2026 06 28 - The Hard Love of Jesus - Hoffman

Living water.

So how many of you enjoyed the readings this morning?

A little bit difficult, challenging, when you say little hard on the low side, but there's a reason for that.

We like to come and hear all the great and good stuff that God has done for us, and he has certainly done that. I'm not taking away from that. But the love he has for us is also a hard kind of love.

My text this morning is from the Gospel Lesson. I want to reread it at this time from the Living Translation. If you. I guess you guys can't bring it up on the screen, but that's okay. Just follow along as I as I read this, don't imagine that I came to bring peace to the earth.

I came not to bring leaves but a sword and come to set a man against his father, a daughter against your mother, and a daughter in law against your mother in law. Your enemies will be right in your own household. If you love your father or mother more than you love me, you are not worthy of being mine. Or if you love your son or daughter more than me, you are not worthy of being mine. If you refuse to take up your cross and follow me, you're not worthy of being mine.

If you cling to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for me, you will find it. Anyone who receives you receives me. And anyone who receives me receives the Father who sent me. If you receive a profit in as one who speaks for God, you will be given the same reward as a prophet.

And if you receive righteous people because of their righteousness, you will be given a reward like favors. And if you give even a cup of cold water to one of the least of my followers, you will surely be rewarded.

Jesus says he did come for peace. He came to his temple. Jesus said he came to divide and families will be broken apart.

In fact, Jesus comes and confronts us with this issue of life or death eternally. And yet, as we have been in this series, Jesus comes to open our lives and open us so that we can truly love as he has loved us. Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, you love us more than we will ever understand or know. And yet you also challenge it. Challenge us to truly love you, to let go and to let your spirit lead and guide us, to not just give us faith, but to open ourselves to serving you humbly to loving others as you have loved us through your son, Jesus. Amen.

I suppose one could make an argument that the sword might be the power and the weapon of the Spirit that Paul talks about. In Ephesians 6. But that's not what Jesus is saying because he follows it up with those harsh words about families have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter in law against her mother in law, your enemies to be in your own.

So what is Jesus really saying here? Well, I think actually it's pretty simple. Be really honest. I think if I can use it in kind of a colloquial way, Jesus is saying, you're either with me or against me. That's it.

There's no in between. There's no riding the fence. There's no, well, I'm going to do it over here, but when it comes to this, I can't handle that. So I'm going to do something over here will work. And Jesus is kind of brutal in a sense here when he says, even though I have commanded that you are to honor and to love your family, your family could be in the result of trouble for you.

If you choose to follow me, there will be discord. Now maybe you're in a family that's unique, that there is no discord when you come and when you worship or when you express your Christian faith or when you follow God's word. If you're in that kind of feeling, it's very different than my own. Very different. And it does separate.

I feel that all the time in my family. I've got a lot of family back in Canada, except for my parents and one uncle and aunt. In 40 plus years I've been in the United States and only one has come to visit a nice Herbert. And some have been honest enough to say, well, it's because you're a pastor now, you're too good for us, you can't talk to you.

It's true. And I bet that some of you have had that same experience.

Jesus says it's either your family, your relationships, what you love in this world, or its name.

He also says in the same way, he says that if you refuse to take up your cross and follow me, you are not worthy of being mine. And this is kind of where the crux comes, really. Are we willing to let go?

Are we willing to let go of what this earth tests and tempts us with every day? For instance, are we ready to let go of all those clothes we have in the closet? Are we willing and ready to let go of our fully funded retirement?

Are we really ready to sacrifice as God did in his son Jesus Christ, who totally emptied himself, died on that cross, and defeated death and sin in the grave and rose victorious for us, for you, for me. That we would be worthy only because of what he's done. And if we think that this is only our problem or that Jesus is just using this as an illustration, I want you to remember the story of Ruth and Naomi. Now if you're familiar with that story, you realize that Naomi had the unfortunate and really sad experience of not only losing her husband to death, but also her sons and living in the land of Moab. She had nobody to happen to care for her.

So she took her two daughter in laws and said, look it, I can't bear any more sons for you. You need to go back to where you came from and be with your own families. And that's okay. Auburn decided that she was going to do that and she did. And then Naomi says this to Ruth.

Look, your sister in law has gone back to her people and to her gods. You should do the same. But Ruth replied, don't ask him to leave you or turn back. And these words, which I'm sure some of you know have made you could memorize. Wherever you go, I will go.

Wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people and your God will be my God. Now there's division here, but there's also faith here. Did you hear that? Did you hear how the Spirit works through Ruth?

And to make that commitment to let go of everything that she knew. To go to a country she's never been to, to follow someone whom she only knows as a mother in law and live a totally denial. Did not Jesus do the same? He had a family too, did he not? Did they all jump up and down, enjoy it?

So celebrate and follow him and encourage Him? No. In fact there are several occasions when they adjeered him and agreed with the crowd to get rid of Him.

So this is very real. This is very consult consultation.

And Jesus goes on not only with the idea of emptying Himself, but He says, if you cling to your life, you'll lose it. If you give up your life for Me, you will find it. Anyone who receives me, and anyone who receives me receives me. And anyone who receives me receives the Father who sent me. Now Jesus gave up everything.

He calls us to give up everything. As he did that for us. He then opens up our hearts and our lives for the opportunity to receive not just him, but those who also confess and believe.

And he does that as a way of reminding us and introducing us to the fact that he loves us and that in his defeat of sin, death and the grave he makes us holy. He knows us by name. When we're baptized. He calls us as his own family. And he will not.

He will not disown us.

He won't do that. He welcomes us even as we welcome those who speak God's word, even as we welcome those who believe. Even as we share now in this place what God has done in gathering us together. Even as we share in that. And then finally he says this.

And if you give even a cup of cold water to one of the least of my brothers, you will surely be rewarded. Now I don't know if you remember, but this is the third of three sermons in a series of about the harvest and opening our eyes to see it, opening our hearts and now opening our lives to what? To being in the work of harvesting. Yes, I know God's spirit is the one who converts. Only Jesus can say, but he uses us to bring others into his kingdom.

A cup of cold water seems like a simple thing, doesn't it? And it is. And the point is that's all it needs to be as we proclaim God's love and grace and mercy to the world. Another example might be this.

A teenager has a close friend whose parent has started drinking again. So what do they do? Walk away? No, they stay with that friend. They give strength to that friend.

A rising corporate executive and a large corporation is encouraged by corporate leaders to pad his expense account so that all of them can have more in their pocket. What does he do? He leaves. Finds his other job or just visiting someone sick or maybe at a funeral and sitting with somebody and just being there. It's not complicated.

You don't have to have the words of a prosper an evangelist. You only need to have the love of God that is in through Christ Jesus our Lord. And so as we conclude this idea of the harvest and the heart is being ready for the beating but not enough to go out and do it. God calls us and challenges us and he said, yeah, you gotta make a choice here. It's me or it's this world.

But if you choose me, if you let go of everything, then I promise you, I will be with you and bless you. And as you do these little things, opening up your lives to love others even as Jesus has loved us, God will, as he promised, take us into his eternal kingdom. He will find us worthy and righteous. He will honor us in our faith and trust in him hand. That's how we as his laborers go out into the harvest.

Amen. The peace of our God beyond our understanding keep us and guard us through life everlasting. Amen. Amen. Let us rise as we continue our worship by expressing our Christian faith.

In the words of the United States, I seem pretty. I believe in one God, Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ.