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;He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me isn’t worthy of me.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.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.
6 sermons cite this verse
… Matthew 10, 37. and he who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. He who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. You got to come to Christ fully. And we have to resurrender our lives to him every day because little bits of it creep back into our own control. And we fall back into that selfish pattern so easily. All right. It also can't be a flex. You can't add Jesus onto your life hoping to get the power that he will work through you without the beauty of the relationship with him. That's wanting the outcome without the whole point, which is actually just following Jesus. There was these guys, the seven sons of Sceva in the book of Acts. It's the 19th chapter. They were seeing Paul ministering. Now, look what all this guy's doing. Now, Paul wasn't doing them to get a reputation. Paul wasn't serving God so people would know about Paul. Paul was just serving God. …
… We need to decide who we're living for. So he says, if you love father or mother more than me, son or daughter more than me, basically even your life more than me, you have to forsake all others. And we might look at Jesus and say, that's crazy. But think about this. Every person that gets married, that's what they do. Every person who gets married says, okay, I'm forsaking all, that's one of the lines that you use sometimes in weddings. Forsaking all others, we cling to each other. That every religious sister who consecrates herself to the Lord, to this community, she's forsaking all others. Every priest who makes vows to be able to be a priest, he's forsaking all others. Every one of us knows this, that in every area of life where we want to grow in freedom, where we want to grow in love, where we want to have a full life, It always involves restriction so that one can be first. And if we don't do that, if we don't take that risk of intentionally limiting ourself, then we'll never become who we're supposed to be. …
… listen to his teaching and prepare to have your breath taken away. Jesus said to his apostles, Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Now, again, I would say here, put this up against the great religious teachings of the world. There's nothing like this. There's nothing like this. See, what's he choosing on purpose? Of the great goods of the world, he's choosing the highest and the best. Think of a child's love for his parents. Think of a parent's love for his or her children. Those are like the most intense connections you can find, right? among the goods of the world, they're the highest good. You know, our families, the people we love the most, you say like, okay, I'll lose everything. I don't care, take the house, take the clothes, take my job, but leave my family, you know, and I'll be okay. We recognize them as among the goods of the world. …
… whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Christ is saying that allegiance to Him supersedes more important than even your family ties. And through allegiance to Christ, you become a part of a new family where you are literally brothers and sisters. Remember Mark chapter 3 when Jesus' mother and brothers were looking for Him. They were seeking out, trying to find Him. and he's in a context where he's teaching some people come to him and say your mother and brothers are looking for you and Jesus responds, he says who are my mother and brothers? and he looked around that's not a good Mother's Day text who are they? he looked around at the people he's teaching he said here are my mother and brothers whoever does the will of God he is my brother or sister or mother now that doesn't mean that that Jesus didn't affirm marriage didn't affirm children, bless children he obviously did that but he viewed following him, the community of Christ followers, as a family that transcends even natural physical family. …
… This is Jesus. Whoever loves mother or father more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Some people are so resistant to the implication of that sentence spoken by our Lord Jesus that they try to define love as mere acts of obedience. If you love me, you will keep my commandments, which they take to be a definition, not a result, which is absolutely not what it says. We don't love our children like that. we feel strong affections for our children. We count our children and feel them precious. And so Jesus is saying, I must be more precious to you. I must be more precious to you. I must be a greater treasure to you than your children and your parents, or you're not mine. Matthew 10 verse 37 Why would he say that? Why would he say that devastating sentence? because treasuring Christ above all is how we glorify Christ above all. Embracing him as more precious than anything is how we make him look more glorious than anything. …
But as I looked around, I began to question. because like Matthew 10 verse 37 says whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me whoever finds his life will lose it whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. But this idea of whoever loves father or mother, wife or kids more than me, that word for love there is not agape. The word there is phileo. It's this affection. It's this passion. You know what I'm talking about. You'll see guys, you know, maybe it's your kids. Maybe it's just a friend of yours when they fall in love with someone. and you just go, oh my gosh, he is crazy about her. And there's other times you can hang out with someone and go, he's not that into her, right? You can just tell. …