This is not a nice message this morning. God wants you to know about four things.

 

He wants you to know about Peace

 

He wants you to know about Family strife

 

He wants you to know about execution

 

He wants you to know about a cup of water

 

Before we get stuck into the core of God’s instruction for the week, let’s just step back and see the bigger picture. 11:1 is the clue. Matthew groups Jesus sayings in sections among the narrative of the Jesus story.

 

This section began back in 9:35-37.

³⁵ Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. ³⁶ When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. ³⁷ Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. ³⁸ Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

 

Compassion led to prayer; prayer led to action, in this case the sending out of the 12 disciples to be workers in the harvest field. Chapter 10 begins with stuff, specific to that mission but it expands  into  other things Jesus said about the disciples mission.  So you can back out of discipleship by saying that was for the 12 apostles and not for me. If you so wish. Or you can accept the clear connection here.  Compassion leads to prayer and prayer leads to action.

 

That is a vital sequence in our work and we need to embed that in our plans for the future. You don’t attend prayer meetings because you do not have the compassion. The mission comes from the prayer life of the church. So begin at the beginning. Stop and reflect of the Cross of Jesus, respond to the love of God in Christ Jesus and when the compassion for the crowds is there, you will be at prayer. And a church at prayer will inevitably be transformed into mission. 

I mention this because there is a working party set up to plan for the future and its first step will be to encourage prayer. Look out for opportunities to pray. Like House Groups and Powerhouses and next Sunday at 9:30aqm and starting 5^th November  Monday at 10am a  prayer meeting specifically for vision and direction in the future. Ask Gary Lewington for further details.. But you will not be there unless you are enthused with the compassion of Jesus. So start at the cross, spend time there. This evening we will meet to revive our souls around the Lord’s table, to hear again him saying, That eat this is my body, given for you. Be here , 6:30pm.

 

So it is in the context of compassion, prayer and mission we come to these verses. And 2 weeks ago we saw how that persecution was part of the discipleship deal. It would be nice if this week was a little more relaxed! But it is not.

 

In fact it is repeating some of what has been said already. The peace bit reiterates what has already been said about persecution. The family bit is similar to verse 21-22

²¹ “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. ²² All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.

 

The cross bit relates to  verse 24-25

²⁴ “A student is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. ²⁵ It is enough for the student to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebub,  how much more the members of his household!

 

and the cup of cold water is connected to the hospitality of verses 11-13

¹¹ “Whatever town or village you enter, search for some worthy person there and stay at his house until you leave. ¹² As you enter the home, give it your greeting. ¹³ If the home is deserving, let your peace rest on it; if it is not, let your peace return to you.

 

 

 PEACE

The Bible, we are told, is full of contradictions and here is one of them. The Prince of Peace declares:

³⁴ ‘Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.

 

So the Prince of Peace came to bring peace with God.  It is essential in our understanding of this to realise that peace is made by reconciliation or the total annihilation of the opposition. The Iraq war will not end because it fails to reconcile the peoples of Iraq. The Syrian conflict will not end until either one side has destroyed the other or a real peace deal can be brokered. The UN has failed to find a way to broker a peace deal so the war rages on. But there will be no peace until there is a reconciliation or an annihilation.

That applies to you and me before God. Jesus did not come to suppress a resistance movement, which was us before conversion; he came to reconcile us to God. We are either reconciled to God or we inevitably have to face what the Bible describes as Hell. There can be no middle way because there is no peace without us being reconciled to God. If we refuse to be reconciled to God, to accept and receive Jesus as our Saviour, God has no choice but to cut us off completely from himself. That is hell, worse than any living hell because there is no restraint by the Holy Spirit, no creator protecting his creation, only the grim consequences of rejecting all that is good and right and loving.

^{John 3:16} “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. ¹⁸ Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. ¹⁹ This is the verdict: light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. ²⁰ Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. ²¹ But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

 

 God loves me, but I messed up. Jesus died for me and that gives me the choice of a restored relationship with God. But until the world has received him, there is a conflict. You have changed sides and joined Jesus. But not everybody has. The light is good when you are repentant about sin and rebellion but it is at least embarrassing and at most deadly if you want to hide from the truth that is Jesus. People do not like Jesus because he shows up their selfishness, their pride, their sin and their shame.  The result is that the followers of Jesus face all sorts of trouble, including the sword. You have peace but you also have trouble. You safe with God, it’s just that the Devil is rampaging round trying to destroy the work of God.

 

 FAMILY

And the key area of attack is the family.

