Division?
32"Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. 33But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.
34"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn
" 'a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law -
36a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.'[e]
37"Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; 38and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
40"He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives the one who sent me. 41Anyone who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet's reward, and anyone who receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man's reward. 42And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward."
All right, let me get right to the point. Who here loves their family? *Raises hand VERY high* I really hope all of you do. I have a very big family. There are six kids and one mother. My father died when I was young. I am the youngest child out of the six, so there’s no need to tell you I got picked on a lot blaugh . But I tell you the truth; I love my family SO much that I would die for them. I really would. Why? Because we’re a family, and God has made us a family. He made us all to be together and to love one another. He made us to be close. You know why? So that He could show us love. That’s His plan. He told us to love one another. I love my family. SO much I’d cry for hours if one died. Sure, we’ve had our problems with one another. Sometimes big problems. And you know what? We still have some big problems with each other. But God always works it out in us. He always does! And in the end, we end up growing closer to one another. I love my family to death. I really do.
My brother, the second youngest of the family, is somebody I hang out with during the school nights. He’s such a blast! I tell you, he’s probably a bigger nerd than I am. He and I spend hours playing video games together if we have nothing else to do. We have kinda an on-going video game rivalry. We’ll compete against each other in video games like Halo, Tekken, Mortal Kombat, Burn Out, Time Splitters, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Street Fighter, etc. just so that we can go, “Ha! I beat you!” It’s funny. We’ll get into such stupid arguments about who was being cheap during a match together. He’ll be like, “James, stop cheating!” and I’ll be like, “I’m not cheating! I’m just better skilled, that’s all,” then he’ll be like, “What?! You know I can OWN you in Tekken!” then I’ll be like, “No way, man, no way. You know I’m the Tekken master!” then he’ll be like, “I’ll KILL YOU!….in a game of Mortal Kombat.” Then next thing I know he actually kills me in a game of Mortal Kombat. I then go, "Ohh.... crying " Good times.We also get into such pointless debates like who would win, Darth Vader or Sephiroth, or who’s cooler, Sonic or Mario, or if this video game fought that video game, who would lose. *Sighs* I love my bro.
My second oldest sister is somebody who I just adore for just how much she cares about people. She’s humble, God loving, and very sociable. She ALWAYS puts others before herself. I tell you, she’s also one of the most charismatic people I know. She has TONS of friends. You know why? Because she’s a sweetie. Her and I can talk about just about anything, and we always try and talk everyday, even if we’re both busy. If it weren’t for her, I would have never seen Christ. Jesus had worked through her that night to show me God loves me. How awesome is that?? God bless her.
My oldest brother has been the athletic type since day one. I swear, he must have tackled the doctor when he was first born. He’s always been the rough and tumble type, however, not in a bad way. He’s very Christian, and he is moist with The LORD. When I was very little, I remember him and I having pretend wrestling matches. We used to LOVE the WWF (Now it's the WWE...WHY?!!). I’d be Stone Cold Steve Austin and He’d be a character he made up. I’d end up winning…you know how strong children are. Man, I miss him. He lives in Texas now. But I hope to see him soon.
My oldest sister and I have gotten into a lot of fights before. But even so, I love her very much. Truly, we’ve had our moments, but we are very close, and before she moved out, her and I would hang out at night and chat. I don’t know exactly where she is at the moment, but wherever she is, may God protect her and bless her, In Jesus Name.
My second oldest brother is somebody I basically idolized while growing up. Lord knows why I did. But hey, I was a kid and I needed an idol. At that point, I didn’t have Jesus, so my bro was kinda my role model. He’s very funny. He basically taught me random humor. Man, I have some very fond memories of him cracking me up to the point I cry. *laughs* but those memories are for me alone! Unless of course, one of you asks me. Then I’ll be more than willing to tell you some funny stuff.
My mom. Wow. Seriously, what a cool lady. Wow. Just, wow. She raised us without a dad, and she did a fine job at it! She’s always so loving. I used to have a lot of troubles with my mom, because I was such an ungrateful brat. But God changed that in me. My mom rocks. She really does. I tell you, I love my mommy and I’m not afraid to show it!
I don’t only love my immediate family; I love my aunts and uncles, and my grandma and grandpas. They all rock my socks off.
I am only a teenager, but you know what, one of these days, I’d like to raise a family. I’d like to have a wife whom I can love with all my heart, and who would love me back the same way. I’d love to have children who I can raise with my wife, and who God can show love to through me. Not only that, but so that I could also show undying love for them as well. I’d love that someday! God might not wish for that, and that would mean it wouldn’t happen. But, oh man, if God destined for that to happen, I’d give Him a HUGE hug up in Heaven. Heck, I’ll give Him one anyway. I know that if I have a family of my own, there will be problems. There will be. But I know that God will mend those problems, in the name of Jesus Christ, so that we end up growing closer.
