Matthew 8:18-22
Luke 9:57-62
All or nothing…..
Let me start today by asking you a very personal question, which I don’t want you to answer out loud, but just to think about.
What things in your life are you all in for?
Which things in your life, are you all or nothing for?
Or put another way- which things in your life, can you not live without?
There may be many things in your life, which you are not all or nothing for, there may be many things in your life which you can easily live without.
Like coffee, for example.
Some of us can take or leave coffee, some of us, just can’t, we are all in, no matter if it’s a 40-degree day, a 15-degree day, we need our coffee, no matter if we have to wait 30 minutes at the café or just 5 minutes, we need our coffee, whether we have to drive 20 minutes to the café or make our own at home, we need our coffee, we are all in.
Hopefully when you made your wedding vows before God and before your spouse, you made them knowing that you were all in, all in, in sickness and in health, in poverty or wealth, you were all in, all in for your marriage.
Maybe you have a job which you can take or leave. Perhaps you work for your money, do your time and that is it, that is as far as your commitment goes, you can take or leave it.
Like I can take or leave teaching casually at the high school.
One teacher I was speaking with was amazed when I told them, that the main reason I was teaching casually at the high school was purely for the money, to support the ministry at the church. Love of teaching, and love of kids never came into the conversation, sure I like casual teaching, but I am not all in, I am a not fully committed, hence why I am called a “casual teacher”. I don’t mark exams, I don’t have parent teacher interviews, I don’t write reports, that stuff is for the fully committed teachers.
What things in your life, are you all in for?
What things in your life, are you willing to sacrifice for?
Today, as we read this passage from Matthew 8:18-22, it is clear that Jesus was making this very point when it came to following Him.
You are either fully in with Jesus or you are out.
When it comes to Jesus, there is no casual option, you are either fully for him, or you are against him. There is no sitting on the fence with Jesus, there is no half commitments, there is no pay as you go option with the option of opting out at any time if you find a better offer, no- when it comes to Jesus – you are either fully in , or you are out.
Look at verses 18 and 19 with me:
18 Now when Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. 19 And a scribe came up and said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”
Again, we see that Jesus had crowds follow him, and on this occasion, we can assume that Jesus was preparing to go from one side of the sea of Galilee to another. But before he set off to the other side, a scribe came up to him and made a very bold statement, he said,
“Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go”
“Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go”
You can almost imagine this man, having his fist clenched to his chest as he made this solemn promise.
It is worth noting here, that this man who made this bold statement was a scribe.
That means he was someone who studied the scriptures and wrote copies of the scriptures for others to read. And so perhaps this scribe, as he was reading and writing the scriptures, may have realised that the promised Messiah, the promised king that the scriptures talked about was this person of Jesus and so perhaps he read these scriptures, and believed this was the one who, the scriptures talked about and boldly declared-perhaps this scribe believed that Jesus was the promised Messiah, whom the scriptures wrote about again and again.
Now we don’t know, if this scribe actually did follow Jesus or not, whether he followed him even to the other side of the lake that day, or whether he followed him during his ministry on earth, or whether he continued to follow him after his resurrection and ascension.
But in one sense Matthew didn’t want us to focus on this particular man, but instead he wanted us to focus on this bold statement he made:
“Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go”
I think the first point that Matthew wanted us to think about was this:
1. It is easy to follow Jesus in theory but much harder in practice
It is easy to make promises with our mouths but it is much harder to follow through on them. This scribe read about Jesus in the Torah and thought that following Jesus looked good in theory, but when the rubber hit the road and it actually came to following Jesus by the way he lived his life, this would have been harder.
It troubles me when I hear preachers, preach a false prosperity gospel which promises wealth, health and happiness when we follow Jesus, and an altar call is made, many go out to the front, and people declare their undying committed to Jesus. Then when trouble comes, sickness comes, persecution comes, poverty comes, or more commonly, people realise that the church is full of sinners just like them, people quickly turn from following Jesus.
And this brings me to point 2
2. It is easy to follow Jesus when people give us false promises.
Just look at what Jesus promised the scribe if he truly wanted to follow him
Look at verse 20 with me:
20 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.”
What was Jesus saying here?
Ultimately Jesus was saying this: if you want to follow me, this place, this earth will never be your eternal home. Heaven is your eternal home. He was telling this scribe and also us, that if you want to follow Jesus, then you need to hold earthly possessions very loosely.
Jesus himself lived this by example:
Jesus owned very little worldly possessions
Jesus had no secure job
Jesus had no home base
Foxes and Birds, may not have much, but at least they have a home, Jesus didn’t have anywhere to call home.
Friends, Jesus calls us to be radical.
Following Jesus is more important than your house, your super, your comfort, your career, your whatever you find your earthly security in.
Following Jesus is even more important than your own family.
Look at verse 21- 22 with me:
21 Another of the disciples said to him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” 22 And Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.”
Here we have a person who didn’t make a bold statement like the scribe, but perhaps considered what Jesus said about not having an eternal home here on earth.
This man came to the conclusion that he would follow Jesus……. but only after he had taken care of his family business. It is more than likely that when this disciple said he must bury his father first, his father was probably still alive, and so what the disciple was saying was this:
I will follow you Jesus, but after I have looked after my father in his old age and arranged his proper funeral, only then will I follow you!
Now, in that culture, burying your own father was a must duty of the son. It was considered such an important event in the family, that even the priest who father had died would be given special consideration. The priest would be exempt from his prohibition of touching dead bodies, (since they were unclean) in order to bury his own father, and the priest would be given time off his priestly duties in order to bury his own father- such was the importance of his father’s funeral.
But as this disciple makes this very reasonable request- Jesus answered by saying this
“Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead”
Was this just a slip of the tongue by Jesus?- Absolutely not.
Look what Jesus said in Luke 14:26
“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.
Clearly Jesus was making the point, that it you truly wanted to follow Jesus, you must know that Jesus is even more important than your own family. Jesus wasn’t literally saying that you must hate your family, he calls us to love and serve our families, but we must put following Jesus even before our families.
I told you, following Jesus was and is all or nothing.
And for those of you here today, who may be half committed to Jesus, or may be thinking, I will go fully in when I am a bit older, I will go fully in, once I have my mortgage paid off, I will go fully in, when I have got all my ducks in a row…..clearly Jesus urges us not to wait.
Jesus told the disciple who wanted to wait until after he buried his own father until he followed Jesus, which could have been 2, 3, 10, 20 years down the track, that he shouldn’t wait, but in fact Jesus told him to leave the dead to bury their own dead.
Let the dead bury their own, perhaps had a few layers of meaning:
1. Jesus was saying let the professional funeral directors deal with the funeral, let the professional wailers deal with the funeral- that is not for you, you have a job now to follow me.
2. Jesus also meant that being a follower of Jesus meant that you were in the business of life. That is what the business of Jesus is- He brings dead sinners, who are dead in their sins to life. He gives them his spirit and births new life in them.
That’s his core business, to save sinners like me!
And so, when you are a follower of Jesus, you don’t just cross the sea of Galilee as some of his disciples did that day, but you have crossed from death to life, you have left the life of sin which leads to death, and you have been given eternal life.
Jesus never gave you half-life,
Jesus didn’t half commit to you,
Jesus gave you his all,
He gave himself,
He has given you life, and life to the full.
Jesus went all in for you, when he died on the cross for you, when he sacrificed himself for you, to pay for your sins in full- there was no half measures with Jesus.
Friends, Jesus went all in for you- Are you all in for Jesus?
Let us pray.