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People in our world often have a wrong idea about who Jesus really is. They look at people from history like Muhammad, Buddha, and Gandhi, and what they do is tie Jesus with all of these men. What they do is tell you that we can learn great moral truths from these great spiritual leaders.
But what they do is take the parts about Jesus they like and leave out what they don't. They like the parts where Jesus teaches that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves, but what they don't like is the controversial things that Jesus says.
The teachings from Jesus that the world doesn't like and skips over are those where his teaching is narrow. Where he says this way is right and this way is wrong. Thus far in Matthew, we have seen Jesus say that the path to following him is narrow, and the path away from him is the wide path that many are traveling down.
Anyone who follows the Jesus of their own imagination, the Jesus where they pick out parts they like and leave out what they don't, these people are on the wide path. The true Jesus, the Jesus of the Bible, hates to be associated with false moral teachers like the ones I mentioned above.
He wants people to understand who he is in full. We have already seen Jesus say many controversial things recently, and today is no different. The world holds up spiritual leaders telling everyone that spiritual leaders bring the message of love and peace.
It is true that Jesus came on a mission of love and peace, but not a peace accompanied with compromise. Not a peace where the truth doesn't matter. The peace that he brings is a peace without compromise.
Jesus knew that fully submitting to him meant that division would result between people. Even those we have close connections with, whether family or friends. In our text today, Jesus talks about this division.
So as we continue our sermon series through Matthew, at this time I want to encourage you to turn in a Bible with me to Matthew chapter 10. We'll be looking at verses 34 through 39. And if you're using a red Bible in the pews, it's on page 969.
This sermon is titled, The Truth Divides. The truth divides. And I'm going to begin by reading this text. These are the words of the Lord Jesus. Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth.
I have not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household.
Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
Whoever finds his life will lose it. And whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Here's our big idea. Here's what this sermon, this text is calling each of us to do. Anticipate troubled relationships for following Christ.
Anticipate troubled relationships for following Christ. And here's three consequences, Hal, that we will see in these verses. But before we jump in and I give you these three consequences, Hal, let me give you a little recap of where we were one week ago.
We looked at Jesus explain how we are to approach our persecutors. In verses 26 -33, Jesus explained to us that we are not to fear our persecutors. And we saw four instructions how we are not to fear them.
The first is by obediently proclaiming the whole truth boldly. The second is by trembling at the one who holds the keys to heaven and hell. The third is by realizing that God cares for you more than you know in the midst of facing your persecutors, that he will take care of you even if they put you to death.
And the fourth instruction, how we are not to fear, is by understanding his reward awaits the unashamed. His reward awaits the unashamed. Now this leads us to the text that we've already read, where once again, Jesus is on the theme of persecution, where he warns his disciples about what their experience will be like.
Let's look at verse 34. I'll zero in on this verse and then we're going to take this apart one verse at a time. Jesus says here, Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
With this verse, Jesus comes right out swinging. What he tells us is that he has not come to bring peace, but a sword. This doesn't sound like the Jesus you hear about in the world, does it? So what we need to ask is, what does he mean by peace?
And what does he mean by sword? Now if you take this out of context, you might say that Jesus is a warmonger. He loves war. He wants war and not peace. But if you look at the context, we can tell clearly that that's not what he's saying.
In the context of this chapter, Jesus has been telling us about the persecution that all believers should expect to face. Faithful devotion to him means that you will face opposition. So the use of the word sword is figurative.
What he means by it is division with others. Interpersonal relationships where there's conflict. And it's not conflict that you pursue, but conflict that results because of your faithfulness to Christ.
Now there will come a time when the Messiah brings peace to the whole world. The Old Testament predicts this in Isaiah 2 .4. That verse says, He shall judge between nations and shall decide disputes for many peoples.
And they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation. Neither shall they learn war anymore. There's going to be a time where you don't need to learn war because there won't be war.
So when Christ returns, there will be worldwide peace. But right here in this text, Jesus is making it clear to his disciples that this time of worldwide peace is not now. It wasn't 2 ,000 years ago and it's not in 2021.
But rather, now is the time where there will be division between those who follow him and those who reject him. Furthermore, as I mentioned in the introduction, he makes it clear in this verse that he is not one who just wants to get along no matter what.
It is so common for people to make a Jesus of their own imagination. He is not one who says you should just love. And it doesn't matter what you believe in. We merely need to be at peace with one another at all costs.
We need to be those who accept others' beliefs and not make claims that we have the truth and they don't. And they need to see their falsehood and embrace the truth. Jesus is clear here that this is not how peace is achieved.
