Got a question on youtube uh regarding why I personally don't enjoy going to funerals. And um normally with a question like that, I would just sort of swat it away because who cares what I think about that. Uh But it just so happens that um a lot of times when you ask questions, it's to the Lord. Um
It's like a tumbler on a lock on a combination lock. And when enough of those things line up, then the right thing to do is to answer the question. And so following that pattern, there were several keys there that fell into place. Uh One of them was, it was a comment on a video about how we should be
very careful about the questions that we ask. And um so it's, it, it stands to reason that this person was not being frivolous with the, with the question and they phrased it in a way that seemed like they were sincere. And it just so happens that this was a question about some off remark. I made some
, some uh sideways comment I made at some point. And uh that's a demonstration of faith. If you can take a little nugget of something and um manifest real intent by zooming in on it and noticing it and uh investigating the potential possibility that it might be a big deal. So uh as I thought about that
question, the Lord gave me a whole lot to say about it. And so here we go. Um let's start, let's start in second Samuel 12. So this is uh this is the story of David's first child with Bathsheba and we won't go over that whole story for the sake of time. But you're probably familiar with it. And if you're
not, you can read about it with this after the child is born. Uh Nathan, the prophet comes to this, that this child is going to die and uh and that's very important and I'd love to take a minute to talk about that, but we're, we're not going to do that right now. Uh Picking up in verse the end of verse
15, it says that the child was very sick. So what happens is uh for an entire week, David lays, lays on the ground and fasts and praise for this child to try to see if God will heal him. And uh his companions come by and try to convince him to eat something or to get off the ground and he refuses. And
then on the seventh day, the child dies and um his servants, they're actually scared to, to let him know that the child is dead. Um So picking up in verse 18, uh they said, behold, while the child was yet alive, we spake unto him and he would not hearken unto our voice. How will he then vex himself if
we tell him that the child is dead? So they were, they were quite afraid as to what he might do um in his grief to, to know that the child was dead, given how much he had abased him from when the child was still alive. So David saw that they were whispering and he said, is the child dead and they said
he is dead. And so this is with and washed and anointed himself and changed his apparel and came into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he came to his own house and when he required, they set bread before him and he did eat, then said his servants unto him. What thing is this that thou hast done
? Thou didst fast and weep for the child while it was yet alive. But when the child was dead, thou didst raise rise and eat bread. And he said, while the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept for I said, who can tell whether God will be gracious to me? But now he is dead. Wherefore should I fast? Can
I bring him back again? I shall go to him but he shall not return to me. Which there's some deeper meaning in that last sentence. But again, we will uh skip over that for the sake of time. So it turns out um AAA theme I've referred to before is hidden holiness. I like that phrase David. Uh So just in
brief, holiness is anything that's closer to the Lord. Um then whatever you're comparing it against, and David was a holy man. And as always is the case commensurate with that holiness. David was demonstrating behavior that seemed quite strange to the people around him. And uh one of the reasons for
that is that these people tend again commensurate with their holiness, they tend to march to the beat of a different drummer and that drummer is God or at least a higher echelon of accuracy and resolution of who and how God actually is. And that is where uh they derive their way of being from, not from
the people around them, not from the sentiments of society, the expectations of others. They have an advanced idea of God and that is how they live their lives. They emulate what they understand the Lord would do in their place. Ok. So David, like Jesus was criticized for the circumstances under which
he fasted and mourned and the circumstances under which he did not fast and mourn. And you'll remember Jesus speaking about this in the New Testament and he, he essentially said, he said, well with you folks, no one can do anything, right? Because John, the Baptist came fasting and you had a problem
with him doing that and I've come not fasting and you have a problem with me doing that and, uh, there's, there's no solution to your equation. So, um, and unfortunately a lot of people are like that, um, and how they judge others, they judge others, uh, according to their woefully arbitrary standards
