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Houston's First Baptist Church is a relevant biblical community where we gather our hearts, grow our souls and give our lives as we seek to fulfill the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20). This podcast provides weekly messages from Pastor Gregg Matte and others. Visit us at HoustonsFirst.org to learn more about HFBC, and visit us in person the next time you're in Houston!
In the 19th verse of Matthew chapter 8, we find the beginning of an unusual story. As we go through the New Testament, it seems that there are many of them. And a serious, consistent study of the scriptures reveals that many of the preconceptions we have of what Jesus said and did, and how often he did them, are really rather misleading. It's interesting to notice how often he preached on hell, how often he preached on money, how often he did other things that we just assume were not primary in the life of Jesus. Tonight is such a case, one of the most interesting ones, but a situation which was often repeated in the ministry of Jesus while he was on this earth. Now, he had many titles. One can literally go through the alphabet and rattle off five or ten names in every single letter of the alphabet. A, Advocate, and B, the Bread of Life, and Bethlehem Star, and on and on. But one of Jesus' favorite names, while he was called Son of David often, referring to his royalty and his lineage, which he must fulfill to become the Messiah and reign on the throne of his father David. And as he was called Son of God so often by John, who was the great philosopher and theologian of the disciples. But the name that Jesus seemed to love the best, that he called himself the most, was the name Son of Man, referring to his humility and his desire to identify with men like whom, as whom he had come to be identified willingly for those 30 -some years. And so, we find that when Jesus is approached here by a man who wants to follow him, one of his earliest converts, he who sees on the inside and makes proper judgments in the lives of men, sees a serious flaw, a terrific defect in the commitment of this man who would be his disciple and does a very strange thing. Let's read, beginning in verse number 19. A certain scribe came and said unto him, Master, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest. And Jesus said to him, That's fine, let's go. No, he didn't. He said, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests. But the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head. The foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests. Everybody has a place. Everyone has a home. Everyone has something. But I don't even have a place to lay down my head at night. He was born in a borrowed stable. He bore a borrowed cross. He was crucified and buried in an open, in a borrowed tomb. Everything that he had was borrowed. I'm sorry, except that cross. Jesus, physically speaking, was the poorest man that ever lived. And yet, when men came to him, so many times, while we're busy trying to get up a crowd and make new converts, many times in the New Testament, Jesus said things and did things which were specifically calculated to get people not to follow him, but to not follow him. Instead of trying to make new people follow him, many times, as often as not, the things that he said were specifically calculated to get people not to follow him. Why? Now, here's a man that came and said, I want to follow you wherever you go. He was a scribe. He was a leading Jewish personality. He would have been a somebody, a real trophy of grace had he been a true convert. And yet, Jesus said to the man, I don't want you to follow me. Now, he didn't say that in so many words. But logically, what he was saying was calculated to get the man not to follow him. And he did it repeatedly. Foxes have holes, the birds have nests, but I don't even have a place to lay my head. Are you sure you want to be my disciple? Another man came to him and said, I want to be your disciple. And Jesus said something which was calculated to get him to go away and not follow him at all. He said, before you can follow me, you have to sell all your goods and give all your money to the poor and get rid of every earthly possession you have. Now why did he do it? Because he knew the man wasn't willing to do it. When you talk about following Jesus Christ, you find scores of people coming to Christ being told many different things. To one, he says, go home and be with your family. To another, he says, sell all of your goods. To another, he says, if you're not willing to forsake your mother and father, you can't be my disciple. To one, he says, repent. To another, he says, believe. To another, he says, he that looks to the plow and puts his hand to the plow and looks back cannot be my disciple. Many times, Jesus did and said things which said to people, go away, don't follow me. Why? Obviously, there's only one reason. Because Jesus knew what was really in the heart of man. And he knew that many people would follow him on the outside. And he was really not particularly interested in getting