Following him will lead to a sword, division that will come with some people. Some of you may have seen bumper stickers on the back of cars that say Coexist. Have you seen that? And they have the religion symbols of the five great world religions, the biggest religions in the world.
Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. This movement, this Coexist movement, it's a postmodern relativistic movement. What postmodern relativistic means is that truth doesn't really matter.
What matters is we just need to get along. Truth is whatever is true for you. But that's not how the world operates. The sun rises in the east, whether you like it or not. The earth revolves around the sun, whether you like it or not.
Two plus two equals four, whether you like it or not. Jesus was crucified and raised bodily from the dead, whether you like it or not. These are all truth claims. If Jesus is raised from the dead and the whole Bible is true, which it claims to be, then any other religion cannot also be true.
That would be a contradiction. Two opposing views cannot both be true. Jesus understands this better than anyone. He is not only the perfect man, the only perfect man who has ever lived, he's also God.
Everything he speaks is truth. Earlier in Matthew 7, verses 13 -14, he said, the path is narrow and he is the narrow path. In John 14 -6, Jesus said famously, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Jesus was one who, of course, believed in absolute truth, that there is only one truth. And he taught that he is the truth. He calls everyone to believe in him. This is his call. So we can't just say, let's all get along and pretend like truth doesn't matter, like the Coexist Movement says.
Unity is a wonderful thing, and we should all want unity. But unity can never come the wrong way. True, rich, deep unity can only come around the truth, built on the truth. Now what Jesus says here almost sounds contradictory to what he said earlier in Matthew, in the Sermon on the Mount in chapter 5, verse 9.
In that verse, Jesus said, blessed are the peacemakers. But as we see in many other places in Matthew, and what we see in our text, peace can only be achieved when the truth is there. Peace always has the truth with it.
When Jesus says peacemaker, what he means is that we offer the message of peace through the Gospel. When you tell people that Jesus died for their sins and rose from the dead so that they might live, you are offering them peace with God.
Once someone comes to faith in Christ, they are no longer an enemy of God. Romans 5 .1 says that you have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. When you believe in Christ, you join his family and he calls you his child.
Through this, peace is achieved. So there's no longer that conflict. It's gone. We are also to be those who pursue peace with everyone, as Romans 12 .18 commands us to do. That verse says that we are to be people who pursue peace as far as it depends on us.
With other believers,.
We are to pursue peace by forgiving one another and not holding wrongs against each other. Even with unbelievers, we are to pursue peace. It looks different than with believers, but we're still to pursue peace.
We are to treat them with gentleness and respect. Even though we disagree on the most important things, there will be smaller points where we can find agreement. A Christian peacemaker pursues this and tries to win them by showing love by listening and highlighting points of agreement.
That's what a peacemaker does. But a true peacemaker is not a compromiser. Let me be very clear. A true peacemaker is not a compromiser. A peacemaker does not throw truth out the window. About 10 years ago, I used to do evangelism to Somali Muslims in Minneapolis with a friend.
And we had many conversations, and we found points of agreement with Muslims that made the conversation civil. But I remember my friend asking me after one of our conversations if he thought that he had compromised on the truth at all.
And what I remember saying is, no, I think you held the line. You didn't compromise. But he found points of agreement where he was able to have a civil conversation. That's what a peacemaker does. And we should always aim for that in our conversations with people.
But a peacemaker stands on the truth and is willing to stand on the truth even while facing opposition. This whole discourse from Jesus in this chapter, Jesus has been describing the trouble that His disciples will face.
And they will face this trouble because they will not compromise when asked to compromise. When threatened, they will not compromise. When you look at all the martyrs of church history, the reason they were martyred is because they were told to recant their positions.
Like removing their opposition to the gods in the Roman Empire. But they would not recant because their devotion was fully to Christ. We saw this last week with Polycarp. Remember, Polycarp was the one who was discipled by the Apostle John.
He was called to recant before the Roman authorities. And he said this, 86 years I have served Him and He has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King and my Savior? He says that awaiting death.
Boldly.
And he died. He was not willing to compromise. He didn't say,.
You know what,.
There's different viewpoints on this. We can just get along. He didn't say that. We are to be peacemakers, yes, but we are not to compromise. And this is how the sword of division comes. It may not happen with every unbeliever, but with many it will.
And when people in power command conformity to evil, believers will not compromise. And so consequences of some sort will follow. We need to be ready for that as we live in 2021 America. We cannot unite with evil.
There are many calls for us to conform to the direction the secular society has gone, but we cannot unite around evil. And this is where the opposition inevitably comes from. If the government makes us do things that the Bible forbids us to do, then of course we will not unite.
