Gooding, David: 2 - The Path of Discipleship

Let's begin to read this evening, shall we, from Matthew's gospel, and again in chapter eight. Matthew's gospel and chapter eight. We'll read again tonight, beginning in verse eighteen. Now, when Jesus saw great multitudes about him, he gave commandment to depart unto the other side. And there came a scribe and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head. And another of the disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. But Jesus saith unto him, Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead. And when he was entered into a boat, his disciples followed him, and behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the boat was covered with waves, but he was asleep. And they came to him and awoke him, saying, Save, Lord, we perish. And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. The men marveled, saying, what manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him? And when he was come to the other side, into the country of the Gadarenes, they met him too, possessed with demons, coming forth out of the tombs, exceeding fierce, so that no man could pass by that way. And behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee, thou Son of God? Art thou come hither to torment us before the time? Now there was afar off from them a herd of many swine feeding, and the devils besought him, saying, If thou cast us out, send us away into the herd of swine. And he said unto them, Go. And they came out and went into the swine, and behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep into the sea and perished in the waters. They that fed them fled and went away into the city and told everything and what was befallen to them that were possessed with demons. And behold, all the city came out to meet Jesus. And when they saw him, they besought him that he would depart from their borders, and he entered into a boat and crossed over. Last week we discovered that chapters eight, nine, and ten of the, uh, gospel by Matthew are concerned with a twin theme. On the one hand, they deal with the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ. And on the other side, they deal with our response to his authority, namely our discipleship. For as with his authority he teaches and commands and leads us, we on our side as his disciples are called upon to accept that authority and follow him. For to be a disciple is to be a learner, but not merely one who learns the theory and forgets to put it into practice, but one who, learning the theory, then follows the Lord Jesus. And then last week we looked at the first group of stories in chapter eight up to verse seventeen and saw how they exhibit the Lord's authority. We s- group them under the title the gospel of our Lord's authority. So many folks feel that our Lord's authority is some stern matter, that discipleship is necessarily some arduous task to which we are called. Matthew has a better point of view. He points out that to know the authority of the Lord Jesus as one of his disciples is a veritable gospel, as the Lord takes his authority and power and puts his shoulder under our weaknesses and sicknesses and carries our sorrows and takes his, our infirmities upon him. But now tonight we must take the second group of stories to start with at any rate, and we shall find that they deal with the path of discipleship, the journey of discipleship. For it is the fact that if we become the disciples of the Lord Jesus and experience his power in salvation, we shall at the same time be called upon to begin a journey. For discipleship is a pathway along which we make progress, not just a once and for all experience. So we notice, do we not, verse eighteen tells us that Jesus saw great multitudes about him, and there were many sick folk. Doubtless he had already healed scores of people, and there were multitudes naturally around him, but at this point he left them. And you might at first think that that was a callous thing to do when there were scores and scores more people around him waiting to be healed. Why did he leave them and go away? Because there comes a point in every life, when if we, our Lord is going to make real disciples, then he will have to challenge us to begin the journey that is the path of progress for the disciple. And therefore, you notice how our Lord forced upon those who wanted to be his disciples their decision. He gave commandment to depart unto the other side, and there came a scribe and said unto him, I will follow you. And again, in verse twenty three, and when he was entered into a boat, his disciples followed him. Many there were, I suppose, who didn't think to do it. But those who were determined to be his disciples would not let him depart thus, determined to follow him, and came along to the quayside to get into the boat with him. Actually, I suppose from the moment of our conversion, we are called upon to follow the Lord Jesus, as presently we shall find Matthew did. But for many of us, though we have long since trusted the Savior, there come critical moments in life, don't there, when we make up our mind to follow the Lord. It is possible for folks to be saved and know themselves saved and just stay put until some circumstance or other compels them to face this decision. Am I going to be a genuine, outright, practical disciple of the Lord Jesus? Am I prepared to start out on the pathway of deliberately following him? And for those who thus follow him, there come a series of lessons, and here we have them. They are, of course, very basic lessons. One of them, as you see, is taught, it's in two parts, and it's taught to men at the beginning of the journey. A couple of men come to the Lord Jesus as he is about to push off in the boat from the quayside to begin the journey, and they have to be taught certain lessons at the beginning. And the