We are continuing in our study of the book of Matthew this morning looking at the latter half of the third section of instructions Jesus gave to His disciples as He was sending them out on their first missionary endeavor. The three sections in Matthew 10 begin with the 12 apostles and grow to encompass all disciples at all times and in all places who would confess Jesus Christ as Lord. Some of what He said refers explicitly to the 12, some to ministers of the gospel who would make their living by preaching the word and much applies to all disciples until, as we saw in verse 23 “the Son of Man comes.”
Throughout this section He is used the terms “disciple,” or “servant,” pointing to anyone who would call himself a servant or follower of Jesus Christ. In that sense, we are looking at something that was meant for them and for us. That is one of the amazing aspects of Scripture, though it was said to a particular group of people in a particular context, it is able to profoundly impact our lives 2000 years later.
Starting in verse 16, Jesus began laying out the hard road of discipleship. That anyone who claims to be a disciple of Jesus Christ would find themselves on a difficult and narrow path. A path marked with persecution and hatred from the world around them that hates God and His people. We looked last week at some of those difficult aspects of being a disciple of Christ. How we as believers are to be like our teacher in every way, submitting to His authority as master. 1 John 2:6 makes it clear “if we say we abide in Him, then we ought to walk as He walked.”
We also saw the promise that if we are true disciples of Christ then we will be hated by the world just as He was. I asked the question “has anyone ever hated you because you are Christian? Has anyone ever been hostile toward you because of your Christ-likeness?” We saw that a genuine follower of Christ does not fear the injustice of the world, knowing that “there is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be made known.” A genuine disciple fears God above men trusting in the infinite value that God places on His children.
Today we are going to see Jesus make a very profound, and possibly difficult for some, statement about who are truly His followers and who are not. A genuine follower of Christ will be like Him, striving to be like Him while sharing in His sufferings. A genuine follower of Christ will confess Him before men at all times even when it brings conflict within the most intimate human relationships. A genuine Disciple will place God above everything, his family, his friends even his own life. Let us read our passage for this morning, Matthew 10:32-42, and if you have your Bibles with you this morning I encourage you to follow along.
“Therefore, everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven.
Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For 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; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household. He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.
He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me. He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward; and he who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward. And whoever in the name of a disciple gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water to drink, truly I say to you, he shall not lose his reward.”
Verse 32 begins with the word “therefore” we must understand the statement He is about to make in light of all that Jesus said in chapter 10, especially in the light of persecution and promises of God. This is going to be a very difficult, even troubling statement, and we must understand it in light of all that we have covered over the past couple weeks in chapter 10. We must understand this in the light of the promises of God, the promise of vindication, the promise of the power of God, the promise of the protection of God.
If we as disciples of Christ are going to follow Him, if we are going to be like Him, we are going to face persecution, therefore you must be willing to confess Christ before men without fear. And so Jesus says “therefore everyone who confesses me before men, I will also confess him before my father who is in heaven.” Does this mean we must confess Jesus before men in order to be a true Christian? Yes, yes it does. There is no such thing as a secret Christian, “what I tell you in darkness, speak in the light; and what you hear whispered in your ear, proclaim upon the housetops.” What is Paul’s statement in Romans 10 about how we are saved? “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” If you are unwilling to make a clear confession of your faith in God then your salvation is suspect.
This is not a work thing. This is not a prerequisite insofar as you must openly confess Jesus as Lord in order to receive salvation. Rather, this is a definitive proof statement. If you have salvation, then you will confess Jesus as Lord.
So, what does it mean to confess Christ? In what way do we confess Christ before men? The word “confess” means to firm, to acknowledge, to agree. It is a verbal statement of identification with Christ, to proclaim one’s faith, one’s confidence, one’s trust in Jesus as Lord and to live a life that follows that confession. It begins with a confession with the mouth as we saw in Romans 10 and continues with a confession with your life.
What we saw in 26-31 last week is that God is the ultimate judge of the earth, He will protect His own and we have no excuse for shrinking away from our duty because of the fear of men. This goes in times of persecution as well as in the good times. Whether we stand in front of a group of people who will confess Jesus as Lord alongside us or if we are standing in front of a group completely hostile to the Christian faith. We are to confess Christ before all men, this is a public confession. It must be public; it must be genuine, and that authenticity is confirmed by our willingness to acknowledge that we belong to Christ the matter how hostile the world around us is.
On the other side of this is Christ statement “but whoever shall deny me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven.” This does speak of those who openly reject Christ, those who despise Him, who blaspheme His name. But who is it that Jesus is speaking to here? Who is the primary audience? He is speaking to those who claim to be disciples. There will be many people who deny Jesus openly but the focus here is not on them but on those who claim to be followers of Jesus.
Verse 33 is talking about someone that claims to be Christian, that hangs around Christians and in the company of true disciples, and may look and act very similar, but when it comes to the test, when it comes to the time where he must confess before men that Jesus is Lord where the outcome may not be favorable, he denies Him.
Most often, people deny Christ by their silence. How many people know you know you by your faith in Christ; their first thought about you is not farmer or rancher or teacher, but Christian? How many people know you by your convictions; what you believe, what you reject? How many people know you by your complete dedication to the Word of God and the doctrines of grace? How many people know you by your life of repentance and submission to a holy God?
