Not Peace, But A Sword

Not Peace, But A Sword
Matthew 10:16-36
October 18, 2026

The message two weeks ago; “My words will never pass away.”

I sighted twelve such statements from Jesus, considered outrageous by many, but they continue to be true as things around us in our lifetime come and go and pass away. Tonight we are going to cover another statement from the book of Matthew, specifically Matthew 10:34.

The title of my message; Not Peace, But a Sword.

Every Christmas, untold thousands of people go to hear the Oratorio Messiah, composed in 1741 by George Frederick Handel. One of the most famous choruses is, “For Unto Us a Son Is Born.” In this chorus, Handel strings together a series of biblical titles for Jesus Christ. They are “Wonderful Counselor,” “The Mighty God,” “The Everlasting Father,” and “The Prince of Peace.”

We want to explore one of these titles; the Prince of Peace. We want to talk about it because it lies at the foundation of one of the most telling things Jesus ever said.

Handel’s list of names for the Messiah comes right out of Isaiah 9:6, where the Messiah is specifically called the Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6, For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.

This concept of the Messiah being the One who will bring true peace to this planet is a consistent theme throughout the Old Testament.

Micah 4:3, And He will judge between many peoples
And render decisions for mighty, distant nations.
Then they will hammer their swords into plowshares
And their spears into pruning hooks;
Nation will not lift up sword against nation,
And never again will they train for war.

Zechariah 9:9, Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your king is coming to you;
He is just and endowed with salvation,
Humble, and mounted on a donkey,
Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

This concept of the Messiah as the Prince of Peace really was the dominant theme concerning the Messiah at the time of the Lord Jesus.

Jesus is sending out His disciples to preach about Him, and He’s teaching them about the kind of reception they’re going to get when they do that.

I. Not What They Expected

v17, Jesus says: But beware of men, for they will hand you over to the courts and scourge you in their synagogues;

V18-20 and you will even be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles.  But when they hand you over, do not worry about how or what you are to say; for it will be given you in that hour what you are to say. For it is not you who speak, but it is the Spirit of your

Father who speaks in you.

v21 says:

“Because of Me,” Jesus says, “a brother will deliver up his brother to death, and a father his child.” And all men will hate you because of Me.

A. The peace they wanted vs. the reality they got

I’m sure that as Jesus was going through this, His disciples were just a little bit confused. What happened to this Prince of Peace, beating their swords into plowshares, speaking peace to all nations stuff? Where did that go?

Imagine Jesus saying, “I’m sorry, not in this age.”

Jesus says When I come back at the end of this age, when I defeat the forces of the Antichrist at the end of this age, when I establish the millennial kingdom at the end of this age and rule it personally from Jerusalem, then and only then will I function as the Prince of Peace. But in this age, right now, Jesus says, that is not the way it’s going to be. In this age, Jesus says, look at verse 34:

“Don’t assume I came to bring peace,” because He goes on to say, “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

In this age, Jesus says, I am going to be a divisive issue in the world.

In this age, I am going to be despised by much of the human race.

In this age, you, if you follow Me, are going to be hated and abused because of Me.

In this age, Jesus says, when a person decides to follow Me, the result is often going to be not peace in their relationships with others, but a sword: conflict, opposition, rejection, and hostility.

He goes on to say in v35:

For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;

v36:

and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.

It’s interesting to me what the first message was that God told Ananias to give Paul.

Ananias didn’t walk in, and the first thing out of his mouth wasn’t, “Hey, Paul, guess what? You’re going to write 48 percent of the New Testament!”

He didn’t walk in and say, “Hey, Paul, you’re going to start hundreds of churches and lead thousands of people to Christ!”

Ananias wasn’t told to walk in and say, “Hey, Paul, you’re going to change the entire history of the Western world.

That isn’t what Ananias was told to say.

What did God tell Ananias to say to Paul?

B. This will cost you

Acts 9:16, “I will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake.”

Jesus Himself said in John 16:2, “They will throw you out of their synagogues. In fact, an hour is coming when anyone who kills one of you will think that they’re doing God a service.”

Peter wrote in 1 Peter 4:13, “Do not be surprised at the painful trials you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you.”

Peter said to stand firm, knowing that these same sufferings you’re going through as a follower of Christ are being experienced by your fellow believers throughout the world.

What is the bottom line here?

The bottom line is that, in this age, there is a cost to following Jesus Christ, and Jesus is looking for people who love Him enough that they’re willing to pay it.

Look at what He goes on to say in

v37, “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. And anyone who does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me.

II. Three Fences Holding You Back

Have you ever heard the description, “weathermen.” Not a meteorologist. A weatherman was a person whose stance blew whichever way the wind was going. A person who had no authentic convictions and no core beliefs for which you were willing to stand up, suffer, and even die.

We all know people like this in our world today, don’t we?

When I was growing up, we called them fence-sitters: people who sat on the fence and wouldn’t go one way or the other. They just wanted to sit in the middle, on the fence.

Now, whether you call people like this weathermen or fence-sitters, it doesn’t make any difference. The point is, Jesus feels the same about them, no matter what you call them.

The church of Laodicea is in south-central Turkey, and it’s in the Book of Revelation. Jesus wrote this church a letter:

Revelation 3:15-16, ‘I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.

That’s very strong language. But Jesus wants us to understand that He feels very strongly about people who live like this.

