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The Sword of Supreme Affection: The Cost of Following the King (Matthew 10:37–39) · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reform Thinking, and this is the deep dive.
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Today we are looking at one of the most direct and frankly
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uncomfortable passages that Jesus ever spoke.
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We're in Matthew chapter 10, looking at verses 37 through 39.
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Yes, this is a passage that really forces you to look right
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into an existential choice. I mean, it shows that few
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conflicts cut deeper than the one between the people we love.
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You know, our family, our spouse, our kids, and the Lord.
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We confess Jesus comes in and he lays out a requirement for
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following him that is just not compatible with maintaining the
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status quo. He makes the person who wants to
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be his disciple choose between these good gifts, things like
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relationships and comfort, and the giver of those gifts.
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He demands an absolute allegiance, right where our
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instinct is to give our loyalty to our own flesh and blood.
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I think the pain of this passage is what makes it so critical.
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It's not pitting something obviously good against something
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obviously evil. It's pitting a good natural
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human loyalty against a supreme divine allegiance.
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It just immediately disarms that whole idea that Christ can be an
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optional add on to a happy life we want him to fit into our
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priorities. But these verses just flip the
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whole script. The question becomes, is Christ
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the actual center of gravity for my whole life, or is he just a
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good influence somewhere out on the edge?
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And that is why this section is seen as Jesus's non negotiable
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definition of discipleship. In just these 3 verses he claims
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a place in the heart that is reserved only for God.
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He requires what a 1st century hearer would have understood as
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a public agonizing cross bearing kind of loyalty.
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And then he finishes by promising that real life is only
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found when you surrender yourself for his sake.
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The whole sequence is like a spiritual diagnostic.
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It reveals the true state of your heart when the pressure is
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on. So that's our mission for this
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deep dive. We're going to unpack these 3
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related sayings, these three radical tests that define what
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it means to be quote worthy of the King.
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And that word worthy, That's the entry point.
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It doesn't mean earning salvation by being good enough.
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It's about suitability. It's about fitness.
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Are you fit to carry the name of Christ when his call is in
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direct conflict with your deepest human desires?
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So let's unpack this, and we have to start with the context.
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You're right. If we just RIP these verses out
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of Matthew 10, we lose all their dramatic force.
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We have to resist that urge to treat them as, you know, random,
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isolated hard sayings. The whole chapter is a carefully
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put together mission discourse. Jesus isn't just giving a pep
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talk. He is actively, intentionally
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forming the 12 apostles for the public witness they're about to
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give. And he's preparing them for the
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certain fate that awaits messengers of his Kingdom.
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And the chapter kicks off with this incredible display of
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authority. Jesus calls the 12 and he grants
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them authority over unclean spirits and disease.
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This isn't just A to do list, it's a real transfer of
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authority. They're set up from the very
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beginning, not as independent agents, but as his authorized
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representatives. They are carrying his message
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and this is key. They're sharing his fate.
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They're like extensions of his kingship in the world, and that
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shared destiny is central to everything that comes next.
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It's the bedrock of the whole discourse.
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I mean, they're operating under the banner of Christ's Kingdom,
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doing Kingdom acts, healing, casting out demons and speaking
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Kingdom words. But then almost immediately
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after giving them that staggering authority, the tone
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just shifts. It goes from miraculous power to
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harsh realism. He doesn't let them have any
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illusions about what they're walking into, no.
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He doesn't allow them the luxury of naive optimism about their
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mission field. He tells them famously that they
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are sheep among wolves, and this isn't just a general warning.
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He gets very specific. He says they'll be flogged in
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synagogues, dragged before governors and kings, betrayed.
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And this is where the theological depth really comes
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in. Jesus presents this opposition
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as predictable, not as some accident.
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He's basically forecasting what happens when you're faithful.
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The message they carry is not neutral.
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It confronts sin. It demands repentance and it
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tries to dethrone every rival allegiance, whether that's
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political, religious, or even in the family.
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When the gospel acts like a truth serum, you know, revealing
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where human loyalty really lies, well, resistance is guaranteed.
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The whole world system which is built on self rule is going to
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recoil against the King's claim. We often forget that the
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persecution he's talking about isn't from some far off hostile
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government. It's internal.
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It's coming from the very structures they understood as
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good the religious authorities, the synagogues, their whole
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world was about to turn on them. Precisely.
