Matthew 8:16-27

Today, is communion Sunday. Here at FCC, we have declared that the 1st Sunday of every month we would take communion together as a family to remember what Jesus did for us on the cross and to look forward to his soon return.

Everyone is welcome to come to the table, provided you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior.

I will pray us in, and during prayer, I will pause to allow the Lord to examine our hearts, so we can take communion in a manner that is worthy of Jesus.

Prayer

Gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you for sending your only begotten Son to dies for us, but not only us, but for the whole world, a world that is broken by sin. As we take of the elements today, would you please help us to grasp in its fulness what you did for us? May we understand more how much you love us and may we not turn away your love no more. We ask now, that you would examine our hearts, for it is our desire to take communion in a worthy manner so that you would say, well done my good and faithful servant. Please search us now....

PAUSE

Lord, thank you for searching us and for giving us grace upon grace, even in the midst of our failures. May today be a new beginning in our relationship with you and may your receive our offerings and speak to our hearts today as we take communion in remembrance of you and proclaim your death until your soon return.

In Jesus Name, We Love You!!! Amen!

1 Corinthians 11:23–24 NKJV

For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”

1 Corinthians 11:25–26 NKJV

In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.

Prayer

Lord Jesus, we thank you for your broken body and poured out blood for us and we ask that you would empower us now to receive with meekness your implanted Word which is able to save our souls. May every time we take communion, we grasp in greater detail the depths of the cross and your love. Heal our hearts and cause our minds to focus now on you and Your Word.

In Jesus Name, Amen!!!

We have come as far as Matthew 8:16, so let us open our Bibles there.

Read Matthew 8:16-27

Matthew 8:16–17 NKJV

When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: “He Himself took our infirmities And bore our sicknesses.”

Matthew 8:18–22 NKJV

And when Jesus saw great multitudes about Him, He gave a command to depart to the other side. Then a certain scribe came and said to Him, “Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go.” 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.” Then another of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Follow Me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”

Review

I stand in awe of how Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount, made his way down form the mount on the north-side of the Sea of Galilee, and healed a leper, the centurions servant of who was a Gentile, and Peter’s mother-in-law.

Jesus did not go to the well, but to those who are in need of a Physician church and we know the Jesus is the Great Physician.

Last week, he healed Peter’s mother-in-law of a fever that could have taken her life and we know that this word fever means fire, or burning hot.

Fever’s come because we have infection and our temps rise to help fight off our infections church.

Scholar’s believe she had malaria because of the marshes around the Jordan river and had not Jesus showed up in her life, the life of the centurions servant, and the leper they all would have died.

So the Lord’s timing is perfect and his miracle working power is amazing.

Matthew 8:16–17 NKJV

It is crucial for us to remember that the Pharisees taught that it was not ok to heal on the Sabbath day, which was not biblical at all, but that you could make those that are sick comfortable.

So in our text today, we see the Sabbath being over and people bring the demon possessed of the land and the sick to Jesus.

Tiberias was close to Capernaum. In fact, it is about 24 minutes in a car to drive there, or 3 hours and 24 minutes on foot.

And Tiberias was known for its hot springs that were believed to have healing power.

In fact, this was the main hub for this in all of Isreal during the days when Jesus walked on the earth.

So the multitudes would travel to Tiberias for healing from the hot springs and I am guessing that the heard of this Man in Capernaum who was healing, so once the Sabbath was over many of them showed up seeking Jesus to heal them and look at what our text says:

Matthew 8:16–17 NKJV

Jesus did not just heal a few church, but he healed all who showed up.

All of those that were demon possessed were set free by the spoken word of Jesus and you know, he is still doing the same today.

And all of those that were sick, he healed. WHY?

Matthew the tax collector, who was Levi, from the tribe of Levi, writes that Jesus healed to fulfill the prophesy spoken by the prophet Isaiah church.