You can deny Christ by your silence. When others are around never talking about Christ, never talking about the gospel, never talking about the word of God or never living out your confession in front of them. By living the way that everybody else lives with no distinction between you and the lost around you. Not to say we engage in vice, but there are many morally upstanding pagans. So, what is the difference between you and them? Living your life in silence can mean denying Christ both verbally and nonverbally.
And that denial will be repaid by a denial on an eternal level when Jesus says to His father “I do not know him,” “I do not know her;” and when He turns to you and says “I never knew you; depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.”
This is a call to self-examination. Do you find it hard to speak of Christ when there are unbelievers around? What about affirming doctrine and you know to be true that might be looked down upon by other people who claim to be Christian but would call you unloving or uncaring if you stated them out loud?
Now I want to be very clear on this, none of this is to say that if you ever fail in your public confession of Christ, if you fail to live out your life as a genuine disciple then you will lose your salvation. All Christians suffer lapses at times, all believers have failed to live up to the standard of perfection. Whether it is a brutal failure like openly denouncing Christ or a failure that no one but you and God will ever know about, that moment when cowardice overcomes you and you do not stand up for the truth you know you should.
Just look at the apostle Peter. he denied his Lord. Three times in a row and with curses and oaths said that he did not know Jesus. But what was his reaction to that failure? He went out and wept bitterly. His heart was broken because he knew that he had failed to confess his Lord before men, that He had given into cowardice. All believers fail at times, we see Peter failing miserably, Timothy is warned not to give in to fear by Paul in a way that indicates he may have at times.
You must look to your own heart, we may not fail as publicly as Peter, but you know your own failures. One of the greatest regrets of my life is built around one of these failures. I was known for my faith in high school soccer team, so much so that my coach regularly asked me spiritual questions and I know he was searching; and yet out of fear of ridicule I often gave vague answers I knew to be incomplete never challenging him with the whole Gospel or calling him to faith and repentance. I failed to confess Jesus as Lord in those moments and it haunts me to this day.
My greatest fear as a pastor and preacher and shepherd is that someone in this congregation, anyone who has heard me preach will stand before God and hear those heartbreaking words of damnation. Could I have said more, could I have pushed harder, was I unclear. What should terrify all of us is a thought that Jesus could return tomorrow and that we have for eternity missed our opportunity to witness to our neighbor, to our friend, to our family member because of fear; because we might lose that relationship, we might be rejected, we might be persecuted.
And that leads us into our Lord’s next point in verse 34, “do not think that I came to bring peace on earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” This should be a confusing statement; if you were taken back by it you should have been. What do you mean Jesus came not to bring peace but a sword? Is not He called “the Prince of Peace?” Did not the Angels, when they announced His birth announcement peace on earth? Is not Jesus, as the King of kings going to bring to this world, an era of peace unlike anything ever seen? Are not we to look to Him for our peace? Yes, all of those are true of Jesus and we look forward to the day when they will ultimately be fulfilled. But in His first coming, as He presented himself as the Messiah He came not to bring peace but a sword. Not to bring unity in the world but division and discord. Not to bring families together but to break them apart.
The message of Jesus, the gospel of God is a message of ultimate hope and peace for those who accept it, but to everyone else it is a message of condemnation and an invitation to war. Remember, Jesus is warning his disciples of the difficult road ahead of them, of the cost of discipleship. He is warning them that the message He is sending them out with is one that will bring upon them persecution. Martin Luther once said, “if our gospel was received in peace, it would not be the true gospel.” And look what happened during the Reformation, Europe was torn apart so that the gospel could flourish, escaping from underneath the Roman church.
Christ brings peace to those who accept this message, peace to the hearts of believers, the peace of God that comes with salvation, and some day there will be a kingdom of peace ruled over by Christ. But until then, we must recognize that as we go out with the gospel of God we are going to cause division. And that division is going to exist even in the home, “For 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; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.”
There is nothing more difficult than to feel this division and to experience persecution from the members of your own family for the sake of the gospel. It is one thing to be looked down upon, to be rejected by your neighbor or your boss or even a friend, but to experience it from your family is something else entirely. I thank God every day that I have never had to experience that. That both sides of my family are committed believers and are proud of the fact that I am a pastor. But I have seen firsthand the pain of these divisions. Those of you who come from families of unbelievers, or who have left apostate denominations know the difficulty and pain that comes from family members rejecting you, questioning why their faith or their church is not good enough for you.
That is why Jesus calls us to forsake all for Him. The true disciple of Christ is willing to leave his family behind in order to follow Jesus. “He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” In Luke 14 Jesus takes this even one step further, in verse 26 he says, “if anyone comes to me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” He is not calling us to hatred but rather is demonstrating the gulf that must exist between our love for Him and everyone else. We must love Christ, we must be so devoted to Christ that our commitment to Him looks like hatred of everything else.
