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The Sword of Divine Separation (Matthew 10:34-39) · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome to Reform Thinking. You know, usually when we talk
• 0:04
  about a medical diagnosis, there is this expectation of absolute
• 0:08
  precision. Yeah, yeah.
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  Go to the hospital. They put you in a machine and it
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  feels like engineering. You break your arm, the X-ray
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  prints out and it shows that glaring jagged white line across
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  the bone. Oh yeah, it is undeniable.
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  And the doctor just points a pen at it and says there it is.
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  That is the problem. It is binary.
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  The bone is broken or it is not broken.
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  It is a clean assessment. Yeah.
• 0:30
  You do not have to guess about the state of the humerus or the
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  radius the light passes through and the truth is laid bare for
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  everyone in the room to see. And honestly, it is comforting.
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  I mean, we like things to be visible.
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  We like things be neatly categorized.
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  Clear fix. We really do.
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  But then you step out of the hospital and into the world of
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  relational conflict, into the world of divided loyalties, and
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  suddenly that X-ray machine is useless.
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  Yeah, that is a great way to put it.
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  The diagnostic landscape of the human heart is well, it is
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  murky. It is incredibly murky when
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  families fight or when communities fracture.
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  We want a clean therapeutic resolution where everyone gets
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  along and nobody walks away with hurt feelings.
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  It is the absolute definition of diagnostic Muddy Waters.
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  You know, by nature we crave A cosmetic piece.
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  A cosmetic piece I like. Yeah, we want a synthesis where
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  opposing sides just agree to disagree, where we can sweep the
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  core contradictions under the rug and smile for the family
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  photograph. Wait, we want a piece that does
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  not cost us anything? Precisely a piece without a
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  price tag. That is the perfect phrase, a
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  cosmetic piece. But today, our mission for this
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  deep dive into the source material is going to shatter
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  that expectation entirely. It really will.
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  We are looking at a stack of commentaries, historical texts,
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  and linguistic analysis focusing on the startling, unyielding
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  words of Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter 10, verses 34 through
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  39. And those are heavy words.
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  They are our objective is to analyze what Christ means when
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  He declares He did not come to bring peace but a sword, and
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  what that specific statement requires of your own loyalties
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  today. It is a text that hits you like
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  a freight train if you actually read what it says rather than
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  what you assume it says it. Really does.
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  We are looking at a passage that confronts the false paradigm of
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  a therapeutic, soothing message. Yeah, modern culture and
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  honestly the modern ecclesiastical landscape prefers
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  a message designed to blend in and not offend.
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  We want an X-ray that says we are perfectly.
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  Healthy. But the sources we are unpacking
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  today show a very different picture.
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  They do. They show a text introducing
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  King Jesus waging A wholly decisive campaign of separation.
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  Yes. So as you listen today,
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  recognize that this deep dive will challenge your assumptions
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  about family, comfort, and safety.
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  It will ask you to evaluate what holds the Supreme throne in your
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  affections. We have to establish the
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  absolute authority of this text right from the start.
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  The division Christ brings here is not an accidental byproduct
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  of His ministry. Right, it is not a mistake.
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  No, it is not a glitch in the system.
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  It is an intentional decreed objective of his advent.
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  He's demanding a choice between his absolute lordship and the
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  synthetic piece of the world. This is not a casual suggestion
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  from a moral philosopher. It is a royal decree from a
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  sovereign king. Before we get into the specifics
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  of this sword, Jesus mentions we need to establish the hostile
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  territory into which Christ sent his original disciples.
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  Yeah, context is everything here.
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  It is easy to read these verses in a comfortable chair with a
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  cup of coffee, but these guys were walking dirt roads in a
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  tinderbox. Absolutely.
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  Imagine being sent into a hostile corporate takeover, but
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  the opposition is not a rival company in a skyscraper across
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  town. No, it is much closer than that.
