Two weeks ago, was the first time that we saw all twelve of the disciples together, and Jesus was telling them that He was going to send them out into the community, to minister to people, like He was doing. They were to go and preach the Kingdom and help people. And just to clarify, even in our recap. When I talk about like Kingdom work, or the mission, or even just following Jesus, I want us to understand what that is. It’s listening to Jesus’ Word, it’s taking His example, it’s sharing the gospel, it’s talking to, and helping, and serving the people in the community around us and inside of the church. It’s the intentional parts of everyday living where we try to be like Jesus, share His message, and bring God glory in this world as we represent Him. That’s what the disciples were doing, and it’s what we’re all called to do as well, and it will look a little bit different for all of us based on where and how God leads us into the culture around us.
But again, two weeks ago, the disciples were getting sent out, but then, last week, we went further into their conversation and Jesus started this part with a difficult statement. In Matthew 10:16, Jesus said: “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves”. And I really wonder how that statement hit the disciples as they were listening in that moment. Maybe they were like geared up and ready to head out, but Jesus hit them with the “guy’s I’m sending you out to the wolves”. I wonder if that caused some second thoughts. I wonder if they were questioning what they signed up for at that moment? Maybe they weren’t, maybe they were just ready to go anyways. But Jesus went even further and says that you will be hated for My name’s sake. He was explaining this built-in expectation of persecution, of being called all types of things, of being hated, and even the reality at that moment that people would die as a result of Him and His message. And that still happens around the world today.
But what we saw last week is that Jesus never shies away from saying that His path will be difficult. He gave these guys a reality check of what it might mean to actually get involved in the work. He said that people are going to think, say, and even do some terrible things. But then there was a little light at the end of the tunnel and Jesus said:
“THEREFORE DO NOT FEAR THEM” (Talking about these people doing these things)
And that sets the stage for where we are going to be at today. So, let’s read our passage.
Read Matthew 10:26-42
Jesus says, do not fear the people that might be bringing these sorts of problems. Then He says in verse 27, that what He shares with us in the dark, or in private so to speak, that we should take out and speak it in the light or right out in the open. He says that we should take what we hear from Him and go and preach it from the housetops. Like we talked about last week, even if we understand that this will be difficult, we’re still supposed to GO, we’re still supposed to be about the work, remember we don’t go out looking to cause trouble or be troublemakers, but as we’re out representing Jesus, trouble may very well still find us at times, and Jesus wants us ready for that. That’s what He was talking about.
But then you get to verse 28, and verse 28 is another one of those, like stop you in your tracks verses. It’s really foundational, it sounds kind of intimidating, but it’s absolutely true and let’s read it again.
Read Matthew 10:28
Jesus says, don’t fear people who can only go so far as killing our body, instead fear God Who has absolute power over our body and soul. He literally says that God has the power to destroy both soul and body in hell. That may sound like a hard statement, and it definitely is a hard statement, but it’s true and we need to deal with it.
A lot of times we don’t like thinking about God like that. We like the sunshine, rainbows, heaven, love, joy, and all of those things, but if we just stay on that side of the equation, then we might fail to ever comprehend the seriousness and the gravity in which we should see God. We might miss the necessary, fear of God, that we should all have. Yes He is loving, Yes He is wonderful, Yes He can save us from our sins, Yes if we turn to Him, we can spend all of eternity in His presence, but let us never forget that He is still God almighty. He is the maker of heaven and earth and all that exists, He is the Judge that will determine all of our fates, He holds our very life in His hands. He destroyed all people on Earth except for Noah and his family due to sin, He laid waste to the Egyptians when they were oppressing Israel, He has brought entire nations and definitely people to destruction. He is not just our buddy, He is not just a storybook character, He is absolutely God and there is none like Him. So we really need to take Him seriously.