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And the opposition gets painfully specific and moves out
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of the public square and right into the most sacred private
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space, the household. The locus of pain is the family.
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I mean, if the public world is hostile, your home is supposed
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to be your refuge. But Jesus just destroys that
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expectation before it can even form.
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He does. In verses 21 and 22, he talks
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about betrayal inside families, children rising against parents,
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parents handing their own children over to death.
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And then he sharpens the point even more in verses 3436, using
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that shocking image that he has come not to bring peace, but a
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sword. That line is so often misread,
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we tend to think about the spiritual peace he gives a
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believer. Yes, but the context here is
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social and familial. The sword highlights that
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Christ's coming will often create these deep divisions.
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The Gospel, far from being some kind of social glue in this
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world, is a separating word. It splits hearers into two
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camps, those who embrace His authority and those who reject
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it. It reveals whether God or man is
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the governing authority in a person's life.
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So the household, the place of warmth and acceptance, suddenly
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becomes the first courtroom where your allegiance to Jesus
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is put on trial. And that's where the tension is
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highest, right? Because the love is strongest
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there, of course. So why does the family become
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the test? I suppose because in the ancient
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world, and it's still true today, the family unit is the
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ultimate non negotiable loyalty. It's where your tradition, your
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security, your whole identity is forged.
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To go against your family was basically social suicide.
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And this brings us right to the literary function of verses 37
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through 39. They stopped the listener from
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seeing that family fracture as just some, you know, unfortunate
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side effect of the mission. Jesus doesn't let the disciple
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downplay the pain of that division is just a secondary
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problem they have to grit their teeth and get through.
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So instead of comforting them by saying it's OK your family's
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upset, just keep going, he says. The reason your family is upset
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is the very place your loyalty is being tested, and how you
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respond to that test determines your fitness.
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He elevates the stakes. He insists that these verses are
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the interpretive hinge. They're the climactic definition
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of what it means to be a disciple.
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The essential thing is allegiance.
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If the disciple doesn't hold Christ as the highest love, as
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the governing authority, if there's any higher loyalty left,
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they will collapse when pressure comes.
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Especially pressure from the people closest to them.
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Especially then, the demand isn't for some impossible human
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perfection, it's for a properly ordered heart, a Christ centered
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heart. And when we analyze these three
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tests, we start to see that Jesus is diagnosing the
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condition of the soul itself. OK, let's turn to that first
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Test. It's stated with just startling
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clarity. Whoever loves father or mother
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more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or
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daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
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This is so hard emotionally because it feels like he's
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setting up an impossible choice against relationships we know
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God himself created and told us to honor.
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The weight of it is staggering. We have to 1st see what Jesus is
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not saying. He's not condemning family
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affection. The Bible commands us to honor
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our parents. It shows family is a good gift
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from God. The issue here is purely
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comparative loving more than me. It's about a disordered
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affection. It's.
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Exactly that we're a valid God-given relationship displaces
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the unique place of the Creator. And what I find so interesting,
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and this is a detail in the Greek that can get glossed over,
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is the specific word Jesus uses for love.
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He uses Philly, which is that deep, emotional, companionate,
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almost instinctive family affection.
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He could have used agapash, which is more of a moral
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principled love. That choice of Philly is
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critical. Jesus is targeting the most
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natural, instinctive, visceral bonds of the human heart.
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He's not talking about loving illicit pleasure or loving
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money. Those are obviously wrong.
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He's targeting the very relationships our biology, our
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sense of duty, and even the law of God tell us to cherish.
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So the crisis isn't a normal moral failure, no.
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It's a disordered affection. It's when a good relationship, a
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spouse, a child, a parent, becomes your ultimate authority.
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The good gift gets elevated to the level of the giver, and it
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becomes a functional idol in your conscience.
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Can you give us a practical illustration of what that Philly
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eating conflict looks like? Sure, think about the gut
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reaction a parent has to protect their child's reputation for
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that deep emotional need we all have for our parents approval.
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That's Philly. So when a child comes to faith
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in a hostile non Christian home, that emotional love for their
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parent is now pitted against the obedience they owe to Christ.
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If the disciple, out of that deep love or just the instinct
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to avoid a fight, decides to postpone baptism or to silence
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their witness, or even hide their faith to keep the family
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peace while they are loving father or mother more than
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Christ, that instinctive love in that moment becomes the ultimate
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judge of their conscience. And this analysis flows right
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into the massive Christological assertion being made here.