If things keep going the direction they are, we can see how persecution will increase. And by the way, the Equality Act in the House passed a little while ago. I don't know if you know what the Equality Act is.
They would make Christian institutions and churches do things that go against our biblical convictions. And it's going to go before the Senate very soon. So keep your eye out for that. And this could be an open door for persecution that even we could experience as Bible-believing Christians.
And I think the people who will probably experience it the most are Christian colleges and Christian seminaries. They'll be threatened to remove accreditation because what the Equality Act is saying is that you have to employ transgender, people who hold a same-sex marriage, so on and so forth.
And that's considered discrimination if you don't. But of course the First Amendment says that we have freedom of religion. So you can't make a later law that goes against a previous law. But they're going to try to move it forward anyway.
So keep an eye out for that. But as Christians, we are those who are glad to have dialogue where we aim to persuade others of Christ, doing it with gentleness and respect. But if there is no dialogue and we are commanded to do evil, we will never compromise.
And this is where the sword happens that Jesus is describing here. As people follow Him and stand for the truth in this way, Jesus does not bring peace, but He brings a sword. So anticipate troubled relationships for following Christ.
The first consequence how is by understanding that peace does not come through compromise. Here's the second consequence how we are to anticipate troubled relationships for following Christ, and that is experiencing tension with unbelieving family.
And we'll see this in verses 35 and 36. Let's see where this division comes even in these intimate places. Jesus says, For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
And a person's enemies will be those of his own household.
This passage is remarkable.
This is the true Jesus talking. This is the true Jesus. Show these verses to someone sometimes. This is who Jesus really is.
Believe in Him.
Don't believe in a false Jesus. Believe in the true Jesus. What we see here is that devotion to Jesus will bring conflict between children and parents, between children and their in-laws. This happens in the world.
There are many stories of Muslim parents disowning their children because they become followers of Christ. One of the most dangerous terrorist organizations in the world is known as Hamas. They are a Palestinian Sunni Islamic group that hates Israel.
The founding member of Hamas is a man by the name of Sheikh Hassan Youssef. He has a son by the name of Massab Hassan Youssef who assisted his father and he was being groomed to take over this Islamic terrorist organization.
But this son of Hamas was troubled by the terror and violence that he saw. The son of this terrorist organization saw the hatred that this group had for their enemies. They just wanted to get rid of them.
They said things like, we want to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. But then he started to read his Bible in secret. He came to the verse in Matthew 544 where Jesus says to love your enemies. He had never heard anything like it.
The son of Hamas became a Christian which was taboo on steroids. And to become a Christian would come at a great cost. He knew that this meant he needed to separate from his homeland and his father and his family.
To become a Christian meant that he needed to completely cut off himself from his previous life. It divided him with his family. When the son of Hamas, his name is Massab Hassan Youssef, reads this passage from Jesus, he knows exactly what he's talking about.
Sometimes you read these passages and you're like, we haven't really experienced this. When he reads this, he's experienced this. And many others have as well. Now in your life, you or I haven't had to permanently probably leave our families for following Christ.
But you may be experiencing some kind of conflict for your faith with those close to you, whether family or friends. Jesus calls us to full devotion and it is tempting to compromise. Very tempting. But when that temptation comes, we should resist and always stand with Christ.
Someone may ask you, do you really believe the Bible is the Word of God?
Do you really believe.
That this is the only book that God has written? Do you really believe that Jesus is the only way to heaven?
Everything that is written in the Bible, even if the society around us says something different, do you still believe it? If you stand 100 with Christ, you may very likely experience division with family who see things differently, who are going the way of the world.
Now, family members that are fully devoted to Christ will be with you. But anyone who has embraced secular thought that is against the timeless truths of Scripture, you will experience tension. I have relatives that claim to be Christians, but their understanding of who Jesus is is flawed.
And we haven't had a meal in a long time, but I imagine that if we do have a meal down the road, that if the conversation about who Jesus is came up, there would be a lot of tension. Because I could take them to a passage like this and other controversial passages and say, is this who you're following?
Or are you following a cultural Jesus? Jesus tells us that this will come, that this tension, that this division will come. The ones who follow Him will experience the tension with those who don't. And this will even extend to the most intimate of human relationships.
Family, and by implication, close friends that you once had. And you may experience trouble with family. And understand this. We need to understand this. Jesus did too. Jesus had earthly family. In John 7, verses 3 and 4, His brothers said to Him, Leave here and go to Judea, that Your disciples also may see the works that You are doing.