This makes me think of the C.S. Lewis, Chronicles of Narnia books. I was reading the first one a while back with my kids, and spoiler alert if you have never read them, but one of the main characters is a lion named Aslan, and Aslan is very clearly based on Jesus. But there’s this point before the children in the book meet Aslan that they talk about being nervous to meet him, because he is a lion, and they ask another character if he is safe to be around. And the other character responds and says “Safe? Who said anything about safe? Of course, he isn’t safe. BUT HE’S GOOD, and he’s the King”
Even if the Lion is good, he should still be feared and respected, because he is still powerful and dangerous. There are people that have tried to take animals like lions and tigers and turn them into pets, not giving them the respect that they deserve, and ultimately and unfortunately losing their lives to these powerful predator animals. And I think it’s possible for us to treat God like that, like we have domesticated God into just having some supporting role in OUR LIVES, rather than truly maintaining the respect, the fear, the understanding that our life, our body, our soul, everything, is absolutely and completely within His hands.
A lion is still scary, even if you want to treat it like a pet, God is still God and still scary, even if we go about acting like He’s not. Our thought process and our perception doesn’t change His reality. He’s still God. I want to go to a passage in Ecclesiastes.
Read Ecclesiastes 12:1 and 13-14
I believe this book was written by an older man that had messed up a lot in life. He wrote this book to younger people and when he came to the end of the book he makes some really wise points, and there’s other things here, but the main points in verse 1: Remember your Creator, ideally while you’re still young, but I would also add, remember Him right now, even if we aren’t young, because right now is better than later. He says remember Him before you go through days and even years that you regret by not living in light of Him.
And then in those ending verses, he basically says, let me sum this all up, FEAR GOD and listen to what He has to say, and do it. Keep His commandments. He says God is going to judge every single thing that we do, even if it’s secret from other people, and whether it’s good or bad. God is the one that is going to judge everything, and we have to remember that. Because if we don’t, then we might try to live and pretend like that’s not going to happen, but it absolutely is, and it would be foolish to try to live like it’s not.
Jesus told His disciples that people might do all of these crazy things to you, they might hate you, they might call you names, they might mistreat you, but you don’t fear them. You don’t worry about them. Why? Because we need to be more concerned about what God thinks of it all. People can say and do whatever they want. But His voice, His opinion, His action towards us, is what really matters at the end of this life. So don’t fear them, fear Him.
And while that fear definitely needs to include the like trembling before almighty God, and yes, He needs to be taken very seriously, but that doesn’t at all diminish His goodness. Let’s look back at Matthew 10.
Read Matthew 10:29-31
Jesus is like, you can get two birds for one coin, and yet God still holds their lives in His hands. Not one will die unless He wills it. He said God knows us so well and so intimately that He knows the very number of hairs on our head. And for some, like myself, that number is going down rapidly, but God knew it even when the number was higher. Jesus says God cares for the birds, but also says that He cares for us way more than a bunch of birds. The awesome and almighty God, a God we should rightly fear, that God still actually cares for us at a very personal level, which is just crazy to think about. Don’t miss that. Don’t ever forget that. Don’t ever let the little things of this world overshadow God’s presence and His care for us.
But let’s continue.
We’ll come back to verses 32 and 33 but let’s consider the rest of this passage first.
So far, we’ve had, fear God, not people, and God cares for us. And let’s start reading at verse 34 again.
Read Matthew 10:34-39
Verse 34 here makes us deal with an interesting dynamic of Jesus’ message. You see, Jesus comes with a very peaceful message, but the reality is, that His peaceful message doesn’t always result in peace between people. And we talked very much about this same thing last week, so we won’t sit on it too long today, but as Jesus pointed out here that even families will be divided over the message of Jesus. Some of us may have experienced this in our own families. I mean I have family and extended family that still don’t believe in Jesus.
But this puts a serious issue on the table that has to be considered. Because we love family, we love parents, we love our children, we love extended family, maybe with our fair share of problems in the mix at times, but it’s still family, and we generally hold family in very high regard, but then Jesus is like, family still can’t come before Me. We’ve talked this morning about taking Him seriously. Very seriously. And Jesus says in verse 37 that you can’t love your father more than Me, you can’t love your mother more than Me, you can’t love your son or your daughter more than Me, and Jesus is going through family because they are the closest, but the point being made is that you can’t love ANYONE more than Him. And that even extends to us. Jesus says if we won’t pick up a cross and follow Him, He says that if we’re trying to hold onto our life instead of being willing to give it up for His sake, then we aren’t worthy of Him.