Saddly, I'm afraid to date sweatdrop Not much of a man when it comes to talking with girls. I have no skills! Yes, yes, maybe if I actually tried asking somebody out it would happen....but I think I'd wet my pants.
RANDOM REINACTMENT!
Me: *goes up to a girl* Hey....
Girl: Hey...
Me.........Do you like Star Wars?
Girl: Goodbye! *walks away*
and if I actually got a date, this is what would happen:
Me: *is stuffing face with food*
Girl:.... eek ...
Me: Are you gonna eat that?! *points at her plate filled with food*
Girl:.... eek .....
Me: Then I'm having it *reaches for her plate and digs in*
Back to the sermon!
Oh man, I love my spiritual brothers and sisters as well. Jesus said that our true brothers and sisters are those who want to follow God’s commands. That’s true. I love you all. That may sound like I’m just saying that, but it’s true. I love you, Gini, I love you, Lala, I love you, Lisa, I love you, Asha, I love you, Reewantae, I love you, Valentino, I love you, Amanda, I love you, Sara, I love you, Shadow Linsane, I love you, Emma, and I love all of you. That may sound creepy, I know. I’m only a dude you know over the internet. By all means, that is creepy. But it doesn’t change things. I love you guys! And you know what? If I knew you guys in person, I’d do anything for you. Each of you. God has placed that in me. He really has. Praise Jesus for that.
I hope that I have shown you just how much my family means to me. Both my immediate family and my beloved Christian brothers and sisters. Much love for you all!
Family is something so special and so grand that God has blessed father with mother, brother with sister, etc. with. We are blessed with each other! We truly are. We are not only blessed with family, but with friends, and just all people in general. We are blessed! Each and every single one of us on God’s green Earth is blessed with companionship. We are blessed to love one another. It’s true when people say God made us to need each other. It’s the complete truth. We humans need other humans. It’s been proven throughout all of history. It’s been proven through the entire Bible. Moses needed Aaron. Adam and Eve needed each other. Noah needed his family. Naomi needed Ruth. It’s true. We need each other, and we need to love one another. Not only must we love those who love us, but love those who hate us (Matthew 5:43-48 43"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor[h] and hate your enemy.' 44But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.)
Why is that do you think? Why is it that God has created us to love each other? Why is it that? Think about it. God created all of us. The LORD made everyone. Jesus made everyone. He created all of us humans with equal love. Everyone, all over the world. We are all His children. Now, His true children and those who want to follow Him. That’s true. But we’re all His creation. So, no matter who we are, or what we do, He loves us. He loves us all equally. Yes, God is just, and He HATES sin. He HATES to see us hate one another; as much as a mother or father would hate to see their children kill each other. God will punish during judgment day, but even so, He loves everyone. What would make our standards better than God’s? God is FAR greater than us. He is perfect, while we are not. He is worthy, while we are not. But God doesn’t care! Jesus broke Himself for us! God died for us! If He would love us, us, His fallen people, then why should we hate each other? God HATES that. God made us in love, not in hate. We need each other. We need to love each other. That is why God gave His only Begotten Son for us to live. That is why God died for us. God loves us more than we could possibly imagine.
Ok, next question. Who here loves God?? *Raises my hand even higher than before* I DO!!! I love Him! SO MUCH! I love how He made me. I love how he surrounded me with people who I can love. I love how He blesses me, even though I am a sinner and a half. I love how Jesus died for me, and I love how God can do ANYTHING. I love the Trinity, and I love How God can go beyond our comprehension and be in Heaven, doing all the things He usually does, all while being on Earth as His Son, Jesus. I love how He gives and asks so little back, and I love how He turned me from doing horrible things to people. Praise Him! Praise God! Praise Jesus! Praise The LORD! Praise HIM!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE HIM! I LOVE HIM SO MUCH!!!! I’d die for Him if He told me to. He’s SO REAL, and SO TRUE. I CAN’T WAIT TO see Him in person.
