Trust in God & Loyalty to Jesus
Dr. James Smith
Matthew 10:26-11:1
8 February 2004
Last week we continued our series on the 2nd Discourse or Sermon of Jesus concerning Missions in Matthew 10.
And we discovered several important missiological principles so far in our study.
- Our hearts must burn and break and our guts “churn” for the lost.
- The harvest is an image of end time judgment and this harvest is coming whether we are ready or not or we like it our not.
- There are four (4) vital and practical aspects of any missionary
endeavor.
- The Arena
- The Tasks
- The Material Support
- The Impact
- Jesus sent His disciples out into the danger zone with the full knowledge that some of His sheep would be consumed by His enemies and that he expected His followers to carry on the mission that He began.
In Matthew 10:26-11:1, we come to the end of Jesus’ Missionary Discourse or Sermon. And in many ways, this section reveals the underlying principle of the entire chapter.
The disciple is to be like the master . . . Verse 24-25 & 40-42 remind us that we are to be like Jesus.
And in this master/disciple relationship, as followers of the Lord Jesus, we are to depend on and imitate Him.
Jesus Himself is the very basis of the power & authority of His followers as well as the guarantee of their promised suffering.
And while Matthew 10:16-25 makes clear the rather frightening and sobering fact that, Jesus sent and still sends His sheep into the open fields of the world that are filled with all kinds of snakes and wolves, this final section of Matthew 10:26-11:1 calls us to a radical trust in God and loyalty to Jesus.
You will notice that 3 times in this section in verses 26, 28 and 31 that a series of Jesus’ sayings are introduced by the command, “Do not fear!”
These repeated commands, “not to fear,” are to express the utter confidence that the followers of Jesus are to have in carrying on our missionary work.
Verses 26-27 reveal the purposes of God. The truth of the Kingdom of Heaven and the good news of Jesus Christ cannot be covered or hidden, no matter what others may say or do.
The teaching of Jesus is not esoteric and the preserve of the initiated few, but rather it was to become common knowledge and public property. This message was to be preached from the “housetops” which were the highest points in the villages and the towns.
In these verses, Jesus says, “Do not fear.”
Verse 28 reminds the disciples that God has control of the future. And that no matter what may happen to us in this life, we are ultimately in the hands of God and not in the hands of capricious men.
And in a masterful move, the gospel writer addresses both Greek and Hebrew ideas of the human person. Verse 28 in Greek fashion, makes a clear division between the body and the soul in which obviously the soul is the more important and immortal part.
While humans can kill the shell of the body, only God has power over body and soul.
In verse 39, the Hebrew notion of both body and soul come into play. Here Matthew reminds the followers of Jesus that the whole human person is at stake in this great missionary endeavor.
Those who hold on to life as if it was their own, will ultimately lose it all, while those who live for Jesus’ sake, though it may appear that they lose their whole life, will ultimately find it again.
In these verses, Jesus says, “Do not fear.”
In verses 29-31, Jesus reminds the disciples that God is in control of the present as well.
Here God’s provident care is expressed by two captivating images.
The first reminded me that before I closed up a big hole, sparrows used to get into the sanctuary from time to time. They were terrified to be closed in and chased by me, but sooner or later they would collapse to the ground in sheer exhaustion.
The poor of Jesus’ day, used to buy sparrows cheaply as a meat source if you can imagine that. (obviously, there is not too much meat on a sparrow.)
But even sparrows are known by and cared for by our Father in Heaven.
The second image is the fact that God even knows the number of hairs on our heads and while the number of hairs on my head is approximately ½ of what they were when I became pastor 5 years ago, I am comforted by the fact that God knows the minute details of our lives . . . and that He even cares.
In these verses, Jesus says, “Do not fear.”
All of Jesus’ exhortations on “not to fear” stress our need to be loyal to our master as outlined in Matthew 10:32-39.
After all, the early principle of the Rabbi’s remains in force . . . The representative of a person is like that person that s/he is representing.
In antiquity, messengers were a standard way of communicating the will of their sovereign or master. To kill a messenger, was to insult a king and invite open warfare & bloodshed.
One was obliged to protect messengers, however, the message of the missionaries would not only bring peace, but a sword according to Jesus.
Such a sword, would come in the form of deep and painful divisions, particularly within families.
History is filled with examples of divisions that allegiance to Jesus have caused. The bottom line is that anyone, past, present or future, who subordinates the demands of discipleship to family ties is “not worthy” of Jesus.
And lest there be any confusion or ambiguity, the word “cross” is used for the first time here in the Gospel of Matthew. The apostles as well as the people of Jesus’ day would have known all too well about the practice of crucifixion.
“Carrying one’s cross,” did not refer to some trivial little burden or inconvenience. It referred to one of the most painful, humiliating, shameful and violent forms of execution and death known to mankind.
The cross divided citizen from non-citizen and the accepted from the rejected. To take up the cross meant to identify with Jesus unto death, to be at direct cross purposes with this world system and to refuse to be intimidated into compliance to the worldly powers that be.
Why else would Jesus say that those that accepted the good news preached by the apostles, accepted Him and ultimately accepted the will of His Father in Heaven?
Finally in 11:1, Matthew brings this missionary discourse to a close in the same way that he brings to the other great discourses and sermons of Jesus to a close in his gospel. “Jesus finished or ended His teaching on such and such a subject.”
In summary, what vital missiological principles can we learn from the missionary discourse of Jesus in Matthew 10?
- Our hearts must burn and break and our guts “churn” for the lost.
- The harvest is an image of end time judgment and this harvest is coming whether we are ready or not or we like it our not.
- There are four (4) vital and practical aspects of any missionary
endeavor.
- The Arena
- The Tasks
- The Material Support
- The Impact
- Jesus sent His disciples out into the danger zone with the full knowledge that some of His sheep would be consumed by His enemies and that he expected His followers to carry on the mission that He began.
- Finally, as Jesus’ disciples, we are commanded to be fearless, trusting in God and being loyal to our master, the Lord Jesus. And that no matter what may happen, we are to carry the cross, knowing that while man can kill the body, God is the only One with the ultimate power over our bodies and souls as well as over life and death.
Let’s Pray