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  The opposition is your own parents, your siblings, the
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  people sitting across from you at the dinner table.
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  How does this 1st century historical reality of shift the
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  disciples psychological preparation?
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  Well, to grasp the weight of that, we have to look at 1st
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  century Judea. The political world was entirely
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  Roman, managed locally by Herod Antipas, who was essentially A
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  puppet king, right? The Roman boot was on the neck
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  of the Jewish people. The taxation was crippling.
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  The threat of violence was constant.
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  And then there is the religious side of things too.
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  Yeah, on the religious side, the climate was managed by a
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  legalistic establishment, the Pharisees and Sadducees, right?
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  They had externalized God's law into a system of self-righteous
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  merit and political survival. They were trying to keep the
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  Romans happy while keeping the populace under their thumb.
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  So you have a crushed oppressed people and their religious
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  leaders are essentially acting as middle men for the
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  oppressors. That is a massive powder keg.
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  It is a huge powder keg and into the situation the Jewish nation
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  expected a militaristic Messiah. They wanted a general.
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  Yes, they wanted a political conqueror.
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  They wanted a new King David to write in, smash the Roman
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  legions, drive out the corruption, and bring global
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  geopolitical peace centered in Jerusalem.
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  Earthly dominance. Precisely.
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  They wanted earthly dominance. Christ systematically dismantles
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  these carnal nationalistic expectations.
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  He is not bringing the piece they want.
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  They wanted an earthly revolutionary, but he's bringing
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  a cosmic intervention. And we have to remember the
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  social structure back then was intensely collectivist.
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  Today in the West, we think of ourselves as isolated
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  individual. Right, very individualistic
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  today. You move out at 18, you get your
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  own apartment, you make your own private choices.
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  But in that era, family lineage, ancestral heritage and religious
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  conformity within the household were everything.
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  They were your whole identity. They equaled your economic
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  security. They equaled your physical
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  survival. To step outside of that was
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  social execution. Spot on.
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  If you were cast out of the synagogue, you were cast out of
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  the marketplace. You could not buy, you could not
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  sell. Your children could not marry
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  into respectable families. You became an absolute pariah.
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  That is terrifying. It is, and that brings us to the
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  literary context of Matthew's Gospel, which frames this entire
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  discussion. Matthew is organized around 5
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  great discourses presenting Jesus as the ultimate lawgiver
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  of the New Covenant. The new Moses, if you will,
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  speaking from the mountain. Right, like the Sermon on the
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  Mount being the first one. OK, this chapter, Matthew 10, is
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  the second of these major teaching blocks.
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  It is commonly called the Missionary Discourse or the
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  Apostolic Commission. Got it?
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  The text we are looking at sits at a massive pivot point in the
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  narrative. The chapter begins with warnings
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  of public governmental hostility.
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  Like getting arrested. Yes, yeah, Jesus tells his
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  disciples they will be dragged before councils and governors.
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  He warns them about the state coming after them.
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  But then the literary focus shifts in Word.
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  It moves from the courthouse to the living room.
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  Yes, focusing on intimate domestic betrayal.
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  That is where the corporate takeover analogy hits home for
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  me. It is one thing to face a
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  hostile Roman governor. Sure.
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  You expect the state to be tyrannical.
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  You expect like the opposition to hate you, but it is entirely
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  different to face a hostile father or mother.
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  It is devastating. They have the people who raised
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  you turn against you, so Jesus is warning them ahead of time so
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  they are not blindsided. Yes, this text operates as a
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  protective warning. By naming the wound before it
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  arrives, Jesus ensures the disciples will not view domestic
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  rejection as a sign that the gospel has failed.
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  Oh, that makes sense. When a young man believes in
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  Christ and his father disowns him, the temptation is to think,
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  Oh no, the Kingdom of God is falling apart.
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  I made a mistake, right? But Jesus says no.
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  When your family rejects you for my sake, do not panic.
