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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!
Now, to the 8th chapter of Matthew, let us turn in our Bibles, please, and I should like for us to look at five scattered portions of Scripture which bring a background into the rather unusual but most informative events that happen in verse number 18, our text today. Okay, let's skip down through here, looking at one of them at a time. In Matthew chapter 8, first of all, verse number 1, when he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him. Verse 5, and when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion beseeching him. Verse 14, when Jesus was come into Peter's house, he saw his mother, his wife's mother laid in sick of a fever, and he touched her, and the fever left her. Verse 16, when the evening was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils, and he cast out the spirits and healed all that were sick. Verse 18, now when Jesus saw the great multitudes about him, he said, come on, boys, I've had enough, let's get out of here. Now, that's really what happened. Now, that's not exactly the way Matthew said it. That's the way you and I might have said it today. Jesus had had enough for one day, and he knew when it was time to get away for a little R &R. Very clearly, when he saw the great multitudes, he gave commandment to them to depart to the other side. He probably had the largest crowd he had assembled throughout this entire very busy day, but he said nothing to them and had no time for them at that particular time, because there comes a time when enough is enough. And over in the 23rd verse, he with his disciples entered into a ship, and they departed to the other side, away from the crowd of people. One of the fine verses of the scripture in Mark, which has been so well reinterpreted by Vance Havner, says, come ye apart and rest a while, or ye will come apart. Our Lord rested after he had created the earth. Most people have not learned to this day the fine art of doing the same thing. It is interesting to me that when Jesus had found at the end of the day this large crowd around him, rather than rushing into them for more, realizing that there was a point beyond which he waited, understanding that the sun would rise again tomorrow for another day to minister. There was always tomorrow, and he would spend this night in other activity and save tomorrow for tomorrow. In the hubbub and hurry busyness of our life, across the epitaph of most Americans, it's probably going to be written the words hurry, worry, and bury. In the old days, if you missed the stagecoach, you simply waited a week for the next one. But today, if we get caught in a revolving door, most of us have a heart attack waiting three seconds to get out. It's difficult in the modern, busy life that we live for us to learn to do what Jesus did, to understand that there is great spiritual virtue in knowing when it's time to get away and rest. And I think that you cannot do very many more things that are a dedication to God than to go to sleep when you're sleepy. I consider rest and sleep a form of spiritual activity because it refreshes the mind, the soul, the body, and the spirit. Sometimes on Monday mornings, which are not one of a preacher's better times, people call me very, very early, and they say, oh, preacher, did I get you out of bed? Well, I have a phone by my bed. They might have gotten me up, but the answer is always the same. No, you didn't get me out of bed. I'm still in bed. I'm talking to you on this phone in bed where I intend to be for a good while more after you hang up. But I don't tell them that. But there comes a time that we have to learn to do that. My good friend Ken Chafin at South Main was ribbing me this week because I said on the radio a few Sundays ago, and he was listening to our broadcast coming into his early morning service over KPRC, that he said, I found out something I didn't know. This week, I found out Peter's mother -in -law really wasn't too sick. She just had a cold. And I did some more study on that, and I remembered something else that I did not tell you, and that was, of course, that 2 ,000 yards was the most that a man could travel on the Sabbath. And so by the time Jesus would have gone from the synagogue yonder that morning over to where he preached the Sermon on the Mount, and back again into Capernaum, he could not possibly have gone any farther than that, of course, because of the law, and in that distance, he would have surely arrived home back about noon. Now, having rested that afternoon, the activities of the evening began. You remember that they brought him the crowds of people from whom he cast demons and whose lives he touched that night. And so, but the important thing is that it does seem to me that what had really happened was that the activities of the day had drained Jesus. And from Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we learned that there came the time at the long end of this day when our Lord had had enough and went aside to refresh himself bodily, mentally, and spiritually before he could be and do his very best. I want us for a moment to recount the activities of that day. What had happened? He had not been gone long, but it was a very trying time. For one thing, Jesus Christ had drained himself mentally, and mental work can be the most difficult. Don't let anyone tell you