Blessed Lord, how merciful thou
art to me. Oh, how merciful, how merciful. Blessed Lord, how merciful thou
art to me. Let's go to the morning. If you
would open your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter 10. That's
where our lesson will be from this morning. Matthew chapter
10. Before we look at our text, let's
go to our Lord in prayer. Our Father, we bow before your
thrice holy presence, giving thanks that this morning at all
times we can come into your presence boldly, confidently, coming in
our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, I pray that this morning
that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ would be exalted, glorified
in everything that is said and done here today. Let Christ be
preeminent in all things, both in our service today and throughout
our lives in this world. Father, let Christ be preeminent.
Bless us in our class this morning, bless our children's classes.
Father, we pray that you bless them in a special way. Bless
our teachers as they teach and bless our children as they hear
that you would use this time to plant the seeds of faith in
their heart and give them a hearing ear and a believing heart that
would believe the things that are taught to them here. Father,
bless us, we pray. Let this be a special day of
worship, we pray. All these things we ask and give
thanks and that name, which is above every name, the name of
our Lord Jesus Christ. All right, now I have a somewhat
difficult subject this morning to deal with. I hope you pray
for me as we look at this and we deal with it in the right
attitude and spirit. The title of the lesson is no
peace with the world. Now, verse 34, Matthew chapter
10. Our Lord says, think not that
I am come to send peace on the earth. I came not to send peace,
but a sword. Now, why does our Lord say that
he has not come to send peace on the earth? I mean, that just
doesn't sound right, does it? Throughout scripture, we know
about peace. We read so much about peace in
Christ. Gideon built an altar to Jehovah
Shalom, the Lord, our peace. Isaiah told us about the coming
Messiah and he said, His name is the Prince of Peace. When
Christ was born in Bethlehem, that angels, the heavenly hosts,
they sang glory to God on the highest, in the highest, and
on earth, peace, goodwill toward men. How often do we read our
Lord would heal someone or he'd forgive someone's sin and he'd
tell them, go in peace. The Lord told his disciples,
let not your heart be troubled. He said, my peace I give unto
you. He told them, these things have I spoken unto you, warning
them of what they would face after his crucifixion, after
his resurrection. And they were alone out preaching
the gospel. He said, these things have I
spoken unto you, that in me you might have peace, that these
things that happen to you won't disrupt your peace. In me you
have peace. After his resurrection, he appeared
unto his disciples and told them, peace be unto you. The first
thing he said to them, peace be unto you. The apostles went
out preaching peace by Jesus Christ. Almost every epistle
begins grace, mercy, and peace. So obviously there is peace in
Christ, isn't there? Christ came to bring his people
peace because he is our peace. So what does the Lord mean when
he says, I did not come to send peace on the earth? Well, he
means there is a peace he did come to bring, but there is a
peace he did not come to bring. So first, I want us to look at
the peace that Christ did bring. The first peace that Christ came
to bring is peace with God. And that's the peace we need.
We must have peace with God. See, we've declared war on God.