However, this wasn’t always the case. I freaking HATED God when my father died of lung cancer. I can’t truly begin to describe this strong hatred I once felt for God. I mean, man, I hated His Divine everlasting guts. I’d spend hours mocking Him and His Son, and I’d hate Christians. My entire family did. We didn’t go out of our way as to go pick on Christians or anything like that, but I hated how Christians just seemed so happy. Stupid %$%&#xin;g Christians, how dare they love God! That was once my attitude (I use to swear like a sailor, too. You know, I thought it was cool. But now I just think it’s lame)
With all that said, let me tell you about one of the most shocking experiences of all my life. My sister became a Christian in 2002. Holy gee, my own flesh and blood sister became one of the enemy! Well, that wasn’t a good year for my sister. My mom had a problem with that, as we all did. I won’t get into to specifics for my family’s sake, but I’ll tell you about how I reacted to my sister becoming a Christian. I looked down at my sister for that. She must be crazy, right? She loves something she can’t see! She loves the very one who allowed our father to die. Losing your father SUCKS! I remember the day he died very well, and to this day, I still sometimes get teary about it. The realization that you grew up without a dad on earth sometimes impacts you REALLY hard. I missed out on playing baseball, going to movies, going fishing, etc. with my earthly dad, and because of this, I hated my Lord. I hated Him! And now my sister loves Him. My sister loves Jesus. How was I to respond to that? Well, I responded by losing respect for her. I love my sister! I’d die for her. But I lost my respect for her. And you know what? She knew that. She had lost her little bros respect, yet she stuck with God anyway.
It made me think later on. Why did she hold onto God/Jesus while her family hated her? Why is this? Shouldn’t family come first? I tell you, when it comes to God, God comes first. He comes first above all else. My sister knew that. At that time, she wasn’t very happy with her life. But Jesus changed all that. I look back at that year now and just see the catalyst of things to come. In 2003, my oldest brother became Christian. In 2005, I became Christian. 2005 was the greatest year, as well as the worst year, of my life. That year I was attacked by Satan everyday to near insanity. I mean that. But that was the year I came to Jesus, and He healed me. Not even my family could have saved me.
Going back to Matthew 10:32-42, I must tell you, this verse scared the bejeebus out of me when I first read it. What is it that Jesus wants?? When we accept Him, does He wish for us to go against our family in a heated match to the death?? I didn’t understand what this meant. Did Jesus want me to hate my family, the ones whom God brought into my life? I didn’t understand, and I freaked out. Fairly recently I had pondered the meaning of these verses. I was afraid, because I thought it meant for surely that I was to hate my family. So, I thought it over…if it ever came down to it, would I choose Jesus or my family?? I tell you, that is not an easy question to answer. Not at all.
Well, I was saddened by this for a while, until The Holy Spirit set things straight.
What does Jesus mean when He says that He’ll cause division amongst family? What does Jesus mean when He says that if you love your mother or father or whatever more than Him, you’re not worthy to be His follower? I tell you, it’s not what we think. At least, not exactly how we think.
God has placed us into our families for a reason. The LORD has called us to honor our mothers and our fathers (Exodus 20:12 "Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.) God has called us to love EVERYONE. So, how, you may ask, can we do all these things if we are against our brothers and sisters, or our mothers and fathers? How can we love if we are against people?
Jesus is God. He is the Son of God, but He is God. Not a God, not another God, but God. Yahweh. He and His Father are one, and Jesus is God. They are separate, but they are God. God has commanded us to love Him more than anything else, as well as love our neighbor (Luke 10:27
He answered: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind' ; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' ") God demands the best of our love. He demands that we love Him more than anything else. Why is that? Because He created us so that we may love Him, as well as each other. He died for us, forgave us, and healed us. You’re dang right he demands the best of our love! Don’t get God wrong, He wants us to love one another with pure, genuine, awesome love that is second only to the love He wants us to feel for Him. He wants to be crazy about each other, be with one another, and just darn tootin love each other. But He comes first, because He made us and died for us. That is why Jesus said, “If you love such and such more than me, you’re not worthy to be my follower”. If we love something more than our awesome creator, than we can’t follow Him. God is the one that made anything that you love. Whether a family member or your spouse, He created them and loves them more than you could possibly imagine. He demands the greatest of our love.
Remember, love for God comes first, but love for everyone else comes in a close second. We need to love one another, and love each other with all of our selves. God has designed it that way.
Now to get to the other part of those verses were Jesus talks about family member being against family member.
Matthew 25:45
“And he will answer, ‘I tell you the truth, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.’
Matthew 23:8
“Don’t let anyone call you ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one teacher, and all of you are equal as brothers and sisters.
Psalm 22:22
I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters. I will praise you among your assembled people.
It has been known throughout the entire Bible God wants us to love each other. God wants us to honor our mothers and our fathers. He wants us to love our brothers and sisters. He told us to love one another, right? So how can we do any of those things if we’re against our own brothers and sisters?
Matthew 19:29
And everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or property, for my sake, will receive a hundred times as much in return and will inherit eternal life.