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For Jesus, a traveling rabbi, to demand a love that surpasses the
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5th Commandment, honor your father and your mother, is an
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implicit claim to be God, especially in that Jewish
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monotheistic context. This cannot be overstated.
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I mean, think about the bedrock text of the Jewish faith, the
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Shima in Deuteronomy 6.5. 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. That ultimate, all-encompassing
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allegiance, that heart love. It belonged to Yahweh alone.
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If Jesus were just a prophet, this demand would be monstrous.
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It would be a complete departure from the monotheism he claimed
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to uphold. It would be blasphemy, but by
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inserting his own person into that position, the supreme
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object of love, demanding A loyalty that supersedes even the
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revealed law about family, Jesus is implicitly identifying
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himself as the God of the Shima. He is claiming the throne of the
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heart. So discipleship isn't about a
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new philosophy. No, it's not adherence to a new
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ethic. It's absolute surrender to the
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rightful divine Lord. If Christ is not God, he's the
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most dangerous megalomaniac whoever lived.
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This demand forces you to affirm Christ's lordship at the expense
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of all rivals. And the verdict for failing this
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test is that phrase we have to get right, Not worthy Axios in
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the Greek. We have to keep reminding
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ourselves this isn't about earning your acceptance.
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It's about fitness suitability to bear his name.
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That's the key systematic distinction we have to keep
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clear. The word Axios originally
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referred to the counterweight you'd use to balance a scale.
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So picture a spiritual balance scale.
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On one side you have the totality of Christ demands.
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On the other, you have your heart's desires and loyalties.
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If the heart that wants to follow Christ is weighted more
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toward earthly relationships, if the need for family approval or
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the fear of family disapproval is heavier on the scale that
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obedience to Christ, then there's no spiritual
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equilibrium. The heart is tipped toward the
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creature, not the Creator. And the disciple is deemed
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unfit. Axios unfit to bear his name
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because the heart center is still somewhere else.
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So the diagnostic question is one of priority.
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Who gets the final say when the two demands cannot both be met?
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This is where our Reformed theological lens really helps
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clarify the nature of idolatry. This passage just exposes the
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idol of Family First religion, which you see everywhere in
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contemporary evangelicalism. We aren't commanded to hate our
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family in some malicious way, We're commanded to love them
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subordinately. I'm reminded of the Puritan
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distinct between ordinate and inordinate affection that seems
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to fit perfectly here. It does.
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Love for family is ordinate, ordered when it's properly
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submitted to Christ and regulated by His commands.
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It becomes inordinate, idolatrous when it rivals
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Christ's authority. And this happens when our
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actions are governed by the fear of man, specifically the man or
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woman in our own household, rather than the fear of God.
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And it happens all the time. All the time in practice, when a
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believer avoids speaking truth about sin because it would cause
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friction with a sibling, or when a person sacrifices the Lord's
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date bathering to prioritize a child's travel team, making the
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child's earthly success a higher authority than Christ's command
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to gather. Or a new convert who refuses to
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break off an engagement to an unbeliever because they're more
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afraid of disappointing their parents than they are of
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disobeying God's law. In every one of those cases, the
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scale has tipped the family unit or the quest for its peace has
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claimed ultimate authority over the conscience.
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And that belongs only to Christ. He will not share the seat of
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ultimate devotion with anyone, especially not our most
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cherished relationships. So the test is just that when
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conflict comes, and Jesus guarantees it will, who governs
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your conscience? If the need for household peace,
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or the shame of family disapproval, or the fear of
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losing an inheritance becomes the driving factor for your
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behavior, well then your love is disordered and Jesus says you
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failed the test of worthiness. The sword has to cut the cord of
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that idolatry, not because Christ despises the good
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institution of the family, but because He loves us too much to
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let a creature become our functional God.
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He knows that anything that rules our conscience besides Him
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will destroy us in the end. So after establishing the
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primacy of love in that first Test, Jesus immediately moves to
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define the path that this supreme loyalty has to take.
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And the second test is cross bearing loyalty.
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Whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of
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me. This is a verse that has been so
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watered down by modern interpretation that we really
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have to strip away 2000 years of sentimental varnish to hear it
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the way the 12 heard it. That dilution is a huge problem.
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I mean, for a modern listener, the cross is a beautiful
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religious symbol. Or even worse, it's just a mild
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metaphor for inconvenience. My difficult commute is my cross
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to bear, or dealing with this bureaucracy is my cross.