³⁵For I have come to turn

‘“a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law –
³⁶ a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.”

 

³⁷ ‘Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

 

There are two elements to this saying. The first is that the worst persecution comes from family.  The second is that Jesus commands our affections over and above that of the family.

 

 The first says that when we become Christians a family which is not at all religious can suddenly become quite opinionated about your particular form of religion. And if you are changing from the family tradition, you threaten the family, so you are the problem. Following Jesus is not peaceful; it sets you up against the rest of the world.   And therefore Jesus warns us to value our relationship with him above the family. Otherwise we will give in, succumb to the persecution and give up on Jesus. This is not a call to reject the family and opt out, it is a warning that choosing Jesus may well mean choosing between him and the family.

 

 Cross

If that is not shocking enough to a family oriented society at least in comparison to our liberated mess of broken relationships and confused identities we call family these days. If that Jesus calls us to love him more than family is not shocking enough, what follows must have been stunning to his hearers. The word ‘cross’ did not have the meaning we give it today. The Jews abhorred crucifixion. It was a barbaric way that slaves who rebelled were treated. It was a terrible form of death. And Jesus says

³⁸ Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. ³⁹ Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.

 

Taking up his cross is what Jesus had to do. They made him carry his cross. It’s like making people dig their own graves. And Jesus is saying “Follow me, and dig your own grave”. It is offensive and meant to be so. But listen, Jesus is not saying that you should be a victim, he is saying choose to take up your own cross. The Christian who is persecuted is choosing the way of the cross. Why would he or she do that? Because real peace lies where you walk with Jesus. The Psalmist put it this way:

^{Psalm 23:4} Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

 ⁵ You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
⁶ Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.

 

The blessing is in the place of death; it is in the presence of my enemies.

 

 We find this hard to cope with because we value our middle class life-style so much that we think it strange to follow Jesus.

 

He said things like: Go and sell all that you have and come follow me. He said. You cannot serve God and money. He said Your neighbour is the immigrant and you are to love them as you love yourself.  He said that it is better to be disfigured than give in to temptation.

 

We value reputation, wealth, health and family and the problem is we will not give it up for him. So we lose out on the blessing in the valley of the shadow of death and the anointing in the presence of our enemies, because we are afraid to take up our cross or dig our own grave. This is a call for repentance and revival. You will not follow Jesus unless you are responding to all that he did on the cross. This evening you have an opportunity to get back to the cross of Jesus to contemplate your salvation, to turn from the world and its values and take up your cross and follow Jesus. Will you make the effort?

 

 Cup of water

Our final point is about hospitality.

⁴⁰ ‘Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. ⁴¹ Whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. ⁴² And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.’

 

The Englishman’s home is his castle. All this talk of persecution and trouble and betrayal. You might say: I am going to be a Christian by locking myself in my home and avoiding all these nasty things!

No, says, Jesus. Be hospitable. And be hospitalized! No that’s not right! Accept invitations to be in the world, to share with Christians and non-Christians, risking the persecution that could follow.

 

 As a church, we have to risk opening the door. Every activity in this church where we have the door open puts us at risk. But while we minimise those risks we must accept the hazards that come by being an open church. Shutting the door or locking it would be abandoning our mission.

 

As a people in the community we should take up opportunities to spend time with non-Christians, taking opportunities to share our faith, even though it will mean we will lose friends in doing so. If you remain silent you will only have a friend. If you speak, that friend may be your brother or sister in Christ. 

 And Jesus adds an extra incentive. He says that when you welcome a stranger, you welcome me! So every stranger who enters this place or you meet in the street is brought to you by Jesus and your reaction to them is your reaction to Jesus.  The second incentive is that you share in the person who you welcome. You share their reward. Finally, Jesus marks down that even the smallest expression of hospitality, a cup of water, does not go unnoticed or unrewarded.

 

 Put that with our starting point Compassion leads to Prayer and Prayer leads to action and we should pray for opportunities to give a cup of water and prepare to have the means to do it!

 

Got that? Jesus notices the small random acts of kindness you do and he will reward you. When you get to heaven, God will not go on about your sin, unless you have not trusted him, he will welcome you for the simple things you did as a response to his love as obedience to his will.

 

So there you have it.

You have peace with God but not with the world.

Being a Christian complicates family life and can make it tough.

Being a Christian is consciously accepting that you may be digging your own grave but you are in the best place possible because you walk with Jesus. And finally, the small things of life, those simple acts of kindness, especially sharing your experience about Jesus and telling the Good News are not forgotten. God smiles and will reward you. Keep the faith!

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