second lesson, of course, comes in the middle of the journey, as in the middle of the sea there rises a storm to the tremendous fright of the apostles, where they learn their next lesson. And then thirdly, there comes a lesson on the other side of the scene, to complete this group of stories that are concerned with the pathway of discipleship. What are the lessons I shall have to learn at the beginning of the pathway? Two lessons, or at least one lesson in two parts. There came a scribe and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. But, said our Lord Jesus, the foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head. Wonder what the Lord Jesus meant. And was this a word simply to that man who lived all those many years ago, and to him only? Did he say this, the son of Man has not where to lay his head, to warn this man that if he followed him in the boat, it wouldn't necessarily be very comfortable. He might have to rough it, like missionaries and our good brother here going to Senegal and other such places, that in this particular journey that we're taking across the ocean, across the lake here, you'll have to rough it. Well, you say, no, perhaps it means something more than that. The Son of Man hath not where to lay his head. And very frequently he had to sleep out in the open boat or in the mountainside. Unless that is very true. And what gratitude it should induce in our hearts, shouldn't it, to remember that most nights we sleep more comfortably than God's own Son slept when he came here to earth for our salvation. But is it true that he didn't have anywhere ever to lay his head? You say, surely he did because he stayed with Martha and Mary sometimes. They gave him a bed, surely. Oh, well then you say perhaps it really means that he didn't have a home of his own. Well, is he then saying to the scribe, look, if you follow me on this journey, you won't have a home of your own either? Is it wrong for believers and disciples to have a home of their own? Can't be that, can it? It would be wrong for disciples to scrounge on other people if they could afford to work for a home of their own, surely. Then what can it mean? I think, perhaps, if we think this thing through, we shall find that while it is true that on times our Lord had to sleep on the mountain side because there was no room for him, and it is therefore true that we who are his followers will on times be called to rough it for Christ's sake. Yet there is a deeper meaning than that. He had no home of his own, but more than that, he had nowhere to lay his head. Ah, the old fox, when it gets tired after all its daily activity, nature has provided it a place to lay its head, and it's here on the earth. And the bird of the heaven, when it's finished its flying around the place, it has a nest. But for the Lord Jesus, where was there when he had finished his work to lay his head? Well, nowhere on this world, because his work wasn't finished, ever. The verb is only used, as far as I know, once more in the New Testament of our Lord Jesus. There was one place where he laid his head, according to the Gospel of John. He bowed his head, saying, it is finished, and he bowed his head and gave up the ghost. On Calvary alone was his work finished in this world, and in that sense, not till then did he lay down his head and rest. Ah, what a mission it was when he came down to our world. Never finished until the great work was accomplished. We are called to follow him on the path of discipleship. Oh, it may be that sometimes we shall have very comfortable homes, and perhaps we shall. And perhaps we shall have to rough it, and sometimes, on the other hand, things will be comfortable, but but as far as the work of our discipleship is concerned, as far as the lessons that we may learn and must learn on the path of discipleship, so far as the training goes that our Lord intends to give us on the path of discipleship, we shall never finish it this side of glory. We shall never be able to lay down our head and say, now I've finished. I have been given, I've been guilty of many foolish misunderstandings in my time, but when I was younger and I looked upon my senior brethren with their gray beards, and my senior sisters with the light of the glory already playing round their heads, I said to myself, well, of course they've got past all the struggles and the trials, haven't they? They've learned it all. And now my hair is grayer, though the light of the glory doesn't shine yet around it. I begin to perceive that on the path of discipleship, you have never finished. Never. And the lessons won't get easier, but tougher. You will never be in a position to lay down your head and say, now that's that finished, I've qualified, you know, I, I've passed through and I've passed out, and now I've learned it all. It's not an afternoon tea party, and it isn't a university course of three years. Nor is it a something we do in our youth, and we've learned it by the time we're forty. There is nowhere on earth for the disciple to lay his head, for the lessons will never be complete until we get home to glory. It's a long course. And then in the second place there came a man, and he'd got one foot over the gunnel into the boat, and the other foot was still on the key, and he said, have a moment, Lord, don't cast off yet. Because I'm going to follow you, but you see, uh, I want first to go and uh, suffer me first to go and bury my father, so don't go just yet. I just got to go away and bury my father, and then I'll be back. That's an interesting idea, wasn't it, in sense of proportion of things. So he's going to hold the Lord up. While the journey of discipleship waited for the good man to go off and fill- fulfill some other duty. Astonishing attitude, isn't it? I remember a good Chinese man telling me once in a far off country, how he couldn't become a Christian