Mat 10:39 To save your life is to lose it, and to lose your life for my sake is to save it.
Mat 10:40 "Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives Him who sent me.
Mat 10:41 Every one who receives a prophet, because he is a prophet, will receive a prophet's reward, and every one who receives a righteous man, because he is a righteous man, will receive a righteous man's reward.
Mat 10:42 And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water to drink because he is a disciple, I solemnly tell you that he will not lose his reward."
Introduction
Losing one’s life for the sake of Christ and His glorious Gospel is surely to find true LIFE.
We see that losing one’s life means a willing to deny self and pick up your cross and follow Jesus up “the Calvary Road”.This is true Christianity.
| Simon of Curaean bears Jesus Cross |
When we think of Stephen, the first martyr, the disciples and the Apostle Paul this is how they lived and died. Some say that the Apostle Peter was crucified upside down. The hundreds of thousands of Christian Martyrs who refused to deny the faith in our day are testimony to a laid down Life.
Elton Knauf and Teddy Hodgson were hacked to death with Machetes in the Congo in 1960. Are you willing to lay down your life for the cause of Christ.
Mat 10:39 To save your life is to lose it, and to lose your life for my sake is to save it.WNT
Mat 10:39 If you try to save your life, you will lose it. But if you give it up for me, you will surely find it. CEV
Notes
To save your life is to lose it, another of those pregnant sayings which our Lord so often reiterates (see Mat_16:25; Luk_17:33; Joh_12:25). The pith of such paradoxical maxims depends on the double sense attached to the word “life” - a lower and a higher, the natural and the spiritual, the temporal and eternal. An entire sacrifice of the lower, with all its relationships and interests - or, a willingness to make it which is the same thing - is indispensable to the preservation of the higher life; and he who cannot bring himself to surrender the one for the sake of the other shall eventually lose both. JFB’s Commentary
In the context of v.38 “anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me”.
We see that losing one’s life means a willing to deny self and pick up your cross and follow Jesus up “the Calvary Road”. True Christianity is what Paul talks about in Romans 6
Rom 6:2 No, indeed; how shall we who have died to sin, live in it any longer?
Rom 6:3 And do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?
Rom 6:4 Well, then, we by our baptism were buried with Him in death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from among the dead by the Father's glorious power, we also should live an entirely new life.
Rom 6:5 For since we have become one with Him by sharing in His death, we shall also be one with Him by sharing in His resurrection.
10:39 and to lose your life for my sake is to save it.WNT
But if you give it up for me, you will surely find it. CEV
That man that is willing to forego the present advantages of life, to suffer reproach and persecution, and lay down his life cheerfully for the sake of Christ and his Gospel, for the profession of his name, rather than drop, deny, conceal, or neglect any truth and ordinance of his, shall find his soul possessed of eternal life, as soon as separated from his body; and shall find his corporal life again, in the resurrection morn, to great advantage; and shall live with Christ in soul and body, in the utmost happiness, to all eternity.John Gill
Mat 10:40 "Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives Him who sent me.
Notes
For the depths of devotion required in His disciples and the importance of taking up one’s cross and losing one’s life for Jesus’ Sake, the Master now turns to what will happen when people respond to the challenge. He has spoken of the reception His followers will receive when they go out with the Message of the Kingdom.
They should be under no illusions as to the difficulties of the task and the certainty that there will be people who oppose them bitterly.
Now he speaks of those who would receive His disciples, where the verb suggests “receive as a guest, welcome”.
To receive such a one who has been sent forth by the Lord Himself is to receive a great blessing as if they are receiving the Master Himself.
But not just the Master but the Heavenly Father as well
and whoever receives me receives Him who sent me.
Note here again the thought of Mission. Jesus had been sent.
The thought is that of the outworking of that ONE GREAT DIVINE PURPOSE in which the Father, Jesus who had been sent by the father, and the disciples who were being sent out by Jesus all had their Part. They were so closely connected that any honour paid to the disciples had to overflow to the Lord Jesus and the Father as well. Leon Morris p.269
Mat 10:41 Everyone who receives a prophet, because he is a prophet, will receive a prophet's reward, and every one who receives a righteous man, because he is a righteous man, will receive a righteous man's reward.
Notes
He that receiveth a prophet — one divinely commissioned to deliver a message from heaven. Predicting future events was not necessary part of a prophet’s office, especially as the word is used in the New Testament.
in the name of a prophet — for his office’s sake and love to his master. (See 2Ki_4:9 and see on 2Ki_4:10).
shall receive a prophet’s reward — What an encouragement to those who are not prophets! (See Joh_3:5-8).JFB
and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a righteous man — from sympathy with his character and esteem for himself as such
shall receive a righteous man’s reward — for he must himself have the seed of righteousness who has any real sympathy with it and complacency in him who possesses it.
Mat 10:42 And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water to drink because he is a disciple, I solemnly tell you that he will not lose his reward."
Mat_10:42
These little ones - By “these little ones” are clearly meant his disciples.
They are called “little ones” to denote their want of wealth, rank, learning, and whatever the world calls “great.” They were “little” in the estimation of the world and in their own estimation. They were “learners,” not yet “teachers;” and they made no pretensions to what attracts the admiration of mankind.
