These are some of the statements I found in a few of the recent “Help Wanted” ads on a local website.
There is a lot of diversity in this position for someone who wishes to gain experience in a variety of different areas. We offer a small company
environment, with significant learning opportunities and earning potential across a number of different areas.
This is a 40 hr/wk position. We do not work you to death. We are looking for quality, not quantity.
If you are a people person, love to work with numbers or just would like to have a six figure income - then you are who we need!
Now’s the time to get in on this ground floor opportunity and position yourself for growth.
They sound quite nice, don’t they? All of them sound like just the place any person would be happy to work, don’t you think? What do you think they aren’t telling us? Think about the job that you last applied for. What was the “come-on” that got you to pursue a position with that company? What did you find out later that wasn’t in the ad that you wish you had known before you went there?
Think about all of the things you have said, “I wish I had known this before,” about. Wouldn’t it have been nice if someone had told you the real truth ahead of time? Probably would have changed the road you chose more than once, wouldn’t it? Well, that’s what Jesus is doing for the disciples in our text today. He is telling His disciples ahead of time what their road will look like.
Have you ever looked at the road ahead of you and thought, “I’m not so sure I want to do this”? Ever faced something you knew was going to be harder than anything you had attempted in quite a long while and expected that you wouldn’t make it? Have you been faced with danger and not been at all certain you were going to make it out okay?
What were those situations like and how did you get there? Did you know a long time in advance that you were going to face what you faced, or did it take you completely by surprise? Would you have avoided it if you had known what was going to happen?
Did you make it? Were you all right? Do you know with certainty that at the time God was there with you, right in the midst of it, taking you through it? Do you realize that He knew ahead of time that you were going to be in that predicament and allowed it for His own purposes?
These are questions that seem easy to ask sitting on this side of those times of hardship and trouble, those times of torment and pain. The questions about God and His involvement are easy to be super-spiritual sounding about now that those things are behind you – or, maybe you’re in the middle of one of those times right now and are asking similar questions even today. Let’s talk about this and get to the truth, shall we?
Jesus sat down one sunny afternoon and told His disciples that He was intentionally sending them out like timid sheep in the midst of ravenous wolves, and that a day would come when they would be sold-out by those closest to them and given over to the authorities to be beaten with whips until they were bloody, even put to death. They were to be as innocent and honest and non-threatening as doves.
So, which do you think is better? The truth ahead of time, or go ahead and fib to me and I’ll deal with whatever comes later?
Notice that Jesus doesn’t lie to them and tell them that their service is going to be trouble-free, delightful-every-day and amazingly successful. A lot of what is told people today about being a follower of Jesus Christ is full of those kinds of lies – that their life will be so much nicer and better and they’ll have a lot less trouble if they’ll just come to Jesus.
Jesus Himself said just the opposite. Jesus is promising here in the conversation recorded for us in our text today (as He does on several other occasions) that persecution and suffering are a guarantee for those who would follow Him. In just a few more verses, we’ll see that Jesus said, “And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me (10:38).” On another occasion, Jesus will say something quite similar; “And He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me (Mark 8:34).’”
Does that sound like a life of ease and comfort and hugs and kisses to you? Does that sound like peace and safety and a trouble-free life to you? How about a little further in our text when Jesus says verse 23, "You will be hated by all because of My name, but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved”? Does that sound like a promise of peace?
When we study the last portion of this chapter we are going to see that Jesus says that not only did He not come to bring peace but He came to bring a sword and to set family members against family members over the Gospel. He says that those who are not willing to give up their lives for Him are not even worthy of Him. All is to be as nothing for the sake of the Gospel, which is to be the number one priority of our lives.
Time after time we see this being played out in the lives of the apostles after Jesus had ascended back into heaven. The book of Acts is dominated by stories of trials and beatings and persecutions and all kinds of evil at the hands of men because they were preaching the very Gospel that Jesus here commissions them to preach. And He told them in advance that it would happen. Nice of Him to prepare them for it, wouldn’t you agree?
There is an account in Acts 14 of where Paul is preaching and performing miracles in Lystra and Jews who hated him come from Antioch and Iconium and stone him, leaving him for dead. Paul gets up and goes back into the city and continues preaching. After a while, he bravely goes back to Iconium an Antioch to preach some more!
In 2 Timothy 3:10-12, Paul is reminding young Pastor Timothy of these very same heavy persecutions he endured, and then he goes on to say, “Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” Pretty cheery news, no?
The hardest part of this, I think, is that if we indeed are being true followers of Jesus Christ, then it cannot be avoided. This brings another difficult truth to bear then – if we are not enduring some type of persecution at the hands of men we have to ask the question, “Am I really being a Christ-follower in my daily life, or am I a camouflaged Christian which is really no real Christian at all?”
Some of you have very recently experienced some form of open animosity or ridicule because of the name of Jesus Christ and your faithfulness to Him, haven’t you? Then you are in excellent company! Because you have been brave enough and bold enough and obedient enough to be faithful to your namesake, which is the “Christ” in “Christian”, you are treading where the faithful have trod since the even before the day we are reading about in our study today.