We declared war on God and our father, Adam, by our sin and
our rebellion. We declared war on God. And God's
angry about this. He's angry with sin. God hates
sin. He must pour out his wrath upon
sin. Now, being under the wrath of
God, that's not peaceful. That's not peaceful. And our problem is, our sin nature
cannot make peace with God. Can't do it. And what's more,
our sinful nature doesn't want to make peace with God. No, we
like, you know, the sin, where our sin nature likes it, the
carnal mind is enmity against God. It's not subject to the
law of God, neither can it be. It doesn't even want to make
peace with God. So the only way there can be peace with God is
if God makes peace. God's got to make peace between
him and his people. And he did that in the person
of his son, our Lord Jesus Christ, by sacrificing his son in our
place. Christ made peace through the
blood of his cross. By the blood of Christ, God has
reconciled all things unto himself. Even you, there were sometime
alienated. Even you who would not have peace
with God, the blood of Christ has made peace. The blood of
Christ made peace between God and His people. The blood of
Christ made God at peace. The blood of Christ made God
not angry anymore because the sin that brought His wrath is
gone. God's not angry, He's at peace. There's no reason that
God would be angry with His people. The blood of Christ has blotted
out our sin. And it's also the blood of Christ, that same blood,
the same blood of His sacrifice makes God not, God's elect not
mad at God anymore too. It's the blood of Christ applied
to our hearts that makes the sinner sued for peace. It's the
blood of Christ applied to our hearts that makes us willingly
bow to God's terms of surrender, that peace is in Christ. When
the blood of Christ is applied to our hearts, we're not mad
at God anymore. No, we stack our arms and we
willingly, lovingly bow. So there's peace, peace with
God. That can only come in our Lord Jesus Christ. He brought
that peace. The second piece Christ came
to bring is peace in the hearts of God's people. Now, when we
talk about peace in the heart, our Lord never promised we'd
have peace in the heart because nothing ever goes wrong in his
life. He never promised his people that. He never promised peace
in the sense you'll always have peaceful, tranquil seas. He didn't
promise that. Matter of fact, he promised you're
going to have hard trials, hard, stormy, difficult seas. So Christ
didn't come to bring us peace because he's just going to make
it in this world like nothing ever goes wrong with you. Now,
that just reveals the fatal error in this health and wealth and
happiness religion, just something, anything to make you happy. Just,
you know, you do have this right religion. God is going to bless
you in every way. You have peace because nothing's
wrong. That message is the opposite of what our Lord has promised
his people. The believer is promised tribulation
in this world. We're promised trials and trouble
in this life, not peace in the sense that we have a life of
ease. But even though that's so, even
though we're on those difficult, hard, stormy seas, the believer
still has peace of heart. There's peace in the conscience
because sin is forgiven. If my sin is forgiven, there's
peace that difficulties of this life, everything surrounded me
doesn't affect it. If my, if I have peace in my
heart because my sin is forgiven. Now, yes, I hate my sin. I see
my sin, but I have peace of conscience and knowing that sin has already
been paid for by the blood of Christ. So there's peace of conscience. And we'll face many, many trials
and troubles and afflictions that are very painful. We'll
face many frightening storms of this life so that it will
cause us to be like the disciples of old and say, Lord, don't you
care we perish? I mean, this ain't going down. But we have
peace at heart. We have peace at heart because
God's forgiven my sin. Secondly, because God's the one
directing the storm. I don't have to be afraid of
the storm if I really know, believe God's the one directing the storm.
for peace at heart. And the third piece Christ came
to bring is peace among believers. Now we're at peace with each
other here. I'm very thankful. God's people
have peace with one another because we're in love with the same Savior.
It's him that binds us together. We have the same new nature.
God's given all of his people the same new nature that's just
like a magnet. It's drawn to each other. We
have peace with one another. And even though we're far from
perfect people, we don't have peace with one another because
we're always, you know, act perfect towards one another. That's not
why I have peace. We have peace because we love one another.
And love covers a multitude of sins. You don't have to be, the
people are not perfect, but we love one another anyway, because
that's what love does. And that's the peace that Christ
gives to his people. It's peace with God. Peace of
conscience and heart and peace with one another. That's the
peace he did come to bring. But now let's look at the peace
Christ did not come to bring. Christ did not come to bring
peace with the world. That's what he means here. He
did not come to bring peace with the world. And this was an important
thing for him to tell his disciples at this time, because they're
just like the rest of the Jewish nation. The Jews thought that
the Messiah would come and establish an earthly kingdom like David's.
The disciples even thought after after everything that happened,
they said, Lord, now we establish the kingdom. They just thought
that the Messiah is going to come and establish a powerful
earthly kingdom like David that just rules the world. And they
would have peace because all their enemies are destroyed or
all their enemies are, you know, not at peace or whatever, you
know, tormented and pushed down. They didn't want peace because
they peacefully submitted to Rome. They want peace because
they had their boot on the throat of Rome. That's what they wanted.