The only time God demands that we are to leave our brothers and sisters, or mothers and fathers, is when they wish to harm us, kill us, or down right hate us because we follow Christ. If our family members begin to hate us because we say, “I love Jesus!”, or if they plot to kill or disown us for being Christian, then if the situation is so dangerous you have to leave them for God, then we’d must.
When somebody becomes Christian, sometimes their family members will wish them harm or even death. In those extreme situations, God would call us to leave our families. This isn’t because God wants us to hate them. Oh no, He does not want us to hate them, but love them. But in a life or death situation, where it’s essential to leave your family for not only your sake, but for theirs as well, then God would ask you to leave them. But, we must remember forgiveness. If a family member repents for his/her actions and wants you back in their lives, Jesus wouldn’t want us to hesitate for a second to accept them back. That goes along with the whole forgive and forget thingy. He would expect us to accept them as He would accept us.
God does not want us to be against each other. However, some family members will sometimes act like that towards us for being Christian. That’s what that means. For the World hated Jesus first. People will hate us for following Him, even sometimes our own family (Matthew 24:9
“Then you will be arrested, persecuted, and killed. You will be hated all over the world because you are my followers.). My sister was not hated when she became a Christian, but in many ways, we were against her. I was against her. Lord have mercy on me for that.
I remember watching a movie recently called Freedom Writers. It was a pretty good movie. Anyway, in one scene, the main character, played by Hilary Swank, is forced to choose between her students (she’s a teacher) and her husband. Her husband is threatening her to leave her students, or he’ll leave her. She said to him, “If you loved me, then how could you even ask me to do something like that?” In the end, though Hilary Swank’s character loved her husband, she left him for her students. One day I couldn’t help but ponder who I would choose…God or my family. Like I said above, it wasn’t at all an easy choice. I got angry at God for letting me think such things, but then I realized the only time I’d leave my family for God is if they made me do so, by either cursing me out of their lives or if they made me make a decision like that. God is not going to ask us to do something like that. However, we humans will sometimes do that. If my mom, my dear, beloved mother said to me, “Who do you choose, God or me? I swear, if you choose God over me I’ll kick your butt out of here!” then I’d have to say, “I choose God. I love you, mom, but I choose God. If you loved me, then how could you possibly ask me to do something like that?” God is my life. Sure, my family is too, but God is more than that. That’s a TERRIBLE decision to have to make. But it’s true. I’d choose God. Now, THANK JESUS that’s not the case. My God, that would be horribly upsetting. Thank God that’s not the case. If my family doesn’t wish me harm or death, or doesn’t wish to curse me out for being Christian, then hell no I wouldn’t leave them. God wouldn’t ask me to. Why? Because He made us a family. We love each other. I love God.
Luke 12: 49-52
49 “I have come to set the world on fire, and I wish it were already burning! 50 I have a terrible baptism of suffering ahead of me, and I am under a heavy burden until it is accomplished. 51 Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I have come to divide people against each other! 52 From now on families will be split apart, three in favor of me, and two against—or two in favor and three against.
Ok, so what does that mean? If a family member dislikes that you’re Christian, you should leave them? Nope, that’s not it. When Jesus says He causes division in a family, He doesn’t mean that because you’re His follower He wants to you be against your family. Not at all. I had to look at my current situation to understand this. Three of us in my family are Christians….four of us are not. There was a time when there was conflict because of this. When my sister became Christian, everyone else wasn’t. There was tension. When my brother became Christian, the other five were not. That caused some tension. When I became Christian, the other four were not. That caused some tension. It’s true, loving God causes conflict with other people. My family had this happen to us directly. However, I tell you the truth, God mends these breaks. God has taught all of us in my family, even the ones who don’t realize it, to love each other. My family is closer than ever now. Yes, it’s still three in favor of Jesus and four against Jesus, but we still love each other. We do because God has made us family.
He won’t make families to break them. He won’t wish for that to happen. He is God Almighty, our loving Lord. He IS love. However, sometimes families will break because one member chooses to follow Jesus. Sometimes the LORD will mend this, and sometimes He won’t. That all depends on how the family exercises their freewill because a family member chooses Jesus. If the rest of the family is unwilling to love the Jesus loving one, then God can’t change that. Surely, He could, but He won’t, because we have freewill.
We cannot love our neighbor or honor our parents if we hate them or are against them. But God comes first, no matter what. That is, He comes first if you choose to let Him come first. In the end, it’s all our choice.
Father in Heaven, Jesus Christ Almighty God,
Lord God, please bring us to love our families with such passion that it comes second only in out love for you and your Son. Please guide us to honor our mothers and our fathers, and our sisters and brothers, and our spiritual family. Please Lord God, take all glory, the glory that belongs only to the Son and Father. Praise the LORD! In Jesus name, and in the name of the Trinity, amen.
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