Cost

Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. It continues to be a blessing to preach the Word of God to the saints and faithful believers at Durbin Memorial Baptist Church.

Last week I was talking with a family about taking the youth to church camp. This year we did a short version of a camp-ish mission trip, which was great, but we’re really looking into the possibility of going to a more standard, week-long camp for the middle school and high schoolers next summer. We will be looking into that soon.

But the whole conversation got me thinking about going to Church Camp as a student myself year ago. A lot of cool things happen at church camp. I remember having some deep conversations about theological truth that we didn’t normally wrestle with in the youth group. The games and excitement were paced with moments of reverence and awe. Our very own Mark and Ashlee met one another at church camp! A lot of really cool things happen at church camp. I’ve seen students come to saving faith in the Lord Jesus, I’ve seen students accept or begin to explore the call to ministry through the ministry of church camp.

But as I reflect back on my own history with church camp, there is one particular consistent outcome I’ve seen that us tough to swallow. That is, in this secluded place where the gospel saturates every single aspect of the day, from the games to the songs to the food to the teaching, students are so consistently presented with the gospel and caught up in the excitement, and they catch the fire, and they’re all in for Jesus, and everything seems like they’re walking on the very clouds of heaven… and then they get home. No longer surrounded by the consistent teaching, no longer uplifted by the great worship music, no longer accountable to the group sessions and deep conversations, and that flame that seemed so real just a few days prior flickers away. The student who at camp committed to reading through the whole Bible for the rest of the Summer, after a day or two back “in reality” leaves their Bible on the shelf for the rest of the year. The student who showed interest in joining the ministry, a few weeks later, can’t find the time in their “busy” schedules to come to church.

While this is a sad picture, don’t get me wrong here, church camp is still a wonderful thing and there has been much benefit for the glory of God to come through it. And also, what I am describing here is not just limited to youth and church camp. In my time in the church I have seen it play out in the lives of many adults and even children from VBS. There is an expediency to make a profession of faith, a quick punch of a emotion, and then a withering away. I can thank of numerous times in which someone has been baptized and then that is the last time they step through the doors of the church for the foreseeable future.

In these instances, there are a couple of problems, as the church we and as a pastor, I must ensure that we are discipling young believers, guiding them, pointing them to Jesus. But we also can’t pull someone’s ear and make them believe in Jesus. These instances are examples of something Jesus said was going to happen.

Matthew 13:3–8 ESV

And he told them many things in parables, saying: “A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.

Now there is a lot going on in this text, but for our benefit this morning, later in the chapter Jesus explains what He is describing in this metaphor:

Matthew 13:18–23 ESV

“Hear then the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”

What we have been describing in this introduction are those whom hear the Word and immediately receive it with joy, but it takes no root. When the trials and mundane obstacles of life come back, the fake growth withers away. It takes no root.

Throughout history, there have been many who have made excited and hasty professions of faith with lofty intentions and goals. In this parable of the Sower, Jesus shows how He knows the fickle, unstable, and self-centered nature of humanity.

This morning we are going to walk through three pictures from Chapter 8 in the book of Matthew that show us the real cost to following Jesus. These pictures are given to help us see the difference between a heart that is good soil, producing much fruit and a heart that is rocky ground, quick to grow and make emotional decisions, but withers away when calamity strikes.

But let me give you this bit of encouragement before we get into the text. You may find yourself identifying with the rocky ground, you’ve seen quick growth in the past, but have not yielded fruit, you’ve gone through seasons of withering. Please know that being aware of such a reality may very well be God tilling the soil of your life, preparing your heart to be fertile soil, to receive His Word, even today. See and understand that it is God who takes away the heart of stone and replaces it with the heart of flesh. Call out to Him and ask for that today. In the meantime, may we all be presented with the real cost of following Jesus. Begin with me in verse 18.

Matthew 8:18–20 ESV

Now when Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. And a scribe came up 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.”

