More Than They Bargained For

This sermon was preached for the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost by Pastor Ted Carnahan on June 28, 2026.

Grace, mercy, and peace be with all of you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Jesus said, “You will be hated by all because of my name, but the one who endures to the end will be saved.”

Sometimes I wonder what the disciples really understood when they first got started following Jesus. In St. Matthew’s Gospel, when he is talking about the call of the disciples, he does not give us a whole lot of backstory or a lot of conversation about it. Jesus simply says, “Follow me.” And they're like, "Alright, I'll do that!" And they drop everything, literally drop everything right where it is, and they take off and follow him, which is a pretty remarkable reaction to have.

You have to wonder if there is a little bit more to the story. Perhaps they had a little bit of conversation with Jesus ahead of time, or they heard some of his preaching, or at least they heard of his reputation, not just the words, “Hey, follow me.” And they did.

But how much did they understand what that choice to drop everything and follow Jesus was actually going to mean for them in the end? Did they know that they were committing themselves to a completely different life? Did they understand where that life would take them? Did they understand in the end just how much this would cost them?

The Cost of Discipleship

Now we know that Jesus talked about the cost of discipleship. In fact, we had a text about the cost of following Jesus, the discipleship of Jesus, just last week. And we also know Jesus said things like this:

• “He who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for the kingdom of God.” So no looking back.
• He even told someone who wanted to fulfill the obligations of the law of the Jewish people to "let the dead bury their own dead, but you come and follow me."

Did the people who chose to follow Jesus in the First Century in Galilee really understand what they were giving up when they chose to heed the call of Jesus Christ to a life of discipleship?

Did they have a sit-down meeting with Jesus to hash out the details? Did they have any temptation to write up a contract? St. Matthew would have been familiar with those ideas. He was a businessman, a tax collector. He would have had a contract for collecting the taxes that he had bid as a tax farmer to collect. But he records nothing like that, no counting the cost, no evaluating what the expense would be.

In other words, there was no fine print. There was simply a commitment to follow.

More than they bargained for?

And now at first glance it seems as if the disciples are in for more than they bargained for. Listen to what Jesus says in our passage today from the Gospel of Matthew:

• “You will be hated by all because of my name."
• "When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next."
• "How much more will they malign those of his household?”
• Plus all this business of killing the body and not killing the soul, one has to imagine if you are a disciple standing there in front of Jesus as he is teaching you that this seems very overwhelming and a little bit frightening.

It does not help that the message that we hear in popular Christian discourse is:

Work harder, do more, endure everything and be strong!

Because of course that puts all the onus on you. And it fails to answer the question, what happens when we cannot? What happens when life as we encounter it is harder than we feel like we can endure? What happens when the only thing that we have is to cling? And really, is that all that Christianity has to offer us, a wagging finger, an unpleasant earthly discipline, and then an unpleasant end? No, of course not.

Boldness for Something Greater

Yes, we are to be bold, but that boldness is not in service of our own goals, but boldness in service of something greater than ourselves. We are called to be ambassadors of the kingdom of God.

And yes, the world did oppose the apostles, and if you follow Christ it will oppose you too. But the good news is good enough news that it is worth living even in the face of opposition. The Christian faith does not merely qualify us for "pie in the sky" later as if it is this awful bit of drudgery in this life that we have to endure in order that we might receive something beautiful later. No, it gives us hope and guidance and encouragement for the future.

The message that Jesus is sharing with us here is not “Work hard. You’d better not mess up. And you better watch out because if you deny Christ, he’s coming to get you.” Now yes, there are consequences to continually rejecting the leading of Jesus. And yes, we must choose to return to him regularly and trust him above all things. But the core message here is that you are actually free. Continue to trust Jesus. He who has promised is faithful. It is “Do not be afraid.”

Freedom from Fear

Today in this country we do not usually have people threatening our lives for the sake of the gospel, but we still have a loving God who cares about us so that we can confidently say "those who oppose me may even be able to kill my body, but my soul is in God’s keeping. And God knows what I need. He knows what I am going through. He knows what it is that is going to bring me safely through to the other side. And he is my loving Heavenly Father who takes care even of lowly sparrows so that not one of them falls to the ground without our loving Heavenly Father knowing about it. And I know most of all that I am of much greater value than many sparrows."

And so when we face hardship or difficulty, God is there to tell us, “Do not be afraid.”

The Turning Point: So What?

And then the last three verses in Jesus’ dialogue here today give us a turning point. It starts with the word “so.” Whenever you see “so” in the Bible, you should be realizing this is an answer to the question, “So what?”

The “so what” here then is you are free. Free to acknowledge God in your ways. Not under fear or compulsion, but because you have been granted your freedom. There is no quid pro quo. There is no “I scratch your back, God, and then you’ll scratch mine.” There is no earning your way to heaven. You have been bought with a price that you can never pay. There is simply the response to good news. Just simply the simple daily discipleship of imperfect followers of Christ.

You can do this because you know that God has got your back. Yes, sometimes that means bearing a risk. But now because God has got you, you are free.

• Free to do the things that make you uncomfortable.
• Free to share your faith, even if you are not sure how it will be received.
• Free to do the right thing, even if it is not the popular thing. It is okay because God’s got your back, so do not be afraid.

Therefore trust the Lord Jesus Christ with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul and all your strength and then go and love your neighbor as yourself. And as you do, remember, the hairs of your head are already counted. (Now for some of you that is a bigger number than others, but God knows every one of them.) He knows what you have and what you are and what you need.

And the one that you acknowledge will acknowledge you before the Father. And living that way, the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will keep your hearts and minds strong in Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.