up a big crowd of followers as much as he was with the integrity and the quality of commitment of those who were really going to be his disciples. Because he knew that what they were about, a serious task, a serious commitment to winning the world to Jesus Christ, was not going to take just the typical Sunday morning crowd. It was going to take the prayer meeting kind of crowd. The weekly witness kind of crowd. It was going to take a special measure of commitment. And those who didn't really mean business were really going to be on the church rolls and just getting in the way. And Jesus said, we've got too many of those already. Over in the book of John, the second chapter, in verse 23, when he was in Jerusalem, many people believed on his name when they saw the miracles which he did. But Jesus did not commit himself to them because he knew what was in all men. And he needed not that any should testify of them what was in man. Jesus didn't need a living soul to say to him, now this man is real. You can count on him. He'll be back Wednesday night. His tithe will be in the plate every Sunday. He'll be standing for the right causes. He'll be in visitation Monday night. This man will say no to sin in the office. This man will say yes to Christ. This man will always follow me. This man, no, he doesn't mean it. He's caught up in the sham. He's caught up in the show, the excitement, the enthusiasm. But it's not real. Nobody had to tell Jesus which crowd would be around in five or ten months and which wouldn't. I am as conscious as you are of the fact that every Sunday morning when people come down and join our church on profession of faith in Christ, on transfer of letter, on any group that comes on any given Sunday, I know as well as I'm introducing them to the crowd, that the minority of them will not be back until the next Sunday morning. Now the difference is, I just don't know who they are. And it's very interesting to me, and frankly often very surprising, to see who's there on Wednesday night that I never dreamed would have been, and who's not there that I never dreamed would not have been there. But Jesus never made such a misjudgment, because he always knew what was really on the inside of men. Now when you go back and examine this story in the book of John, you see many people believed on his name, they believed on him, it's the same Greek word, but he did not believe in them. Why? Well the reason is right there. Because they saw the miracles which he did. You see, they believe for the wrong reason. They believe for the excitement. They believe for the show. The evangelist comes to town. It's popular to be a Christian. All the teenagers in high school get saved. Everybody's converted. And you come back to church Wednesday night. And the preacher starts talking about prayer meeting, and tithing, and soul winning, and even being willing to go to a cross and die for Christ if necessary. And they say, just like Judas. Wait a minute. Now Judas wasn't a booger. Judas wasn't the meanest man I don't suppose to ever live. Judas was a businessman. He had an eye for the dollar. It was popular to be a Christian. It was popular to be religious. Judas said, hmm, I'll make some money on this deal. So he joined up. He got in the crowd. He joined all of the folks in the church. And then one day Jesus began talking about dying on a cross, about commitment, about death to self, about Christian commitment. And he said, now wait a minute. I hadn't planned on any cross. And so he simply decided to sell out. He thought since he was going to cash out, he'd made a bad deal. He might as well get what he could out of it. So he washed out for 30 pieces of silver. That's about what happened to Judas. And that's about what happens to many Christians. They believe for the wrong reason. They believe when they saw the miracles, which he did. You see, our faith is so weak. We have to have the physical buoying up of our faith. We have to have the props. We have to be held up. We have to be supported. And sometimes we say, well, the service just wasn't that good. And not as many were saved. And the singing wasn't quite as bright. And the sermon didn't excite me like it did. And when it's not quite as exciting sometimes as other times, we kind of lose our commitment to what's happening. You know what I think is going on in our church? To tell you the honest truth, I think that ever since the Nothing is Impossible campaign, that there has been something happening inside of the life of our church which has been the healthiest thing that may have happened to us in the last century, I really do believe that there may be less fraud and less overt, outside bubbling, but more deep, qualitative Christian commitment in the lives of our people who have really put their life on the line. And Jesus is your treasure and your heart in the same place than any time in the history of this church. I really do believe that. I am sensing a deepening, a commitment for the lives of our people, a kind of gelling and settling. And I believe that while we may be between some of the peak mountaintops in the life of our church, that