Since
it’s release in 1994 the Lion King grossed over 786 million dollars, it ranks
in the top 25 of all time block busters
The
Story is about a young lion Simba and his struggle to regain the Kingdom that
had been stolen from his father Muftasa
The evil villain Scar has
taken control of the Jungle and made life miserable for the rest of the
animals.
Simba receives a vision –
his father Mufasa appears and speaks to him about his calling and destiny.
Simba eventually comes on
the scene to save the day – and recapture the Kingdom
Though not an
accurate picture by any means, the fairy tale does have some striking
similarities to the book of Matthew
Matthew
Ch.1 we have the Geneology of Jesus – proves that Jesus is the Lion King
The
Lion of the tribe of Judah – the long awaited Messiah
Ch.2 Speaks of
his birth and the enemies attempt to Kill him
Ch.3 His father speaks from
Heaven – affirming his calling.
Ch.4
Jesus takes on the Devil, the enemy in a Wilderness Show down
Ch.5-7 Sermon on the Mt –
Jesus talks about life in His kingdom
And as we come to Ch.8 Jesus
begins to demonstrate his power as king –
A)
Power over sickness / Power over nature
/ Power over demonic forces
B)
The Chapter opens with Jesus demonstrating his power over the deadliest of
diseases known to man at that time – Cleanses a man of Leprosy –
looked at this morning
Tonight Pick it up in V.5 { Rd v.5-13
Setting
is Capernaum
Capernaum
is below the Mount of Beatitudes, and on the North West side of the Sea of
Galilee….. UPPER Galilee.
70% of Christ’s ministry
took place in UPPER GALILEE.
Capernaum became sort of a
home base for most of the public ministry of Jesus.
We
read that a Roman centurion approached Jesus with a need – Sick servant – Luke
– point of death
A Centurion was a Roman soldier in command of 100 men.
A)He
was the highest non-commissioned officer in the Roman Army.
B)Poster
boys – the few the Proud the Centurions
1)
They were career soldiers who were in a very real way the heart and
soul of the Roman legion.
C)When it comes to emotions
they were men of steal - influenced by the stoic philosophy of the day. NO
EMOTIONS
D)Mode of operation Don’t reach out to anyone - don’t get
attached / or involved - we are here to do a job /
1) We are here to represent the Roman Empire.
But this particular Centurion had a Soft
side
A)He uncharacteristically cared for his servant
B)Humbles himself and comes to a Jewish itinerant rabbi – Comes to Jesus
1) Pleading for his help –
Literally begging – strongly pleading
C)Now Luke’s account of this
story tells us that the religious leaders in Capernaum had a high opinion of
this Centurion –
they told Jesus – he was worthy of such a miracle.
“This man is worthy because he loves our nation and has built a synagogue here in Capernaum.
A)So
their opinion of him was High - he is
worthy
B)But
that was not his opinion of Himself – Jesus says lets go –
1)his
response – oh no I am not worthy to have you in my home. I am not SUFFICIENT
or ABLE to host You.
C)This is the right heart –
He has no sense of entitlement at all
The
mistake that many Christians make is they live with a sense of entitlement –
based on their performance
A)Their
walk with God is entirely based on what they are doing or not doing -
B)I
don’t smoke or Chew, go with girls who do -
worthy of you blessing me
C)
Lord I have been reading praying giving – at Church every Sunday Wednesday
Serve
here – worthy of you blessing me
Problem
with that mentality – PBA { Never enough
What
it is also a problem - Someone gets
blessed who isn’t doing all those things
A)What
Lord how can you bless those guys
B)reality
is none of us deserve to be blessed – it is all grace
C) So this Centurion had a
right view of himself but he also had a right view of Jesus
Matt
8:8-9
V.8 "Lord, I am
not worthy that You should come under my roof. But only speak a word, and my
servant will be healed. 9 For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers
under me. And I say to this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and to another, 'Come,' and
he comes; and to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it."
He is basically saying - “I
know what authority is about…..
I
know all about the power comes from such authority”
“I
am here by the authority of the Roman government.”
“The
power of Rome is behind me.”
“THAT
is why I can say to one – ‘Go,’ to
another, ‘Do.’”
“And
I understand that YOU possess authority”
He recognized Jesus’ Authority over
sickness !!!!
