Reading Assignment: Matthew 8:18-34
Main Idea: Jesus has power over nature and demons.
Truth: Count the cost of following Christ.
Key Verse: Matthew 8:20
There were two men who needed to count the cost of following Christ:
1. Scribe who needed to set Christ before his own comforts.
2. “Disciple” who needed to set Christ before his own family.
3. The important lesson is that if Christ is God and Savior, we must make Him foremost in our lives.
Matthew then tells us two miracles over nature and demons:
1. Calming of the sea: Jesus has power to calm the raging sea with a rebuke. Jesus is no ordinary man. He is God in flesh. Only God can tame the storm and the sea.
2. Exorcising demons: Only God has power to tame powerful demonic spirits. Jesus has this power, because He is the divine Son of God from heaven.
Prayer Suggestions:
1. Jesus, You are my number one. Everything else pales in comparison to You. Keep me from unhealthy treasures in my life. I know that is entirely foolish. You, God, are more important and worthy than anything else in this world. In my heart, I set You as my highest priority. You are God.
2. Jesus, I fear no natural disaster or anything else that can make me to fear. You are more powerful than the storm and the seas. I trust in You, and if I am right with You, I have nothing to fear because You always take care of Your own.
3. I fear no demonic spirit, because You are more powerful than them. You can cast out demons with a word. Keep me from unhealthy fears that fail to believe that You are the supreme power in this world.
Transcript
Let's pray and we'll begin our time.
Lord, thank You for this morning together. We ask that You guide us and allow Your word to refresh our souls. And I pray that You would bless everyone here with just another refreshing encounter with Your truth. We pray for your Spirit's work among us. And pray bless this time. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
The next passage to be read is Matthew 8:18-34. Last time we looked at the healing miracles of Jesus. This time around, Matthew gives us stories of Jesus's power over nature and demons. That's the main idea of this section: Jesus has power over nature and demons. The truth that I want to highlight is a little bit different from this, however. The truth here is a few verses before the miracles in which Matthew shows us that we must count the cost of following Christ. Count the cost of discipleship. The key verse is found in Matthew 8:20, where Jesus says to someone who says he wants to follow Him, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”
Let me give you a little more about the setting here, so you can get the bigger picture and understand what Jesus is saying. After the three healing incidents from the prior section, Matthew then tells us about an incident when Jesus was heading over to the other side of the Sea of Galilee to do ministry there. We encounter in this scene two men who wanted to follow Jesus. And the first man was a scribe. This is a person to whom Jesus made the comment about foxes and birds. The first man was a scribe, a person who knows the Old Testament scriptures well. He said to Jesus, “I will follow You wherever You go.” But Jesus perceived that this man didn't understand what this leg of His ministry journey will entail. So Jesus challenges him to count the cost of following Him, that there may not be a comfortable place to sleep at night. He challenged this scribe to be ready to rough it with Jesus. We're not told how the scribe responded, but the lesson for us here is simply this, that following Christ can sometimes mean roughing it. A disciple will not always have the comforts of home. And so Jesus challenges us that Christ has to come before my own comforts. Christ is more important than what’s familiar and pleasing to me.
The second man was a disciple (so we're told) who was giving Jesus an excuse to skip on this leg of His ministry journey. The man said, “Lord permit me first to go and bury my father.” To this man, Jesus said, “Follow Me, and allow the dead to bury their own dead.” Now, those words may sound a little bit harsh and insensitive, but what Jesus meant by this was simply this, that a disciple must keep his priorities straight. Jesus was telling him that any spiritually dead person can bury his deceased father, if you would. Someone else could do that job, but only true disciples can follow Jesus and join Him in His works. And so Jesus shows with this second man that Jesus must come even before my family duties.
Now, just so we don't misunderstand, Jesus doesn't mean that we should just all abandon our families, not take care of our children, or not maintain good relationship with father and mother, brother and sister. There's a lot in the rest of the Scriptures that tell us that we need to honor our parents, that we need to raise up children according to God's word, and that we ought to love those around us. However, when push comes to shove, Christ must take precedence over even our family ties. Why? Because Jesus is God, and God must be the most important being in our lives. He deserves our highest love, highest commitment, and highest devotion. And so Jesus teaches us that He must come before even family.
So then, two lessons with regard to counting the cost of discipleship are these: Jesus comes before my comforts, and Jesus comes before my family. You can already tell there's a bit to pray about here and think about. And we’ll come back to this as we consider our prayer response to the Lord later.
Well, after these several verses, Matthew then gives us the account of two very powerful miracles which Jesus performed to confirm that He is God. The first is the calming of the sea. In this first scene, Jesus and His disciples were getting ready to cross the Sea of Galilee. And as they sailed along, Jesus was asleep in the stern of the boat, which is described in one of the other gospels. Matthew more simply tells us Jesus was asleep on the boat. Then a great storm arose on the sea and the waves were coming over the boat so as to sink the boat. Now, the disciples were frightened by all of this. Even though they were experienced fishermen in the Sea of Galilee, they recognized they could do nothing about this wild storm before them. So they became frantic, and they woke Jesus up. And they told Jesus that they were perishing. Then Jesus simply got up and rebuked the wind and the sea. Jesus just spoke words. He rebuked the winds and the sea. And we're told the sea then became perfectly calm. This must have been eerie. All of a sudden, Jesus spoke a word, and the whole storm became perfectly calm. In response to this, the disciples said this, “What kind of a man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?” This captures well what was really going on here. Jesus was no mere man. He's the Son of God. He has power over nature. He has power over the winds and the sea. Just with a word He contains the raging storm. No man has that kind of power, only God has that kind of power. The Old Testament confirms it so. God alone is indeed the one who can still the roaring seas and the roaring waves. That’s Psalm 65:7. We're also told that God causes a storm to be still and for the waves of the sea to be hushed. That's Psalm 107:29. The point is this. Only God has the power to calm the sea, and the men in that boat recognized this when they made their remark. Well, “What kind of a man is this?” He's not an ordinary man, that's for sure. He is the Son of God incarnate.