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  This is the script. This is what I told you would
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  happen. So they will recognize the
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  division as proof of the Gospel's active, conquering
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  presence. Exactly.
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  I mean, yes, precisely that. Knowing those massive
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  collectivist stakes, let a shift to Christ's opening shocking
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  statement about his specific intervention.
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  OK, let us look at the text. Verse 34 says, do not think that
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  I have come to bring peace to the earth.
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  I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
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  I want to look at the linguistic breakdown here because the Greek
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  syntax reveals so much more than a casual English reading.
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  It really does. The verse begins with a negative
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  imperial imperative in the Greek ma namacete, which translates to
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  do not think or do not suppose. This is a shark corrective
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  command designed to arrest entrenched erroneous thoughts.
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  He is anticipating their assumption that the Messiah
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  means immediate, visible harmony.
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  He knows their hearts. He does.
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  He knows they're expecting a golden age of tranquility, so he
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  stops them in their tracks. Then we see the verb baleen to
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  cast. To cast like throwing something.
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  It indicates a sudden, forceful, dynamic intervention.
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  Wow. Christ's entry into the cosmos
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  is not a passive, gradual evolution.
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  It is not a gentle fading of darkness into light.
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  It. Is disruptive.
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  It is a violent intrusion of holiness into a fallen world.
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  And then there is the word for sword, my Huron.
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  I know there are different Greek words for sword and this is
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  where it gets really interesting to me.
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  It is a very specific word choice.
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  When I picture a sword in a biblical context, I picture a
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  massive woman blade on a battlefield sweeping through
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  enemy ranks. Is that the kind of imagery
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  Jesus is invoking here? That is a crucial distinction,
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  and the commentaries are very clear on this.
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  He does not use the word romfea, which is what you just
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  described. A romfea is a large, heavy
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  broadsword meant for wide sweeping strikes on a
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  battlefield against foreign armies.
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  You use that word when nations clash, but Jesus uses musharin.
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  A maturin is a short slaughter knife.
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  It was used for close quarters combat or for preparing
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  sacrifices. This signifies a painful,
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  intimate surgical cutting. So it requires close proximity.
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  You cannot use a maturin from 10 feet away.
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  No you cannot. You have to be right next to the
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  person. Precisely this division operates
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  within the immediate household. It severs ties that are
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  physically closest to the individual.
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  That is intense. It is not an invasion from a
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  foreign army. It is a surgical decision right
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  at the heart of your most intimate relationships.
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  Wait, I am looking at the next part verses 35 and 36 and
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  something is clicking. What do you see?
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  Jesus says, For I have come to set a man against his father,
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  and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law
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  against her mother-in-law, and a person's enemies will be those
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  of his own household. Yeah.
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  I have seen that phrasing before.
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  That is not a new phrase Jesus just invented, is it?
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  No. It is not.
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  This sounds like what the prophet Micah was screaming
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  about when the Old Testament of Israel was collapsing.
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  You are hitting on the exact prophetic echo occurring in the
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  text. Jesus is directly quoting Micah
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  Chapter 7, verse six. Oh wow.
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  In its original Old Testament context, Micah 7 describe the
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  moral disintegration of Jerusalem under divine
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  judgement. Society was so corrupt, so
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  thoroughly depraved, that you could not even trust your own
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  family. The natural bonds of affection
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  had entirely dissolved because of sin.
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  But Jesus is using it differently here, right?
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  Yeah, he is not saying the families will fight because
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  everyone is just terrible and sinful.
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  Right. Christ uses this Old Testament
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  text to show that the Gospel age will reproduce the severe
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  division, but for a completely different reason.
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  OK, unpack that. The division in the New Covenant
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  is not because of Israel's rampant immorality, but because
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  of the offensive nature of his truth.
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  I see. The light of the Gospel exposes
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  the darkness of the unregenerate heart.
