While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. But he replied to the man who told him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

Politicians throughout history, and in our own times, have played favorites. They have indulged in nepotism, giving jobs and pardons to their own people. They have also allowed unqualified and dishonest friends to have undue influence over them and their decisions.

Jesus, by contrast, is a king who keeps his inner circle clear of everyone who doesn’t belong. That doesn’t mean his inner circle is made up of people with great records or perfect characters. But it means this: Jesus brings repentant sinners, and no one else, into his inner circle.

Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.”

By this point in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus has done a lot of miracles. The scribes and the Pharisees had seen, or heard of, plenty of healings and that sort of thing. But they demanded something more. I guess they wanted to see something more dramatic, like the signs that Moses gave to Pharaoh. Maybe they would have been more impressed if Jesus turned the Jordan river into blood.

Jesus’ answer to them boils down to this: Jesus' life, death, and resurrection will prove that he is the trustworthy prophet and wise king that every sinner needs.

This passage shows us that Jesus, by his gentleness, brings justice to the nations of the world. This is ironic, and Matthew knows it. How could a gentle person ever get the power to enforce justice?

Jesus Christ rules all things for God’s glory and the well-being of his people. This includes the Sabbath.

At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, “Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.”

Jesus and his disciples were walking along through the fields of grain on the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week. We don’t know what they were talking about -- Jesus’ miracles? The coming of the kingdom of God? The righteousness of the kingdom? The disciples were hungry, and they started to snack.

Jesus is a powerful Savior of weak people. Many people who saw his power at work failed to recognize it. The people who seemed the wisest missed it, but little children saw it, because only God could make people see who Jesus really was. Likewise, only Jesus can make people see who his Father is.

In these verses, we see Jesus' power, his revelation, and his rest: the power he wields, his revelation of God, and the rest that he gives.

There are two sides to his power. First is the mercy of his power.

Jesus fulfilled, not people's expectations, but God's promises of a Savior. Even the great John the Baptist was confused by Jesus. The majority of Jesus' generation were still further from the mark in their evaluation of the Son of Man.

"Now," Matthew tells us, "when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, 'Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?'"

With these verses, Jesus brings to a close his instructions to the twelve disciples as he sends them out to proclaim the kingdom of heaven. He continues to hammer home his main theme: that his people must be willing to face suffering, and must trust that God will reward them in the end. He promises conflict for the whole earth, eternal life for his faithful followers, and his own presence to those who receive his ambassadors.

This passage shows us that Jesus gets us into trouble with people, and out of trouble with God.

Maybe you had a childhood friend who was a magnet for trouble, and you found yourself getting into trouble too whenever you hung out with him. Jesus is a little bit like that. He's a magnet for trouble--the closer we get to him, the more people seem to have a problem with us. It isn't always like that, but it often is, and Jesus wouldn't have us be surprised by this.

For Christians, it matters a lot what period of history we live in. Jesus Christ has died for us, risen from the grave, and sent us on a mission to teach the world about him. That defines the life we live.

This passage (Matthew 10:16-23) is about a different time. Jesus hadn't died, he hadn't risen, and he hadn't sent his disciples to tell the world about those things, which hadn't happened. But he was still sending them out on a mission, and it was a tough one.

In this passage, Jesus sends his disciples on a mission. Christians, we are also on a mission. It isn't exactly the same as the mission of the twelve disciples in this passage, but we can learn a lot from studying their mission. If you were an officer in the army, you would want to learn from the battles fought before you. For instance, Americans who fought in North Africa in World War II learned that with more advanced weapons, soldiers in WWII were firing far more rounds per day than soldiers in World War I. This meant that in later campaigns in Italy and in Western Europe, they would stockpile more ammunition. An officer at D-Day would be foolish to ignore lessons learned in Tunisia, and we Christians today would be foolish to ignore what we can learn from this mission of the twelve disciples.

In Matthew 8:18-22, we saw that followers of Jesus lose comforts and connections. But in 8:23-27, we saw that his followers gain true safety, and in 8:28-9:1, we saw that they gain real forgiveness. Now we see another thing that followers of Jesus gain: the forgiveness of God.

We’ve seen that followers of Jesus lose comforts. “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

And we’ve seen that followers of Jesus lose connections, even dear ones: “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.”

But we’ve also seen that followers of Jesus gain true safety. He calmed a storm with a word. What can he not do? If you’re with him, even if the waves look rough, you are truly safe.

And now, in these verses, we see that followers of Jesus gain real freedom.

In this passage, Jesus puts a magnifying glass over the fine print of the gospel. A credit card company or a pharmaceutical company might put interest rates or side effects in fine print to keep you from reading, but Jesus wants you to know the sacrifices you have to make to be his disciple. There are two things he says you will lose: comforts and connections. If what matters most to you are the comforts and connections you had before you met Jesus, then you aren't ready to follow him.

Then why should anyone follow Jesus? This passage and the ones after it give us three reasons. Yes, you will lose comforts and connections, but you will gain true safety, real freedom, and divine forgiveness. This passage focuses on safety: Followers of Jesus lose comforts and connection, but gain true safety.

In these verses, Jesus gives Galilee another taste of heaven, cleansing a leper, healing a Roman centurion's sick servant, healing Peter's mother-in-law so thoroughly that she gets up and starts to do housework, and healing and casting out demons from a whole crowd of others.

What was the good of this taste of heaven, you might ask, if things just went back to being how they used to be? Galilee today isn't heaven on earth. All those sick people got sick again, and they are all dead. What was the point?