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But that just trivializes the terrifying reality of Roman
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justice. Absolutely.
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To a 1st century Jew living under Roman occupation, the
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cross, the Staron, was the Roman tool of ultimate public
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humiliation, torturous execution and social shame.
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It wasn't for common criminals, it was mainly for slaves and for
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citizens who are considered seditionists or rebels against
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Caesar. It was a tool of state terror,
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designed to break the will of a population.
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So when Jesus says take up his cross, he's not talking about
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enduring a headache or some minor annoyance.
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He's using a stark, shocking and violent image.
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It's the image of a condemned man on his death March, being
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forced to carry the very beam he's about to be executed on.
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To take up that cross is not to accept a mere inconvenience, it
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is to accept a death sentence. It means seeing yourself is
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already sentenced to die to this world, to its values, to its
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rewards, to its acceptance. The disciple is carrying the
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definitive sign that he belongs to a king who is condemned by
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the world system and that the disciple will share in that
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condemnation. The kinetic action described
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here is so powerful because it refutes any kind of passivity.
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The phrase joins 2 specific actions.
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Take Lambon A, which is an active volitional submission.
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It's a conscious super choice to accept this fate and then follow
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a Calathe after me. O peace move.
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That structure demands that Christ is the leader and the
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disciple follows the path that Christ has already cut.
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This just demolishes the idea of a copilot.
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Christ. You know a figure who sits
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beside us while we chart our own comfortable direction, right?
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The path Christ walked led to public rejection, humiliation,
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and self denial. If we refuse to walk that same
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path toward the execution of our own self will, we aren't really
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following Him. We're just walking parallel to
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Him when it's convenient. This immediately acts as a
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necessary bulwark against what we often call easy believism,
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the whole notion that you can accept Christ as Savior to
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escape hell, but refuse him as Lord to avoid the cost of
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obedience or the pain of rejection that is just shattered
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by this command. The negative verdict not worthy
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of me insist that true faith is never just sentimental or some
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purely intellectual agreement. True faith inevitably produces a
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transformed allegiance that results in a willingness to
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embrace suffering and self execution.
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A discipleship that tries to bypass the Via Dolorosa, the Way
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of Suffering, is a discipleship Jesus never sanctioned.
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Refusing the cross is refusing his practical lordship.
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Yes, it's evidence that the basic human demand for autonomy
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is still alive and governing the heart.
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So let's talk about what that cross bearing means in
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theological terms. We're not talking about
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masochistic suffering for its own sake, but suffering
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specifically tied to the confession and obedience we owe
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to Christ. That distinction is vital.
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This is suffering for Christ's sake.
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It's the cost attached to publicly identifying with Jesus
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and living by his ethic in a hostile environment.
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And from a systematic perspective, this suffering is
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tied directly to our union with Christ.
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If Christ was crucified for us, then we have to live as those
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who have died with Him. This is where we bring in the
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idea of mortification, a term we often associate with the
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Puritans like John Owen. Right, John Owen talks about
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this is the practical shape of mortification and vivification,
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the daily active execution of self rule.
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Because we're united with a crucified King, we have to
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consciously put to death our sinful desires, our love of
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ease, our autonomy. The disciple is yielding his
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self will, his reputation, and his personal safety entirely to
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Christ's authority. If we're live in Christ, we have
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to be actively dead to sin. The cross is the metaphor for
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that continuous execution. So for the modern believer who
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isn't facing a Roman executioner, what does this
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practical execution of self will actually look like?
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It means accepting public shame and loss of social capital when
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you confess Christ's truth. It's allowing your career to be
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stunted because you refuse to compromise on an ethical issue
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that the world thinks is harmless.
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It is enduring the mocking or the labeling, being called
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bigoted, narrow minded, or backward because you hold the
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biblical teaching. It signifies the total end of
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your hope. In this present evil age, a
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person carrying a cross is not, at the end of the day, concerned
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with pleasing men or maximizing the retirement portfolio or
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protecting the reputation. They've died to those things,
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and that spiritual death frees them to follow the king without
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being manipulated by the world's rewards or its threats.
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The moment we prioritize our professional safety or our
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social standing over our public confession of Christ, we've
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dropped the cross. We've refused the path of the
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Master. It's the difference between
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identifying with a successful religious figure and identifying
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with a convicted criminal. Jesus insists we identify with
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the latter because that's what he was in the eyes of the world
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he came to save. That willingness to embrace
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shame is the non negotiable proof of allegiance.