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  When one person in a household receives a new nature and the
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  others remain dead in their trespasses, friction is
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  inevitable. The Greek verb used for setting
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  against is fascinating too, the sorts of talk about the word
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  dikasai. Yes, Dikasai means to cut in
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  two. It is a rare word, really.
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  Yeah, it denotes the deliberate splitting of natural bonds, and
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  it is paired with the preposition kata, meaning
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  against which denotes direct hostility.
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  So it is not a passive drifting apart.
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  No, it is active opposition. Hold on, I am genuinely
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  struggling with this and I need to offer some pushback.
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  Go ahead. Honoring your father and mother
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  is literally the 5th commandment.
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  It is etched in stone. Yes, it is.
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  How is Jesus the ultimate lawgiver who wrote that
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  commandment, telling his disciples to pick up a slaughter
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  knife against those same parents?
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  That is the tension everyone feels when they read this.
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  Is he blessing arbitrary domestic cruelty?
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  Is he endorsing A quarrelsome personality where a Christian
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  just goes into their home and picks fights to prove they are
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  holy? Help me square that circle.
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  I firmly reject that interpretation, and the
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  theological sources do as well. The moral order of Scripture
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  remains perfectly intact. OK, good.
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  The command to honor Father and mother is not abolished.
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  It is actually fulfilled in its proper order.
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  The sword Jesus speaks of is the inevitable judicial effect of
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  light invading darkness. The Christian does not provoke
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  conflict through harshness, rudeness, or cruelty.
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  We are called to be peacemakers. So the Christian is not the one
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  holding the sword to attack their.
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  Parents. No.
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  The sword is the situation itself.
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  Unbelief demands a loyalty the Christian simply cannot give.
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  Oh. I get it now.
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  When a family member essentially says choose me or choose your
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  Christ, the sword falls. The division happens not because
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  a Christian wants a fight, but because the Christian must
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  remain loyal to King Jesus. Right, because God is the
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  supreme law giver. Exactly.
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  If a parent demands you disobey the supreme law giver, your
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  refusal to comply will be viewed as an act of hostility.
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  You are honoring God first, which is the very foundation of
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  all true morality. So the household will be split,
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  which forces a logical question. What is the standard that
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  requires such agonizing division?
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  Yes. If Jesus is asking people to
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  endure this kind of social execution from their own
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  parents, what kind of authority allows someone to demand that?
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  That is the core issue. The focus moves to the
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  uncompromising claim of verse 37.
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  Jesus says whoever loves father or mother more than me is not
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  worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is
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  not worthy of me. The demand for supremacy is
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  absolute. That phrase, more than me,
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  Hooper E me in the Greek, exposes the hierarchy of the
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  human heart. Wow.
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  Jesus does not condemn natural affection for family.
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  Natural affection is a good gift from the Creator.
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  He condemns love for family that supersedes love for Him.
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  The Greek word for worthy here is Axios.
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  I was reading one of the historical commentaries and it
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  brought up an analogy that I think is brilliant.
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  The coin analogy. Yes, it is like an appraiser
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  holding a coin in an ancient marketplace.
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  To the untrained eye, a counterfeit coin might look
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  shiny. It might have the emperor's face
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  stamped on it. It might possess some perceived
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  value in a dark alley. But when the appraiser takes
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  that coin and places it on the scales, it lacks the proper
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  weight. Right, right.
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  It has been clipped. Board is made of cheap metal.
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  It does not match the standard of the realm.
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  That is an incredibly helpful way to visualize it.
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  Historically, Axios meant weight or matching value.
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  It was the idea of a coin matching its stated purchasing
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  power. By saying someone is not axios
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  not worthy, Christ is declaring that if a person's affections
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  are divided between the Creator and the creature, they lack the
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  spiritual weight characterizing A regenerate citizen of His
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  Kingdom. Their allegiance is counterfeit.
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  Yes, it might look respectable to the culture, but on the
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  scales of divine justice, it is too late.