And that's what they thought was going to happen. And our
Lord told him, I didn't come to bring that peace. Don't expect
that. That's not going to happen. You know, I mean, I guess you
already know this from looking at the many different people
who are running for president. We're not going to get a Christian
president leading, you know, turning America into this great
Christian. It's not going to happen because Christ didn't
come to bring that kind of peace on earth. The Lord did not come
to make everybody on earth be at peace with one another. He
didn't do that. And when people are not at peace
with one another, it doesn't mean the Lord's frustrated. It
didn't mean the Lord failed in doing what he came to do. It
means that he didn't come to bring that kind of peace. He
did not come to make peace where everybody on earth is just happy
with one another. That's not the kind of peace he came to
bring. The Lord came to bring a spiritual peace. He came to
establish a spiritual kingdom, not an earthly one. That's why
the Lord told Pilate, my kingdom's not of this world. What you're
doing doesn't affect anything. My kingdom's not of this world.
If it was, buddy, you better look out. I'll call 12 legions
of angels, but stop this thing. My kingdom's not of this world.
He came, Christ came to bring a spiritual peace to his people.
He did not come to make the world be at peace with his people.
That's an impossibility. There never will be peace between
believers and this world. Never. If there is, something's
wrong on our end. We're not preaching the gospel
clearly enough if there's peace between us and the world, especially
the religious world. There will never be peace between
believers and this religious world because they're two opposing
kingdoms. They're two opposing messages. They're two opposing ways of
salvation. They preach, they worship, they
follow two opposing saviors. It's either Christ or self. It's
grace or works. And those two polar opposites
can never have peace with one another. And the dividing line,
what causes the dividing line? The divider between the two is
the word of God. It could be that's what the savior
says, I came to bring a sword. Well, you know he didn't come
to bring a sword to fight enemies. He told Peter to bring a sword.
The dividing line, what causes the division between the believer
and unbeliever, true religion and false religion, is the Word
of God. It's the Word of God. When Christ
came, the Jews, they claimed to love the Word. They read the
Word every Sabbath day, didn't they? They claimed to love the
Word, but when Christ came, he revealed the true meaning of
the Word. He came to reveal that the true meaning of the Scriptures
is Christ. The true meaning of the Word
is not you keep all this law, and you'll be saved. The true
meaning of the scripture, of the law, is you can't keep the
law, so look to one coming who will. See, all the scriptures
speak of Christ. When Christ came, he revealed
that this is what the word is saying. Salvation is in Christ.
It's not in our works of the law. Salvation is by grace. By grace alone, not because a
man did anything to deserve it. And that message will naturally
divide people. That message, that word, will
divide those who believe Christ from those who do not. There's
just going to be a division. See, one believes God's word.
The other one does not. And there can't be peace between
them. It's impossible. There can't be peace in that
there is agreement between them. They might not kill one another.
I mean, they might not take up arms and kill one another. They
might not challenge one another to a duel, but there's not going
to be peace until they both agree on the Word of God. There's not
going to be peace in that they say we're going to agree with
one another. See, the Lord didn't come to bring peace like that.
He didn't come to bring peace between believers and the flesh.
And you understand that real quickly after God saves you. Almost as soon as God saves you,
you realize, oh, there's not going to be peace between the
believer and the flesh. See, you used to get along with
the world. You used to say, you know, there's just, there's no
problem. The world didn't have a problem with you, you didn't
have a problem with the world. Suddenly you do. Now you've got a problem.
You've got a problem with the world and the world's got a problem
with you because the Lord saved you. And now your troubles begin. And your troubles begin with
the world. I'll tell you where your troubles really begin. It's
inside. The problem, the trouble begins
in earnest with your flesh, with your flesh. See, now God's giving
him a second nature. Now you got two natures. You
used to be at peace, didn't you? Peace and ease. Because you only
had one nature. The flesh didn't have anybody
to fight against. Now God's giving you a new nature, the spirit.
