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gospel out of gratitude and love nevertheless the bible speaks often about reward and jesus does invite us to consider the fact that our work will be rewarded in today s story jesus elaborates on this idea saying that 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 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 and so we find that god honors and rewards those who helps or receives his messengers the reward for being a prophet is the same as the reward for one who honors the prophet the reward for being a righteous person is the same as the reward for one who welcomes the righteous person and even the one who offers simple hospitality to one of god s messengers will not be denied their reward and this brings us to the third thing that matthew is teaching andy davis speaks of the emerging theme of the church as the body of christ saying t here is one body one mission one advancement of the kingdom but not everyone has the same role there are some that are called to be apostles and then there are some that are called to just give a cup of cold water to an apostle and neither one loses their reward we see in seed form the beginning of the idea of the complex body of christ how not all of us are called to the same function but all of us are able to be rewarded by faithfulness to that to which we are called the critical feature is not how much important work we do for the kingdom it is how faithful we are to follow the leading of the spirit and engage in the task that god has called us to do 3 now it s important that we remember that we cannot use this as an excuse not to speak up not to be faithful to bear the gospel if that is what we are called to do we do need to learn to be sensitive to the voice of the spirit and when the spirit calls we need to be ready to answer that call in any way that we are able but quoting davis again l et no one despise any support ministry in this church let no one elevate any other ministry to this high place as though it s the key thing in the church there is no one key thing in the church the key thing is to do what god has called us to do if he has given us a cup of cold water and we throw it to the ground to go be an apostle we ve sinned against god it s not what he s called us to do give the cup of cold water if on the other hand we re called to be an apostle and we instead trade it so that we can give out cups of cold water we re not following god s pattern it is god who has arranged the body and all the rewards are given according to faithfulness to what he s called us to do 4 i want to be as clear as i can be on that day that each of us was redeemed on that day that god reconciled himself to us and said to us do not fear for i have redeemed you i have called you by name and you are mine 5 we have become a part of god s eternal family and as a responsibility that we share as members of that family we are called to live as members of that family and a part of that is sharing in the responsibility to bring to others the good news that god is seeking to reconcile them to himself as well and there is no reason to be afraid god himself through his holy spirit will call you will instruct you will guide you and will give you the words to say so that you don t have to worry about a thing our only responsibility is faithfulness our responsibility is to allow god to shape our lives and our hearts in such a way as to make his priorities our priorities our responsibility is to be faithful to hear and obey the spirit s call and as i said before to allow our love for god to manifest itself in our love for others my friends a few weeks back we talked about the difference between being a disciple being a διδάσκω dee dás kō which is the greek word meaning a student and being an ἀπόστολος a pasta las the greek word meaning a messenger or one who is sent we are a sent church we each and every one of us are or at least will be at times apostles we each and every one of us are being sent by the spirit of the living god into the world as bearers of the gospel we each and every one of us are called to bring this good news to our friends and our families to our co workers and to our acquaintances to bring the good news that god s fondest desire is that each and every one of his beloved children will be reconciled to him the good news that god desires through our faithfulness as we share the gospel that god may be able to say to each one of those with whom we share these words of life that he has called them by name and that they are his elisabeth johnson asks us the following questions what would happen if we stopped expecting people to come on their own initiative through our church doors and instead took seriously our calling to bring the gospel to them what would happen if we truly believed that we bear the presence of christ to every person we encounter in every home workplace or neighborhood we enter what would happen if we saw every conversation as an opportunity to speak words of grace every interaction as an opportunity to embody christ s love for the neighbor 6 the words of jesus that matthew has shared with us over the past three weeks are as andy davis so keenly observed our marching orders they are words that matthew gives to his readers of all times and places the encouragement to be the sent people to be the sent church that god has called us to be let us recognize our responsibilities as those who have been made one with jesus to carry forward the mission that he began that he assigned to the apostles and that he now assigns to his church to bring the gospel to the ends of the earth and let us be faithful to do that in whatever way we may be called whether that way be boldly preaching the gospel or boldly sharing a cup of cold water 1 brueggemann cousar gaventa newsome a lectionary commentary based on the nrsv year a pg 386 2 darren morehouse ross parsley 2004 integrity s hosanna music 3 andy davis twojourneys org a cup of cold water for christ s messengers 4 ibid 5 isaiah 43 1 6 elisabeth johnson workingpreacher org commentary on matthew 10 40 42 tags bible christianity faith god jesus posted in uncategorized leave a comment shouted from the rooftops june 21 2026 june 21 2026 matthew 10 24 39 there s an old bumper sticker that i remember seeing here and there i don t know where it came from but it was quite common for a while and the bumper sticker said god said it i believe it that settles it and as much as i appreciate the thought that we accept god wholeheartedly at his word o how i wish that life was that easy you see sometimes discerning the word of god may not be quite as simple as choosing a particular text and then saying this is what i believe and today s story is a great example of how much work actually needs to be done to try to understand what it is that god wants us to learn in today s text jesus says do not suppose that i have come to bring peace to the earth i did not come to bring peace but a sword so is jesus condoning violence here can we read this passage as support of countless holy wars throughout history that have killed thousands and thousands of innocent people can we use this passage to justify an attitude that separates god s beloved children into us vs them the text if we read it on its own almost kind of appears to endorse that doesn t it and maybe a cursory glance at this text might