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  But wait, how does Jesus, a Carpenter from Nazareth, have
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  the right to demand this? That is the scandal of the
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  passage. This brings us to the
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  Christological weight of the passage.
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  If a normal guy walked into a town square today and said you
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  must love me more than your own children, we would call him a
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  cult leader. We would call the police.
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  We would and we should. The claim to deity here is
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  staggering. It really is.
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  You have to remember the audience.
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  A 1st century Jew was raised on the Shema from Deuteronomy
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  chapter 6. Here, O Israel, the Lord, our
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  God, the Lord is 1. You shall love the Lord your God
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  with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your
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  might. They recited this constantly.
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  Every day they knew supreme love belongs solely to Yahweh.
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  By placing Himself at the absolute center of ultimate
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  allegiance, Christ is claiming absolute deity.
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  He is claiming to be Yahweh Incarnate.
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  Yes, if he is not God, His demand is the height of
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  narcissistic blasphemy. He demands it because He is the
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  Creator. I want to pull this into the
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  present day. How does this confront Modern
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  Family dynamics? Oh, it is a direct
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  confrontation. Because right now, especially in
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  conservative circles, the nuclear family is often placed
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  on a massive pedestal. It is treated as the ultimate
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  good. It directly confronts the
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  rampant idol of the nuclear family.
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  Many people want Christ as a chaplain to their domestic
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  dreams. A chaplain?
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  Wow. Yeah, they want him as a
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  guarantor of respectable morality.
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  They go to church so Jesus will make their kids well behaved,
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  keep their marriage smooth, and help their teenagers get into
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  good colleges. Right.
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  But if parental affection or a child's success becomes Lord,
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  Christ is dethroned. You are saying the family itself
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  becomes a false guy. Yes, love for family is purified
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  only when it is subordinated to Christ.
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  When we elevate family above Him, we turn a good creational
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  gift into a soul damning idol. That is heavy.
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  The text is warning us that you can idolize your family all the
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  way into eternal ruin. Giving up ultimate family
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  loyalty is the emotional and social cost, but verse 38
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  introduces the severe physical and personal cost.
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  It gets even more intense. Jesus says, And whoever does not
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  take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
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  We need to talk about the reality of the cross in the 1st
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  century because we wear it as gold jewelry today.
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  We put it on T-shirts. Exactly.
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  I mean, yes, we have completely sanitized it.
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  We. Have thoroughly sanitized the
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  cross. In the classical Roman setting,
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  the star on the cross was not a religious symbol.
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  It was an instrument of state sponsored terror.
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  It was a mechanism of public humiliation designed by the
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  Empire to crush rebellion. Isn't brutal.
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  A condemned criminal carrying the Petibulum, the heavy wooden
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  crossbeam, through jeering crowds signified total
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  submission to the sovereign power of Rome.
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  Right. It meant you had no rights, no
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  dignity and no future. You were a dead man walking.
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  It is comparable to asking a modern follower to voluntarily
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  walk toward the electric chair and to do it publicly with a
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  whole town cheering for your execution.
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  Yes, and the timing of this statement is incredible.
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  Jesus demands this. Before Golgotha, the crucifixion
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  had not happened yet in the narrative.
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  They did not have the theological category for Jesus
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  dying on a cross yet. That is right, He was stripping
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  discipleship of any romantic nationalistic illusions before
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  the fact. I see He was preparing them to
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  follow a rejected Messiah before they fully understood the manner
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  of his rejection. When he said take up your cross,
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  they pictured the horrific executions they had seen outside
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  the city walls. They pictured the blood, the
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  flies, the nakedness, the absolute shame.
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  Yes, the sheer horror of it. I am thinking about how this
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  shatters modern church marketing.
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  How does this verse refute seeker sensitive or prosperity
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  teachings? Oh, it completely ruins.
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  Them We hear so much messaging today.