God is really doing some things. He's really building and gelling and settling and building a base on which He's going to build that great church of which we've dreamed. I really do believe that. Now, don't you misinterpret what God is doing in this church at this time. Now, if I had it to do again, when I came to First Baptist Church, frankly, I would do everything the same way again. Almost. Almost. You know, the first Sunday, the first week I was here, I did a little street survey, and Frank and I walked over here to the corner, the jewelry store, and walked down about a half block toward those movie pictures. I was praying about a thing about coming, and we did a little survey to get a public opinion of First Baptist Church. And folks, I'm telling you, this is just Sunday night. This is the home folks crowd talking tonight. Now, we really didn't have any public opinion, and nobody thought anything about us. And so we decided to quit doing that, and we changed our survey and just asked people where we were. And we talked to over 100 people 50 yards from the front door of this church who even didn't, who didn't even, before we even found one person who even knew where we were located. I'd far rather be persecuted and picketed than to be ignored. Man, we were being ignored to death. So we sent up some skyrockets. We had some picnats and some campaigns and some spirinos and some crusades and tried to get hold of this city and shake it by the back and say, look, world, we're alive. And now, a lot of folks came into the church in that kind of an element and that kind of an atmosphere, and that's very good. But you know, when it all began to gel and all began to settle, there are always those kind of folks when things begin to settle, when you're not shooting up skyrockets, who are saying, what's wrong with the church? Why, everybody's not yelling and clapping and shouting amen. We're not blowing the lid off. You know what's wrong with the church? People who go around asking what's wrong with the church, that's what's wrong with the church. But listen to me. We must not ever misinterpret a lot of explosion for necessarily being spiritual commitment. And we must not ever misinterpret some of those valleys. And you see, you just can't live on the mountaintop all the time. You just can't go from experience to experience. You must go about building in the process of daily commitment, qualitative lives, and the lives of God's people. I'll tell you, one of these days, the lid's going to come off, but we're going to have to major for a while on building a church and on building people. You see, Jesus said, far too many people came to follow me when they saw the miracles, which he did. And people were coming down the aisles like crazy. Now that's what happens worldwide. It's happening in the Jesus movement. The Jesus movement is not quite as popular as it used to be. The fad is just a little bit over. Do you know, in the last 12 months, down on the beaches of Galveston, they've been selling Jesus bikinis. Literally. Jesus t -shirts. You can buy Jesus hot dogs and Jesus soft drinks. Man, Jesus is where it's at. And so all the kids get to turn in on Jesus. It's popular. It's exciting. But then when you get down to Sunday morning and tithing and prayer meeting, they have believed only for the spurious, shallow, enthusiastic excitement. But when it comes down to the daily consistency of commitment and living for Christ, they have believed for the wrong reason and they fall by the wayside. So what Jesus does is to begin to eliminate some of them before they ever become a problem. and he says repeatedly in his gospel don't follow me if you don't really mean it i cold i kid a kid again shaven last sunday i went to hear preaching i said we have we got some of your best members this morning and he said i've got about 500 more you can have if you'll let me pick the 500 but jesus was saying i want to pick out some of the 500 that are just have their name on the roll he said to this man i'm talking about poverty i'm talking about stripping yourself of what you have i'm talking about a total commitment to me and if you don't have that and if you don't mean that i don't want you to be my disciple i believe if i believe anything in this world that on the one hand god wants everybody in the world to be saved but on the other hand he far prefers quality to quantity you remember how they came down with gideon's army and there were thousands and thousands of them and the lord said to gideon this is far too many this is a motley mob i can't do anything with this gang he said give them a simple test let them go get a drink of water and those who just lunged into the water and thought only about themselves he said send them home but those who began to pick it up like this and they watched for the enemy while they drank those 300 he said those people have commitment i want them we'll win the world with those 300 you remember how god destroyed sodom and gomorrah there were two entire cities destroyed and two souls say what because god didn't love 200 cities no because god never sacrifices quality just for