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This brings us to the third and final Test, which is often
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quoted but I think rarely internalized.
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Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life
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for my sake will find it. This is the great evangelical
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paradox. Jesus contrasts the world's
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wisdom, which is all about self preservation and accumulation,
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with divine wisdom, which requires self surrender and
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apparent loss. To understand the weight of this
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reversal we have to 1st define life.
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Jesus uses the word psycha, and this is so much more than just
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biological life, which would be BIOS.
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Psyche refers to the whole person life, the soul, the seed
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of your personality, the self, the totality of your earthly
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existence that you're always trying to secure and preserve.
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It's your entire self. Construct your comfort zone,
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your chosen identity. So the tragedy starts with self
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preservation. The one who finds his life, who
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successfully secures or grasps or maintains the psycho, does so
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by building a life dedicated to avoiding spiritual pain,
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prioritizing comfort, accumulating earthly security,
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and constantly putting off the dangerous, costly call of the
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gospel. And that strategy feels so
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rational and wise to the natural man.
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And yet Jesus delivered the devastating verdict.
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He will lose it. The word is a pulisi,
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destruction, ruin. This is the deep irony of the
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passage. The individual successfully
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manages to secure a life that is fundamentally fragile and
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temporary, but by clutching this temporary life so tightly, they
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actually guarantee its ultimate destruction.
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A life lived only for self preservation.
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A life built on autonomy and comfort is a life wasted in the
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face of eternity. It's the failure to trade the
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temporal fleeting benefit for the eternal guaranteed game.
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You see this play out and the choices people make every single
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day. The fear of making a
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professional sacrifice, the refusal to sell a comfortable
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home to move into ministry, the unwillingness to give up leisure
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time to serve other people. They're finding their life now,
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but they are losing the only life that actually matters.
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Exactly, but on the other side of that coin you have the glory
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of self surrender. But the loss must be explicitly
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anchored for my sake. Hennikka Nimmu.
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This is the crucial non negotiable qualification.
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It's not some vague selflessness for a noble secular 'cause it is
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Christ referenced loss. The loss has to be traceable
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directly to your allegiance to Jesus Christ as King.
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OK, so if I lose my job because I refuse to go along with an
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illegal or unethical business practice, that's losing my life
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for His sake. If I suffer social isolation
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because I refuse to deny the truth of scripture, that's
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losing my life for His sake. Yes.
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It involves yielding yourself rule and accepting concrete loss
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specifically because you will not deny Him.
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And this loss can take countless forms, refusing lucrative but
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dishonest practices, choosing to endure social ostracization from
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your family, sacrificing comfort or leisure to serve the Saints,
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or being willing to move away from security to advance the
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mission. The decision to endure the
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consequences of costly obedience, whatever they are, is
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the mechanism of losing the psyche for Christ.
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And the promised, the one who self surrenders, is the
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assurance they will find it. What does this finding involve?
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This ultimate finding is overwhelmingly eschatological.
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It's not necessarily finding earthly success or happiness
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right now. It is the preservation of the
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soul for eternal life, Zoe, the full, abundant life of the age
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to come, and the future reward at the Bima seat.
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It's the guaranteed realization that the disciple has traded a
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temporary, fragile, soon to be destroyed life for a life that
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cannot be taken away. As the missionary martyr Jim
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Elliott famously said, articulating this very paradox,
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he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he
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cannot lose. So the paradox then, it reveals
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the reality of Christ's sovereignty.
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The world system promises security now, which is a lie
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because this life is fleeting. Christ promises loss now, which
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leads to a life that is certain and forever.
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And the command to die is grounded in the indicative of
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the gospel, because we're united with Christ in his death.
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We have died to the law and to sin.
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We are empowered to walk in newness of life.
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The exchange is not a gamble. It is a guarantee from the lips
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of the Sovereign Lord. When we lose our self-directed
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life for Christ, we gain a Christ directed life which alone
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is truly life. As we move from exegesis to
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application, we have to put up some systematic guardrails to
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make sure we handle this passage correctly.
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The 1st and most vital guardrail is about justification versus
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fitness. If we as a Reformed audience
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misread this, we fall right into works righteousness.
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And we have to guard against that temptation.