SICKNESS WAS IN SUBMISSION TO HIM!!!!
D) Just as he had authority
over soliders / He knew that Jesus had authority over Disease & Sickness!!!!!
He
not only UNDERSTOOD authority,
He
says - I am UNDER authority.
There is always a chain of
authority
CRUCIAL
INSIGHT: No man can RIGHTLY rule unless he is under authority himself!
When
you have a man who is NOT conscious of being under authority you have a TYRANT
and an INTOLERABLE situation.
KEY
EXAMPLE: Husbands
are NOT to be tyrants!
Ephesians
5:22-25 (NKJV) Wives, submit
to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23For the husband is head of the
wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body.
24Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to
their own husbands in everything.
First
He says be submitted to one another in the fear of the Lord – First submitted
to Jesus
POINT:
IF the
husband is NOT under the authority of Jesus THEN he is in no condition to be an
authority over his wife.
It
is ONLY as he is under the authority of Christ that he is truly in a place of
authority over his wife.
It
is ONLY as he is submitted to the authority of the Lord that she is to submit
to her husband.
Jesus
is blown away by this response – Marveled
Jesus
marveled at His Faith – Only two times – Jesus marveled
BOTH
TIMES in regards to FAITH!!
The
only other place where we are told that Jesus MARVELLED is in Mark 6:6 as He
comes to Nazareth His hometown - NO
miracle
There
we are told that He marvelled at their unbelief.
HERE
- He marvels
at the very opposite thing….. Faith
And the FAITH at which he
marvels is found in a Gentile.
QUESTION: WHY
is that? Why not marvel at other things?
A)Because
Jesus understands the immeasurable value of faith!
Jesus
understands that
1.)
We can we
ONLY come to God by faith -
2.)
We can ONLY
PLEASE God by faith -
“Without faith it is imposssible to please Him.”
Matt 8:10-13
10 When Jesus heard it, He marveled,
and said to those who followed, "Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found
such great faith, not even in Israel!
11 And I say to you that many will come from east and west, Gentile nations
and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. 12 But
the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness. There will be
weeping and gnashing of teeth."
Theme
in Matthew’s gospel – V.11-12
There
are those who are Jews descendants of Abe Issace and Jacob who think they have
a lock on the kingdom
Not
going to make it -
Gentiles
who have no spiritual heritage – but who will be there because they simply
believed
Lesson: Right Standing with God is a faith issue not a Heritage issue {Not
parents You!
13 Then Jesus said to the centurion, "Go your way; and as
you have believed, so let it be done for you." And his servant was healed
that same hour.
After
this RD
V.14-17
Note
a few things
Peter’s mother in law –
Instant /
He healed them all!
Fulfillment
of Prophecy
See the thing that’s interesting here it says in
verse 17 that it might be fulfilled what was
spoken by Isaiah the prophet saying, “He Himself took our infirmities and borer
our sicknesses.”
Now
this is a very interesting verse and I’ll tell you why.
Normally
everybody argues over Isaiah 53:5 where it says, “By His stripes we are healed.”
Now
there is one camp of Christians that claim that we should be healed physically.
A)The
other camp says “no that simply means is that we are made whole by His
stripes.”
B)Well
the interesting thing is that the argument is over the wrong verse.
Because
the Holy Spirit, when He applies Isaiah 53, to this moment in the life
of the Messiah, quotes Is. 53:4 not Is. 53:5.
The
Holy Spirit says that the physical healing that took place at Peter’s house in
Capernaum was a fulfillment of the scripture in Isaiah 53:4.
Literally
the Hebrew in Isaiah 53:4 says,
“He lifted off of us our sicknesses and that He bore our pains.”
And
what the scripture is telling us is that they were experiencing the benefit of
the cross before He was even crucified .
QUESTION: What does this mean to you and
me today?
A)We
are all the beneficiaries of Isaiah 53:4 because He has also lifted off
of us all of our sicknesses and all of our pain.
B)We
might not experience that in this life - But we do know for a certainty that
we will one day –
C)Because
of the Cross of Christ… be free of ALL sickness, pain, and death.
Rev.
21:4-6 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. 5And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I
make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and
faithful. 6And he said unto me, It is done.