Verse 18 is where we really see the “coming home from camp analogy” take shape. Think about everything that has happened recently in this narrative. In chapters 5-7 Jesus gives the best sermon ever given that proclaims the demands of righteousness and salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. He speaks with an authority unmatched by any earthly teacher. Then, as we looked at last week, he backs up the authority with which he spoke with showing authority over creation. He heals the leper, he heals the Centurion’s servant, he heals Peter’s mother-in-law and not just those three, but many more were brought to him that night, demons, were cast out, people were healed, all with just a word from Jesus.

I can only imagine all the of excitement there must have been in the area. Things like this weren’t a regular occurence. People were surely astonished by this Jesus and the wonderful things that He did.

But then Jesus sees the crowd around him and provides an opportunity to turn His following into followers. Are you tracking with me here? Thus far, the crowd is around Jesus but its on their own home turf. Here we see that Jesus isn’t simply interested in having a big crowd around him, He’s interested in people following Him. It’s time to count the cost of what it means to actually follow Jesus. It’s time to move past the emotion excitement, the quick spurts of growth, now here’s an opportunity to show if you got roots.

The first person we see come up to Jesus is the scribe. Scribes were the scholars of the day. Experts in the Old Testament. Society looked up on such people. It was an honorable profession. Like we might consider a brain surgeon or an astronaut. Scribes carried an air of authority with them wherever they went.

So for the Scribe to approach Jesus and address Him as teacher, it would have been a big deal. The people watching would note that the community teacher is calling Jesus a teacher!

But interestingly, Jesus doesn’t doesn’t overly fawn over this “important” person’s profession.

This is a problem that we have in Modern Christendom. We’re so quick to promote someone who makes any proclamation of faith that we promote people before they should receive our commendation.

Two recent examples that I can think of from recent history are Kanye West and Chance the Rapper. Now many of you may not stay up on the Hip-hop game, but when I was a youth minister I tried to stay current with those things. Both of these rappers published “Christian” albums and I remember the youth world being set on fire. Chance even did a version of How Great is Our God at the Grammys! Many in the church were overjoyed. Some grandma’s started buying Kanye West CDs! Flash forward a few years to today and I am not the Holy Spirit, but from a cursory view of the headlines around each rapper and I don’t see any fruit. I certainly can’t recommend either artist’s newest albums to anyone, certainly not a grandmother.

We’re often so quick to get excited over anything that we don’t give it time to show fruit.

In the case of the Scribe Jesus shows better patience. He responds to the Scribe’s zeal with an interesting phrase, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

There is a lot going on in this response of Jesus, let’s first look at how it connects with the overall message of Scripture. Over 80 times, Jesus is referred to as the Son of Man. It was a sign of humility and humiliation. Here, though using flowery language, Jesus is not exaggerating. He had no place to put His head, He had no home. His identification as Son of Man should draw the readers attention to Daniel 7:13-14. To the Son of Man is given dominion, glory, a kingdom, for everyone to serve.

Now, why would Jesus draw the Scribe’s attention to both his glorification and humiliation as the Son of Man? Contextually we can see that the Scribe’s intention in following Jesus was to gain better earthly privilege than what he already enjoyed by his cushy social status. Many of the Jews believed that when the Messiah would come, He would usher in an earthly Kingdom that would wipe out the Roman Empire and restore the Jewish people to a place of dominance. It seems that this Scribe was looking to Jesus to be the one to bring in this earthly kingdom. While that may have been this man’s expectation, that was not God’s plan. Jesus was bringing the New Covenant, God was bringing salvation to the gentiles, the Holy Spirit is coming to indwell believers, there were wonderful things happening for the glory of God, but they didn’t look like what this man expected.

Jesus is basically telling the scribe that following Him will require giving up the earthly comforts he loves so much. The man was seeking to increase his comforts! Not give them up! What a shock it would’ve been for him to hear that following Jesus would be giving up personal honor and glory.

The first COST OF FOLLOWING JESUS we see in this picture is that Following Jesus will cost you your pride. Following Jesus is not about gaining more status. Christian influencers online may have you convinced otherwise, politicians may try to play it differently, but following Jesus isn’t something use for a social advantage! In fact, following Jesus may very well mean giving up on such things. Following Jesus means sincerely praying, “Lord Thy will be done, Thy Kingdom come.” not “My will.” not “My kingdom.”

