "It just shows how difficult it is to predict tsunamis. It’s not an exact science." Dio says there is the likelihood of another big quake along this active faultline, along with the chance of another killer tsunami. He added, "but you can’t predict these things."
Jesus is saying to us, you cannot tell what the future holds. So Trust me with your future.
Friends, this morning we can trust Jesus with our present and future for only one reason, we have trusted Jesus with our past.
Trust Jesus with your Past
22 But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”
When I first read this it sounded like Jesus was being really harsh. If someone called me and said, we have had a death in our family, and I replied, “let the dead bury their own dead,” you would think I was the most heartless of all preachers in the world.” This seems so out of character for Jesus. Doesn’t it? Jesus is so loving and compassionate. What does this mean?
Then it dawned on me Jesus was saying let your past be buried. Let go of your past and take hold of my dynamic future. The Apostle Paul puts it this way.
Philippians 3:13
13 Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Let me illustrate what I mean.
Inventive genius Thomas Edison lost his great New Jersey laboratories in an inferno-like fire on a December night in 1914. Yet the very next morning, walking among the still smoldering rubble of those buildings that had housed so many of his projects, Edison, then 67, said, "There is great value in disaster. All our mistakes are burned up. Thank God, we can start anew."
We have all made mistakes. Our hopes and dreams often are crushed like a walnut in a nut cracker, and we are left with just the shattered shells. But thank God, we can start anew. Our past mistakes, our past sins can be covered by Jesus blood, and we can start anew.
Listen to this promise.
1 John 1:7
7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
We can trust Jesus with our present and our future, because His blood washes our past whiter than snow.
Conclusion:
This morning, if Jesus were here he might tell you, “your past is a cancelled check, you cannot change it: your future is a promissory note, with no guarantee , the present is the only cash you have on hand. How will you spend it?”
Jesus is saying to you. Trust me. Trust me with your present, I know what is best for you. Trust me with your future, I hold it in the palm of my hand. And Trust me with your past, only I can forgive you, and invite you to start anew. Amen.