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If we read Not Worthy of Me as a price tag on salvation, like we
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have to sacrifice enough to earn God's favor, we fatally twist
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the gospel. Our acceptance, our
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justification is based on grace through faith alone and Christ
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alone apart from works. Precisely so.
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Jesus is not describing the merit you need to earn
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acceptance. He's describing the mark of
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fitness, the sanctification that accompanies true saving faith.
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The passage is a diagnostic. When it's tested, does our
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alleged faith prove real? It exposes rival loves, and it
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prompts the true believer who is already justified by grace to
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repent of their functional idolatry and cling more firmly
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to Christ. So the point isn't to justify
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ourselves by our performance, no.
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It's to see what saving faith looks like when it meets the
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friction of the world. And the equal and opposite error
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we have to guard against is antinomianism, the idea that
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because we're saved by grace, we don't need to submit to Christ's
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lordship in our practical lives. That error is rampant if we
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claim to be justified by faith. Yet our practical life shows no
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reordering of loves, no willingness to follow the King
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into suffering, and no execution of self will.
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Then the faith claim itself is suspect.
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True faith necessitates submission to the King.
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The Holy Spirit's work of renewal reorders those loves and
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demands obedience. The cross bearing Jesus commands
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is the practical daily shape of mortification, the execution of
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sin and self rule, which is inseparable from the work of
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sanctification. And it's necessary to remember
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that we also understand that God often appoints afflictions and
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conflicts for his children, not as punitive wrath, but as wise
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discipline designed to conform the believer to Christ's image.
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So the very tests we're reading about in Matthew 10 are tools in
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the Father's hand. Let's take a moment now to
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correct some common misreadings. Just to be clear, these sharp
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sayings are so often dulled by distortion when they're applied.
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First, the family demand. Jesus is establishing the proper
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place of family love. He's correcting family idolatry,
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where the desire for family peace governs the conscience.
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He teaches ordered love, not malicious abandonment or
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neglect. So if my parent is sick, I
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should absolutely care for them. But if my parent commands me to
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deny Christ, the love I show them has to be subordinate to
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the allegiance I show to God. Correct.
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The disciple loves his family best when he loves them under
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Christ's lordship and refuses to flatter them or fear them when
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they pressure him to disobey. The command cuts against the
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sentimental Family First religion that baptizes
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compromise and downplays the claims of the king. 2nd, the
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cross. We have to say again that it is
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not generic hardship. It is not the difficult customer
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service agent or traffic. It is the acceptance of public
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shame, rejection and loss specifically for the sake of
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obedience and confession in a hostile environment.
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This refutes the modern pragmatism that tries so
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desperately to make Christianity socially acceptable or
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professionally advantageous. And 3rd, the life paradox.
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It is anchored explicitly to Christ for my sake.
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It's not a vague self help proverb about being a selfless
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person. The losing and finding is a
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public reality requiring you to yield your actual safety, your
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reputation, your autonomy, not just a private internal attitude
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adjustment. If your loss can't be traced
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back to your decision to obey or confess Christ, it's not the
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cross bearing Jesus is talking about.
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Let's drill down into what this looks like today.
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We need some detailed, relatable applications here, starting with
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the home, where the tension is often quiet but intense.
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In the home, the challenge is refusing to treat family harmony
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as the supreme good when it means silencing your witness or
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putting off obedience to Christ. This is constantly tested in
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Modern Family life. I mean, consider the battle over
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kids. Schedules of children's sports
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or academic prep or college tours Become the ultimate
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authority over Lord's Day worship, over family devotion,
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or over the family's presence in the local church.
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The heart has made a decision. The sports league has tipped the
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Axioscale. It also means enduring
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misunderstanding for pursuing biblical marriage or parenting
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practices that run against the hyper individualized cultural
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norms. You might be ridiculed by your
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in laws or secular friends for emphasizing discipline, or for
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maintaining gender roles as Scripture defines them, or for
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raising your kids to prioritize the church calendar over the
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world's calendar. The disciple has to obey Christ
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even when parents, spouses, or children complain, because
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Christ's authority supersedes biological ties.
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Ordered love means loving them enough to let the truth of
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Christ introduce temporary fracture, knowing that only
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Christ brings everlasting peace. A second crucial domain is
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reputation and vocation. This confronts that deep
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instinct to soften our convictions, to secure our
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safety and our livelihood. The vast majority of believers
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today will lose their life not through some dramatic
27:58
persecution, but through 1000 quiet compromises in the
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workplace, which is where they spend most of their waking
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hours. Just think about the ethical
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dilemmas, shading the truth on a company report to keep a high
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paying job, accepting dishonest game to preserve your status, or
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staying silent when Christ is mocked at the water cooler or in
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a company wide diversity training.
