[Machine transcription]
In the name of Jesus. Amen.
Dear Saints, we today hear the end of Matthew chapter 10. We’ve been hearing from Matthew chapter 10 for the last three or four weeks this preaching of Jesus where he was sending his disciples out to preach the kingdom. He was sending them ahead of him so that they would prepare the way that he was going and he was warning them. In fact, the whole chapter is full of warnings. St. John Chrysostom, the ancient church father, he said Jesus could never be accused of winning disciples by flattery and soft sermons because he preaches, well especially here, he preaches difficult texts, hard things to hear and to receive, but we want to hear them and know what Jesus is warning about.
Now, I want to think about three words in the text that we heard today: the words peace, love, and cross. Those three words we want to think about. But to get there, we want to kind of run through the whole of Matthew chapter 10. This is what Jesus calls his twelve disciples, and then I’m just reading here back in verse 7. Jesus says, “As you go, preach, saying the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Now, you think that that word, the kingdom of heaven at hand, would be a word of joy and peace that the people would gladly receive, but that’s not what’s going to happen. Jesus says, and this is maybe the theme of the whole chapter, in verse 16, “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep among wolves; therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.”
“Beware,” says Jesus in verse 17, “of men. They’ll deliver you to the councils.” Verse 19, “They’ll deliver you up.” Now, verse 21, “Brother will deliver up brother to death, and father his child, and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death, and you will be hated by all men for my name’s sake, but the one who endures to the end will be saved.” In other words, Jesus is warning His disciples and also warning us that He is not sending us out to a cakewalk. Look, He’s not sending us out on a parade. He’s not sending us out to some sort of peaceful life. In fact, He’s sending us out into difficulty and into affliction, into hatred and into persecution.
That’s what it says in verse 23: “When they persecute you in the city, flee to the next. For most certainly, I tell you, you won’t have gone through all the cities of Israel till the Son of Man has come.” A disciple is not above the master. In other words, Jesus says it’s going to go badly for me in Jerusalem; it’s going to also go badly for you. But what are we to do? Jesus has three things, and this was last week I think, three times that he’s going to tell us that what we should not do is be afraid. In Matthew 10, verse 26, Jesus says “Don’t be afraid of them.” Verse 10, 28, here’s another theme verse: “Don’t be afraid of the one who can kill the body but is not able to kill the soul. Rather fear Him who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell.” And then verse 31, “Do not be afraid. You are of more value than the sparrows who the Father has in His own hand.”
Everyone, this is verse 32 right before our text: “Everyone therefore who confesses me before men, I will confess him before my Father who is in heaven. Whoever denies me before men, I will deny before my Father who is in heaven.”
So Jesus sends out his Christians, his disciples, his people to preach the kingdom, and that preaching of the kingdom will be resisted on every hand, at every turn. The people who preach the kingdom will be hated. Even in their own family, there will be hatred, and they’ll be handed over to persecution, to trial, and even, says Jesus, to death, foreshadowing not only his own death, but the death of the martyrs. And then he concludes the whole thing with the text that we had today. He says, “Don’t think that I came to send peace on earth. I didn’t come to send peace, but a sword. I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.” A man’s enemies, says Jesus, “will be those in his own house. And he who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. He who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. He who doesn’t take his cross and follow after me isn’t worthy of me. For the one who seeks his life will lose it, but the one who loses his life for my sake will find it.”
And then Jesus ends with a little bit of relief that, in fact, we’re not gonna talk too much about this, but the last part of the sermon where Jesus says, “‘He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives him who sent me, and he who receives a prophet as a prophet receives a prophet’s reward, and a righteous man as a righteous man receives a righteous man’s reward, and who gives a sip to the little one.'” And this has gotta be some relief for the disciples who are hearing this instruction for Jesus and say, well, at least maybe one person is gonna receive us and not everyone is gonna reject us.
So, it ends on a slightly high note. Jesus says there will be those who do receive your preaching and do receive your word and do love you and are glad to hear what you preach. But the thing that Jesus warns us about, the thing that Jesus is setting before us this morning is that he wants us to be certain that our life as a Christian is not going to be an easy life.
So, let’s look at these three words: peace, love, and cross. First, peace. Don’t think, says Jesus, that I came to bring peace. Now we have to wrestle with this a little bit already because we remember what the angels sang at Christmas, right? Peace on earth, goodwill toward men. We remember what Isaiah named Jesus: the prince of peace. Or we remember how Paul himself says, having been justified with God, we have peace with Christ. We know that Jesus comes to bring peace, and over and over Jesus is saying, “Peace to you; my peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you; peace I bring to you.” So Jesus did come to bring peace, but what he says in the text is, “I did not come to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace with the world.”