The story goes on. They have now crossed the Sea of Galilee. They get to the other side and they meet two men possessed by demons. These were very violent men. So violent were they that people could not even pass by that way. Well, Jesus encounters these demoniacs, and He simply commanded them to come out of the men, and they leave. Now, just like the calming of the sea, no man has the power to command demons to do this or that.
I should give us a real quick explanation of what demons are. Demons, according to the Bible, are fallen angels. They’re angels who had defected with Satan to oppose God. In the Bible, angels are not these cuddly beings with wings on their back, they're actually powerful beings God created to do His bidding on earth. And so the demonic spirits are powerful angelic beings who fell away from God and followed Satan. And they wield all their strength to do evil. So they're actually dangerous. And no human has the power to control demons. Only God has the power to do that. And Jesus, in this scene, shows that He is that powerful God who has authority over demons. What both of these stories show us is that Jesus possesses divine power. He has authority over nature and He has authority over the spiritual realm, because He is God.
There's a lot that we can pray about with regard to these. First, the main truth that I highlighted, which is to count the cost of discipleship. This is something that is hard to do, but it's necessary, which is to make an honest assessment of your own heart before the Lord. Ask yourself, “Am I holding anything back from the Lord? Is there anything that I'm not willing to give up for Christ?” This is something that every person has to deal with honestly in their own heart. And if it turns out that there are things that you’re holding back from the Lord, then it's time to confess that to Him. And it is time to surrender that to the Lord, whatever it may be. You know, there are sometimes things that we cherish really deeply in life. Maybe it's our family, our comforts, our assets, our reputation, or whatever it might be, those things that we're afraid of losing. We just need to ask ourselves, “Well, what is greater than those things?” God is greater than those things, and if in fact Jesus is God (and He is), then I have to deal with these things honestly before Him. If Jesus be God, then He is more valuable, more worthy, more precious than the things that I hold onto as dear to myself. I want to encourage all of us to get to the point in your prayers before the Lord, where you can honestly say to Jesus, “Jesus, I am Yours. I trust in You. I follow You. I follow You more than my own ideas and my own values. I trust in You more than I trust myself. You are more important to me than my comforts, even my family, and every other thing that may grab my attention and affections. You are number one in my life.”
The second topic to pray about is Jesus's power over nature. Jesus really does have power over all of nature, and if you belong to Jesus, if you're on His side, you have nothing to fear. And this is yet another aspect that we can pray about. We can say to Jesus, “Jesus, I fear no earthquakes. I fear no climate change. I fear no storms. I fear no circumstance in my life, because I trust in You. You can calm the sea. You can bring a storm to a halt. You can handle anything that comes my way. I trust in You, and even if I have to face a life and death situation, I know that You will decide good things for me and for my family, and so I trust in You that You will bring my life to end just at the right time. I trust in You with all these things. Keep me from unhealthy fears, and help me to always put my trust in You.
The last thing to pray about is demonic spirits. I know that demonic spirits are real. I've had some rather frightening experiences many, many years ago, and I don't need to recount them here. Perhaps some of us have also encountered paranormal activities before also. Well, let me just assure us that Jesus has power over the demonic spirits. This is yet another topic we can pray to Jesus about: “Jesus, You have authority over demonic spirits. That means if I am right with You, I have nothing to worry about. This means I can find my refuge in You. You can deal with every demonic spirit, even as I read in the Bible. And so I fear no evil, because You are with me. Because I belong to You.”
There are lots of great topics to pray to Jesus about in this section. May I encourage all of us to spend some time to reflect on this next section and pray to the Lord earnestly about these matters. Most of these issues are ultimately about our fears, whether it's demonic spirits, natural disasters, or the loss of things that are precious to us. You know, if we have Jesus as our Lord and we have Him as our Savior, we have nothing to be afraid of. To have Jesus on our side is like having the most powerful warrior on your side in the battlefield. If you have the most powerful warrior on your side, you don’t fear your enemy. Jesus is that most powerful warrior. He can handle anything that comes our way.
Let me pray for us and we'll wrap it up for today.
Lord, thank You. Thank You that You are God. We see it in Your word. You have power over all things, demonic spirits, nature, and certainly all the issues in our own personal lives. You can take care of all of them. Why would we want to hold onto anything other than You. Grant to us the right perspective and the right heart to count the cost of following You, and to make You our very first, number one priority, and that everything else would fall by the wayside in comparison. Thank You that You love Your people. You even laid down Your life for Your own sheep. And so we on our part, we listen to Your voice and follow You. And we trust that You will take care of the rest. Thank You for being our powerful God, Lord, Master, and Savior. We trust in You. In Your name, we pray. Amen.
That's it for today and I'll send you the transcript as usual. Lord bless you all, and have a wonderful week in the Lord. Goodbye.