quite yet, because he's waiting for his elder brother to die. You see? And, uh, of course he was Chinese, and as you may know, imbued with that tremendous Chinese sense of the importance of an elder brother, and you mustn't, whatever you do, offend your father, but you certainly mustn't offend your elder brother. Because his elder brother was a Buddhist, uh, he couldn't be anything else but a Buddhist since his elder brother died, and when his elder brother should die, then he would consider becoming a Christian. And what would you say to a man like that? Of course, the dear man hasn't the beginnings of a concept who Jesus Christ is, has he? Or the importance of being saved, or the importance of beginning the life of discipleship. It is of so importance, such great importance is the lordship of the Lord Jesus, that though it offended everybody in the world, I must put him first. Yes? There can be no prior claim. There can be no prior duty. We cannot say, let's hold up the course of discipleship while first I do this. It must be always the other way round, first the path of discipleship, and then all the other things. Of course, the lesson doesn't mean that Christian people should neglect their parents. If we got that idea into our heads that it was right in the course of Christian, uh, so-called Christian service for Christian men and women to neglect their elderly parents, then chapter fifteen of this letter would soon put us right. The Pharisees indeed, so we are told there, had invented a doctrine that said to a young man or woman that if they'd like to pretend that their money were devoted to God and to the temple, then they needn't use it to support their elderly parents, but they themselves could use it later on, supposedly for the temple, but in their own interests. And our Lord denounced it as a travesty of the will of God. Christian people are to support their elderly parents, difficult task as it can be on times. And not to do it is virtually to deny the faith. But you'll see, however great a duty that is, nonetheless, loyalty to the Lord Jesus comes first. For not even to duty to parents will take precedence over duty to him. He demands first that we serve him, and one of the first things he'll then send us to do is to see after what parents, of course. Or if we haven't learned to show godliness at all, our supposed godliness in other spheres will not be very much worthwhile. Ah, but there was more to it than that, wasn't there? Not only did he teach the man that there was no prior duty, and there is no excuse on earth for postponing the beginning of discipleship. But then he said to the good man, leave the dead to bury their own dead. What does it mean? Well, one thing it can't mean, it can't mean let the physical dead bury their own physical dead, can it? Because the things that physical dead people can do are very limited. Let the spiritual dead then bury the spiritual dead. Well, you don't bury spiritual dead people, do you? Wouldn't be a very good activity to engage in. You want to waken them up and get them alive. So what can it be? I take it that it is a pointed, uh, contrast, let the spiritually dead bury their own physical dead. And you may ponder what our Lord Jesus may have meant by that. The commentators all disagree, don't they? Like commentators do. That's what we have commentators for, so they can disagree. Let the dead bury their dead. Ah, say some people who see the young gentleman wasn't just going home to a funeral service, for our Lord might have given him leave just to run away for three hours and come back again. But that what the young man was thinking was that he was going to hang around until his father, who wasn't yet dead, until his father died, and when his father died and he buried the dear man, he would come into the money. And what the man was saying to the Lord Jesus was, look, I can't, I can't come now at once. Uh, I must hang on for a while until my poor old dad dies, and then I shall come into the inheritance, and that would be useful, wouldn't it, because then I could support your cause with the money I should get. And there are folks that think like that, of course, aren't there? Well, I can't be too exact a, a, a disciple just for the moment, but give me another ten years and I shall have made my pack at my business, and then I can start thinking about being a disciple, and I might have made enough money to help the rules work with. Foolish way to think, isn't it? For if we're going to be a disciple, it will mean being a disciple at our daily work. And if the only way we can make our money is by not being disciples for the time being, then God doesn't want the money. But I don't suppose that the young man was saying, look here, Lord, you're about to go on a journey, but, uh, I got to go home for the next six months, nine months, year and a half until my father dies, so wait here for a moment until I come back. All that time, surely, the Lord was about to go in a boat. So I presume father was dead already, or nearly dying, maybe. What did our Lord mean? Personally, I take him to mean this. Let the dead who are spiritually dead bury their own physical dead. You come and follow me. You see, it is the fact, isn't it, that people who are spiritually dead can do. Let me use an analogy. Suppose here's a good man, he's just been run over in the street by a bus, and they take him to hospital, you'll see, and the man has his nose broken and his ribs crushed and all sorts of other injuries, and his boots are rather muddy. Well, the surgeon who comes along to clean him up won't attempt to clean the boots. No, said he not. Anybody can clean his boots. I can clean his boots. The surgeon, with all his years of training, isn't there to clean a man's boots. He could be doing something exceedingly more important and valuable by mending a man's heart. So