For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world. Then the narrator John says,. For not even His brothers believed in Him. They didn't believe in their own brother who is the Son of God.
During His ministry, as we have seen, so many followed Jesus for the wrong reasons. Some people wrongly followed Him because of the extraordinary acts He was able to do. They were thrill seekers.
Jesus was this phenomenon.
And they wanted to follow Him. But they weren't really followers of Christ. They didn't follow Him because they were sinners who needed a Savior. They didn't follow Him as one where they needed to submit to His Lordship.
His brothers were in this boat at this point. He knows what it's like to be rejected by family. But what's interesting is that thankfully there's a couple brothers of Jesus who did follow Him. James wrote the letter of James and he was the pastor in Jerusalem.
Also Jude, who wrote the book of Jude, is another brother of Jesus. But we don't know if the whole family came to believe in Him. So Jesus knows what it's like to have tension with family. And that should encourage us.
We should not be surprised if we have tension with family. So we are to anticipate troubled relationships for following Christ. And the second consequence how is by experiencing tension with unbelieving family.
And here's our third and final consequence how that we are to anticipate these troubled relationships. And that is by continuing your highest allegiance to Christ. So even though we face this, we are to continue our highest allegiance to Christ.
And we'll see this in verse 37 where Jesus says, Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. This is quite a call right here.
This is an important verse for all of us to meditate on and live. It is true that we come into this world closer to family than to anyone else. Your parents raise you. You have siblings. And you have cousins.
Before you ever have friends, you have family. And the bond between you and family runs very deep. As it should. Then many others get married. And the relationship between husband and wife is designed by God to be the deepest human relationship that there is.
And then you have children. And that's such a deep relationship with your own children. But what Jesus tells us here is that allegiance to Him must be supreme. It must be the highest. If it is not supreme, then He wants no part with you.
That's what He says. You are not worthy of Him unless He is number one in your life. So is He number one in your life?
Ask yourself that.
Our closest and deepest relationship must not be with our spouse,.
Our children,.
Our parents, our siblings,.
Our cousins,.
Or our best friends. Our closest and deepest relationship must be with Jesus Christ. So is He in your life? Think about this. What do we do with the ones we love? We spend time with them. And we can't wait to spend time with them.
Do you spend time with Jesus? And how do we spend time with Him? It's different than with one you can see. Jesus is in heaven right now. You spend time with Him by reading His Word. He wants to talk to you.
And He has a lot to say to you. So this book right here, are we reading the Word of God? Several weeks back, Amber posted a meme on our church Facebook page. It's a picture of a man who cries out to God saying, I want to hear from you.
Then there's a picture of an arm holding out a Bible. What God is saying to the man is read My Word, and I will talk to you. We also talk to God and His Son Jesus by praying. Do we pray? One thing I love about the warmer weather is that we can spend time in the beauty of God's creation.
There's something about being out in His creation, in the beauty of His creation where we talk to Him. He wants us to talk to us. Everything in the world is pointing to Him. And when we're out in the beauty of nature, this should make us want to talk to Him.
And we go on walks with the ones we love. Husbands and wives go on walks together. Parents and children go on walks together. Friends go on walks together. Do you go on walks with God? When you go on walks, praise Him for how beautiful His creation is.
Thank Him for saving you, for growing you. Thank Him for how He takes care of you in your life. Confess your sins to Him. And also thank Him for the forgiveness that you have in Christ. Bring prayer requests before Him.
Go on walks with God as the weather gets nicer. To do this is such a sweet experience. I don't think it's by accident that the Bible says about Enoch, Enoch walked with God and God took him. Now, obviously that's figurative, but I think there's something to be said.
You go on walks with the one that you love. So let's spend that time with God. To do this is such a sweet experience. And Jesus is not only God, He is family. For everyone here who knows Christ, when you believed, you were adopted into God's family.
Galatians 4 -6 says, When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts,.
Crying,.
Abba, Father.
I just think of my kids.
They're like, Daddy,.
I'm their dad.
And you've experienced that if you're a parent to kids. Or you remember that with your parents. You have that sweet, intimate relationship. We're supposed to have that with God as well. And obviously, it's a little bit different because we need to remember God's greatness.
We need to have this reverential awe as we think about God. But there's that intimacy that is there that we must pursue. There's no relationship more satisfying than the relationship that you have with God.
And one of the many blessings in your relationship with God is the deep bond with other believers as well. God is our Father, and we are brothers and sisters. The bond that you have with fellow believers is deeper than the bond you have with biological family that do not know the Lord.
Let me say that again. The bond that you have with fellow believers is deeper than the bond that you have with biological family that do not know the Lord. When you have family that know the Lord, it's doubly sweet.
