Matthew 10:38,39 - Whoever loses his life for my sake

10:38

Jesus would go to the cross, and we have to be prepared to go to the cross. We will never go in the way Jesus did, i.e. we will never bear the sins of the world in an atoning manner, but we are called to share in His sufferings. The Romans made their prisoners carry the cross as a mark of shame and humiliation. Sometimes we may be shamed by the world for our faith. That will not always happen, but it might, and of we are to be worthy of Christ we must bear that shame. We choose to be approved by God rather than to be approved of by the world.

10:39

Our failing to follow Jesus, or our falling away, can arise from a desire to “find our life”. In the extreme circumstances of persecution it can be a very raw decision to seemingly save our lives. There seems to be some impending major loss, so we choose to deny Christ. In more mundane circumstances it can be following a path that seems better to us. It may be not wanting to follow God’s ways in terms of sexual morality, it may be wanting to pursue a particular hobby or career path which in some way is going to be harmful to our walk with Jesus.  But if we go down any of these roads it will be detrimental to us. However, if we lose our life for Christ’s sake then in the end we will find our life. Again, if it is in extreme circumstances it may be “reward in heaven”, but here and now our conscience will be clear, and there will be a far closer walk with Christ. In the more mundane circumstances, there may be a short term loss, but in the end we find that our lives went on a much richer path.

Jeremiah 23:7,8 - As surely as the Lord lives

23:7,8

The rescue from Egypt was seen as the defining event in Israel’s history, but an even greater event was going to occur. The return from Babylon was only a precursor of this. While a second temple was built, most Jews recognised that this could not be it, for they were still under oppression. There must be something more, and indeed there was, but they failed to recognise it when Jesus came. However, the story has not ended yet. The gospel going round the world will eventually result in the Jews returning to Christ and to their land. We need to be careful how we treat the land in terms of the promises to Israel. There are some who seem to put enormous store on the land and precise boundaries. This cannot be right, for the whole of the Old Testament shows that what God is most concerned about is righteousness, and the promises of the land were dependent upon the faithfulness of Israel, not vice versa. At the same time there are so many promises concerning  the land, that if we say the land does not matter then that cannot be right either. We need a proper balance in these matters.

Matthew 10:34-37 - I did not come to bring peace

10:34-36

We then get another warning. Jesus did not come to bring peace but the sword, and this followed with another warning about conflict within families. Does this conflict with the promises of Jesus being the prince of peace etc? No. First, there is peace with God, and that is the foundational peace or all other peace. Secondly, for two people, or groups of people, to be at peace, they both need to be at peace with God through Christ. That is the only way the Israel-Palestine conflict will be resolved. But if a person refuses to be reconciled with God through Christ, then there will be conflict. Our response to Christ is utterly fundamental, everything else hinges on it. Our relationship, or lack of relationship, with Christ ultimately determines everything else.

10:37

So family members may be set against each other because of Christ. So what are we to do? Well, Jesus tells us what not to do. We must not love family members more than we love Jesus. If we do so we are not worthy of Him. We really need to get a hold of this, and to get a hold of it properly. There are two wrong ways of approaching this. The most common is to ignore it, to think that Jesus couldn’t possibly want this.. Now it is true that Jesus is not saying that family members will always be against each other. We are to love our parents, and many times family members will be united in following Jesus. But sometimes they won’t, and that is a normal part of the Christian life. The second wrong way is to deny our family, to deliberately shun them. That is not what we are to do. We love Jesus first, and if at some point we have to choose between family and Jesus, we choose Jesus. Note also the incredibly high value Jesus places upon Himself. Any notion that He just saw Himself as a teacher or prophet is blown out of the water by this verse. He is demanding absolute allegiance, and only God has the right to do that.

Bible

Jeremiah 23:4-6 - Judah will be saved

23:4

The Lord will place shepherds over His people. Jesus is the Good Shepherd, and He appoints leaders in the church to look after the people. If we are in a position of leadership then our task is to tend the people, and being under godly leadership takes away fear, and enables us to continue to follow Jesus, not to stray. We need to note how the leadership of Judah drifted away from God and the terrible consequences that that brought upon them. As leaders we must remain true to God and to His word. 

23:5,6

“The branch” is a messianic term. At the time a branch was a term sometimes used to refer to someone who was a rightful heir in a dynastic line. God had promised that there would be someone on David’s throne forever, yet all this seemed to be coming to nothing, and the kings had been pretty bad. There would be a “righteous branch”, one who truly belonged on the throne, one who was faithful to God and pursued righteousness. He would do what is “just and right”. Only then would Judah and Israel be saved. The name of this branch is “The Lord our Righteous Saviour”. It is significant that Lord is written “LORD” in the Bible. This saviour is God Himself.

Matthew 10:29-33 - Whoever acknowledges me

10:29-31

Then we get what might seem like a softening. Jesus tells us that our Father knows what happens to every single sparrow, and every hair on our head, and that we are worth far more than sparrows. We are precious to our Father, and He is in total control, and cares for us. This does not mean an easy life. Jesus went to the cross, the apostles were mostly martyred. Jesus is urging us to have an eternal perspective, to see things as they really are. Without an eternal perspective we cannot be the servants and sons that we are meant to be.

10:32,33

We now get back to the serious warnings. If we publicly acknowledge Jesus, He will acknowledge us before His Father in heaven. But if we disown Him, He will disown Him before the Father. There are positive and negative sides to this, and it stresses the seriousness of it all. And there is both a temporal and eternal aspect to it. On the eternal aspect, if we own Jesus, He will own us on the last day. If we disown Him, He will disown us. This is quite frightening, and is meant to be. Life matters, what we do with our lives matters. On the temporal side if we live our lives today naming Jesus, then we can be sure that He is praying for us before the Father. We will be in God’s plan and purposes. If we disown Him, then we are on our own. 

There is one further point that we should bear in mind. Peter disowned Jesus three times, but he was not disowned by Jesus forever, he was reinstated. So how do we tie these things together? It is like will we be forgiven if we sin. The answer is yes. Does that mean we should sin? The answer is no. The real answer is that we were saved to live, and to truly live means following Jesus, owning Him, trusting Him. 

Jeremiah 23:1-3 - Woe to the shepherds

23:1

“Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture!” The civic and religious leaders were meant to look after the sheep, to lead them in the ways of the Lord and to protect them. Instead they were destroying the sheep. Leaders destroying their people is a common occurrence in history. We see it in extreme ways with the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao Tsu Tung, Mugabe, Pol Pot, but we also see it in less extreme, but very harmful ways, with the so-called liberal elite. God will not stand by forever.

23:2,3

When the Lord takes action there will be two components to it. One is judgement upon the bad shepherds, the second is to shepherd the flock properly. Instead of caring for the flock, they had scattered them, so punishment would come upon the shepherds. For the second aspect, the Lord would gather the sheep Himself, He would rescue them from the countries “where I have driven them”. Note this last phrase. The flock would suffer because of the shepherds, they would be exiled. When we have bad leaders we suffer the consequences. But God will rescue His people from those consequences. He would bring them back to their proper pasture, and they would be fruitful and multiply. People get messed up and destroyed by godless teaching and godless societies. This does much damage and harms people, but God will restore the damaged people.