Matthew 8:18-22
18 Now when Jesus saw a crowd around
Him, He gave orders to depart to the other side of the sea. 19 Then
a scribe came and said to Him, “Teacher, I will follow You wherever You
go.” 20 Jesus said to him, “The foxes have
holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has
nowhere to lay His head.” 21 Another of the disciples said to
Him, “Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father.” 22 But
Jesus said to him, “Follow Me, and allow the dead to bury their own dead.”
There is a price to pay for following Jesus. The crowds who surrounded Jesus spent time
around Him for a wide variety of reasons.
Some genuinely wanted to learn from His teachings. Others were looking to be healed or hoping to
see a miracle. Still others were looking
for an opportunity to condemn Him for doing or saying something they considered
to be wrong. However, none of these
people from the well intentioned to the curious to the cynical were true
followers of Jesus. His disciples knew
what it was to follow Him and some others thought they were ready to follow Him,
but in reality, they had not counted the price.
In today’s text Jesus is approached by two different people who openly
declare that they are ready to follow Jesus.
Jesus responds by letting them know the price that was required to
follow Him.
FOLLOWING JESUS MEANS LEAVING PLACES WE LOVE: A scribe comes
to Jesus and declares that he is ready to follow Jesus wherever He goes. Jesus warns him that this decision means
leaving some of the basic comforts of life behind. Jesus points to the foxes and birds who have
places that they call home to go and rest, but He does not even have this basic
comfort. We all love to be home. When we are away from home for long periods
of time we say that we suffer from homesickness. Home is a place where we can rest, relax, be
alone and just feel comfortable. It is a
place where we are away from the scrutiny we might feel at work or at
school. We eat at home, we sleep at home
and we do the things that we enjoy at home.
Jesus did not have a home. He
traveled from place to place, sleeping in a different place almost every night
if He slept at all. Sometimes He slept
in the homes of others and sometimes He just slept in the open fields. Most of us are not comfortable with that kind
of sacrifice or commitment. Jesus was on
a mission to reconcile man to God. There
was nothing more important than accomplishing that mission. We too are on the same mission. If we call ourselves followers of Christ we
must be willing to leave the places we love behind in order to take the Gospel
to those who have never heard. Most of
the people who have never heard the Gospel live in very uncomfortable places. The mission requires that we be willing to
leave the safety and comfort our climate controlled homes and live in deserts
and jungles in order to reach the people in those places with the Gospel.
FOLLOWING JESUS MEANS LOSING PEOPLE WE LOVE: The second man
seems ready to follow Jesus to these uncomfortable places but first he makes a
request to be able to return home and bury his father first. We must not think that this man’s father had
already died or it would have been very doubtful that he would have been out
with the crowds. He was asking to be
able to put off following Jesus because he felt like his responsibilities to
his family were more important. He
wanted to make sure he had his family taken care of before going off to follow
Jesus. Caring for family seems like a
noble and even a biblical reason to not follow Jesus. However, Jesus did not see things that
way. He simply told the man to let the
dead bury their dead and come and follow Him right away. We love our family and friends. These are very special people with whom God
has blessed us. Leaving these people
behind seems impossible to us; and yet that is exactly what Jesus calls us to
do. Those who are committed to the
mission miss many Christmas and Thanksgiving celebrations, they are not present
at weddings and funerals of family members that often can’t understand why they
are not in attendance. Some families
have some sort of business that they hope to hand down to their children as a heritage. Most families have and inheritance that they
desire to leave to their children so the farm or the home can stay in the
family. But there is no family business
or family inheritance that can become the priority over the mission. Following Jesus often means living on the
other side of the planet from family members and friends that we love
dearly. It is without a doubt the
hardest part about being a missionary.
Jesus calls us to turn away from our earthly families so that His
heavenly family can be filled with people who speak all the languages in all
the nations of the World.
APPLICATION: Do not allow our homes or our comfort to become
idols in our lives. We need to be
willing to relocate to any place in the world and suffer any kind of discomfort
that is necessary in order to follow Jesus.
Love the people God has placed in our families and the friends that
surround us but do not allow them to become more important to us than God or
His mission. We need to be ready to live
a long way away from our parents, siblings and our children so people from all
the nations of the world can join us in worshiping our Lord in every language
across the planet.
Comments
Post a Comment