And the spirit and the flesh are opposed. They're opposed
to one another and they will war against one another as long
as they're both in the same body. The only time that warfare is
going to stop is when the flesh dies. The only time. Once God
saves you, the warfare begins. The trouble begins and you see,
oh yeah, he didn't come to bring peace with the flesh. Christ
did not come to bring peace among men on earth, between believers
and unbelievers. And our Lord warns us this warfare,
this division can get mighty tough and get mighty tough because
it can hit very close to home. Look at verse 35. For I am come
to set a man at variance against his father and the daughter against
her mother and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And
a man's foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth
father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And he that
loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Now, what does the Lord mean
here? Well, he does not mean that those who believe Christ
are not to care or love their family anymore. He does not mean
that at all. John Gill, I can't remember the
exact words, but he said roughly this, that believing Christ does
not relieve you of your moral obligations. Parents are to love
their children. Parents are to provide for their
children. Parents are to be parents to
their children always. And children are to love and
honor their parents, to take care of their parents when they're
older or need help. God's Word clearly instructs
us that. Our Lord showed us that from
the cross. He provided for his mother Mary,
didn't he? He told John, you consider her your mother now.
You take care of her. I'm not going to be here embodied
until you do it. So believing Christ does not mean that we're
to cut our families off. We're not to love our families
anymore. This is not a cult. Believing
Christ is not a cult. No, we're to love our families. What the Lord is teaching us
here is this, that Christ comes first. Christ comes first. We love him first. We love him more than anyone
or anything. So if somebody loves their family
more, they love someone or anyone, anything more than they love
Christ, you can't really call them by the name of Christ. You
know, the word worthy, it says here, they're not worthy of me.
It means worthy, like we use the sense of worthy, but it also
means corresponding, corresponding. If someone loves anything more
than Christ, That is not corresponding to a person who knows Christ
and loves Christ and believes Christ. Their actions do not
correspond to what they say is in their heart. So what does
this really mean? What does this look like in our
everyday lives? Well, let me give you a couple
things. First, we are to love our family. Now, you love your family. You
take care of your family. I want to talk about those who
do not believe the gospel, who do not believe Christ, You love
your family. You take care of your family.
You have a responsibility to them. You fulfill it. But we're
not to seek peace with our family, those who do not believe the
gospel. We're not to seek peace with them by compromising the
gospel. We're not to do that. That kind
of peace is not worth having. It's not worth having. If I've
got to compromise who Christ is, if I've got to compromise
the gospel. If I've got to compromise the
glory of my Savior, I just do not have that peace. It's not
worth having. So if you know Christ, you believe Him, you
love Him, you tell your family about Christ and you tell them.
That's the only loving thing to do, isn't it? To tell them
about the Savior. But what if they won't have it?
I mean, they just will not have it. then let it alone. You don't have to say, well,
you won't have this, then I'm never going to see you again.
We're cut off. No, that's not what the Lord's teaching here
at all. You don't have to say, you know, I'm never going to
see you again, but you don't have to agree with their false
religion in order to have peace either. And, you know, maybe
they won't completely leave it alone. Maybe they'll make snide
comments and just, you know, jabbing at you all the time.
Well, just, just my advice to you is just endure it. Just,
just endure it. But if there's going to also,
I warn you about this. If there's going to be a division,
I mean, with anybody, anybody, people, you know, your family,
those who, who, who just hate the gospel of Christ, who hate
the savior that you love. If there's going to be a division
over this thing, you make sure it's over the word. You make
sure it's over the sword. I know people who have division
with loved ones and friends and things because they're a jerk. I mean, they're a jerk about
the truth. I mean, that is not the right attitude to have in
preaching Christ and telling people about the war. You don't
have to be a jerk about it. Make sure the division is over
the word, not our bad attitude, okay? The second, we are to love
our family. but we are to love Christ more.
In all things, Christ must have the preeminence. He must. So
if you know and you believe Christ, now you know the gospel. You
know the gospel. You know how it is that God saves
sinners. You might not feel that you're
the most articulate person to be able to tell somebody about
the gospel, but now you know the gospel. You know the Father
elected the people to save. If God saved you, you know that.
