6/26/22   Matt. 10:32-39     “Choose Jesus and Live!”

24 Jun 6/26/22   Matt. 10:32-39     “Choose Jesus and Live!”

6/26/22   Matt. 10:32-39     “Choose Jesus and Live!”

I remember when we were first sent out in ministry to 2 small churches just south of Fargo.  We didn’t know anyone there and no one knew us.  We were selling our house to move out there.  In other words, we were basically uprooting our lives to follow Jesus.  I have never regretted doing this as we had a life time of wonderful experiences in just 10 years plus six more after that.  The lesson here is when Jesus calls on you to do something, you would be wise to follow His ways.  In our reading today, we find the disciples being sent out by Jesus to minister to whoever they came across.  We like to think that the disciples knew what to do because they had spent all this time with Jesus.  But you know what, they didn’t.  It was like my first year being a pastor.  Many of the things I had to do were the first time I had ever done them and I usually didn’t have a clue as to what to do.  There was the first time I served Holy Communion, the first time I did a funeral, the first time I did a wedding, my first time leading in Christmas and many other things.  This was the same way with the disciples.  They had watched but they had never gone out and been the leaders.  These guys were fishermen, tax collectors, maybe shepherds and other low end job holders.  They weren’t leaders.  Soon, however, they would become the best leaders in the world both then and 2000 years later.  Today, we are going to look to Matthew as Jesus sends out the disciples with instructions.  Let’s see if these instructions are for us also.  Maybe if we follow them, we can rid ourselves of some of the burdens of this world.

I know that some of you don’t know this but I love to go fishing.  I don’t even have to catch anything to have fun.  It’s just fun for me to be out on the boat in the stillness of the morning.  But if I didn’t get ready to go out fishing, I wouldn’t have all that much fun.  First, I have to make sure that the boat is ready, full of fuel and electricity.  It’s good to have a place to go like a favorite fishing spot.  I like to have a net to help me land the fish as I’m usually by myself.  I check my rods and reels to make sure they will operate when required.  I like to have an assortment of lures and tackle ready.  I make sure that I have the right bait for what I’m after.  What I’m trying to say is that just to go out fishing in the morning takes quite a bit of preparation.  In our lesson today, we see that Jesus is also preparing the disciples to go out and be fishers of men.  I also found that if I was in a rather constant state of readiness, then I wouldn’t have to prepare so much the next time.  Once again, following Jesus is the same way.  We will look at this a bit more in a few minutes.

As we begin in this chapter of Matthew, we see that Jesus is sending the disciples into the world.  There are several sermons that can be gleaned from this chapter but we are going to concentrate on a couple of things that we have a tendency to just read over without going very deep.  This happens when we are in a hurry and it also happens when we are very familiar with the passage.  Let’s take a deeper look at verses 32-33.

Whoever, acknowledges Jesus before men, then Jesus will acknowledge you before God the Father.  This seems pretty straight forward but I’m afraid it entails a little more than what is on the surface.  Jesus isn’t talking about you who say you know Jesus and then just keep on sinning.  He isn’t talking about you acknowledging Him only on Sunday morning and never at any other time of the week.  He is talking about you Christians who practice your faith 24/7.

And all of this starts by you asking Jesus to live in your heart as your Lord and Savior.  Just because you were raised in the church doesn’t make you a Christian. Just because you are on several committees in the church doesn’t make you a Christian.  Just because you are a leader in the church doesn’t make you a Christian.  As a matter of fact, just because you are the pastor doesn’t make you a Christian.  This is part of the problem of the present day UMC.  Too many of these pastors and leaders are not Christian and they are trying to lead you people down a path to the wrong place of certain destruction.  People, I can’t tell you enough, beware of these people.  They may look nice, talk nice and act the best but they only have their best interests in mind.  They are agents of the devil!

Anyway, confess your sins to Jesus and ask Him to live in your heart.  That will be a decision that you will never regret.  If you aren’t sure where you will spend eternity, if you only think that you might go to heaven, then get on your knees to Jesus and invite Him in.  Then get up and live like a Christian, live like a Christian 24/7!  Part time Christians just don’t cut it!

Then we come to a dire warning.  I have talked about truth and grace coming from the book of John and here we find it in Matthew.  Jesus always showed the perfect balance of truth and grace and that is what he is doing here.  For some reason, these early Christians had a problem with outsiders and insiders trying to get them to quit following Jesus.  The early disciples and communities surrounding them were full of different and wild ideas about religion.

What I mean is that they were in a culture where just about any type of religion was ok.  As a matter of fact, they even celebrated when they could combine several religions to form a new religion.  It didn’t matter what these were about, they were just happy to invent some new far out religion.  It didn’t matter how ridiculous it was.  That is what they did.  This is the culture where the disciples originated.  Therefore, there would be several of them who would go back to this way of thinking.  They did this because everyone did it.  Does any of this sound familiar?

As we fast forward two thousand years, we find pretty much the same thing happening.  You all know that I don’t think too much of the United Methodist Church because of these very reasons but they are not alone in this.  Most of the mainline denominations are doing or they have done the same thing.  These churches are dying and are desperate to find a way out.  They call themselves churches of Jesus Christ but that is far from the truth.  If they were Christian churches, they would know that the only way out of their mess is through Jesus Christ.  But He will be the last person they call on so they continue to flounder.