that the man who moves furniture or digs ditches all day is the only man who labors. The man who is doing executive work, the man who works with his mind instead of or as well as his back, is doing an exhausting, trying thing. I remind you that our Lord Jesus had just that beautiful morning preached the most beautiful, the greatest, and the most important sermon the world had ever known. I do not suppose that he had just preached it spontaneously. It was the product of years. Jesus had searched the scriptures. He had studied himself. He had probably memorized it. Somehow I just can't picture Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount reading from a manuscript the words. He had put himself into the thing. It has been shown that a man preaching a sermon in 30 minutes under the power of the Spirit of God with the emotional drain and the power of his life is exerting as much energy as a man does in several hours of physical labor. Remember, Charles Adam Spurgeon, who was the greatest preacher probably the world has ever produced since the days of Paul. A man whose sermons were so popular, it is said the entire world waited until Wednesday morning when they were delivered all around the world for Spurgeon to be heard and to be read. That every Sunday he would preach in that great tabernacle and he would preach from an hour and 10 minutes to an hour and 40 minutes and the people were in rapt attention and many were saved and that he would go home after preaching again Sunday night and go to bed and literally sleep until Tuesday noon. Such was the exhaustion of the man after he had preached and delivered his soul. Somehow it seems that the power of the body, the action of the muscles is not nearly as exerting as the power of the mind over the muscle. And Jesus had exerted himself mentally and he was drained. And I would suggest to you that he had given himself physically that day. The very first words say, when he came down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him. Jesus was a very popular man. The children adored him. He must have been pulled continually by the crowds, by those who wanted to touch him and the children who would sit on his lap and come up in his arms. When Jesus had come to the end of his day, he was as physically exhausted as a man could possibly be. Then it appears to me that Jesus must have also been very spiritually exhausted. He understood that those who are Sunday school teachers, who are witnesses, who are Christians, who are giving out spiritually, have to stop and recharge the spiritual battery themselves. Jesus did not accomplish great miracles without a great taxing and draining of his own spiritual power. Every time that he healed someone, the leper whom he had healed, the centurion's boy that had been healed, the man that came to him, all of those that were touched by Jesus were healed at the sacrifice of Jesus' own spiritual reserve himself. The Bible tells us of one woman in a crowd who wanted to get near him, who merely touched the hem of his garment and immediately not even seeing her or feeling the catch, Jesus perceived that virtue had gone from him. Power had been drained out of him, and immediately he turned to look and see what had happened. They tell us of men like Edward Payson, who used to pray, and his home, that great prophet of God, his home in Boston now is a little museum where two holes in the floor are grooved down where he prayed, who died at a young man, and of David Brainerd, who'd prayed until the snow melted beneath him, and preached to the Indians, and died of consumption in the plains of the West, when he was now 30 years of age, and of men like Jonathan Edwards, who preached the gospel and would drain the baptistry before he would preach his world -famous sermon, sinners in the hands of an angry God, and crawl up on his face and for 10 and 15 hours a day, many times for a week and 10 days, pray and pray and pray. And when he preached that sermon, many times for four and five hours, at the end of the message, men would sit in a trance and hang on to the columns of the church to keep from sliding into hell. They were so convicted and so empowered. And when he preached the thing, he always had a rule that he could never preach again for at least a week. He was so drained of the spiritual power that had gone out of him. And I would suggest to you that you remember how the Jews had all their little legal laws. And the law said you couldn't work on the Sabbath. So they had to decide how much work was work. And it was two dried figs. And well, then when is the Sabbath? And it was when it was dark. Well, when is it dark? Well, that was when two stars were down. Now, they had all their little rules and all the little things they tried to interpret and do and understand. And they had a rule that after the sun went down, the day was over when two stars were out. So the people waited to get an early start on him to start on the next day. It really wasn't the next day. But legally, in the Jewish calendar and how the ways they operate, it was the next day. And so there were those who came to him going to do some moonlighting, do a little extra work. And the sun had gone down. And they came to Jesus. And he cast out devils. And he had done more. And he was exhausted. And he understood that he had done all he could do. And so Jesus set for us a very wonderful example. Now, what does he do? He