Matthew 10:32-42
Kingdom Risks & Rewards
Following Jesus carries real risk, and it comes with a real reward. In Matthew 10:32-42, Jesus says he came to bring a sword, calls his followers to love him above family and to take up their cross, and promises that whatever is risked for him will be rewarded, down to a cup of cold water. The kingdom is not about balance but priority: what is first determines what is next.
Message notes
Pastor Pat begins by celebrating risks the church took the week before: people who responded to an altar call, a young adult who was baptized and volunteers heading out to weed the Share Aloha gardens at Kaiser High School. Then he reads Matthew 10:39: “Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.”
Some risks aren’t worth it. At 21 or 22, dressed for a funeral at the wrong cemetery, Pat bombed a steep hill on a longboard with no helmet, hit 20 to 25 miles an hour and cracked his head on the road. The nurse asked if he knew he was an idiot. The next morning his devotional reading said his wounds were festering because of his foolishness. Other risks are worth it, like telling his wife more than 18 years ago that he loved her.
At the end of Matthew 10, Jesus has given his disciples power and warned them about persecution from Rome, the synagogue and their own families. First, Jesus disrupts it all. He says, “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” Pat contrasts that with doing peace at all costs, like steering around the elephants in the room at Thanksgiving dinner. Peace rests on those under God’s favor (Luke 2:14). “It’s not peace at all costs. It’s he paid the cost for peace.” The disciples, a zealot and a tax collector among them, stayed at the same table by dying to themselves.
Second, Jesus wants it all. Loving him above father and mother is about ordered loves. Pat calls balance a lie, our attempt to control life, and gives his own order: Jesus, then his wife, then his kids, then community, then work. The church gets him fourth. “What is first will determine what is next.” Jesus isn’t trying to get on your list. “He is the list.”
Pat admits that as a pastor he could find his life in a growing church or in people’s approval and lose it. If we come to Jesus to get something else behind him, we get exhausted.
Third, Jesus rewards it all. Whoever receives a prophet or a righteous person gets their reward, and even a cup of cold water to one of Jesus’ little ones will not lose its reward. Most of us will share the gospel over a meal, in a breakroom or at our kids’ games, and Jesus sees it. Pat closes by asking what it would look like to pick up our cross, seek first his kingdom and watch what he does.
From the message
It’s not peace at all costs. It’s he paid the cost for peace.
The kingdom of God is not about balance. It is about priority. Because what is first will determine what is next.
He doesn’t want to get on your list. He is the list.
Whatever is risked for Jesus will be rewarded by Jesus.
Life Group discussion guide
Kingdom Risks & Rewards, Matthew 10:32-42. November 23, 2025.
Start here
What is the dumbest risk you ever took for a reward that wasn’t worth it?
Read Matthew 10:32-42
Open your Bibles and read it out loud together before you start.
What does it say?
In Matthew 10:32-33, what does Jesus promise to those who acknowledge him, and what does he say about those who disown him?
What relationships does Jesus name in verses 35-37, and what does he say about loving them more than him?
In verses 40-42, who receives a reward, and what is the smallest act Jesus mentions?
What does it mean?
Jesus also said, “Blessed are the peacemakers” (Matthew 5:9). How can he say here that he did not come to bring peace but a sword?
Luke 2:14 announces peace “to those on whom his favor rests.” How does that help explain the difference between peace at all costs and the peace Jesus paid for?
In an honor and shame culture, what would it have cost a first-century disciple to love Jesus more than family?
What do we do with it?
Where are you trying to balance Jesus with everything else instead of putting him first, in your schedule, your career or your relationships?
Are you coming to Jesus mainly to get something you want behind him, like being a better parent or a better career? What would it look like to make him the point?
Pastor Pat said many of us will share the gospel over a meal, in a breakroom or at our kids’ games. Where is your cup-of-cold-water moment this week?
Pray
Ask Jesus to show you anything you have placed above him and to give you courage to put it on the altar. Thank him that whatever is risked for him will be rewarded by him.
New Hope Hawaii Kai. Watch the message and read the notes at newhopehk.org/sermons/kingdom-risks-rewards/