And why is that for all of these things?
Because if we at all understood the magnitude of Who He is, if we really understood why we need to fear Him, then it would start to make so much more sense as to why nothing and nobody else should have any chance of getting in front of Him. I love my wife, I love my kids, but they aren’t my God. I want my wife to love God so much more than she loves me, because who am I in light of Him? I’m not trying to raise my kids to carry on our family name or represent us, I want them to love the Lord also, and I want them to carry His name and do His work in this world.
I can love them and love God at the exact same time, but my love of God must overshadow my love for them, but the great thing is, that my relationship with Him and my understanding of Him only serves to help me love them better. So, some might see these things and take offense to them, some might be divided by truths like this, but the reality is that our closeness to and focus on God specifically only serves to benefit all of these other relationships and build them up properly, rather than weaken or diminish them in anyway.
And so, from last week to this week, Jesus has just been really transparent about what it might actually mean to follow Him. We’re not going in blind; we don’t need to be surprised or caught off guard by difficult times. He has talked about the seriousness of Who God is, of Who He is, and how that just dramatically overshadows everyone and everything else. There are some things that we really need to consider here. Maybe this all sounding pretty hard, and there’s no need to sugarcoat it, it is hard in a lot of ways, but then you get to these last verses that we’re going to look at and I hope that we see that it’s all worth it.
Read Matthew 10:40-42
Jesus talks in these verses about God’s recognition of people helping and serving other people. He says that if you receive these people or essentially help these people then you are doing that for Me as well. Jesus goes deeper into this and says basically the same thing in Matthew 25 as well and one day we’re going to get there too.
But as we understand that truth, of God recognizing those things, and we consider that in light of our talk about the magnitude of God this morning, then maybe when we think of His magnitude, we might think that it would take some huge thing to impress Him, or get His attention, but I love the point made in verse 42 of this passage. God sees and rewards even the simple act of giving a cup of cold water to someone that needs it. Following Jesus isn’t just about big tasks like leading worldwide missions or something. That doesn’t mean that I don’t want us to pursue big things for God’s glory, but where we are going to start is in the building blocks of everyday life opportunity of serving other people, and bringing God glory, even in the simplest act of giving someone some water. And God sees and blesses that. Let’s not get stuck on, I don’t have some big thing to do, when we could be stacking up the little things right now in preparation for God to bring more opportunity.
His glory should be the focus of everyday or our life. He is so awesome, and so far beyond us, and that is the least that He deserves.
And let’s circle back to verses 32 and 33.
Read Matthew 10:32-33
This is where we see and hopefully understand what is at stake in all of this. If we truly fear Him, if we turn from our sin and follow Him, if we represent Him or confess or speak of Him as it says here. Then at the end of all of this, at the end of this life, Jesus will stand ready to REPRESENT US to the Father when it comes time for judgement. Which is crazy that Jesus would stand on our behalf when that day comes. That’s the light at the end of the tunnel, that’s what makes this all worth it. Would we really want to get to that day without Jesus on our side? Because the flipside of that equation brings in the real fear of God’s awesome power and place as final judge. Jesus says if we choose to deny Him and deny Him before people, then He will deny us before His Father. I’m really happy to know Jesus, because that isn’t something that I want to face.
God must be taken seriously, sin separated every single one of us from Him, and He is awesomely powerful, He will judge all of us, He is just, but justice for sin is punishment, and even though all of those things are absolutely true, PLEASE KNOW that He is absolutely GOOD at a level that nobody and nothing else is. And through Jesus and believing in His death, burial, and resurrection for our sins, in following Jesus and turning from our sin, in sharing Jesus, not denying Him, if we choose all of that path, then we have here the expectation of walking into His goodness rather than facing His justice. I would want that for all of us.