Matthew new the Isaiah and prophesied about the Messiah and so he writes it here:

Isaiah 53:3–6 NKJV

He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

This is a rich text, but in regards to our text at hand in Matthew, I would like to share three nuggets here form Isaiah:

Jesus participated first of all by sympathizing with man’s pain and sickness. Jesus knew men’s hearts and all of their inner feelings.

He knew the agony, the bewilderment, the confusion, the despair, and the frustration that disease and sickness bring in addition to physical pain.

Jesus took our infirmities, and carried away our diseases in the sense that He saw and felt the destructive power of their root cause, which is sin. Jesus did not weep over the death of Lazarus church, he was weeping over the sin that beings forth death and destruction.

Third, and most supremely, Jesus took our infirmities, and carried away our diseases in that His victorious redeeming work dealt with sin in such a devastating way that ultimately all sickness and disease will be carried away.

Remember church that Jesus taught us how to enter the Kingdom of Heaven in the Sermon on the Mount, and in a sense bring a taste of heaven to earth.

Here we see Jesus heal the outcasts, the demon possessed, and the sick. Here he is giving all who wanted a little a taste of heaven on earth.

Here Jesus is preparing his people for what is to come:

Revelation 21:4 KJV 1900

And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

Sickness, disease, and even demon possession, which is real, is a result of the fall, but Jesus will one day make all things new!!

Matthew 8:18–20 NKJV

Here we see the multitudes thronging Jesus and Jesus gives a command to depart to the other side side church, and here we see Jesus being fully God and yet fully man, for he was exhausted and needed rest.

And we all need rest church, we all need rest!!!

But the primary focus of this passage is commitment, of counting the cost to be a disciple of Jesus.

In mark 4:36 we learn that some of the crowd got into other boats in order to go across the lake with Jesus , and in Luke 9 we see not two men approach Jesus, but three.

You know when we first come to Jesus, he calls us all to depart to the other side.

We leave the world and enter into his kingdom, it is definitely a departure from what we knew to something new:

2 Corinthians 5:17 NKJV

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

Jesus here is giving an invitation to follow him church, to follow him as he always does.

He is giving us all an invitation now to follow him, even though we are saved, we all struggle and in his great mercies from time to time and even in the midst of our struggles he is always calling is to himself:

Matthew 11:28–30 NKJV

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Have you departed and came to the other side?

Is there something or someone in your life that is prohibiting you from following whoel heartedly after Jesus???

Jesus is calling his disciples to himself and he is teaching them that they must count the cost, look at what the scribe did:

Matthew 8:19 NKJV

Then a certain scribe came and said to Him, “Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go.”

Scribes or a lawyers in some of your versions were educated persons who were able to read and write, who focused on teaching the meaning of Jewish law and were affiliated with the Pharisees.

This scribe was quick to follow Jesus, he literally was breaking away from his fellow scribes which if he does not follow Jesus, would definitely be costly....

Jesus was headed to the cross church, and here we see a picture of many who desire to follow Jesus when everything is good, when he is doing miracles upon miracles. But when things get tough, guess what?

Do they stay with Jesus? Or does the cares of this life choke out the Word that was sown into their hearts?

Are you committed to follow hard after Jesus when things are not going your way?

See Jesus knew that a strong profession, does not equal a strong commitment.

Think about it church, how many people have you see profess Jesus as Lord and then when the storms of life come, they walk away?

The service that counts is the service that costs.

Howard G. Hendricks;

Perseverance is the badge of true saints. The Christian life is not a beginning only in the ways of God, but also a continuance in the same as long as life lasts. It is with a Christian as it was with the great Napoleon: he said, “Conquest has made me what I am, and conquest must maintain me.”

Morning And Evening, Page 295

Charles Spurgeon

Look at what Jesus’s response is to the Scribe:

Matthew 8:20 NKJV

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.”

Church at first glance Jesus’ words seem unrelated to the scribe’s affirmation.