Well
at this point the Popularity of Jesus is soaring – crowds are flocking
A)V.18
tells us Jesus decided it was time to go to the other side of the sea of
Galilee
B)Always
his mode of operation when the crowds were showing any inkling of making him
King – Not the time – not his purpose
B)But
it is here at this moment that something rather unusual occurs – A Scribe comes
to him v.19 says – Teacher I will follow you whenever you go.
C)A
scribe was a highly educated individual – A guy with a PHD – trained in the art
of studying the OT scriptures – They were experts in the word of God.
D)This
guy is perhaps getting swept up in the emotion of the crowds following Jesus
20 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."
What
did Jesus mean by this response? Two things –
#1
His purpose was not to get comfortable in this life -
Crowds
– he could have had power and riches – he could have built an empire - but that was not why he was here
His
kingdom was not of this world -
#2
He wanted this man to count the cost in following him
A)Always
a cost – Friends / professions/ ethics
B)Matthew
left tax booth – Peter James and John left
boats -
You
students of Scripture - Take note of this –
It
is the first of thirty-two times in Matthew’s gospel alone that
He will call Himself the “Son of Man.”
This is the
first time. It’s a direct reference to
Daniel 7 where it says,
Dan
7:13-14
13 "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.
14 Then to Him was given dominion and
glory and a kingdom, That all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him.
His dominion is an everlasting
dominion,
Which shall not pass away, And His
kingdom the one
Which shall not be destroyed.
Clearly
speaking about the Messiah
So
Jesus uses this term because the Jews know that it is a reference to
those two verses in Daniel 7.
He’ll
use it thirty-two times In Matthews Gospel to describe Himself.
Luke
gospel tells us that Jesus actually said TO THIS SECOND MAN Jesus said - “Follow
Me.”
THE ENTIRE CHRISTIAN LIFE is summed up in
this ONE command - “follow Me”
That is a FAR cry from merely attending
a church
That is a FAR cry from merely belonging
to a small home group
That is a FAR cry from merely believing
certain doctrines
It is RELATIONAL / DIRECTIONAL
A)Here
is a PERSON saying FOLLOW ME A PERSON to follow and a DIRECTION He is going
To
FOLLOW Jesus
meant LEAVING one direction and FOLLOWING Jesus in the way HE is going.
It
is a life in
which you place JESUS IN FRONT of you and the WORLD BEHIND
Notice
how the Man Responds
21 Then another of His disciples said to Him, "Lord, let me
first go and bury my father."
22 But Jesus said to him, "Follow Me, and let the dead bury
their own dead."
Now understand here that Jesus is not being insensitive here
- Let the dead bury their own dead .
A)The man’s asking for permission to bury [his] father, did not mean that
his father was already dead.
The phrase was a common figure of speech in the
middle E. that referred to a son’s
responsibility to help his father in the family business until the father died
and the inheritance was passed out.
C)Now such a
commitment could involve a long period of time, thirty or forty years or more
if the father was relatively young.
The expression is still used in parts of the Middle East
today.
A)Read a story about a missionary asked a rich young Turkish man to go with him on a
trip to Europe,
B)The missionary hoped to disciple the man. When the
young man replied that he must bury his father, the missionary offered his
sympathy & expressed surprise that the gather had died.
C)The man
explained, that his father was alive
& healthy and that the expression “bury
my father” simply meant staying at home & fulfilling his family
responsibilities until his father died & he received his share of the
inheritance.
Since
a man’s inheritance was lost or reduced if he did not fulfill his expected
responsibilities to the family, the phrase “I
must bury my father” was frequently equivalent to “I want to wait until I receive
my inheritance
This second
potential disciple did not want to risk
losing his inheritance by committing himself fully to Jesus
A) Many people do the same today - I will get serious
about the Lord after I go to college / when married / kids grow up
/
B)Listen
to follow Jesus can be costly – Interrupt your plans
1)Me
Baseball – God had another idea –Dad …happy
Never would have met Denise
I
would have Missed out on so much
C)Might call you to leave
the creature comforts of home and family
1)Rewards
are huge - Leaving So Cal for Oregon –
Leaving
place we liked living – leaving good friends – Leaving Parents and grand parents
D)I
had lots of Encouragement to stay – Thriving ministry - no need to stay
Clung
to this verse
Matt
19:29
29 And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My name's sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life.