Matthew 10:34-39
“More Than a Personal Savior”
Pastor Jerry Hoek
Introduction:
When I was in seminary, I had a professor who, when I first met him, sounded like he could have been a drill sergeant. He had a rough, growling kind of voice and he had a rather mean look the first time I saw him. However, when I got to know him in a small group both he and I were a part of, I learned something about him. I learned about his heart. I learned that although he had a gruff exterior, he had a tender heart. I learned that he had a love for his students and for what they were doing that far exceeded that of others. That being said, he still had high demands for his classes. He expected excellence and graded accordingly. However, we never questioned the fact that the bottom line was that he loved his students and wanted them to do well.
What is a your picture of Jesus? Many people today think of Jesus purely as a loving and tender-hearted teacher. He is a friend who never gets angry or who simply smiles at everything we do. Others view Jesus as a stern Lord who looks down from heaven with a very serious and stern expression demanding perfection and being very unhappy each and every time we don’t measure up. Still others view Jesus as the one who simply gives them a “get out of hell” pass. He is the one who saves them but nothing much more. Who is Jesus to you?
Well the fact is that Jesus is all of those things and more. Jesus did suffer and die to take away our sins. Jesus does love us tenderly and passionately and loves to be with us. But Jesus also has very high expectations for us. In fact, the one who changed water into wine to show just how radically he will change things, demands that we follow Him and give ourselves to Him in radical obedience. This means that our lives as Christians will have a different look than what we might be thinking. Let’s read Matthew 10:1-10, 34-39.
I. Peace or a Sword?
II. Fighting in the Family
III. Priorities
IV. Losing Our Lives
I. Peace or a Sword?
In verse 34 Jesus says, “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth…” Jesus came to earth from heaven with a very specific purpose: to bring salvation to God’s people.
However, in this verse Jesus also makes it very clear that He did not come to bring peace. Now that seems to fly in the face of what the angels sang when Jesus was born. They sang, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.”
So what does Jesus mean when He says that we should not think that He came to bring peace? The peace Jesus came to bring is not simply the absence of strife but a much deeper peace. In John 14:27, Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” And in John 16:33, Jesus says, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
The peace Jesus is talking about is the peace we can have with God knowing that our sins are forgiven and removed because of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Jesus says that in bringing salvation to us and also peace with God, He also comes to bring conflict with others who are aligned against God.
So Jesus adds, “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Jesus says this in a way that clearly implies that His coming was to bring division and hostility. Jesus knows that those who believe in Him are part of a minority movement and so He wants to make it very clear from the beginning that it will be mean conflict for His followers. That is why He said in Matthew 7:13-14, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” As this minority movement of Christians moves into the majority who don’t believe in Christ, there is bound to be conflict, persecution and rejection.
So when we experience conflict because of our faith, Jesus says, “That is what I told you to expect.” Dwight L Moody once said, “I thought when I became a Christian I had nothing to do but just to lay my oars in the bottom of the boat and float along. But I soon found that I would have to go against the current.” Or as the late Ray Charles once said, “There’s nothing written in the Bible … that says if you believe in Me, you ain’t going to have no troubles.” What Jesus says next, however, shows just how extensive this conflict can be.
II. Fighting in the Family
In verse 35, Jesus gives examples of just how deep the conflict may go when He says, “For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”
The kind of conflict He has in mind may actually divide families. The reference Jesus uses is from Micah 7:6 which describes the family unit in conflict because of Israel’s unfaithfulness. “For a son dishonors his father, a daughter rises up against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law– a man’s enemies are the members of his own household.” Because Israel was unfaithful to God, they had tremendous conflict within the family. Jesus, however, is saying that such conflict will now arise simply because some will believe in Him and some will not.
The reference to the man turning against his father points to the fundamental family loyalty. Since the father was the head of his household, the loyalty owed to him was above all loyalties. To bring division between father and son was to offend one of the most deep-seated values in that culture.
Moreover, just as the son is set over against the father, so a daughter is set over against her mother. The mother was the important person in the female section of the household. Division among the women was another serious split but it does not stop there.
The daughter-in-law became a member of a new household upon her marriage. It would be expected that she would enter fully into her role as a member of her husband’s family and that she would look to her mother in-law for guidance and affection. To have division here would leave the bride very much alone. Jesus makes it clear that the fundamental unit, the family, could be divided.
Jesus says further in verse 36 that “a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.” The last place a person would expect to find enemies would be in his or her own household. Divisions may occur where we least expect them because it is impossible to predict how people will respond to the gospel. Jesus will not always make families happier by a family member’s Christian decision.
Now let’s make sure we understand this clearly. There is nothing more beautiful than a close family. And in fact, many families owe their closeness to the love and presence of Christ in their midst. We urge husbands and wives to be united in the Lord and such a union is truly a marvelous thing. And it certainly is not wrong to love the family.
However, what Jesus is saying here is that our life should not be our family alone or above all. As precious as our families are, Jesus expects our loyalty to Him to be even higher.
For example, my father in law served in the Navy during World War 2 and when he came back he had a very close buddy, Humphrey, who died about four years ago. My father in law and Humphrey stayed in close contact and up until Humphrey’s death a few years ago, my in laws would still visit Humphrey in southern Indiana. They had gone through a war together and had a very close and important bond. However, if my father in law had chosen to spend all of his time with Humphrey rather than his young family, that would be misplaced loyalty. His family had a higher place even though his bond with Humphrey was very dear.
