Sermon Central
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Trust Me
Contributed by Terry Cavanaugh on Apr 17, 2005 (message contributor)
Summary: Jesus calls His followers to trust Jesus with their present, their future and their past.
Trust ME
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.