You believe that. You love that because that's
the only way any sinner could be saved. God had to choose me
first. I never would have chosen him. You know that. You know
how Christ came and he died for God to love. and only God's elect. He died for those that the Father
gave him. Christ didn't die to give every
son of Adam a chance to be saved. He died to save somebody, to
save his people from their sins, and he did. He saved his people
from their sin. There's no way, no possibility,
no way that it's possible one of those people could ever perish
because Christ is a successful Savior. You know that if Christ
saves you. And you know that God, the Holy Spirit gives life
and he gives faith to everyone for whom Christ died. You know
that salvation is a new birth. It's regeneration. It's a new
birth. It's not a choice of the flesh. It's a birth from the
Holy Spirit. And you know that God keeps his
people. He's going to keep them to the end. He's going to keep
them by his grace. He's not going to keep them by
their good moral Christian living, but all their good works after
conversion. Their good works didn't contribute
to anything before conversion and didn't contribute to anything
after their conversion either. Salvation is by grace. Grace
alone from beginning to end. Now you know that. You know that.
Now, loving your family more than loving Christ is this. It's
saying, my family is saved even though they hate the gospel,
that I know so. That that is loving your family, father, mother,
brother, sister, more than loving Christ. If someone does not believe
what is plainly revealed in the word of God, they don't have
to agree with every doctrinal stance that I take, but they
do have to agree on how it's interesting. Right. Father, the
son always will. And if they don't do not believe
what is plainly revealed in the word of God, they're lost. They're lost. That includes my
family and yours. That includes my friends and
yours. They don't know God if they do not believe what's plainly
revealed in the word of God. Loving your family more than
loving Christ is changing your doctrine. It's altering your
doctrine. It's altering your religion so
that it can fit your family into the kingdom of God. Even though
God hadn't done that. Janet and I have decided in the
wintertime now we're going to be constantly working on a jigsaw
puzzle. We've worked up now to some bigger
puzzles. And I've got to fight the temptation.
I've got a blue piece. It's got a blue knob there. And
I've got another blue piece. It's got a notch in it. I've
got to fight the temptation or I'll make them fit. That should
fit. I just want to pound it in there and make it fit. If
I do that, we're going to have a problem later, aren't we? We're
going to have a problem. Changing our doctrine to make it fit,
a false doctrine, so that we can have peace. That's loving
our family more than loving Christ. It's trying to be more loving
and more accepting than God is. That's what it is. Loving our
family more than loving God is saying, oh, my family's saved. I know they, I mean, they utterly
despise the gospel of God's free and sovereign grace. They despise
it. But now they're saved because they're good Christian people.
Not if they don't believe the gospel, they're not. They're
not a Christian if they don't believe the gospel. Someone is not a Christian who
acts nice. Someone is a Christian who believes Christ. So someone who makes those allowances
for their family, friends, their loved ones, they're not worthy
to be called a Christian. Their actions do not correspond
to a heart that loves and believes and follows Christ. If someone
you love, you love them so much, they can lead you away from Christ.
They can lead you away from the truth. You're not following Christ,
are you? See, someone who leaves Christ, that doesn't correspond
to someone who's following Christ. And I know that's painful to
the flesh. I know that it is. I know. That's why our Lord told us he
did not come to give us peace with the flesh. He's telling
us that to instruct us and to comfort our hearts. That's painful
to the flesh. But that's not the peace that
the Lord came to bring. He came to bring a spiritual peace because
your sin is forgiven. Seek your peace in Christ, not
with people in the flesh. I believe that's what the Lord's
teaching us here. And if your enemies are they of your own
household, now tell them, tell them about crisis and they won't
have it. It's causing problems so that
you can't be in the same room with one another. You can't talk
with one another. Just leave them alone about it. Leave them
alone about that and enjoy what you can enjoy with your family.
You know, doing things with them is whatever. If they'll leave
it alone, then you leave it alone and have peace with your family.
And if they won't leave it alone, Don't compromise. If they won't
leave it alone, do not back down. Don't back down from the truth
in order to have peace with them. Because two things, that's not
loving. Compromising the truth, telling
them it's all right. You're saying the same thing
I'm saying when they're not. That's not loving. That's not
honoring, first of all, to the Savior, is it? To compromise
that. And second of all, It's not loving
to your family to tell them a lie. That's not loving. Telling them
that their false refuge is just fine is not best for their souls.
