Missional McKnights are landing and working their way to a hotel in Copenhagen as many of you look at this post this morning. We will be here (until next Saturday) to teach and fellowship with some like-minded missional Christians in Denmark at a conference called Oase. We will be south of Aarhus in a village called Odder. We are pumped. We are, like you, missioners of the missional Jesus.
1. Missioners, to repeat what Jesus has already emphasized a couple of times in this discourse in Matthew 10, experience rejection at times from their family.
2. Missioners experience this because the missional Jesus carries a sword — not just peace — that is, he summons us into the kingdom. Those who don’t follow that summons can oppose the kingdom.
3. Missioners are expected to let the cross be their “role model.”
Here’s a big one:
4. How folks respond to the missioners of Jesus is how they respond to Jesus and how they respond to Jesus is how they respond to God. Rejection of missioners is sometimes rejection of God; acceptance of missioners is sometimes acceptance of God.
5. Any act of hospitality — we are back to 10:9-14 — shown to the missioners is observed by God and leads to God giving that person the same reward the missioner gets. That’s pretty cool. These generous, hospitable folks here in Denmark are getting the reward of a writer-blogger-teacher, whatever that reward might be!
This series on the Missional Jesus will be suspended next week while we are in Denmark. We hope to give daily reports and pictures.
“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 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—
your enemies will be the members of your own household.’c
“Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves a son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.
“Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes someone known to be a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes someone known to be righteous will receive a righteous person’s reward. And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is known to be my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly be rewarded.”