simply says to his disciples, come, let us go to the other side of the lake. Let's get in the boat. Let's leave the crowds. The day is over. And I cannot be my best overall if I do not do my best in the matter of preparing for tomorrow. A man who's going to run a hundred -yard dash may have to run a hundred yards well, as hard and fast as he can go. But if he's going to be a four -miler, he's going to have to slow down and learn to pace himself. Now, first of all, I would suggest to you that when Jesus left the people whom he left, that he had planned to do it. Now, the Bible doesn't say that all of a sudden there he was. No, it was a cool, calculated move. Jesus knew himself to be tired. He knew he had to refresh himself spiritually, bodily, and mentally. And so he decided. He got the boat. He called the disciples. He decided where he was going to go. He decided when he was going to go and how he was going to go. Now, you're never going to have a vacation unless you plan it now, this week. You're never going to have that day off unless you plan it now, this week. And I am saying to you that to rest, to refresh yourself bodily, mentally, and spiritually, periodically, and consistently, is one of the grandest and most important acts of worship for a Christian in the world. You must learn when to leave the crowd. Jesus planned to do it. John Edmund Haggai, in his book, How to Win Over Worry, tells about his father, who many years ago retired as a pastor in New York City, in New York State. He lived in Elmira where he served in a small church. And he said one day when this wise old man at age about 65 at that time, and he were talking, right in the middle of a conversation, he said, Wait a minute, son, I'm sleepy. And he said he dropped his head and fell immediately to sleep. John Edmund said that he sat there and watched him and timed him. And in seven minutes, his head bobbed back to wickedness again. And he said, Okay, let's go on. Where were we in the conversation? Now, there's a man that had learned to relax in what he was doing. They say that when Dr. R .G. Lee was president of the Southern Baptist Convention, at nearly 70 years of age, he traveled that year 150 ,000 miles, made an average of three sermons a day, averaged 21 additions on Sunday to his own church was in town enough to make an average of 10 calls a week that week every week that he was in town built a million and a half dollar building and an education facility as well you say i don't believe that well i don't either but i read it in a book somewhere so i when when men like like that are able to do things like that there has to be a reason dr martin who was his physician said dr r g lee had the greatest capacity of any man that i've ever known to be able to relax at all times when he was under pressure he was always in control he planned when he was going to rest he planned that cat nap he planned that vacation jesus anticipated and premeditated that it was time to leave he got the boat he made the journey he made some plans and many of you are going to pop all of your fuses and bust all of your gaskets well before you're 50 years of age unless you learn to slow down and have a time for physical and emotional and spiritual refreshing and my wife is staring a hole through me saying amen amen amen secondly when he did so he left the immediate circumstance in which he found himself he didn't try to relax right where he was he could have just gone over the next hillside and said now wait a minute boys i'll be right back he knew that a change of pace was important and also a change of location you must have a diversion you must be able to get away from the same routine solomon was a great biologist and uh and uh and uh he was a a poet and a singer david was a a a musician the apostle paul i think had a great interest in athletics he often referred to illustrations from the athletics in preaching his sermons and was surely very interested in them billy graham is a great golfer almost every man harry ironsides learned the great preacher harry ironsides who never finished his formal education but who was one of the most educated men that ever lived harry ironsides learned chinese after he was 58 years of age as a hobby to change his mental processes you simply must understand that to get out of the routine you have to get out of the situation then he got away from people he got away from the crowd now surely he could have shut the door and gone into a small tent but there comes a time when people have to be shut out deal moody was probably the greatest soul winner the world has ever known he never went to bed in his life until he witnessed to somebody about christ they used to call him crazy moody one night he had gone to bed very tired and he remembered that he had not witnessed anybody so still in his pajamas half asleep he rushed down and stood by the side of a lamppost and cornered a man walking by and asked him if he were saved he looked at moody in his pajamas and said save man you must be crazy moody no he said save what business of that is yours and he said man that is my business he said you must be crazy moody but deal moody the great soul winner used to say that every night people would ask him how do you go so hard how do you do so much and not lose your mind he said from seven in the morning until midnight i'd go as hard as i can as fast as i can but he said every night i get