Now, believing and following Christ requires a total commitment. Believing Christ is a commitment
to Christ. And that means that the world
comes second. Our family comes second. Everything
about my life comes second because believing Christ involves a commitment
to Christ. And that's what the Lord is saying
in verse 38. And he that taketh not his cross
and followeth after me is not worthy of me. Now, the Lord said
this before he went to the cross. When he's saying this to his
disciples, his disciples have no earthly idea that he's going
to be crucified on a cross. Nobody knows that but the Lord
at this time. So he's not saying about identifying with him being
nailed to the cross. He's talking about something
that is painful to the flesh. The Romans used the cross as
capital punishment for the worst kinds of criminals. That wasn't
for every criminal. It was for the worst kinds of
criminals because it's shameful and it's the most painful death
that they knew of. That's why they used it for the
worst. And being nailed to a hunk of wood and hang there till you
die, often can take days and days, you know, is something
that the flesh wants to avoid. It's painful to the flesh. So
this is what the Lord's teaching, that his people will take up
what is contrary and painful to the flesh in order to follow
Christ. Saying that I am a sinner, saying
that I am incapable of doing anything good It's contrary to
the flesh. It's humiliating to the flesh,
saying that we are totally dependent on God to save us, that we can't
do anything to get God to save us. That's contrary to this flesh.
It's humiliating to this flesh, that the very best things I ever
do deserve damnation and hell for eternity. That's painful
to the flesh. But a believer takes that up
and says, that's what I believe. That's what I believe. And having
the hatred and the ridicule of this world is painful to the
flesh. I'd just soon avoid it if I could, wouldn't you? But
the believer will take that up. Small price to pay for following
Christ. Small price to pay for having
Him. And if somebody compromises the
truth in order to avoid taking that pain and that inconvenience
upon the flesh, if they avoid those things just so they can
have peace with other people, that's the evidence that they're
not committed to Christ. They give no evidence of that.
Someone who's going to follow Christ is going to commit their
whole life to him. That's what the Lord says in
verse 39. He that findeth his life shall lose it. And he that
loses his life for my sake shall find it. This is what the Lord's
saying. If a man seeks to save his life,
if he seeks to save his physical life and not just you know, avoid
being killed, but he's seeking to have peace with the world.
He's seeking to have peace so this life is more pleasant to
him. He's seeking, you know, to, to avoid confrontation over
the gospel, to avoid hatred for the gospel sake. So his flesh
can enjoy this earthly pilgrimage more. That's an indication that
he doesn't have spiritual life. He's taking care of the fleshly
life, not the spiritual. If he seeks to preserve his life
like that, well, he probably will, but he's going to lose
his spiritual life, lose his soul. But if a man's willing
to sacrifice happiness in this life and peace with the flesh,
well, that probably means he has spiritual life. That probably
means he's doing that because he follows Christ. If a man won't
compromise the truth of Christ and he will not compromise the
glory of Christ, even when it costs him, I'd say that's a pretty
good indication he's a follower of Christ, because that's corresponding,
isn't it? That kind of action corresponds
to faith in Christ that's in the heart. And if a man endures
persecution, and he endures ridicule, I mean from those who are closest
to him, his family, his father, his mother, his brothers, his
sisters, his children, and he endures that kind of persecution,
that kind of ridicule from them, he still won't compromise the
gospel. Pretty clear indication he's not going to compromise
because he really does believe Christ. But if someone will compromise
the gospel to avoid that kind of persecution, they'll, they'll,
they'll compromise the gospel so they can have peace and get
along better in this life. Now that could mean they don't
really believe Christ that they never did really believing in
the first place. So that's what the Lord's teaching.
He's not, you know, he's not teaching us that, um, that we
have to cut off our families and our friends and those kinds
of things. But just understand this from
the get go. You're not going to have you're
not going to have peace. There's not going to be peace with those
who hate Christ. But you have peace with those
who do. Now, you're still going to love
your family. You're going to love them like nobody else. They're
your flesh. They're your. Of course you will.
But don't expect peace with them if they hate God. They hate Christ
if they hate this gospel. Don't expect to have peace with
them like you expect to have peace with those who do believe.
That's what the Lord's teaching there. So don't be overly disturbed
and don't feel like you want to quit when you don't have that
kind of peace with the flesh. Christ did come to bring it.
And that's what he's teaching us here. All right. Well, hope
the Lord will bless that too.