and, uh, not surprisingly, they, they do not meet their own standards because no one can, they're not based on principles. They're incoherent and contra self contradictory. And um so no surprise when they try to apply those standards to others, no one, no one else meets them either because one can't
anyway. So David, David reacted in a, in a way that was very different than what people expected. And um let's jump into this and think about what was more reasonable, what his servants expected him to do or what he actually did. David says very plainly. Uh I did what I did because my purpose was to
do everything I could to help this child. And when the moment came that it was obvious that there was no good that I could do. I stopped doing the things that I was doing to help the child, right? Because it's not gonna do any good at this point. So, um that kind of intentionality is a hallmark of people
who are more holy. Um Great. So at this point, let's mark the time by asking the question, not, why are you not comfortable going to funerals, but rather why would anyone go to a funeral? That that being said, I'm, I'm not arguing in any point in this video that, that people should not go to funerals
. I'm saying that there is a set of circumstances where that's the appropriate thing to do and those circumstances are not on the minds of those who do go to funerals and very few of them fit into those circumstances. Um If it's not abundantly obvious yet, I'm going to use the opportunity of this question
to teach you something about the character of Jesus. So let's help that by giving some um real world examples that are probably closer to experiences that you can uh commiserate with than just reading scripture although we ate in a moment. So, um let me share with you two funeral experiences. These are
true stories. The names have been changed to protect the identities of those who are involved. I'm just kidding. I won't give you names and I, I don't actually care to protect the identity. You see, here's a nugget that I wasn't intending to talk about. Um We are overly cautious when it comes to calling
out other people. And it's very strange, this is completely on point with the topic. Um Harkening back to the story about David. The question is why we do that. Why are we so hesitant to say, hey, this one thing was not ideal and not concern ourselves so much about the people. On the one hand, we really
don't like calling attention to our own mistakes because, uh, we don't want to incriminate ourselves. It's, it's, uh, we attach ourselves so thoroughly to what we do. Um, instead of this higher calling of who we could be, um, which, which ought to be our strongest sense of self, we lose ourselves and
we find ourselves if we can redefine ourselves in terms of the potential God has given us and pointing towards him and what we look at and what we aspire to be and identify with that process of becoming more like Him rather than our history of how well or poorly we may have done in trying to do that
in the past. That is a successful path. But instead, we like Isaiah says, we hitch ourselves to sin with a cart rope, um like a, like a horse hitching up a cart to a horse and we tie ourselves, we actively attach ourselves to the past our past actions and that's no good. Uh People go too far with this
as well by, you know, never shutting up about their past mistakes. And the point of it is just to reconcile to it and move on just as David reconciled to his mistake and he moved on as much as you can. And sometimes as is the case with David, the consequences of your poor choices. Uh They may well remain
with you. Throughout life. But that doesn't mean that you need to remain anchored to them in terms of who you become. So you can't change the past, but you can change the future. So when it comes to calling people out, um, we tend to be extremely hesitant to call ourselves out. But then there's also
this weird hesitancy to call others out. And it's, it's bizarre because if you ask people what the motive is, they say, well, I'm just trying to be kind, it's not kind to allow someone that you love themselves. Uh, for the very reason that you're not saying anything about it. In other words, you're running
defense on their delusion and, uh, that's not helping anyone, it doesn't help them. Uh, it doesn't help you, it doesn't help anyone else that sees their example. So that's a weird thing that we need to, to shake that off of our culture. Um, and I'm not saying the world's going to change. I'm saying as
you approach the Lord, one of the things that you have to change is your willingness to see something that's jacked up and say, hey, this is jacked up and not care so much if it's jacked up in you or if it's an appropriate, a societally appropriate time and place to, to do so, you just have to say this
isn't good enough, we can do better, right? Um, so I have no problem calling people out. Uh, my rule of thumb though is that I always do this to a person's face before I do it. I don't want to say behind their back because it's not behind their back. But when they're not there to defend themselves, I