In fact, when I, the prince of peace, come into the world that loves violence and war and dissension, I don’t bring peace but in fact I cause division. I cause strife. Don’t think that I came to bring peace on earth. I didn’t come to bring peace but a sword. I came to set a man against his father and a daughter against his mother. In other words, those who believe in Christ are considered enemies even in their family because the thing that they preach, the one that they hold to and the man that they trust in is a stench to those who do not believe in him and offensive to those who don’t trust in him.
Now, Jesus with these words is warning us that the Christian life is an opposed life. The Christian life is a resisted life. The Christian is always going to be fought against in this world. And it’s important for us to know this. In fact, Jesus wants to set our expectations right that when he sends us out into the world, what do we expect? Do we expect that we would leave this place with the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ ringing in our ears and his praises echoing from our lips, and we would go into our families and they would like throw out rose petals and open up the doors and welcome us and the preaching and the news that we have to bring? If we would expect that, we would be wrong. In fact, if we leave here expecting Jesus to make our lives better, we would also be wrong. So much of preaching in the church is built on this lie that Jesus comes to make our life better.
You remember the story of the people on the plane crash? I was, I think I’ve told you that story before, but now I’m looking at you and you all are looking at me like, “Pastor, do you expect us to remember anything that you…” Maybe I’ll start telling it; you’ll remember. Okay, so you got to imagine this. This didn’t really happen, but you can imagine a story like this: There’s a plane, and it’s flying along, and all of a sudden something goes wrong with the engine, and the plane’s going down. So the pilot calls in the flight attendants and says, “Hey, tell everyone to put on their parachutes. The plane’s crashing.” I don’t know if they still have parachutes; just stick with it.
So the flight attendant in first class goes and says to everyone there in first class, “Hey, everyone, I’d like you to put on the parachute; it’s going to make your flight a lot better. It’s going to make things go really well for you.” So everyone in first class puts on the parachutes and they strap it on and it’s kind of got them hunched over like this, and they think to themselves, “This is making it worse. It’s getting in the way of the drinking of the mimosa or whatever is happening up there.” And every time there’s turbulence in the airplane, that parachute is more uncomfortable. They loosen the straps, and the more turbulence there is, the more annoying it is, and they put it down by the feet and even there they kick it under the seat in front of them, but it bounces around, and the more the plane is bouncing, the more the parachute gets in the way until finally they just put it in the overhead compartment and say, “They were lying to me. That didn’t make my flight better at all. It made things worse.”
Now the flight attendant in the back tells all the people, “Hey, we’ve got to strap on our parachutes because the plane is going down and it’s going to save you.” And now it’s totally different. Now the discomfort doesn’t bother you at all. In fact, every time the plane rattles a little bit, you cinch on the parachute a little bit tighter, and every time the plane rattles, you hold on to it because it’s not there to make your flight better; it’s there to save you from destruction. And this, dear saints, is what the gospel of our Lord Jesus is. It’s not there to make your life better. Jesus does not promise health and wealth and green lights and open parking spots and all this kind of stuff in this life. That’s not what he comes to bring to you. He does not say, “If anyone would be my disciple, let him take up his lazy boy and follow me.” He comes to save us from the wrath of God, from the destruction that’s on the way.
And, the more that things go wrong in this life, the more bad news we get, the more shame is heaped upon us for the name of Jesus, the more we are rejected for believing what the Bible says is true. Even the more crosses that we bear in this life, we cling tighter to that word because He did not come to bring peace but a sword, and the more we see that sword, the more we see that fighting, the more we see that affliction, the tighter we cling to the news that God is in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.
Now this is very important because the expectations that we have resulting from the gospel are so… Jesus does not… Can you imagine if Jesus told the disciples, “Hey, I want you to go and preach the gospel to the kingdom, and every place you go, people are going to welcome you and cook chicken for you and invite you into the house and listen to everything you say, and everyone’s going to believe?” No. Can you imagine the disappointment that the disciples would have had if they’re driven from one place to another?
So also for us, here’s the expectation, that just like the world hated Jesus, the world also hates you. And just like the devil hated Jesus, so the devil hates you. And just like the sinful flesh hates Jesus, the sinful flesh hates the Spirit of God that lives in you. This is the expectation that Jesus has, that Jesus wants us to have. Not peace, not in this life. Peace waits for us in the life to come. So, we are set by the Lord Jesus into this world as warriors, as those who are fighting a spiritual fight, engaged in a spiritual battle. And that battle is not only out there; it’s not only when we go out into the world, but the battle is also inside of us.
And that has to do with the second word that Jesus speaks that we want to pay attention to, and that’s the word love. He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. He who loves son or daughter more than me isn’t worthy of me. Now this has to do with the first commandment: you should have no other gods. What does this mean? We should fear and love and trust in God above all things. So, our fear—and remember, we’re all fearing and loving creatures—we’re all looking for something to be afraid of and looking for something to love and looking for something to trust. Our fear, and our love, and our trust belong to God.