He was saying, in proverbial form, that in spite of His divine authority and miracle-working power, self-indulgence was not in His plan, and He had fewer physical comforts than many animals.

Life with me is not luxurious, but one of trust and faith in the Father.

Foxes have holes they can call their own, and birds of the air have nests to which they can return and rest.

But the Son of Man, has nowhere to lay his head!

This is the first time in Matthew that the Son of Man is mentioned,

Matthew use it 30 times in his gospel and it is mentioned 80 times throughout all four gospel.

This is Jesus favorite title of himself and it comes out of:

Daniel 7:13 NKJV

“I was watching in the night visions, And behold, One like the Son of Man, Coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days, And they brought Him near before Him.

It is clear that the is a Messianic title and that Jesus just confirmed who he was with this scribe.

Jesus had no home, no condo, he rode a borrowed donkey, and was buried in a borrowed tomb. He lived a humble life and depended on nothing but the Father.

We know that he stayed at the house of Peter and Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.

And we also know that it is clear that he forsook all the indulgences of life and that he would spend the night outside under the stars praying to the Father and we know that his light night, that him and the disciples stayed the night at the Mt Olives.

Jesus set an example for us to not allow the things of this life to take a hold of us, but also is sharing here that we must all count the cost....

Jesus prayed in agony and the the disciples slept.

One thing that I discovered was that Jesus spent his last night at the Mt of Olives, but in Acts 1, he ascended to heaven from the Mt of Olives...

Matthew 8:21–22 NKJV

Then another of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Follow Me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”

The scribe was fast to follow Jesus, while this disciple is slow.

This does not mean that his father had died already.

One scholar writes that the phrase, “ Lord, let me first go bury my father”, was common figure of speech in the day of Jesus, and its meaning was, “Let me wait until I receive my inheritance.”

In verse 22, Jesus responds, Follow ME and let the dead bury their own dead church and this seems heartless if you may/

If this man truly desired to follow Jesus, he would not wait until he had fulfilled all his traditional responsibilities.

Jesus was not advising that children disregard family responsibilities.

Rather, Jesus was responding to this disciple’s qualifying use of “first.”

Jesus must always come “first,” then all other human loyalties. Jesus’ directive was not heartless, but it called the man to examine his primary loyalty.

Jesus’ response is part of the radical discipleship theme: Let the dead bury their own dead. Jesus made sure those who wanted to follow him counted the cost and set aside any conditions they might have.

The things of this world grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace!!!

What conditions do we need to set aside to follow Jesus???

How is your commitment?

Prayer

Lord Jesus, thank you for being bold and direct with your children. Please inspire us to count the cost of what it really means to be your disciple and enable us through the power of your Holy Spirit to throw off those things that so easily beset us and cause us to stumble. Lord use us this week to be your ambassadors.

I’m part of the fellowship of the unashamed. I have stepped over the line. The decision has been made. I’m a disciple of Jesus Christ. I won’t look back, let up, slow down, back away or be still. My past is redeemed, my future is secure. I’m finished and done with low living, small planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tamed visions, mundane talking, cheap living and dwarfed goals.

I no longer need preeminence, prosperity, position, promotions, plaudits or popularity. I don’t have to be right, first, tops, recognized, praised, regarded or rewarded. I now live by faith, lean on His presence, walk by patience, live by prayer and labor by His power.

My face is set, my gait is fast, my goal is heaven, my road is narrow, my way rough, my companions few, my Guide reliable and my mission clear. I cannot be bought, deluded or delayed. I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the presence of adversity, negotiate at the table of the enemy or meander in the maze of mediocrity.

I won’t give up, shut up or let up until I have stayed up, stored up, prayed up, paid up and preached up for the cause of Christ. I am a a disciple of Jesus. I must go ‘till He comes, give ‘till I drop, preach ‘till all know and work ‘till He stops me. And when He comes for His own, He will have no problem recognizing me.

The Lord Bless You!

Your Mission Starts Now!

Related Media

Related Sermons