the sake of quantity the wheels of christianity for 2 000 years have been turning on the on the power of the dedicated few that mean business you remember how god destroyed the world under the flood think of it 17 million people down the pike 17 million down the tubes there were eight souls saved and 17 million god loves 17 million but he just does not get up a big crowd he just does not sacrifice the quality of the integrity of being a christian just for the sake of quantity i believe that when churches really start to grow it's going when the world really starts to turn to christ it is when a genuine sense of commitment in the lives of god's people starts to become a reality and i want to tell you this i believe that there are as many genuinely committed christian people with their life and their fortune and their witness before god in this church as any church in all the world but this has been on my mind for some time and it wasn't even my sermon tonight but i just must say it we have done some things to get us off the ground to get our church in orbit to get us moving to get us growing i have never been in a church in all my life as the first few months i was here as defeated as whipped with no spirit no pride no belief that we could do anything discouraged and down and whip like a dog with its tail between its legs and i was determined with all my heart that we would build a sense of pride in christ and in our church to believe like the old marine core motto can do that it could be done i said aldeen i'm going to see that auditorium filled one time if i have to stand on my head and it was filled and i suppose more of our older members came by during that houston of christ crusade with tears on their face do you remember the night dr white stood here with tears he said i never thought i lived to see it praise god before i died the first baptist church of houston packed now we did some things we sent up some flares and some folks came in who liked the flares and since nothing is impossible i believe that first baptist church of houston has been becoming a different church and you air seriously if you think that is becoming a less church because you may see us having for three years lived on a lifestyle of flares and fireworks going through some of the valleys of building and deepening and normal consistency i say again one of these days the lid is going to come off but let me tell you something folks it is imperative for us to understand that the rocket thrust which it takes to get the church in orbit once you're up there and moving you need to change your emphasis and you don't have to keep sending fireworks off all the time it takes a whole lot less thrust to keep the ship in orbit than it does to get it in orbit and i am intensely concerned that we understand and do not misinterpret but that we understand that what God is doing, and I say this again, I believe that the Sunday after nothing is impossible, about the 17th of December, that I came out here and sensed on this platform the greatest singing, the greatest depth of commitment and integrity and commitment of a group of people I've ever seen in my life, and our church is shifting, it is settling, it is deepening, it is maturing, and I believe that God is laying the bricks in here one at a time and building a group of Christian men and women who mean business for God that are going to build a base on which this city can be won for Christ. I really do believe that, and we must not misinterpret what God is doing, or we're going to do serious injury to the Spirit of God. As your pastor, I feel that I simply must say that. You know, as the commitment, as the responsibility, as the demands of Christ for real Christian commitment intensify, the commitment of the number of people goes down. Remember one day I said that Jesus said, where your heart treasure is, there will your heart be also, and I told you that I had misread and misinterpreted that text for many years. I've said one of my favorite verses is, where your heart is, there will your treasure be, and if you love the Lord, you'll put your money in the church. That's not what that scripture says. It says, where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. You drive down the gulf freeway tomorrow, and you may have driven by a little piece of land for 40 years, never noticed it was there, but one day you put about a thousand down, and you buy that little piece of land, and every day you're driving to work, you're going to slow down and look at it. Boy, that's my little piece of land. You're going to watch it all. You see, you have put your treasure in it, and your heart follows your treasure. Bible doesn't say your treasure follows your heart. That would be ideally wonderful, but it is not practically a reality. Jesus, who was the master psychologist, said, put your heart and your money in something, and then your interest is going to follow up, because you want to know what's going on with your money. You want to know what's happening to what you're giving. I'll tell you, when the people of this church decided to give $3 million. We'd find out in