he let the non-trained ordinary Ordinary. person clean his boots. As we go through life, we shall have to, uh, choose, shall we not, the various tasks that present themselves before us and assign to them an order of precedence, which is more important. Your unconverted neighbor, she could make old Granny Smith down the road a plate of porridge. Of course she could. She couldn't tell her the way to heaven, could she? I'm not telling you don't make the porridge. By all means make the porridge. But as a disciple, we shall have to put first those things that only disciples can do. For if we don't, nobody else will do them. When it comes to following the Lord Jesus, the unconverted can't do it. We can. And Christ will expect us to put those activities first that only we can do as disciples. Let's move on. And they started to go across the sea. They got into their hearts now the importance of the path of discipleship. A task and a journey, so to speak, that in one sense will never be done, a task that will be never finished this side of glory. And the urgency and the supreme value and importance of it compared with all other things in life, however dear and sacred. What next must they learn? Well, the disciple on the path of discipleship must now learn the relation of the Lord Jesus to the great elemental physical powers of the universe. They got in the middle of the lake, there came a storm of wind and wave which threatened to sink the boat, and our Lord was asleep in the boat, and they were alarmed and woke him, and he rose and rebuked the wind and the wave and reproached his disciples with having little faith. And it's obvious, isn't it? There are some lessons you can't learn unless you are actually on the journey. It's all right to look at the nice blue sea when you're sitting in the deck chair with your newspaper over your head, you'll see, and the sea is nice and blue. You won't learn much about storms there. It's thrilling to stand on the shore and see the sea itself all a boil under the mighty power of the wind, and you safe on the shore. You won't learn too much about storms at that either. Should you be in the middle of a journey on the sea and there comes a storm, then you'll need to learn things about the storm. And they learn the relation of the Lord Jesus to the physical powers of the universe. You say to me, well, I don't like the sea and I don't go on it as much any more than I can. I prefer to be safe and not to do any sailing. Is that so? Ha. But then you go daily sailing, don't you? This time last year, how far have you sailed, I wonder? I forget how many, I'm no geometer, how many millions of miles it is you've sailed, uh, since this time last year. On an old boat called Planet Earth. Sailing the old boat through space. You any idea of the immensity of the ocean underneath the boat? And here you go on this boat, sailing through space, aren't you? Where are you going exactly? As year by year you sail your boat round the sun, and the sun itself is moving through space, and you're doing a corkscrew through space, and beneath your boat. Do you know, they tell me that if you were to get your nose outside the little envelope that wrapped under our planet, outside the paths of the universe, absolutely lethal. Absolutely lethal. We know it from what the old astronauts telephoned it. That out in space, they have to be lethal to human life. Very dangerous journey to take. And And it's not only wind and wave that can suddenly upset you, but bigger and smaller things too in this physical world. There are little things called germs, and there are others called viruses, and runaway cells. And at any time, any one of them can assail us. It is a dangerous place to be journeying, planet Earth, through space. What is it all about? It's easy, isn't it? When the tempests come and the physical elements begin to assail us and threaten to destroy us. It's easy to think, isn't it, that something's gone wrong with the path of discipleship. But that isn't so. Our Lord was so confident that he was asleep. Wasn't anything unusual to him. For as he now demonstrated, he was in perfect control of those wind and waves, and had it been God's will that they should have drowned him to the bottom of the sea, well, that's okay then. He was in control of them. And it wasn't by accident that the journey led through this storm. That was the way for them. Oh, but it took a lot of courage and nerve, didn't it? Even for those hardened fishermen to stand in that rocking boat with the w- boat shipping water and the wind tearing at the old sails and thinking to go down any moment. It took a lot of nerve to trust that Jesus Christ was in control. But he was. And if we are to go on our path of discipleship home to glory, then this is a lesson that all of us presently must learn. What is my relation to the big physical powers of the universe? Well, first of all, I have the assurance that neither life nor death, things present nor things to come, or height or depth, or any other creature shall be able to separate me from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. In that sense, I'm safe. I'm not told that there shall never come any storm. I'm not told that there is no debt. I'm not told there is no disease, no germ, no virus, no threat. What I am told is that none of these things can separate me from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. And secondly, I am to be told that in all these things I am more than a conqueror. For pray consider a moment. What is your relationship as a believer to the big physical powers of this universe? Was it that God suddenly found you here in this old planet Earth, and, uh, he said to himself, well, I better start saving these folks then. So he saved you and he forgave your sins, and then said to himself, ah, difficult, sorry they're here, really. It's a funny place to