always give someone the chance to correct me in my criticisms before I spout this off to other folks. At least I try to. I, I don't know. Maybe I have not been perfect in that. I hope I have. I think I have. But um, maybe not. So. Um one of these examples is with one of my grandmothers who died and um
I have a bunch of siblings, uh my two youngest siblings, sisters, um, there's a big age gap between them and my next oldest sibling. Um, there's three boys and three girls in my family and um those sisters were really close to my grandmother because, um, well, for variety of reasons, I guess, aren't
super important, but she was extremely involved in their lives. And I think she saw herself more as a mother to them than a grandmother for various reasons and, and, and earned that the right to see things that way. It was that that was pretty accurate. So older they seem to have plenty of things better
to do with their time than uh go hang out with grandma. So, um she was always in did everything she could to dote on them and spend time with them, but they would always just blow her off as they got older and they just didn't care. Um, so contrast that with, with me. Um, now I had moved away from Maryland
where I grew up at this point. But, uh, I did everything I could to, uh, call my grandmother and speak to her on a regular basis. Um, and any time I would go visit I would go make time to go see her, uh, for, for a stretch and make sure that that was part of the plan. Um There were other things too that
I did uh to help her out not to get into tons of details. But um I did what I could so that I could honestly say that I did everything. Uh I could imagine to love her. Um, so fast forward and uh making a long story short, she died. Suddenly, we only had about three weeks from when we found out she was
dying to when she died. The second I found out she was dying. I immediately booked a flight and of course I called her, I talked to her on the phone but um I didn't get a chance to see her, but God knows what he's doing because uh my dad, he had such a hard time with this. He had such a hard time with
his mom passing away. I got there not too long after the funeral, but it just seemed like the perfect timing to be there for my dad and so we spent a bunch of time together when I was there. I mean, quality time. It's not like I was there for two weeks or something, but I don't know if he would say so
. I don't know. But I certainly felt like, um, God knew what he was doing because frankly, I don't think my being there would have helped her very much. But, um, I, I really felt a connection with my dad that I was able to help him through some grief. So I'm, uh it's, it's not what I would have picked
ahead of time for myself, but looking back, I'm really glad God arranged it that way anyway. So, uh I missed the funeral. Um, and, you know, on social media, I was on Facebook at the time and I just couldn't believe my two sisters drowning on and on about my grandmother and just like we'll miss her so
much. We love her so much. Here's all these pictures from when we were little girls and all these other things and all I could do was think about all the times I had seen heartbreak in my grandmother because my two sisters have better things to do than to go visit her or, you know, it's not like it was
inconvenient. She lived right where they did and she always wanted to make dinner for them or take them out, you know, she was on a fixed income. But everything she had, she wanted to, to use, to help those girls be happy and they just couldn't be bothered and that bothered me a lot. And so I started
to think about this and, uh, exactly when this happened, I don't know, but I started to think why do people go to funerals? And why is it when you go to a funeral, you see all these people who couldn't be bothered to visit the person, especially when they have a long process of dying or especially when
they're old and lonely for many years. And these folks couldn't be bothered to visit them in life. But as soon as they die there, they are crying and acting like they're their best friends. It's ridiculous. It's vastly hypocritical. It's grossly hypocritical. It's disgusting. It's, it's a lie of the
highest order. And so when I saw that I resolved that, um, you know, and I didn't have to make any changes to do this, but I resolved that I would continue to treat people in life with, uh, in a way where I'd have no regrets when they died. And so, um, I've spoken about my grandfather before often and
a, I, I would, I, I would go, I would do whatever I could to go visit him. Um, there for various weird reasons. I've had, I've driven across the country a whole bunch of times and, uh, anytime I did he moved, uh, from Baltimore to Michigan at some point. And, uh, it, it, I was already an adult when that
happened and, um, anytime I could, I'd make sure that I stopped off at his house, even though it was never on the way. I mean, it added like six hours to the trip or something. And there's a lot of tolls in that region of the country. But I just, I made it a point to go see him, even if it was literally