We aren’t told in Scripture how the Scribe responded to this realization. Most of the commentaries I consulted assume that the Scribe walks away like the rich young ruler does later on. I can’t be certain of that since it’s not in the text. However, I am certain that this encounter caused the scribe to count the cost of what it takes to follow Jesus.

Let’s look at the second picture of what it costs to follow Jesus:

Matthew 8:21–22 ESV

Another of the disciples said to him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.”

Another disciple, and please note that in this context, disciple refers to anyone following Jesus. It is not inherently an endorsement of the person’s faith. But this other disciple walks up to Jesus and says, Lord before I follow you, let me first go and bury my father. Jesus, the gentle and lowly Jesus, the “never offending” Jesus, looks at the man and says, “Follow me. Let the dead bury the dead.”

From our perspective, we might read this and think, “Woh Jesus, that’s kinda mean! His dad just died and you wont even let him have a funeral!” But this is a place where an understanding of Hebrew culture will give us the context we need to really see what is going on here.

First of all, traditionally Jewish people were to be buried within 24 hours of their death. Like when Joseph of Arimathea offers to bury Christ quickly after His death on the cross, the burial was to happen expeditiously from the time of death. So that means that it is extremely unlikely that the man approaching Jesus was talking about going to bury his father that day. In all likelihood, if the man’s dad had passed he wouldn’t have had time to be following Jesus that day.

But the other cultural note to make is that the phrase, “bury my father” is an idiom, a turn of phrase like “it’s raining cats and dogs.” And that phrase, “bury my father” was used to convey the idea of going to work with the father until the father passes away and the child receives their inheritance. One commentary noted that this phrase is still used in this context today in the middle east.

The man was basically asking Jesus for an indefinitely period of time for him to go home and sort out affairs and when things were more convenient, he would then return and follow Jesus.

He was basically asking Jesus to give him a stamp of approval without actually following Jesus. He wanted to go back home and say “Yeah, I’m close to Jesus. I just have to finish up this stuff at home and THEN I’ll follow Him. He knows my heart.”

Man if that don’t sound like many of us today! “Yeah, I like all the hymns and stuff. I’m a Christian. I’ll get back to church one day. I’ll start living right one day. I just gotta get my ducks in a row. Jesus understands. He’ll wait. He knows my heart.”

But what do we see as Jesus’ response to the man? He says, “don’t wait! Follow me! (in the present imperative, as in now!) Follow me! Let the dead bury the dead.” That last part of the phrase is talking about spiritual deadness. All the riches and the inheritances of this world are going to fade away. Those are dead things for dead people to worry about.

The simple paraphrase of what Jesus is saying here is, “Prioritize me.”

The second cost we see is that following Jesus will cost us our priorities. Jesus calls us to follow Him first and foremost. Following Jesus doesn’t allow for IOU’s and procrastination.

What does this mean? Church I hope that this is an eye opener that the Kingdom of heaven is at hand!

I love how the right response to gospel is presented by Christ in Mark 1:15. He says, “Yall, the time is up, the kingdom of God is here, repent now and believe in the gospel.”

Church, it is high time for all of us to stop playing games with our sanctification. It is time for us to see the worthiness of Christ to be followed and get on the boat. It’s time we stop allowing the lust of the flesh to dictate our decisions more than the Word who became flesh.

And to the skeptic among us today, it is time to face the truth. There is no hope in “playing church”. There is no salvation in trying to be good enough on your own. Repent and believe in Jesus as King and do so today. Follow Him, leave the dead stuff to the dying World. Come to Him who gives life abundantly.

Following Jesus will costs us our pride and our priorities. But that is not all. Let’s look to the third picture this morning:

Matthew 8:23–27 ESV

And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.” And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. And the men marveled, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?”

Just like the scribe, we aren’t told what happened to the disciple. All we know is that after having the encounters, Jesus and his followers get in the boat. An optimistic view would picture the humbled scribe and the revitalized disciple hanging together on the deck of the boat. But that isn’t something we can be certain of. The point of the stories is not how the people responded, but rather the cost of following Jesus.

