The Conflict
Matthew 10:22-25
Last week we learned if we are going to commit to following Jesus then we need to make sure we know what we’re signing up for because following Jesus can lead to pretty hazardous work. When you follow Jesus, you surrender your will, you surrender your freedom, you surrender your plans and you surrender all your life all for the mission of Jesus, knowing that the only thing that really matters is faithfulness to that mission is sharing the Good News and doing the will of the Father. That often means taking great risks for the sake of the kingdom. Today’s message focuses on the world’s response to such actions. If we are faithful and obedient to His message and His mission, we will experience conflict. I want to be clear that we are not talking about drama. Drama is what we bring upon ourselves. The conflict that Jesus is talking about results from the collision of two totally different worldviews: the Kingdom of Heaven and the world’s. Jesus wants us to understand that when we make the decision to follow him, we are committing to live a life that in almost every way is contrary to the culture we live in.
God's word for us this morning is this: when you experience conflict as a result of following Jesus, you are not headed in the wrong direction. Instead that’s a sign you are being faithful to the Gospel. Paul believed that if he wasn’t experiencing conflict in his life and ministry then he wasn’t being faithful to the Gospel. When the disciples first heard these words from Jesus to expect opposition, it caught them off guard. In the first half of his sermon in chapter 10, Jesus tells the disciples he is going to share his power and authority with them which will enable him to do the very things Jesus did: heal the sick, cast out demons, and raise the dead. Then suddenly Jesus’ instructions turn a sharp corner from what the disciples were going to do to what was going to happen to them when they were about His work. Jesus talks about conflict, persecution, hatred and even imprisonment. Imagine how shocked the disciples must have been. This wasn’t what they signed up for!
Now for those of us who have been following Jesus Christ, we can probably relate. You know there are those “Oh no!” moments we have, when we realize that Jesus has called us to do more than attend worship. He has invited us on a journey that is going to require us to take on a worldview and a life that in every way stands in contrast to the culture we live in. Rather than the journey of faith being about what Jesus is going to do for us, Jesus is talking about what we will do for Him and the price that comes with it, specifically persecution, conflict and hatred. Is that what you signed up for? Jesus came preaching a message that almost in every way went directly against the ways of the world. That’s why Jesus was sent to the cross. So we shouldn’t be that surprised when we’re faithful to the Gospel that we experience conflict too.
But the reality is someone experiencing the kind of conflict that Jesus is talking about isn’t something that we’re all that familiar with. We don’t expect to get beaten, arrested, dragged into court or thrown into jail because we believe in Jesus. We live in a much more tolerant society where freedom of speech and freedom of religion are protected than the one that Jesus was speaking to. But is that the case? Instead, could the reason we don’t experience this kind of conflict have something to do with the fact that we have compromised what it means to follow Jesus Christ? Is our society really that tolerant, or are we that watered down? Let’s think about this for a second. We live in a consumer society that worships at the feet of materialism and values money and possessions. Jesus teaches us to be radically generous and to live simply. We live in a culture that idolizes the individual. Jesus calls us to become other focused. We live in a culture which says serve your own needs but Jesus calls us to be a servant of others. Our culture tells us that faith is a private matter and it’s not politically correct to talk about it. Jesus tells us that sharing our faith and the Good News should be the first priority of our lives. We live in a culture which says coming to worship is enough when Jesus says, I want your Sunday worship and the rest of your life to be your worship of me too. So you tell me, if the Kingdom of Heaven and the call of Jesus stand in such drastic opposition to the culture we live in, why don’t we experience more conflict in our lives? Is our society really that tolerant, or are we just that watered down? In other words, are we living more like the culture we live in or more like Jesus?
Jesus Christ did not come preaching a message that supported the ways of this world. His message in almost every way was in direct opposition to the ways of this world. So, we shouldn’t be surprised if we follow him and are faithful to His message and mission that, we’ll experience some conflict. Rather than a sign we are headed in the wrong direction, opposition is a sign we are headed in the right direction, that we are truly following Jesus Christ. I guess the question we all have to ask is how much conflict are we experiencing in our life? And is it a direct result of being faithful to the Gospel and the mission of Jesus?