like one time, the best I could do was get there, spend the night. And I, I got there at like 6 p.m. or something and I took off the next morning at like 7 a.m. or something. So, but I'd make sure I saw him and again, when he died, I, I offended a lot of people because I didn't go to his funeral. And
um the reason I didn't was because I knew that the people who were going to go there were going to put on this production and yet they couldn't, he, he, he, he was estranged from several very close members of the family and it wasn't his doing, it wasn't his choice. And um I knew that if I went, I would
say and do things that would just make things worse and they wouldn't help those folks because I can't be in a situation and see things without saying them. So, uh I didn't go and I had certain family members criticize me and I, I had no problem with that or telling them why I wasn't going and I wasn't
about to, uh, oh, Tolstoy, I think it was Tolstoy. He once said there's a quote about this. Maybe I should look it up. But, uh, he said something like he doesn't like using because he can guarantee that people aren't going to understand what he means. And he said that better because, you know, he was
Tolstoy. But, um, his point was when he uses the word he's describing something that the folks who are hearing him aren't going to comprehend because their con their concept of that word is a lot less than his. And it turns out that as you climb the mountain of the Lord, which is, I don't think I've
used that phrase recently. I did a video on it a while back. But as you climb the mountain of the Lord, you will find yourself uh with fewer interfaces to other people than you had before. You will find that you can't say and do things that you did before. Uh because for a lot of reasons. But I mean
, for one reason, it's not gonna benefit them for you to do to do that. There will be other things that uh I'm not phrasing this. Well, it's a good segue to Jesus though. So let's get into that. Um Finally though I was gonna make a another mention of another funeral situation and in this situation, the
widow I mean, the family really didn't have a lot of money and the widow was struggling big time. Uh, the guy was dying for a long time and basically no one came to see him and no one literally no one did anything to help the soon to be widow who was caring for this guy up until he died. And, you know
, they were old and that was a physical thing to do because he was incapacitated. And, um, even though I was not close by relation to this family, uh we were friends and we made sure to have involvement with them during that time period. And, um I went over there at some point, um and after he had passed
away and um, made sure that she was ok financially and as I could to help, but I let her know I won't be coming to the funeral. And I hope, and, you know, when you hand someone an envelope of cash, it's a good time to confess things that they're not gonna like because they don't, you know, they're not
gonna sit there and berate you. Um, and they certainly won't be able to doubt your, your concern for them and your love. But, um, I knew that was less sensitive to these things and I appreciate that because she can be our public face of our family in situations like this. But, um I knew that that funeral
would be filled with people who hypocritically are, were confessing their concern for this person. Uh, when in actuality, they couldn't be bothered to come see him or to help them before or after he died. And I know, you know, she has ongoing concerns with things and it's pretty dang absurd if you think
about the relative position of the people who came to that funeral and what they could do to help. Now, what they could have done to help before and it's really messed up. So, OK, let's transition to Jesus Matthew eight. Now I'm going to give you a key to understanding the scriptures, which maybe you
already know about. But I have a feeling that there are people who don't. So there's no magic in terms of how chapters are divided in the scriptures. But um if you look at the surrounding text, these things are organized intentionally and there's a lot of value to the relation of the given text to what
is around it. So if we go to Matthew eight, that's where the scripture is where Jesus says, let the dead bury their dead. It's also in Luke, but we're, we're looking at Matthew. So um tons of people have made tons of comments about what this could mean. And that's verse 22. Um I guess we'll start a little
before that. So let's start in 21. Another of his disciples said unto him, Lord suffer me first to go and bury my father. But Jesus said the dead, bury their dead. So it's a low information question. But you can ask Lord, what does this mean? And you can pray and you can ask that. And then when you ask
that, you need to kick your brain on and start thinking. And part of this process is you can enumerate hypotheses as to what that might mean. And then just go deeper and deeper and deeper and the Lord will work on your understanding and he might say something to you. He might call other scriptures to