be, this world. Hm. Well, I suppose I have to get them out of it somehow or other. And avoid as many accidents as I can. No, sir, it wasn't that way round. You listen to what Paul tells us in Ephesians. That long before there was a planet, long before there was a universe, God decided to have sons, not just creatures, but sons of God. People that were by their own deliberate and willing faith responding to his invitation to receive the very life of God, to be the garden of God. That was the first. God was determined to have sons. Well, how can you make a son of God? That's an interesting thing, isn't it? You can't be born a son of God, not physically. Can you? You can be born a creature of God. I was, you were. And nobody asked your question, isn't that so? Nobody asked your question whether you wanted to be born into this world, a creature of God. You just woke up one day and found you were there. Woke yourself up crying or something rather and discovered you the you were. Hadn't been consulted as whether you wanted to come, uh, no, you were here. But you can't become a child of God like that. Why not? Because the process of becoming a child of God depends not only on God's power, but on your free choice to accept him. You have to be consulted as to whether you will or not. But it's one of those things. Forgive my crude illustrations, won't you? But you can't be born married, so I understand. You can be born single, most folks are, but you can't be born married. Well, not in the normal sense of the term. Marriage is one of those things where you have to be asked whether you will or not, apparently. And becoming a child of God is one of those things. Will you or won't you? So God wanted to have sons of God. So how do we get to that stage? Well, first of all, he'll have to make creatures, and he'll have to put them in a place where they can grow, until they come to a point where he can then make his offer to them, whether they will receive the Lord Jesus and become son of God. And he'll have to put them in a place far enough away from his heaven, where their choice can be genuinely free. And because he wanted to have you as a son of God one day, he made the physical universe and the wind and the wave. It was never intended to be permanent. It was only a stepping stone, but it is an inevitable stepping stone. We couldn't be born into heaven straight away. It was an inevitable, unavoidable stepping stone, an inevitable and unavoidable journey that we should be placed in a physical universe and have to pass through it. Oh, it is no accident. With all its powers that on times can be lovely and delightful with the lovely sun and the blue sea, and on other times scare the very life out of you. And my brother, the whole universe was made for you. Made for you. As the pathway by which you will arrive home to God. Don't scare the very light from you. Christ stands in your boat and tells you, don't be afraid, for he is master of you. And before you get ninety six, you're only encouraged to believe it. On the other side of the sea. We learned the lessons at the beginning, didn't we, when the boat was by the, by the quay. Now we've had the lessons that you learn in midstream. And on the other side of the sea, when I came out, I next had to learn our Lord's relationship, not to the physical powers of the universe, but to the spirit powers of the universe. For the physical powers of the universe can be terrifying sometimes. They are as nothing compared with the spiritual opposition that is raged against us. When they were come out of the boat, there met them two people possessed of demons, and Matthew is the one that tells us that the others don't quite. They were so fierce that nobody was able to pass that way. Anybody trying to journey through there, when they met those demons, found the demons so fierce that they fell down and hung. Ah, do you know that's a common experience with people that set forth on the path of discipleship? They begin to make some marvelous progress, and then his satanic majesty sees that there's some spiritual opposition in the way. And it is so fierce. Satan tries to defy the new convert or the serious disciple. Stop him going further and get it into his head, it's no good, you better give this up, you were silly to try and stop us ever getting home to glory is all the power of hell itself. What hope have I of getting through? What hope, but if it were left to my strength, I had no hope whatsoever. Ah, but thank God he who is Lord of wind and wave, Lord of the physical powers, is sovereign over the spirit powers. He carves out the opposition, and he opens the way for progress to the next. It's not a mountain and ski party, it's the pathway of discipleship. But we have one verse who is all powerful to see us through. And then we come to something that is perhaps one of the most solemn, I nearly said terrifying things in all scripture. The nature of our Lord's authority. Master of wind and wave, master of the very thing who opens up the way to glory. Then we're told that when the local people came and saw what had happened to the pigs, and the costs involved in Christ's opposing statement. They asked the Lord that he would depart, and the Lord Jesus turned around and left. You see, he is all powerful, but he's no tyrant. And if man, puny man, finally says to Jesus Christ, go, Christ will go. No time. Oh, how solemn that is. That means there will be an eternal hell. For God made this great universe, but for those who would not follow the self. Who in the end, counting the cost that they see it set to go, will go. Who will wait on the end without the self. So we have our second group of stories. We mustn't spend so much time on all the other groups of stories, may we? But this is Matthew on the path of discipleship and the basic lessons that every disciple is called upon to learn.