But Jesus does not leave us alone in facing opposition, trials and tribulations. In the midst of opposition, we need to remember that resolution will come. Jesus said, “Everyone will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.” Matthew 10:22 Did you catch that? “He who stands firm to the end.” Jesus does mention that even in the midst of trial and tribulation, resolution isn’t coming until the end. Now at first this sounds like more bad news, but it’s not. You see Jesus is actually offering us freedom, freedom from false expectations of life in Jesus. Let me tell you what I mean. Donald Miller has written a book called, “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.” It’s about the journey Don went on when a couple of filmmakers decided to make a movie about his life, based on his book Blue Like Jazz. Now during the process of writing a screenplay about his life, Don discovered that one, his life was pretty lame, and two, the same elements that go into telling a good story are the same elements that go into living a good life. A good story is about a character who overcomes conflict to get what he wants. The climax of any good story is that moment where all problems are resolved and the tension is relieved, where all the conflict is finally over and the character goes on to live happily ever after. What Don realized though is that this is the only element of the story that doesn’t translate into real life. Life just doesn’t happen that way. Problems and difficulties never completely disappear from our life or are cleanly resolved. They are always a part of the life we lead. Yet Jesus does mention resolution but he says it’s not coming until the end and by that he means the second coming. I think we’re conditioned to believe through all of the books we read, and movies we watch that there is some moment out there waiting to happen and all of our problems will just be resolved. And we bring those expectations with us when we come to faith. I don’t know about you, but I have yet to experience that moment. And the reality is, I’m not going to experience that moment during this lifetime….until the end.
There are a lot of people living and believing that they’re just one car, one flat screen TV, one person come into your life or even one event that’s going to happen for all of your problems to be resolved and all of your conflict to stop. That is a dangerous way to live, especially when it relates to God. So many people enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ under the false assumption that he is going to take away all of their problems and resolve all of their conflict. But that doesn’t reflect the life that Jesus led or what he experienced at all! In fact, rather than less conflict, Jesus experienced growing conflict in his life as he obediently fulfilled the will of the Father. That can only lead to a very frustrating life. There is a sense of freedom that we experience when we realize bad things are going to happen and conflict will arise as a part of following Jesus. When we come to terms with that, I think we actually start to enjoy life.
Don Miller writes, “All of this may sound depressing to you, but I don’t mean it to be. I’ve lived some good stories now and those stories have improved the quality of my life. But I have also let go of the idea that things will ever be made perfect, at least while I am walking around on this planet. I have let go of the idea that this life has the climax” and happy ending where everything is resolved. When we stop expecting people to be perfect, we can like them for who they are. And when we stop expecting material possessions to complete you, we’ll be surprised at how much pleasure you get in other areas of your life. When we stop expecting God to end all your troubles, we’ll be surprised how much more God can do in our life. “
Embrace the hope for the future for today. Jesus mentions a resolution, but he says it’s not coming until the end. As long as we are alive, as long as we are in a relationship with Jesus Christ, let’s go ahead and accept the fact that we are going to experience conflict. It is not as if Jesus just asks us to sit back and wait. He’s not just telling us to hold on until the end. You see, he does offer us hope that is supposed to influence the way that we live. In the middle of our conflict, Jesus makes us a second promise. That promise is supposed to influence how we live right now. “When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. I tell you the truth, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes.” Verse 23 Now this is one of the most mysterious statements by Jesus in the New Testament. So many people have debated, what does he mean by when the Son of Man comes? Some people think that it refers to a second coming. Others think he is actually talking about his resurrection. Other people think that Jesus is talking about his future moment of judgment that would fall on Israel in the year 70 A.D. when the Romans would come in and wipe out Jerusalem and destroy the temple. Regardless, Jesus is speaking about this future moment of vindication which is supposed to drive the disciples in the middle of their trials and tribulations and influence the way they live in the present. We are called to live right now in the present according to God’s promised future.
We are called to live right now as if Jesus Christ is actually ruling as the true Lord of earth. We are called to live in the present according to God’s promised future. But we don’t tend to do that do we? Instead, we tend to forget about God’s promised future because of our present circumstances. We tend to give up hope and we quit believing that things can change because we can’t see past right now into God’s promised future. There is this despair that takes over when we allow our present circumstances to convince us that things will never change. We tend to forget about God’s promised future. But listen to me, we are given a second promise right in the middle of our conflict. There will be a future moment of vindication. Jesus Christ will return; he will set everything right. He will have the final say and the final victory. We’re called to live in the present in light of God’s promised future. Live according to God’s promised future.
Now here is the amazing thing. When we live according to God’s promised future, that future moves from being some distant hope, some vague, fuzzy idea, and it becomes a present reality. Things start to change when we live and act as if they already have happened. That’s why Paul finishes I Cor 15 with, “Because of God’s promised future I want you to stand firm. Let nothing move you; always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” If you truly believe that Jesus Christ will return one day, that he will set everything right, then what you do in the present matters. How you live right now matters. What you do with your life matters. There is no such thing as a lost cause. If you say you believe in all of this then you have no excuse, you have no other option but to hope and to live accordingly. When we live according to God’s promised future, that future moves from being some distant idea and it becomes a present reality.
Think about all of the people that have truly impacted the world, those who have made it a better place: Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, and Mother Theresa. They didn’t live their lives according to their present circumstances. They had a vision for how the world should be, for how it could be. They spent the rest of their lives pursuing that vision, and the world is a different place because of them. Jesus said, “In this world you will face trouble but take heart, I have overcome the world.” John 16 Go be the church, live in hope and make things different.