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The Christian who won't take up his cross in his vocation will
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always find a plausible reason to soften his conviction.
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I can't risk losing clients. I can't risk being labeled A
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fanatic. My family depends on this
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salary. And Jesus insists that this
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strategy of self protection ends in true loss of the psycho.
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It does so cross bearing here looks like refusing unethical
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practices even when you're pressured by leadership.
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Speaking with integrity when silence would be easier, and
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openly identifying as a Christian where it costs you
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social capital or prevents A promotion.
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It means being willing to be professionally unworthy in the
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eyes of the world so you could be worthy of Christ.
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The third domain is comfort and consumer religion.
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This targets the idol of the life I planned that demand that
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discipleship must never disrupt our preferred routines, our
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convenience, or our leisure. This is often the quietest
29:08
killer of true discipleship. We build these elaborate systems
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of comfort, our homes, our schedules, our vacations, and
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then we ask Christ to bless them but not to interfere with them.
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Yes, bless this mess, but don't change anything.
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Exactly. Losing your life often means a
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radical recalibration of your spending and your time.
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It may involve sacrificing leisure time.
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What we see is our earned time in order to serve the Saints in
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the church body. It could mean simplifying your
29:35
spending significantly to support missions and mercy
29:38
ministry, or just saying no to time wasting patterns in order
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to cultivate devotion through scripture and prayer.
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This is where many people defect through a steady, quiet
29:48
insistence that their convenience must not be
29:51
disrupted. Jesus refuses to be a useful
29:54
accessory to a self-directed life.
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He demands to be the Master who dictates our conscience, our
29:59
schedule and our resources. And finally, let's look at the
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church itself. For a disciple, taking up the
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cross often means prioritizing Christ's appointed means of
30:07
grace, even when it causes friction in other areas of life.
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Modern life constantly tempts believers to treat the church as
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optional or replaceable or just convenient.
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But if Christ is supreme, then his body and his means of grace
30:21
are non negotiable. Taking up the cross might look
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like prioritizing Lord's Day. Worship consistently when
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relatives pressure you to skip for some other activity.
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It might mean embracing accountability within your
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church membership when it's uncomfortable or exposes sin.
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Or it could mean bearing reproach for biblical
30:37
convictions. Even within broader evangelical
30:39
circles, where pragmatism has replaced biblical doctrine,
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faithfulness means submitting to Christ authority in His church
30:45
regardless of the cost to your personal preference or your
30:48
schedule. I suppose the real gut check
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here, the diagnostic, is forcing ourselves to ask what
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relationship, what comfort, or what reputation are we utterly
30:57
unwilling to surrender, even if Christ called for it.
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That unwillingness identifies the point where our love is more
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for the creature than the Creator.
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And the aim of this passage is to produce clarity and
31:07
repentance in the heart that is already justified by grace.
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Christ is not asking us to earn His love.
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He's calling us to live as those who have been loved at the cost
31:16
of His own blood. And when we lose peace or
31:19
reputation or ease, for Christ's sake, we don't lose life.
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We find it because we find Him in the midst of that surrender.
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This has been a necessary deep dive into Matthew 10.
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We have reviewed the three core tests that define worthiness,
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supreme love over family, a willingness to carry the cross
31:38
of shame and rejection, and the pandoxical wisdom of losing the
31:41
self for Christ's sake. And we finish where we began,
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with the identity of the King. Jesus doesn't ask for this
31:47
allegiance, says some tyrant hungry for tribute.
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But as the King, who alone possesses the life he commands
31:52
us to lose, he is the Lord who will soon bear the cross
31:55
himself, purchasing his people at the price of his own blood.
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The invitation in Matthew 10 is not a moralistic hurdle race.
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It's an invitation to reality, the reality of his kingship and
32:05
the nature of true existence. Here is a provocative final
32:08
thought for you to consider this week.
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The king worth dying for is the only one worth living for.
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Take an inventory of your life. What version of security, what
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level of comfort, or what particular relationship are you
32:19
currently trying to secure and preserve that Jesus has not
32:22
promised to preserve? And trusting that life you're
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psyched to Him is not a gamble. It is the only certainty you
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possess.