in bed i say a prayer i pull the covers up over my head blow out the candle and let the world go to hell and you have to learn to do that you're not going to save all the worlds yourself you're not going to do all the goods yourself you're not going to make all the money yourself you're not going to grow that business overnight you cannot take a flower and grab it with a hose and squirt it to death and say come on grow growth is a natural process and in the process of time it does us well to understand that the man that's going to go the long race accomplish the long -term ultimate goal must learn to get away from things and to get away from people every time i counsel with a couple that i'm going to marry i talk to them about four problem areas i have found in prop in marriages one is sex another is money a third is religion and a fourth is communication and i suppose many married couples have about as much trouble communicating as anything in the world strange that we are the only humans in the world with a gift of intelligent verbal communication and yet we use it so little so many couples are in real problems simply because they have not learned to talk to each other and i tell every couple this don't let most of your recreation time be simply by being entertained by a third medium, simply going to a movie or looking at a football game or watching television where you're sitting side by side and someone else or something else is doing all the talking and all the acting and all the thinking. Learn to do things that involve you face to face, play croquet, go fishing, go for a walk, swim, talk to each other. One of the happiest times of our lives are the nights that my wife and I go home and after the children are in bed, instead of sitting there and just gaga -eyed looking at television all night, we simply turn off the TV, turn the lights down low and sit on the couch and look in each other's face and talk to each other. It is one of the most beautiful and important of Christian virtues and graces that you have friends, most of all, your own loved ones, your own family, far from the madding crowd with whom you can personally learn to communicate. And then I would suggest to you that our Lord Jesus went outdoors when he wanted to recuperate. Now homes are fine and TV is fine, but I'll tell you friends, there's nothing like getting back to nature. Jesus went and slept all night. Now Peter's house was nearby. He could have gone there with a soft bed. He could have had a nice home -cooked meal from that woman who he had just healed that morning. There would have been a cover over his shoulders and a shelter over his head. But instead of that, Jesus chose to sleep by the Sea of Galilee. When my wife and I were in Israel last summer, I wanted more than anything else to spend a night by the Sea of Galilee. At midnight after we had retired, I shook her on the shoulder and said, I'm going to go out. And I sat out there all night. I want you to know that resting on that grass, looking up at those shooting stars, I suppose of all the times in my life, I have never had a consciousness of the presence of God like when on that grass, looking up in those stars by that beautiful murmuring sea. I just knew God was all around me. And I was there where Jesus had been learned to take long walks, not on a golf course Sunday morning, but Monday morning and Tuesday morning. You see, and Wednesday, get out with your boys, camp out in the country. Jesus could have stayed inside, but he chose to be in the open. Now, why did he do it? Well, I would suggest one reason is because he had to learn to get, spend time with his heavenly father. Now, I believe this, that Jesus' conscription was a willing one. Jesus Christ perfectly and willingly limited himself to the limitations of the flesh. Jesus was no magician. He could have sinned. He could have betrayed his father. He could have made a mistake. He had the will. He had the power to do it, but he refreshed himself because he had to. He prayed all night because he had to. He studied the scriptures because he had to. He fasted because he had to. He was willingly in that conscription to the flesh. Jesus could have missed the will of God. He could have sinned. He could have made a mistake, but he wanted to keep the receiver set of his conscience and his spiritual antenna, keenly and perfectly attuned to the voice of the heavenly father. And then he wanted to spend some time with those intimate fellow disciples. Now, he could have said, boys, get me a boat. I'm going to the other side of the lake. But he didn't. He said, let us go to the other side of the lake. They sat out together. Jesus knew the importance of the value of spending time with a few personal friends. The Bible says in the book of Proverbs, there is good wisdom in the counsel of close friends. I talked to a young man this week who said, I am making Proverbs the guide of my life. The Bible promises wisdom to the man that reads Proverbs. Now, a lot of folks have a lot of learning, but they don't have any sense. They have a degree, but they don't have any wisdom. There is wisdom in the book of Proverbs, and it says there is much counsel, much good from the counsel of friends. Someone has well said that in a man's lifetime, if he is lucky, though he has thousands of speaking acquaintances, he may have as many as five true friends. Jesus had at least 12. Learn to spend