Thus far we’ve seen following Jesus costs us our pride, our priorities and in this final bit of the narrative we are looking at this morning we see that following Jesus costs us our APPREHENSION. Let’s see how this plays out.

Jesus and his disciples get into the boat and begin travelling to the other side of the sea of Galilee. A major storm arises. Now, I know we have a lot of fishermen in attendance today, you all may have quite a bit of boating experience, and so did some of the disciples following Jesus. Some of them were professional fishermen who had spent their lives on the water. So for them to be overwhelmed by the size of the storm tells us that this isn’t just a little sprinkle. Notice how it is described here, a GREAT STORM, so great that the boat was being swamped by waves. Large waves crashing over the sides of the ship! I think its safe to say that all of us would be terrified in this situation.

But it is not so for the fully God, fully human, Jesus. Who has found Himself a place somewhere on the boat and laid down for bed. In His humanity, asleep tired from the long day of ministering before the crowds. In His divinity, ever in complete control.

The disciples run to Jesus and say save us! We’re dying! The disciples are filled with doom.

Now I want to pause and share a note from Pastor Warren Weirsbe! Why were the disciples in this storm? “The storm came because they OBEYED the Lord, not because (Like Jonah) they disobeyed Him.” Jesus had just told them in the Sermon on the Mount that the one who hears His words and follows Him is like the wise man who builds his house on the rock. When the rains fall, the floods rise, the winds blow, the house on the rock stands still.

This was an opportunity to put into practice what they had heard, to realize they are following the Lord. But the storms are too much for them to handle their faith wavers and they say not JUST Lord help us, but Lord help us, WE ARE CERTAINLY DYING. Their faith is wavering.

Jesus rebukes them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” And in this statement we see that the bigger storm was not in the water, but in the hearts of the disciples. Jesus contrasts fear and faith. Why are you so apprehensive? I am here!

And Jesus gets up, speaks a word to the winds and seas, as he had to the centurions servant and all of those brought to Him around Peter’s mother-in-law’s house, and all at one the storm is calmed.

When we look at this scene, its pretty obvious that the disciples showed weak faith and were fueled by fear, as the Lord calls out appropriately. But there is something we all need to see here in Jesus’ response.

“Jesus takes them where they are—weak faith and all. He doesn’t say to them, “You want me to do what? I’m not stopping this storm until I see some real faith. Wake me up again when your faith is stronger. What a bunch of wimps you are. Twelve Chicken Chickens.”21 Jesus doesn’t say that. He hears their prayer. He stops the seas. He stills the storm. This shows us that “even little faith is faith still” and that “Jesus helps us however we come to him”—so just come as you are. Jesus will save “even weak-in-faith disciples.”

Jesus knows humanity. Jesus knows the frailty of our condition and the fickleness of our hearts. The point that He is teaching the disciples and us through the exposition of this story, is that faith is to be without fear. In our human condition, we get that wrong, we mess up, fears slip in. But the object of our faith is always in control. We need not be afraid. When the fears of life slip in, the winds toss us about and the waves crash over the side of the boat, take our weak faith to the one one worthy to receive. Take our concerns and burdens to the Lord. We don’t have to have everything figured out, we have to understand that Jesus is Lord.

Following Jesus will cost you your pride, your priorities, and your apprehensions. It’s not a cheap price, but it isn’t complicated either. I think sometimes we make coming to Christ overly complicated. We want to have our ducks in a row, we want to have our lives figured out. We think we can’t be going through a storm in life. But we see today that we are to follow the Lord in the calm and the storm, clinging to Him with weak faith.

As we continue to walk through the miracles of Jesus we see WHY He is Lord. We see His mastery over the seas and creation. We see His healing power. We see how His sacrifice atones for the sins of all who believe in Him. We can see WHY the Bible proclaims salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

As we conclude and school is getting ready to start back this week, I want to provide you with the other W’s of salvation.

Who? What?

Acts 16:31 ESV

And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”

When? Where? How?

Mark 1:17 ESV

And Jesus said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.”