But when you don't, it's difficult. Your relationship can only go so deep.
It's lacking.
But with a fellow believer, it's really deep. You have that deep bond in Christ. You have the most important thing in common. And you can enjoy that sweet fellowship. And Jesus explains this reality later on in an account in Matthew 12, 46 -50.
Let's look at this account. While He was still speaking to the people, behold, His mother and His brothers stood outside asking to speak to Him. But Jesus replied to the man who told Him, Who is My mother and who are My brothers?
And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, Here are My mother and My brothers. For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother. So it's very interesting.
Jesus talks about His biological family and He talks about His spiritual family. Which one does He have the closer bond with? It's with those who know Him. Those who are spiritually tied to Him. I remember a number of years ago, I went on a short-term missions trip to Macedonia, which is right next to Greece.
That's where the Stouts served for many years. We support the Stouts. And I remember meeting Christians there and thinking, I feel like I know you guys. We have this bond that is there. And these are people I'd never met before in my whole life.
And this is in a foreign country. And how sweet it is. God is our Father and we are brothers and sisters in Christ. And this is why we call Eureka Baptist a church family. We are a family and our bond should be very deep.
And one thing I want to say too is that we're not a church where we just come on Sundays and leave and never talk to each other. We're a church where we want to talk to each other. We want to know each other.
I heard one pastor say, we don't want to be just friendly. We want to be friends. We want to be family. And that's why we do things together outside of church. That's why we have Bible studies. To build that connection with one another.
I think the saddest thing in the world is when you go into a church and it just feels cold. And nobody talks to you. And nobody's happy that you're there. And I want this place to be a place where everybody knows your name.
Not to use the cheesy cheers song,.
But you know what I mean.
Where we enjoy that sweet fellowship with one another. We're on this journey to heaven together. And we need each other. God is our Father and we are brothers and sisters in Christ. And so my prayer is that we...
And I do see it. I see it here. And I pray we would just grow in that. Have that rich, sweet fellowship together. But we are to treasure Him, Jesus, above all other human relationships. And the beauty is that when you treasure Him, then you also have that sweet fellowship with other believers in Christ.
So here's the summary of the sermon here, as we wrap up. Anticipate troubled relationships for following Christ. And we've seen three consequences of how in this text. The first is by understanding that peace does not come through compromise.
The second is by experiencing tension with family. And the third, as we have just seen, is by continuing your highest allegiance to Christ. This describes the life of a believer. This is a life of sacrifice because of your commitment to Him.
You have to leave old friends behind sometimes. You have to leave family even behind, as hard as that is. But this is the call that He has for our life. And the beauty of it is that He gives you new friends.
He gives you new people. He always provides for us those deep, rich fellowships. And the deepest fellowship is, of course, with Him. Now, as Jesus says this, it's interesting. He closes in verses 38 and 39 with these words.
There's a cost to this, as we're going to see here. In verses 38 and 39, In other words, if you are fully committed to Him by your willingness to not compromise, showing your commitment to Him over everyone else, this shows that you have counted the cost.
That's why He says this. Because that temptation's there. That I want to hold loyalty to this over Him. That temptation is there. And He's saying the one who has counted the cost, the one who holds Him supreme, are the ones who are fully devoted to Him and not torn in a different direction.
Even in these intimate relationships where it is so tempting to value these above Him. We must understand our whole lives through the lens of our love for Him. Now, next Sunday, we will look at rewards.
As we wrap up this chapter, Matthew 10, the Lord notices those who faithfully follow Him. And what we will see will be a great encouragement to us because the Lord loves to reward His people. That's what we will see next Sunday.
At this time, let's bow our heads together. Father in Heaven, what a wonderful call that You have given us. Lord, whenever You tell us the trial that we will experience for following You, it's always replaced by something better.
To follow You, Lord, truly is a trade up. Even if we have severed relationships with family or friends because of following You, we have the greatest relationship in You. You are our treasure. You call us to have full allegiance to You.
And not only that, Lord, but You also give us Your family, our brothers and sisters in Christ. And that sweet bond, Lord, that sweet fellowship, that fellowship with You and that fellowship with one another, that's Your design.
And so may that be our commitment as a church, Lord. May You be supreme in our lives. And may we experience that rich fellowship with You and that rich fellowship with others. And in that way, Lord, as we anticipate these troubled relationships, we will not agonize over them.
We will not be discouraged over them, realizing, Lord, that You told us it would be this way in this life. And may we hold You in the highest place. And it's in Your Son's name we pray.
Amen.