Deacon's meeting that already a half a million dollars of that has come in. $100 ,000 in cash and nearly $400 ,000, a little bit over, in land and some deeds to property and things like that. The people are giving. They're paying those pledges. But when the people of this church made the greatest commitment of financial giving I think a church has ever done in the history of the world, I think the day it all happened, their hearts began to follow. And I believe, as I sense as your pastor, that God is building a wonderful, wonderful church. But in the meantime, as the fireworks begin to die down and the consistency begins to grow, there are a lot of people who do not understand what it means to follow Christ all the way. And the bikinis are over and the foxes don't have any holes left and the birds don't have any. When it's down to basic commitment to Christ, most people who start out do not end up following Jesus Christ. And so our Lord is simply holding very, very high the standard of what it means to be a Christian and saying, don't you forget it. Don't you dare miss it. This is where it's at. This is what it means to be my disciple. One day, Jesus fed 5 ,000 people when he got done preaching. 5 ,000 people. Then he said, I'm not going to feed. I'm only going to preach. And 500 showed up. A few days later, after he had risen, he asked the disciples to go into Jerusalem and tarry till they were imbued with power. You know how many showed up for that prayer meeting? 120. And then he said, I want some of you all to be on call. I want you to be my disciples. I want you to go out and visit to the ends of the earth. The number drops to 70. And then Jesus said, I want you to follow me day and night. I want some of you to be on the inner circle. I want you to be my helpers, my deacons, my friends, my disciples to stand by me, to be the inner core, the strength, my heart to hold my hands up as Aaron held Moses. The number drops down to 12. Then the night before Jesus was crucified, he went into the garden and prayed. The Bible says he sweat as it were great drops of blood that perspired from his brow, his soul in agony. And only three, three of the disciples went with him and they fell asleep. Five thousand were there when he prayed and the 500 when he ate and the 120 when they prayed. And of the 70 were there to go out on visitation. And of the 12 that were on call 24 hours a day, of the three that went in the garden, only one disciple went clear to the cross, John, just one. You see, as the intensity of real Christian commitment increases, the crowd consistently and proportionately goes down to zero. I beg of you, I plead with you, beloved church, in Christ's own stead, that you will be in that twelve, in that three, in that one, to understand what it means, not just for the crowd, not just for the show. So, I really do believe that this church has as great a Sunday morning services as any church on the face of the earth. The singing, the response, the enthusiasm, the lift, there's something here. Bob Garris told me, I have looked all over Dallas and Fort Worth and I've been hungry like a dry sponge in the desert. He said, today has filled my soul just to be here in the presence of God. There's something in these services and far too many people come in on it like that. And they're not back on Sunday night and not in training union. And they take jobs, they don't take jobs or they take jobs, they won't fulfill them. Oh, listen to me, how I pray that you and I will understand that Jesus is saying far more beyond just getting in orbit, there is a staying power in orbit. And to be a real Christian, whether one person comes to Christ in a year, God give us one that'll go all the way with Jesus, then a hundred that'll come in the back door and front door and out the back. That's what he's talking about in the area of Christian commitment. I commend you on yours. I challenge you to greater. And I lift high a standard of those of you who would join this church or who would accept Christ as your Savior. Understand that Jesus wants nothing but all you have and all you are to go all the way with him. Be a real Christian in a soft society. We need some hard believers. Let's stand and pray. Father, we love you. We love your gospel. We love your singing. We love your church. We love your cross. We love your name. We love your cause. And we pray that our commitment shall intensify in Jesus' name. Amen. Gerald, we sing onward, Christian soldiers. I want us to sing a verse or two of that. And then if you'll come tonight and accept Christ as your Lord and Savior to go with him all the way. If you have been a Christian that's been halfway cold and half -hearted and half -defeated and half -faithful, then you need to come rededicate your life to Jesus. Maybe you just want to come take the preacher's hand and say, Preacher, I'm recommitting my life to Christ. I'll be faithful to God all the way. Then go back to your seat. Go on. If you want to come and say, I want to join the church, and I mean business for God, all of me, all the way, then you come. Two verses, maybe three. Come as we sing together.