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  The following Jesus will fix your bank account, heal all your
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  diseases, and make your life comfortable.
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  It obliterates those teachings. The cross is not a metaphor for
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  general inconvenience, right? I hear people say, oh, my boss
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  is so difficult, that is my cross to bear.
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  Or my car broke down. That is my cross.
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  Oh. No, it is not.
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  A flat tire is not a cross. A bad cold is not a cross.
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  Taking up your cross means embracing shame, loss, and daily
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  self denial specifically because you follow Jesus.
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  Prosperity theology claims Christ guarantees earthly ease.
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  This text guarantees he demands total self mortification.
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  The disciple must accept identification with a condemned
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  path because they follow a Lord who was condemned by the world.
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  But that raises the biggest question of all, why would
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  anyone do this? Fair question.
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  Why would anyone walk toward a cross or willingly accept the
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  surgical blade of Family Division?
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  We are wired for self preservation.
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  We absolutely are. Verse 39 answers this through a
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  grand theological paradox. Jesus says whoever finds his
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  life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will
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  find it. The linguistic breakdown of
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  verse 39 is brilliant. It uses a chiastic structure
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  centered on the Greek word psycha.
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  Psycha. Psycha has a dual semantic
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  range. It means both physical,
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  biological life and the eternal soul.
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  Christ deliberately plays upon this stubble meaning.
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  So if I'm tracking with this, the one finding physical life,
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  meaning the person who compromises their confession to
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  avoid the sword, the person who stays quiet so their family
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  stays happy, the person who preserves their biological
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  existence loses their eternal soul.
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  But the one losing physical life, accepting the division,
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  accepting the social death of the cross, finds eternal
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  resurrection life. Yes, and the theological anchor
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  of that entire paradox is the phrase Henneken and meal for my
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  sake. For my sake.
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  Suffering has no redemptive value on its own.
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  Martyrdom without Christ does not save anyone.
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  You can give up your life for a political 'cause you can die for
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  a philosophy, and it gains you nothing eternally, right?
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  The promise belongs only to those whose surrender is bound
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  directly to Christ. We need to look at Christ's own
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  role in this because he is not a general sitting in a safe tent
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  while sending the infantry into the meat grinder.
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  Not at all. He did not just pointed a cross
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  and say go suffer. No, He did not.
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  This brings us to a massive concept in theology, Christ's
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  active and passive obedience. I will break this down because
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  it is crucial. Please do.
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  He did not merely command the cross from a distance.
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  He walked at first as the supreme federal representative
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  of His elect. I want to pause you right there.
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  Give me an explanation of a federal representative.
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  How does that actually work? Think of a head of state like a
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  king or a president. When a king declares war, the
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  entire nation goes to war. OK, the king acts on behalf of
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  the citizens. His actions are credited to
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  them. In the Garden of Eden, Adam was
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  our first federal representative.
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  He sinned and his ruin fell on all of us, right?
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  The Fall. But Christ came as the second
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  Adam. He acts on behalf of His people
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  in His act of obedience. He perfectly kept the law of God
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  that we broke. Wow.
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  In His passive obedience He willingly submitted to the
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  penalty of the cross. He experienced the ultimate
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  domestic alienation. He was rejected by His brethren,
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  betrayed by His disciple, and on Golgotha he endured ultimate
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  cosmic separation, bearing the wrath of God against sin.
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  So whatever the representative achieves, the citizens inherit.
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  I want you, the listener, to visualize this union with
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  Christ. If Christ conquered sin and
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  death as your representative, your loss in this life is not a
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  void. No, it is not.
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  You can surrender your earthly security because your eternal
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  life is already hidden with the Risen King.
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  You are not stepping into nothingness when your family
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  rejects you. You are stepping into His
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  victory. That ties directly to the
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  believer's assurance. Sanctified crossbearing is not a
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  way to earn salvation. We thoroughly reject the idea of
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  human autonomy earning grace. Right, you do not save yourself
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  by suffering enough. Crossbearing is a spirit
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  empowered response to the finished work of Christ.