your remembrance. Um It's good to have a computer and you can search the scriptures a lot faster that way. Uh But if you have paper scriptures, that's fine too. And you can uh dig in and, and try to figure this out and sometimes, um that answer will come much later than in the moment. Um Maybe you sit
there and you study it for as long as you have uh time to do. And then this, the answer hits you sometime later when you're doing something completely unrelated. Here's another key. Most people lack communion with God because they don't pay attention when he speaks to them. They only want him to speak
to them when they're asking for it. And that's not the way it works. You don't, you don't get married and your spouse until you want to not ignore them. Right. That's not the way it works. It's like two ends of the same stick. If you want communion with God, you're gonna get communion with God and it's
always on, you can't turn it off. And there are so many things that we should talk about related to that. But now is not the time. So very often when we're talking about revelation, the key is responding when it comes seeking it. When it doesn't very important to understand. Now, you should seek it all
the time, you should seek it all the time. But if you made a pie chart of what's responsible for the volume of revelation that you receive almost all of that pie chart will be your response when he speaks to you. So what, what, what is that response is writing down what he says, remembering it, looking
back to it. But most of all being willing to accept anything he tells you and to live completely according to it. That's it. It's that simple. Is it easy? No, he's gonna ask you to do the hard, he's gonna ask you to do harder things than you can even imagine. But that's because he has joy in store for
you. That's also far beyond what you can imagine in duration, intensity volume. But most importantly, in terms of the path to get there, that is the real mystery and what he's really laying out to you. And so it's this big bucket of things that exceeded your previous expectations or, or just contradicted
them. So our simple question to start is what did Jesus mean when he said, follow me and let the dead bury their dead. And as I previously mentioned, one key to finding answers to scriptural questions is start right around there. If you're at a crime scene, you start right around there and you look at
clues, right? It turns out that in terms of the gospels, things tend to be correlated the closer together they are in the text. It's a beautiful thing and it, it really unlocks a lot of truth. This whole chapter, what's it about? And again, chapter breaks in the New Testament are pretty arbitrary, but
uh in the gospels, I should say uh in other books too, but, but particularly in the gospels, well, um it starts off with a leper and he says to the Lord, if you want to, you can heal me. And Jesus says, I will be thou clean and he is healed. And then we scroll down and then we have the Centurion who
says, uh I have a servant who's sick. And Jesus says, well, I'll come and heal him and he says, no, no, no, no, no, I understand how this works because I'm an officer, you just give the word and he'll be healed. And Jesus says, you have great faith. Um and I haven't found a faith like that in all of
Israel and the servant is healed. And then, um he goes to Peter's house and Peter's mother-in-law is sick, very sick. And he touches her hand and the fever leaves her and, and then she got up and served them. That's also very interesting. It's not our point today. So we'll keep cruising. And then, um
, it says they were, they brought to him many that were possessed with devils and he cast out the spirits with his word and healed all that were sick cruising down some more. Then we get to this story where a scribe comes and says, I'll follow you wherever you go. Jesus says, the foxes have holes and
the birds of the air have nests but the son of man hath not where to lay his head. It's a very important scripture. I wish we had time today to explain that. And then we get to verse 21 another of his disciples said unto him, Lord suffer me first to go and bury my father. But Jesus said unto him, follow
me and let the dead bury their dead. So what do you think this scripture is about? Well, it's preceded by many stories of someone being healed before they die. So what do you think Jesus was trying to teach? Here? There is great disputation uh amongst people that dispute about this sort of thing. Um
As to whether this disciples, father was actually dead yet or not. And they, the proponents of this theory say, well, maybe the dad wasn't dead yet. And the disciple was asking for time to spend with the dying father, which seems like a reasonable thing. Hey, uh my dad's terminally ill. Can I get a minute
to spend with him until he dies and then I'll come follow you? Um I don't actually think it matters whether the dad was dead yet or not because this person is a disciple of Jesus. It's not someone who just heard him for the first time, right in this moment. And what we read is that either the dad had