If it comes to choosing between family and Christ, Jesus makes it clear that He must be the one we must follow even though family is so beautifully important. That is what Jesus makes even more clear in the next two verses where He establishes clear priorities.
III. Priorities
In verse 37, Jesus says, “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” Now let’s be clear that Jesus is not saying that we shouldn’t love our parents and our children. Jesus, in fact, assumes that there will be such powerful and deep love within families. But Jesus wants to make sure that the love within the family is not so strong that it pushes love for Him to the background.
That says a lot about who Jesus is. Only Jesus has the right and the authority to demand such a love. This underscores that Jesus is not just a human teacher, but that He is indeed the Son of God to whom we owe all allegiance and love. If a person cannot love Jesus more than his family, Jesus says they are not worthy of me.
In verse 38 Jesus continues, “Anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” Taking up a cross has become not much more than a metaphor for enduring some kind of suffering. If we have a chronic illness or a persistent problem of any sort, it becomes a “cross we must bear.”
But there was no doubt that when Jesus’ disciples heard the phrase “take up his cross,” the picture that came to their mind was a man carrying a cross to his execution to his death; he was not coming back. We might say that we have to pick up our hangman’s noose and follow Christ.
To use another phrase, we must be willing to go to the wall for Jesus. This saying comes from sword fighting in which you may find yourself cornered against a wall in the course of the fight with no escape but you fight to your death. Jesus is saying that we are to go to the wall for Him and give up your life for Him.
Even more starkly, Jesus is saying that to follow Jesus is for a person to die to himself. We, and all our self-centeredness and selfish sins, must die so that Christ can live in us. Following Christ means complete self-denial. But it is not all for loss, as Jesus concludes this hard teaching.
IV. Losing One’s Life has eternal benefits, as we see in verse 39.
Jesus concludes, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” If we strive to get the very best for ourselves, according to the world’s values, we will lose everything.
A man decided to enter the ministry as a second career after a very successful, six-figure-income in corporate America. He had climbed the ladder as high as he could and then came to a startling conclusion. He wrote, “Once I reached the top of the ladder and looked around, I realized that all the struggle, all the costs to my family and friendships, all the sacrifices I had to make to reach the pinnacle were not worth what I found there and the lack of meaning I felt there. Suddenly it hit me: I had propped my ladder up against the wrong building.” If it is a person’s goal to “make it in this world, they will be sorely disappointed.
If, however, we lose our lives for the sake of Jesus, we will find our lives. The word for “lose” here has the idea of something being totally destroyed. We have to lose ourselves completely, put ourselves completely to the side.
And we must do this for the sake of Christ. The life that matters is the life that is lived for Christ. It is living the life that is not concerned with the benefits we will receive here or in eternity, but with living in the service of God and serving others. If we lose ourselves in love and service to God, we will find ourselves and our life in the fullest sense.
So while Jesus is our friend, our beautiful Savior, He is also the one who calls us, requires us to follow Him and go to the wall for Him. But what does that mean specifically and practically? What is the battle that Jesus calls us to engage in? It is not, as we often hear, to make this nation into more of a God-fearing nation. Nor is it to make our American way of life stronger and better.
No, it is much, much bigger and far more sweeping than those things. Listen to what Jesus said when He read the scroll in the temple in Luke 4:17-21. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Jesus did not say that He came so that we can become rich or successful or secure. Jesus says that we are to go to the wall and do the things that He did when He was on earth. We are to bring healing to those whom we can help. We are to help those who are in distress or victims of oppression. In short the coming of Jesus is not about just getting us to heaven but to do the things of God while we are here on earth.
I think many times today we have this idea of Jesus being our tender Savior and precious friend. And as a result of that, we think that following Jesus means a life of soft fuzzy blankets and, as the old hymn says, “flowery beds of ease.” Jesus does love us without question and has also saved us, thoroughly, completely and absolutely so that we are free from the punishment and penalty of sin.
However, Jesus also does lay out high demands for those who follow him. It has been said the way to make it through life is to keep the main thing the main thing. However, what then is the “main thing”?
Timothy Merrill writes: The “main thing” is that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. The “main thing” is that God raised Jesus Christ from the dead, beating death down forever. The “main thing” is that the human struggle entails suffering. Period. Struggle for justice? You’ll suffer. Struggle for peace? You’ll suffer. Struggle for truth? You’ll suffer. But the “main thing” is also that you’ll not suffer alone. God suffers along with you. The “main thing” is that if God be for us, who can be against us? The “main thing” is that we are never alone, for there is no place in the universe we can go, there is no sin that we can commit, that will put us out of reach of the grace of Christ’s sacrifice, the gift of God’s love.
So what does this mean as we consider knowing Jesus more? God did not send His Son to die just so that we could get a free pass to eternal life in heaven. That is what we can look forward to, make no mistake; however, it’s more than that. God wants to be in a relationship with Him and He wants us to confront the things in this world that need to be confronted. He brings us peace, but in bringing us this peace, He calls us to action as we serve Him.
If love for our lives is stronger than our love for God, then there is something seriously wrong. There’s an old story about a farmer talking to the Lord: “If I had a million dollars, I’d give it to you, Lord. If I had a thousand acres, I’d turn them over to you, Lord.” The Lord said: “”Well, how about a pig?” “Take it easy there, Lord; I’ve got a pig.”
God has lovingly given us many blessings as wonderful gifts from Him. Now Jesus calls us to focus on Him alone as we follow Him and let the things of this life not overwhelm or determine our lives.
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