Jesus is looking for people who are going to be loyal to Him above everything else in this world. Jesus is looking for people He knows He can count on in a firefight.

If you’re here today and you claim to be a child of God by faith in Jesus Christ, He wants you part of the fellowship of the unashamed where you’ve crossed the fences and where now you’re a true disciple of the Lord Jesus.

I have found in 45 years of being a Christian that there are three big fences that most people get hung up or are unwilling to get over.

A. When family becomes the obstacle

Fence #1 is the very fence that Jesus talks about right here in Matthew c10, the fence of family ties.

What did Jesus say here in Matthew c10? He said 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 and a person’s enemies will end up being the members of their very own family.

Even in today’s world when a person chooses to follow Jesus Christ there is often a huge price that they have to pay in their family. I mean Jewish parents still hold funerals and declare children dead and gone who come to faith in Christ.

Muslims often turn in their own brothers and sisters, their own mothers and fathers, to the authorities when that person comes to faith in Jesus Christ.  Husbands will often walk out on wives who come to faith in Christ and really want to live for Jesus or maybe it’s the other way around.

Example: My conversation with a Missionary serving in northern India.

What did Jesus say? He said when you embrace me it’s very likely to cause some real trouble in your family and some of us here know exactly what He was talking about.

What did Jesus say in v37;  “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.

You have to make a choice.

B. Comfort vs. Commitment

Fence #2 is the fence of creature comforts.

Luke 9:57-58, As they were going along the road, someone said to Him, “I will follow You wherever You go.” And Jesus said to him, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”

Here you are, you’re volunteering to go and follow Jesus wherever He goes – He’s going to Jerusalem and He’s not going to Jerusalem to stay in the Hilton and to ride around in air conditioned tour buses and eat gourmet meals and walk down the via Dolorosa taking pictures with an iPhone.  He’s going to Jerusalem to die on the cross.

This is the second fence that a lot of people get hung up on, the question of what is it going to cost me in terms of my creature comforts?

I’m here to tell you it’s going to cost you something.

• It might cost you lower grades in school because you can’t cheat like everybody else.
• Maybe it’ll cost you a big business deal because you can’t lie and misrepresent the truth to close the deal like other people.
• Maybe it’ll cost you less money in your pocket because you had to tell the truth on your tax forms.
• Maybe you will lose social status because you take an outspoken position for Jesus Christ.
• Maybe it’ll cost you driving an old car because you’ve made a commitment to give sacrificially to the work of Christ here on this earth.

I don’t know what the cost will be, but there will be cost to serving and walking with Christ. Hey, don’t get me wrong, Jesus Christ is not against His followers enjoying the good things of this life.

But, He wants to ask us to put Him ahead of those creature comforts. What are we willing to do?

C. Who’s really in charge?

The third and final fence #3 is the fence of our personal independence. In Acts c17 in Thessalonica, when Paul got there, here’s what the people in town said – –

Acts 17:6-8, When they did not find them, they began dragging Jason and some brethren before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have upset the world have come here also; and Jason has welcomed them, and they all act contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.” They stirred up the crowd and the city authorities who heard these things.

You know these people in Thessalonica understood perfectly well what Paul was preaching. He was preaching that the real king of the universe is not Caesar, but Jesus Christ.

We as Americans don’t adjust very well to those ruling over us and telling us what to do. We as Americans don’t adjust very well to anybody telling us what to do.

We like to be our own bosses, we like to set our own boundaries, we like to do what we feel like doing when we feel like doing it.

The problem is that Jesus Christ says He’s king over our lives and He’s looking for people who are willing to go over this fence and willing to crown Him as king of their lives.

What does it mean to have Jesus as the king of your life?

• It means that the authority in your life is no longer what you feel like doing.
• It means the authority in your life is no longer what you want to do or how you want to do it.
• It means that the authority in life is what God says in the written word about how we live life and if He’s king of our lives, then we are under His authority.

Our dating habits, our sex lives, our attitudes, our language — it’s all under the authority of the word of God.

Our thought life, our business ethics, all under the authority of the word of God.

The way we treat our spouse, the way we treat our children, the way we talk about people,  the way we spend our money; all under the authority of the word of God.

Look, I know we often don’t get this right. Nobody always gets it right, but a person who has crossed this fence is a person who is always trying to get it right. This is a huge fence. We signed up for this.

People have enormous problems getting over the decision to make God number one in their life, the decision to live their life according to the authority of the word of God.

If you don’t make it Jesus by a deliberate choice, then by default, it’s you. This has to be a deliberate decision we make and then we back it up with our lives.

Let’s summarize what have we learned.

• That in this age, Jesus said He’s going to bring a sword into our relationships in our life.
• That in this age there is a cost to following Jesus Christ.
• Jesus is looking for people who are willing to pay that cost. People of conviction and courage and commitment who are not fence sitters.

What are the three biggest fences Jesus wants us over.

• #1 the fence of family ties. Jesus wants us to love Him more than we love our family if it comes down to that.
• #2 the fence of creature comforts. Jesus wants us to love Him more than we love stuff.
• #3 the fence of our personal independence. Jesus wants us to love Him more than we love getting our own way.

He’s not going to negotiate with you.

I’ve never changed the requirements, Jesus says, and I’m not changing them for you. You meet the requirements and I’ll do everything I said, but these are the requirements.