already died or the dad was terminally ill. But in either case, this disciple had not either exercise the faith himself to heal him or more importantly, sought Jesus to heal him. Now, before we go further, I have to make very clear the fact that Jesus does not a people, there are many laws regarding
healings and miracles, but there's not one story in this chapter that suggests a limitation in healing. Uh None of these stories are about any kind of limit in that. In fact, the one verse that I read it said that he had healed everyone who was brought to him. In this case. In that specific case, we
know that's not the general case so early on in his ministry. For example, we read that he was not able to do any mighty miracles in this one place because no one had any faith. So um but in this case that there's no focus on the limits and Jesus is castigating this disciple of his doesn't say who it
is because they're asking either to spend time with or to just go to the funeral of their father. Um Do we have any records of Jesus going to funerals? We do. What does he do there? He raises the dead. We don't have a single record. Correct me if I'm wrong. But I don't believe there's any mention in
the gospels of Jesus going to a funeral, except when he raised the dead while he was there. So does this mean that Jesus never went to a funeral without raising the dead? No, it does not. But it does suggest that again, we don't even have the, the frequency to calculate a probability. But given what
we have, if we were alive at the same time as Jesus and we saw him in a funeral, we could probably assume that the, the dead person was about to get raised, right? When Lazarus was sick, this was out of town with his disciples. And he told them Lazarus is sick and they just kind of thought, well, no
big deal. You heal sick people all the time. Well, what, you know, it's even more likely that no big deal because you'll just heal him too and which it doesn't work that way. And um he said plainly, Lazarus is dead and I th I'm thankful that he's dead because he implies if he was there, he would have
healed him. Before he died and they would be, they would miss out on the lessons they were about to learn uh through seeing him and this is important. So, um as you ascend the holiness hierarchy, we're gonna connect this back to David, you behave in ways that differ from other people and all people need
to do the best that they know of as you know, of better to do, you will act differently than other people. And maybe those actions are in the case of David literally just different and they're better. They're not just different, they're better, but they might not yield noticeably different outcomes.
Uh In the case of second Samuel 12, we didn't read this part but David and Bathsheba have a second child and that's Solomon. And uh Nathan, the prophet goes and says, actually his name is Jedediah, which is weird. You never hear about this. We don't call him Jedediah. We call him Solomon and the scriptures
record his name as Solomon. That's, it always refers to him as Solomon. But uh the Lord named him Jedediah, which means something like uh blessed of the Lord or something like that. I, I looked it up and I don't remember, but it's a, it's a description of the Lord's um favorable outlook on Solomon. So
the question arises, did that, did the blessing to Solomon have something to do with David's um self-inflicted humiliation at the death of the first child or the, the sickness of the first child. And I don't know the answer to that question. Uh in any case, even if what David did did not affect outcomes
at all, which I really struggle to believe because that's not the way things work. Um Jesus's different behavior obviously did. And here I'm going to give you another key. So I referred to the mountain of the Lord. Um And what I'm talking about is a hierarchy of all things as you ascend in goodness,
in virtue, in holiness, in wisdom, in truth, in love and suffering, which all goes together one without all of the others and many more besides, but all attributes of God ascend together towards God. And as you climb up that mountain, you become more capable of certain things that are closer to what
Jesus would do in your place. But you can't do that without becoming less capable of doing things that Jesus would not do in your place. And so in this very narrow facet that we've been discussing of funerals, as you become more like Jesus, I won't say that you'll go to less funerals, but you certainly
will be welcome at fewer funerals because you will call out the hypocrites that tend to flock to them and no one will want you there. And if you do show up to a funeral odds are you're there to raise the dead. So I've probably given you enough to think about on this topic, but Yeah, I appreciate the
person who asked the question and I hope that something here has helped you to learn something more about Jesus or to connect more closely to how you can become more like him.