Now, I want to show you something in the text though that is, I think, very helpful, at least it’s very helpful for me and I hope it will be helpful for you, is that the way the Lord teaches us to fear is different than the way he teaches us to love. Remember a few verses before, I told you that Jesus had said, “Don’t be afraid of them. Don’t be afraid of those who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul. Don’t be afraid that they’re going to afflict you, persecute you, murder you. He says fear him and him alone who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell.” So fear is exclusive. There are a lot of things, Jesus is warning us, there are a lot of things that we could be afraid of. We could be afraid to die. Most people say, “Pastor, I’m not afraid to die; I’m just afraid of the five minutes right before death.” We could be afraid of the five minutes before death. We could be afraid of getting sick. We could be afraid of losing our capacity. We could be afraid of poverty. We could be afraid of shame. We could be afraid of what people will think about us.
We could be afraid of the death; there’s a lot of things that we can be afraid of. And Jesus says, “No, you are not authorized to fear anything or anyone except God.” It is exclusive. The fear of God casts out all other fears. Can I be a little afraid to die? We ask Jesus. He says, “No, I’ve overcome death.” Can I be a little bit afraid of the devil? Well, Jesus says, “No, I’ve destroyed the devil and his power and his coercive strength over you.” Can I be afraid to get sick? That’s coming up next when we talk about the word cross. Jesus says “No, you can’t be afraid of anything at all.” But love is different. Love, the love of God, is not exclusive.
You notice that Jesus does not say, “Whoever loves father or mother instead of me is not worthy of me.” Or “Whoever loves father and mother is not worthy of me,” no. Jesus says, “Whoever loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of me.” Jesus has not authorized you to fear anything but him. And then he comes to us and he says, “Don’t be afraid.” He has authorized you to love. In fact, he’s commanded you to love. You are required to love your father and your mother. That’s the fourth commandment. Parents are required to love their children. Husbands and wives are required to love one another. You’re required to love your neighbor. That’s the second great commandment. In fact, you’re required by the Lord Jesus to even love your enemy, but you are required to love God more, to love Christ more, and to be willing to let all of these things go for your love for God.
This is the point that Jesus is making. He’s going to say there’s going to be times when families are fighting about the faith, and parents are going to come to the children, and children are going to come to the parents, and they’re going to say, “Why are you all into this Jesus stuff? Why do you call yourself a disciple? You should just forget it and be pagan with us.” And Jesus says, “When that happens, the love for me must prevail.” It reminds me of, I’ll tell the story very quickly, it reminds me of Perpetua, the martyr, who she had just had a baby. She was nursing her baby, and she was in confirmation class, and they locked her up with some of the other confirmands and they said, “Hey, you have to renounce the faith or else we’re gonna kill you.” And it was Perpetua’s father who came to her and said to her, “Don’t you love your child? Don’t you love me, your father and your mother? Why are you gonna be baptized? Why are you gonna follow Jesus? They’re gonna put you to death. Wouldn’t it be better for you to forsake Christ and love your family?” And almost as an example of these words of Jesus, Perpetua says, “How can I forsake him who has given his all for me?” This is what Jesus is talking about.
“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever loves son or daughter more than me isn’t worthy of me.” And then this: “He who doesn’t take up his cross and follow after me isn’t worthy of me.” And here’s our third word, the word cross. This verse, Matthew 10:38, is the first time that the word cross is written in the Bible. Wow, I think that’s pretty amazing because here we see the discussion of the cross is not about the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, but the cross of His followers, the cross of the disciples, the affliction that you and I suffer.
And here’s an amazing thing: our Lord Jesus Christ takes all the troubles that we have in this world; he takes all of the affliction, all of the suffering, all of the rejection, all the threats, all the dying, all the sickness, everything that could go wrong, and he puts the name on it: cross. In other words, when you go to the doctor and the doctor tells you, “I’ve got bad news, you’ve got…” fill in the blank, what you should hear is, “I’ve got bad news, you’ve got a cross.” Or whenever something bad happens in the news or even in your family and you hear about it, they say, “You’re not going to believe this, this person suffered a cross.”
In other words, boy, I wish I knew how to preach this better. The Lord Jesus takes all the things that happen wrong in our lives and He names them the cross—the place where He suffered, the place where He died, the place where He took all of your afflictions on Himself so that He could love you and be your friend and your Savior. Everything wrong in the world, He takes it all onto Himself, and He says all of these things which are so bad and wicked and evil and all this stuff, He says all of it belongs to me and I belong to you so that every bit of suffering and affliction reminds us of the great love that God has for us.
You follow Jesus, which means you take up your cross and follow Him. But Jesus also took up the cross, His cross and your cross. Jesus suffered all of this, and He suffered it all for you so that no matter what’s going wrong in the world and what’s going wrong in your own life, He has you. He is with you and you have Him. If you seek your own life, you’ll lose it, but the Lord Jesus Christ has sought you and He has found you, and He gives you His life which will never end. And this is His peace. This is His love for us and this is the cross that He bears to make us His own. May God grant us this wisdom.
In the name of Jesus. Amen.