time, breeding and building deep relationships with people that are your friends. Frankly, the happiest times of my life are those evenings and afternoons of fellowship with deep, few personal friends, those people that really seem to stick closer than a brother. Then, of course, he had to learn to spend time with himself, to know himself, to know thyself, to know thyself. You know, I had a thought this week as I heard a story about something that happened, unfortunately, to someone, that it is possible for anything in the world to happen to any of us. There is no sin, there is no problem, nothing that you cannot do. Now, you think of that. Because you are a human being with a sinful conscience, redeemed, saved by the grace of God, yes, but still a sinner saved by grace, you and I are capable of anything, anything. And it is important, it is imperative for us to know ourselves and to spend time alone with ourselves, taking spiritual inventory, determining what kind of men we really are and how to become the kind of men we want to really be. We put a little ad in the paper a few days ago. We had one of these little above -the -ground swimming pools that you buy at Sears and Wards. And I put an ad in the paper for $175 to sell it because I didn't want to move it. And my wife put one in for $200. And when the guy came, I didn't know how much. He saw the $200 ad and he was ready to write it out. And I said, oh, $175, just like the ad said. Smart cut cookie. He didn't say a word, just kept writing the check. And he went back and I showed him how to take the thing apart. And I said, there's only 18 screws in the whole deal you have to undo. And we started talking. He said, I think I can handle that. I said, what do you do, sir? He said, well, I'm a professor of engineer at the University of Houston. So, which I'm not, you know, really sure made all that much difference. But he started taking the thing apart. And we began to talk. And I said, now, you know, this is amazing. Don't be confused. These eight little braces around the side, they'll hold it. It's amazing the way it does. All that water pressure. It holds about 6 ,000 or 7 ,000 gallons. Looks like it would bust. He said, you don't have to worry about that, pastor. He said, you see, it really doesn't matter whether it's a teacup or something that's 10 ,000 miles across. The cubic displacement, or whatever the fancy word he used was, of the pressure per square inch is the same regardless of the amount of water. I didn't know that. Did you? You learn something new every day. Well, I started to think about that. And it occurred to me that there is a great spiritual lesson there. That is, when your life has been redeemed by Jesus. When he lives in you. When the Holy Spirit controls you. You have an inner reserve. And it doesn't matter whether there is an inch or a hundred miles of pressure per square inch on your life. No matter what it is, God is adequate. He can handle it all. It doesn't matter how big it is or how little it is. I urge you to take a deep lesson from this little, tiny, obscure, overlooked verse, which I really wrestle with as to whether I would even try to make a sermon out of the fact that Jesus got in a boat and left. To understand that there are times when in the problems and pressures of life, to be our best, we simply must hang up the phone, close the door, and leave and say it's time to rest. Do you have a daily consistent time of spiritual refreshing? Do you read good books? Do you read the good book? Are you making good friends? Are you letting Jesus live inside of you? Is life becoming full and rich and meaningful? Or are you just biologically alive and barely living, but not really? Existing, but not really living? One of the greatest things you can do is to set up a weekly and or daily schedule of prayer, Bible reading, rest, time with friends, communicating with your wife, walks in the woods. Learn the value of the day off, of the vacation, of the periodic time. Understand your stress point. Believe me, I know mine. The time comes that I've had enough and you just have to go. God can handle his universe very, very well. It'll get by till tomorrow. It will wait. You better learn if you're going to do service for God and good and your country and for yourself for a long time to take care of yourself today. Shall we stand and pray? Our Heavenly Father, we pray that Jesus, who died on the cross and shed his blood to save us from our sins, may help us to understand that there is a sin of murder and adultery and lying and stealing and pride and covetousness. But what about the sin of letting our minds and bodies and souls run down? What about the sin of never taking a day off? What about the sin of trying to save everybody else's kids while ours go to hell? What about the sin of ignoring our wife? What about the sin of not having regular times along with God? God, Lord, help us to understand that if Jesus, who was God and yet as God, the most perfect man who ever lived, if he needed it, if he looked at the zenith of his ministry and the multitude and said, that's enough, I can't see anyone else today. I must get alone with my father. I must rest. Help us to know that if he had to do it, so must we. Thank you for the spiritual, refreshing experience of rest, relaxation, and fellowship with good friends, with God, and with ourselves. Help us to learn by his example. In Jesus' name, amen.