As an illustration, I use the example of my feelings toward my wife in comparison to soccer and basketball. Now I love soccer, it is one of my favorite things to do and the worst part about living in South Dakota. On the other hand, I hate basketball never liked it, never gone for it, could never get into it, hate seems like a strong word but not far off. So if I was set up to play a basketball game and CJ asked me to drop it because she needed me, there would be no mixed feelings at all, if anything, it would probably be a relief. The comparison here comes with a soccer game. Call it the finals, the championship game, that which would bring me the most love and joy of the game. If CJ had asked me to drop that because she needed me, my commitment to her is such that I would do so as quickly and completely as if it were a basketball game I was dreading anyway.
That may be a poor illustration for some of you, but you can fit your own hobbies and dislikes in there. The point is this, our commitment to Christ must be so complete that we are willing to forsake even that which we love most in this world; our father or mother, our wives or husbands, our children, if it is required of us. Our commitment to Christ, if you are a true disciple, is to be so deep and so profound that you are willing to leave behind the most important aspects of life if need be.
And what did He say in Luke 14? If anyone comes to me and does not do these things, “he cannot be my disciple.” “And he who loves father or mother…son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” This is not a question of degrees of commitment. This is not a question of some people being better Christians than others. This is a sheep and goats question, this is a narrow road and broad road question. You either are or you are not. You cannot receive salvation if even your family means more to you than Christ does.
“And he who does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.” Now I am sure you have read or heard over and over again the idea of “bearing your cross.” I hear it far too often “this is my cross to bear.” Your wife is nagging you, your husband is annoying you, your children are not listening to you, “oh that is my cross to bear.” Your house is falling apart, you had to repair your car twice in the last six months, your job is not working out how you had hoped, “so that is my cross to bear.” There are few things that anger me more than statements like this. Those are the minor sufferings of life common to all people, believers and unbelievers alike. They are not your cross so if you use that phrase, then stop it.
What is your cross? Jesus is talking to the disciples before His own death and resurrection, before He would go to Calvary, to die on a cross. The disciples of Jesus knew that this was not some minor suffering but a picture of a condemned man carrying the instrument of His execution to the place of His coming excruciating death. You thought it was bad that you are being called to forsake your father and mother? Jesus is telling you that to follow Him means you must carry the instrument of your torturous execution with you every moment of your life being willing to set it down and stretch your arms out on it at any moment when God might require it.
That is what Paul means in Romans 12 when He says “therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.” Jesus is telling His disciples that they must carry along with them a constant reminder of their call to lay their life as a sacrifice to God every moment of every day and if the need arises, to literally lay down their life. And if you are unwilling to do this, Jesus says, “he who does not take his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.” “You cannot be my disciple.”
Being a disciple of Christ means committing your life to following Him, to become like Him, to stand before any and all and confess Christ as Lord, to stand for the truths that are despised by the world, to forsake not only your family and those closest to you, to forsake those you love most, but to forsake your own life. That is the mark of a genuine disciple of Christ. To never be intimidated by the world. The disciples who heard Jesus speak understood that He meant death, they understood that to take up the cross means abandoning myself to the Lordship of Christ and pay with my life or with my death. They understood that the love of Christ must overrule everything else including the instinct to self-preservation.
“He who has found his life will lose it.” To find your life means to secure your safety by denying Christ. To deny Him verbally, to deny Him by your silence, or to deny Him by your actions. “And he who has lost his life for my sake will find it.” This does not mean that you receive salvation by being a martyr. We do not make it to heaven by throwing away our lives or looking for someone to kill us in the name of Christ. What it means is that we must be willing and courageous enough to lay down our lives if that is what is demanded of us by God. It is the question of whether I will live for me or for Him. It is to constantly remember that the one who confesses Christ and dies even the most brutal death is far better off than the apostate who tries to escape pain, escape suffering, escape persecution, escape death by denying Christ and receives eternal damnation.
And that is the bit about rewards here at the end. It is better to lose everything, to lose your comfort, to lose your financial security, to lose even your family and your own life then to forsake Christ. The one who confesses Christ before men, who gives that confession boldly will receive his just reward in eternity. And we see in verses 41-42 that we will receive a reward even now when we confess Christ before men.
When we preach the truth, there will be those who reject us, those who hate us, those who persecute us, but there will also be those whose hearts are changed by God, whose lives are changed by God because of our testimony and they believe. Not everyone is going to refuse the message, not everyone is going to refuse the gospel of God. Some are going to believe, some will receive Christ as their Lord. When we go out and represent Jesus Christ, when we confess Christ and preach His gospel, the people who believe it are the ones who receive us. The ones that receive the disciple are receiving the Lord, and the ones who receive Jesus are the ones who receive our Father.
When we proclaim the truth we will receive the award God has promised to give the one who confesses His son before men. Then you become the instrument by which others are blessed. When you confess Christ before men, when you stand up boldly then your life becomes a source of their reward. Even in the smallest things, “and whoever in the name of the disciple gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water to drink, truly I say to you, he shall not lose his reward.” When you go out in the name of Christ and do even the smallest deed, giving a child a cup of water, you will not lose your reward.
There is a cost to discipleship. The narrow road is difficult and demanding. Are you willing to pay the price? Are you willing to confess Christ with your voice and with your life? Are you willing to carry your cross?