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  The grave cannot rob those who belong to the one who took up
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  his life again. We can lose our lives in this
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  world precisely because our eternal life is guaranteed by
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  His triumphant resurrection. It is an accomplished fact.
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  Having moved from the 1st century context through the
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  rigorous exegesis of the Greek text, we need to aim this
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  directly at your present reality.
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  Yes, let us apply this. We have to shatter some
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  illusions here about how we operate today.
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  We must apply a devastating critique to modern pragmatic
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  methodologies that conceal the offense of the cross.
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  Yeah, many modern churches want to market Jesus as a life coach
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  who exists to enhance your earthly family life.
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  They build massive campaigns around 5 steps to a happier
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  home. I see that everywhere.
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  But the true gospel is offensive to the unregenerate heart.
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  It exposes sin, it crushes human pride, and it demands absolute
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  surrender to a sovereign Lord. Right.
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  If a church hides the dividing sword to keep the pews full and
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  the offering plates heavy, they are preaching A counterfeit
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  Christ. This requires public confession.
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  It demands we step out of the shadows.
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  How does the sacrament of believers baptism fit into this?
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  Believers, baptism is the physical, covenantal expression
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  of this exact text. When you go down into the water,
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  it is a public, objective pledge.
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  OK, you are announcing to the world, to the principalities,
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  and to your unbelieving family sitting in the front row that
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  old ethnic and worldly ties have been cut by the Savior's sword.
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  That is a powerful image. It is a declaration that you
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  have died to the world and risen with Christ.
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  You are saying my ultimate allegiance no longer belongs to
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  my bloodline, it belongs to King Jesus.
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  Let me ask you, the listener directly.
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  Based on what we are looking at today, are you choosing an
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  artificial cosmetic piece over absolute loyalty?
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  It is a tough question. Are you prioritizing human
• 25:35
  approval over the unadulterated Word of God in your own
• 25:38
  household? Are you keeping quiet at the
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  dinner table when Christ's truth is mocked just to avoid an
• 25:43
  awkward conversation? Those are the probing questions
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  this text forces us to ask ourselves.
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  But we also must offer pastoral comfort to suffering disciples
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  for those facing familial rejection or loss of reputation.
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  Right now. The Lord names your pain.
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  He knew this would happen. Your loss is not meaningless.
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  This text forces a winnowing fan upon the Church, distinguishing
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  those who want the benefits of Christ from those who want
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  Christ himself. If you have lost relationships
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  for His sake, you have not failed.
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  You are proving the reality of your faith.
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  You are proving that the coin has the proper weight.
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  So if we pull all this together and synthesize the main
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  takeaways from everything we have covered, Christ's sword
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  divides synthetic peace to establish true peace.
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  Yes, discipleship requires ordered loves where the family
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  is subordinate to the absolute lordship of the Creator.
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  Taking up the cross means trusting that the federal
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  representative has already secured resurrection life.
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  And we must hold fast to the reality that this severe demand
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  is rooted in infinite grace. He asks for our supreme
• 26:45
  affection because He alone is worthy, having secured our
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  redemption through His own blood.
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  I will leave you with a final thought to ponder long after the
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  audio stops. You have heard what it costs to
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  follow Christ. You have heard about the pain of
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  the dividing sword and the absolute weight of the cross.
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  Yeah, but consider the alternative.
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  Think back to that murky diagnostic image.
• 27:06
  We started with that natural human desire for a clean,
• 27:10
  comfortable cosmetic peace. Think about what that really
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  costs. What is the eternal cost of
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  successfully preserving your earthly peace, keeping
• 27:19
  everyone's approval and guarding your physical life, only to
• 27:23
  stand before the Absolute King and hear that you are not worthy
• 27:26
  of Him?