Then Jesus says, “whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.”  This is a strong, strong warning.  If anyone listening today has discovered things in the Bible that you think can’t be true, then Jesus will disown you before God.  It is ok to question but not to disown Him.  You have the freedom to believe whatever you want.  But just remember who you are dealing with on this.  God is the maker and owner of everything.  He will not allow non-belief in heaven.  It won’t be there.  So, if you are only a believer in certain parts of God’s Word, then don’t expect to end up in heaven.  This is a pretty clear warning.

Now the second part of this reading is all warning.  Jesus says, “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth.”  On the surface, this seems an answer to all the people, and there were many of them, who thought that Jesus would come and free the Israelites from the Romans.  Of course, this couldn’t be farther from the truth.  It’s just like in today’s world there are many who think that the Republicans are the party of Jesus and there are a few who think the Democrats are the party of Jesus.  This also couldn’t be farther from the truth.  Jesus Christ usually won’t get involved in our petty politics.  This is not the peace He was referring to here.

He says, “I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household!”  I would guess that we don’t want to talk about this passage very much because we all know that we have a God of peace.  Jesus is peace.  Our modern world tells us this all the time as they talk about love while ignoring the truth.  Remember, truth and grace must be in balance!

Now before we get confused here, we need to remember that Jesus will bring you peace that you have never known before.  This is what Jesus does but that isn’t the reason that He came to us.  Jesus came to this world so that people like you and me could invite Him to live in our hearts as Lord and Savior.  This is a process that is usually one at a time.  It happens in crowds but even there, when you accept Jesus as your Savior, it is still one on one, you and Jesus.  For instance, during this process we may find that I accept Jesus and my family doesn’t.  This will bring on a feud between my brothers and sisters who didn’t accept Jesus.  This is because those that don’t know Jesus or are non-Christian, don’t like us to the point of hating us.  There can be no peace between these two factions.  We might achieve an uneasy truce but no peace.  This is what Jesus is meaning here.  Jesus came to this world to save the world through Him.  During this process, the non-believers will hate us just for being Christian.  If you don’t believe this, then look around the world.  Other religions hate us.  Many people of this country hate us and are always trying to bring us down.  The homosexual movement can’t stand us.  Even our own denominations hate us as we can see in the UMC who is trying to steal all they can from us so we cannot start a real denomination.  We live in a sad, sad world and it will be far worse before it gets better.

After all this, we should try to end this on a more positive note.  Jesus says, “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.”  Now you may be thinking that this really isn’t that positive and you might be right.  So, the first thing I should probably tell you is that there is a tremendous difference between the culture then and now.  In the days of Jesus and in the days of all the Bible, the family was the center of everything.  What would start out as a family setting, soon became very large as the extended family would also be a part of the household.  As a matter of fact, many small towns were nothing more than large units of extended family.  This is something we don’t see at all any more, especially in this country.

With these large units of extended family, came loyalty.  You didn’t really have an individual identity like we think of today.  You were a part of this unit first and foremost.  Your total loyalty was to the family unit.  If there was ever a choice between the family and self, the family would always win and come first.  Therefore, it wasn’t all that uncommon for people to sacrifice their lives or any part of their individuality for the family.  This is just a little culture lesson here to understand what is being said.

Now remember that Jesus is the father of everyone, everywhere.  Therefore, He is the head of their family.  So, if you love the earthly father, mother, sister, etc. more than you love Jesus, then you are not worthy of Jesus.  Can you begin to see what this is all about?

The same thing is true of us today.  We live in a world where we don’t have such strong family ties like they did in ancient times.  However, we still do have family ties to our mothers, fathers and siblings and maybe not so much to the extended family.  But this still works in our world today.  If you love your family more than you love Jesus, then you are not worthy of Jesus.  I know this is true and you have heard me say this many times.  If you love Jesus first before anything or anyone else, including your family, Jesus will in turn allow you to love your family or whatever first.  This may seem like it doesn’t make much sense but that is the way of Jesus.  You make Him number 1 in your life and He will totally change your life and your love in a very good way.

When you do this, then you are losing your life to Jesus.  This is a very good thing.  Because by losing your life to Jesus, you will find your new life.  That is why I keep asking if you know Jesus as your Lord and Savior.  If you don’t or you don’t really know, then I would ask that you confess your sins to Jesus and ask Him to live as Lord and Savior of your life.  Otherwise, the life you have is lost.  I have known too many people who live lost lives.  I used to live a lost life and I thought it was ok.  But the minute I came Jesus, I knew that my life before knowing Jesus was a total waste.  This may seem a little harsh but a life lived without Jesus is really no life at all.  Please join Him today.

I would like to finish with this about the cost of following Jesus from JC Ryle.   “It costs something to be a true Christian. Let that never be forgotten. To be a (lukewarm) Christian, and go to church, is cheap and easy work. But to hear Christ’s voice, follow Christ, believe in Christ, and confess Christ, requires much self-denial. It will cost us our sins, our self-righteousness, our ease, and our worldliness. ALL must be given up. Our Lord Jesus Christ would have us thoroughly understand this. He bids us to count the cost.”

Now here is my addition to this.  We must also count the cost of not following Jesus and being a lukewarm Christian.  It will cost you your eternal life.  In my book, that is a much, much higher price than anything else you can think of.  It’s your choice.  As for me and my family, we will choose the Lord.  I beg you.  Choose Jesus and live!  Thank you, Jesus, for first loving us.  Let’s pray.