Sermon Central
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For The Sake Of Righteousness And Me Series
Contributed by Steve Malone on Sep 7, 2022 (message contributor)
Summary: As we unpacked the final of Jesus' beatitudes we will see that persecution is both a given and a gift.
For The Sake Of Righteousness And Me
SO – Maple Grove are you ready?
OKAY THEN – let’s do this!
It’s Thursday night… the night of His arrest.
• Jesus’ has washed their feet in the upper room, telling them to, “go and do likewise”
• HE - has given them a new command to love each other just as He had loved them… telling them that by this all men will know that they are His disciples
• HE - tells them to not let their hearts be troubled despite all of the… hard, difficult and troubling things that were coming their way… BUT - instead to trust in God and to trust in Him. AND - to trust in the truth that one day He is coming back to lift them from this world of troubled to live forever in the fathers house
• HE - tells them that HE… IS… the way the truth and the life…
• HE - reminds them that they are simply branches and that He (not them) is the vine…
THEREFORE - all they need to do… IS…
to remain, to stay connected to Him… AND IF – they do, they will bear much fruit to the Father’s glory.
UNDERSTAND B/S – Jesus shared some… some awesome things, encouraging things, empowering things, on the way from the Upper Room to the Garden on that Thursday night.
BUT LISTEN – not only did Jesus on that night share encouraging, empowering and awesome things…
HE ALSO – shared with His guys some very troubling and not so fun stuff that was going to happen to them.
LIKE – check out what we read beginning in John 15:18…
If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.
If you belonged to the world…
IF YOU – were of the world
IF YOU – were a son of the world
IF YOU – had the same values, beliefs, behaviors, mind and spirit of the world
If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own.
As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’
If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.21 They will treat you this way because of my name,
Because of My purpose, My Person and My ways
for they do not know the one who sent me.
All this I have told you so that you will not fall away. They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God.
BTW – that is exactly what the Apostle Paul at the stoning of Stephen and the persecution of the church.
They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. I have told you this, so that when their time comes you will remember that I warned you about them. – John 15:18-21, 16:1-4
AGAIN – troubling, not so fun… that they are going to experience.
FAST FORWARD – to Acts chapter 5…
The apostles are in the temple courts teaching the people about Jesus, despite being ordered to stop this activity.
SO - the captain of the guards arrests them and brings them once more before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the High Priest.
"We gave strict orders not to teach in this name," he shouted.
Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and determined to make us guilty of this man's blood."
Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than human beings! The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead—whom you killed by hanging him on a cross. God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might bring Israel to repentance and forgive their sins. We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”
When they heard this, they were furious and wanted to put them to death. – Acts 5:29-33
HOWEVER – they settled to simply have them flogged.
SO - they beat them with a whip, lash or a rod 39 times.
YEAH – the words of Jesus in John 15 were already being fulfilled. THEN – they ordered them not to speak anymore in the name of Jesus.
QUESTION…
WHAT - would be your reaction if you just experienced...
• Being arrested
• Threats from those in power, and
• Had just had a severe bloody and bruising beating?