be sufficient for one to accept the idea that we are somehow sanctioned in our contempt for the enemies of god but how does the christian who is earnestly seeking truth reconcile this passage with jesus statements from the sermon on the mount that the peacemakers are blessed by god that anyone who even so much as calls another of god s children a fool is in danger of the fires of hell that we should love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us for centuries critics of christianity have pointed to conundrums like this and have called them inconsistencies or have submitted them as proof that the bible is full of errors and contradictions but the real truth the real truth is a lot more complicated there is no part of the bible that stands alone no one would ever assume that they know a person after just hearing that person say one single thing getting to know someone requires a much fuller understanding of who they are than that which could be gleaned from a single sentence or even a single conversation in the same way every single passage in the bible can only be rightly understood in the context of the witness of the entire bible and if two parts of the bible present contrasting or seemingly contradictory information then we should sit up and take notice because it s a pretty good bet that there is probably something really important buried in these seemingly contradictory statements there is probably some nuance about something that god wants us to know and to understand and the good news is god has provided a way for us to interpret the bible with as much accuracy as the quest of the mortal mind to understand the eternal will allow and that method is the life of jesus himself the bible tells us that jesus is the living word and that means that jesus is the bible personified and so if we want to understand the bible we need to understand it always in the light of jesus life teaching and example and so today we look at this difficult reading and we want to understand the truth that is being revealed by jesus words and the first thing that we will need to do is to understand the context into which jesus was speaking and today s reading begins right in the middle of instructions that jesus is giving the apostles as he is about to send them out for the very first time to spread the gospel themselves to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness just as jesus has been doing and lest the disciples think that this is going to be easy jesus warns them that there will be those who will oppose them and he lets them know that some of that opposition is going to come from uncomfortable places from parents and siblings from relatives and from best friends jesus also warns them that just as he has faced persecution they will also and that that persecution may very well be severe and as it turned out for all but one of the apostles that persecution was ultimately fatal there was no way for jesus to sugar coat the difficulties that the apostles and many like them would eventually face but the entire future of god s plan to forgive humanity and to reconcile humanity to himself god s plan to save literally billions of people rested on the shoulders of those few apostles and so jesus wanted to reassure them that the risk and indeed the eventual cost would still all be worth it a few weeks ago we spoke about our future not our earthly future but our heavenly one and we spoke about the fact that god deeply desires that each and every one of us would walk with him and that we would talk with him and that he would tell us that we are his own we spoke about returning to that place where adam and eve were before the fall where god walked and conversed with them just as casually and as naturally as if you and i were having a conversation the apostle paul wrote to the church in corinth no eye has seen no ear has heard no mind has conceived the things that god has prepared for those who love him it is an astonishing future that awaits us not our earthly future but our heavenly one as jesus was speaking with the disciples about this he already knew the glories of heaven he had been there he already knew the future that awaited the apostles when they would eventually come into their reward and so jesus wanted to help the apostles to understand as he did what it was that awaited them he wanted to give the apostles the strength to endure he wanted to give the apostles a certainty in their commitment to bringing the gospel message he wanted to give the apostles an encouragement to persevere in their task to bring the gospel to the ends of the earth and so jesus reminds them that whoever finds their life will lose it and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it so we find that the context of this passage is jesus quite bluntly warning the apostles about the difficulties that lay ahead so they wouldn t be blind sided so they wouldn t be discouraged when opposition arose even if that opposition came from those with whom they were closest the second thing that we need to look at is how does the text fit into what we know of jesus life teaching and example it doesn t take a ton of studying the new testament to realize that the overarching force driving jesus teachings and actions is love in fact jesus plainly stated that the single most important law is to love to love god and to love others and so as we study the bible we really need to proceed from the assumption that any interpretation of any passage from the bible requires the premise that the thought behind that passage is rooted in god s love now we also see that jesus is uncompromising but he is uncompromising in a way that is very different from what we would typically expect to see from someone who we would consider to be uncompromising or how we might choose to be uncompromising because jesus steadfast refusal to overlook anything which is harmful to his beloved children is deeply tempered first by an understanding that sin is unfortunately inevitable in humans and second is also tempered by a compassion that causes him to fiercely love the sinner when correction comes from jesus that correction no matter how harsh it may seem is also rooted in love his corrections find their foundation in his fundamental desire his fundamental mission to reconcile humanity with the father and so we also need to evaluate individual passages in the bible according to how that passage fits into god s loving mission of reconciling his beloved children to himself and so with this in mind let s look again at today s passage as jesus is sending the apostles out to do the absolutely critical task of introducing people to the gospel which is the first step in one becoming reconciled to god jesus lovingly reminds the apostles that the same opposition and the same animosity that they have seen directed towards him is going to be directed to them as well it s a fair warning it s a truthful and accurate description of what the cost of discipleship is going to be then jesus tells them that there is nothing that is concealed that will not be made known jesus is assuring the apostles that the work that they will do as a part of god s plan of reconciliation will be validated by god himself that the hidden agendas of those who oppose them will be revealed as the selfish ways of a people who have rejected god in favor ...
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