How are you doing with that? Are you “counting it all joy”? Are you considering yourself “blessed”? Or are you a bit peeved at God for what it’s costing you or for the discomfort you are having to bear. I hope not – for that means that you really don’t understand the high privilege it is to suffer for the name of Christ.
Look back at our study from last time – think about those Amish children and their families who suffered and are suffering for the sake of Jesus and how they have been handling it with all the world as witness. How can we really complain or gripe about the little bit that it costs us – really?
I want us to look at several Scriptures for a moment here to give us a proper perspective.
Romans 8:18: “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”
1 Corinthians 1:5: “For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ.”
Colossians 1:24: “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.”
1 Peter 4:12-14: “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation. If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.”
These are just a few of the many texts that tell us about suffering for His name’s sake and what our attitude is to be about it. Jesus warns His disciples that this is going to come their way, and then He tells them not to worry about any of it because it is all going to happen so that He will be witnessed about, even to the Gentiles, the outsiders, the despised. His message is for everyone who will bear His name, and it is up to us to get the word out no matter what it costs us.
Think about the men that Jesus is talking to that day. They’re pretty much like all of us right here in many ways. They were regular guys with regular lives – nothing spectacular or even noteworthy. They had families and hobbies and friends and jobs they worked hard at. They all had some kind of a relationship with God, even if it wasn’t such a close one as they would have, and they hoped that God would do something powerful in their lives.
They didn’t have lofty educations and they weren’t the richest folks around. None of them had ever been very far from home and none of them had ever been the subject of a television special. Just regular, everyday people that God decided He was going to use powerfully for His purpose and His plan.
Quite an honor, actually. But, think about what these every-day guys were hearing Jesus tell them. He was telling them that very bad things were going to be a very real part of their lives, and they weren’t supposed to be anxious about it at all. In fact, they were going to be rewarded with suffering – an idea that was absolutely foreign to them and completely outside their understanding. We see a hint of this in their question to Jesus in John 9:1-2 when they pass a man who had been blind since birth; “And His disciples asked Him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?"
See, in their way of thinking, bad stuff happened to people as payment for sin – theirs or someone else’s. To relate misfortune with blessing was completely nonsensical to them. Yet, here was Jesus, telling them that that was just how they were to start thinking of things. Kind of hard for us, too, if we’re really honest.
We think much the same way as they did. For them and for us the expectation is usually, “I have been faithful so God will bless me.” Doesn’t that sound about right? Think about the last time you did something that you knew was pleasing to God; what did you expect His response to be? Blessing, right? Did you expect suffering to be the response? No; and when suffering comes, what is one of the first things we wonder? “What am I doing wrong for this to be happening?”
I have listened to every one of us in this room have that same kind of response; me included. Well, it’s time for all of us to readjust our thinking in a major way. We have to remember that God’s economy is many times the exact opposite of how the world’s economy works. Think about it – haven’t you stood a little amazed and upset that people you know are living like the devil – or, at least pretty unfaithfully – and are getting blessing after blessing after reward after prosperity, while you and the faithful you know seem to be getting leftovers?
King David observed it and spoke of it, too, and on more than one occassion. In Psalm 82:2, David has a little attitude with God when he asks, “How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? In Psalm 73:1-17, David has quite a lot to say about the benefits the wicked seem to reap and how God seems to not care that they get away with it.
He says things like, “I was envious of the arrogant as I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are no pains in their death, and their body is fat… Behold, these are the wicked; and always at ease, they have increased in wealth.”
In the last part of the Psalm, however, he obviously has come to understand that God isn’t ignorant of what is going on, nor is He going to allow it forever. The last few verses of the psalm show that David understands that His eyes are on the wrong things and His focus is in the wrong place. He needs to trust in the righteousness of God and not worry about what the wicked have or don’t have.
In Psalm 37:1&7, he writes, “Do not fret because of evildoers; be not envious toward wrongdoers… Rest in the LORD and wait patiently for Him; do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who carries out wicked schemes.” He goes on to contrast the seeming benefits the wicked enjoy with the seeming lackluster fruit of the righteous. But, in verses 16-17, he says, “Better is the little of the righteous than the abundance of many wicked. For the arms of the wicked will be broken, but the LORD sustains the righteous.”
It’s a very important concept for us to grasp and hold on to. Just because we or the disciples of old or those who come after us have forsaken the lives we have known and given up and sacrificed our own goals and aspirations for Him, this does not automatically qualify us for promotion, position, prosperity, or power.
Remember back when we were studying who the disciples were and we looked at James and John? Remember the incident where their mother came to Jesus and asked for Him to make her sons the second- and third-in-command next to Him? Remember how Jesus responded? Look back for a moment at Matthew 20:20-28. Jesus’ response is not only that those positions are not His to give, but such positions are positions of sacrifice and service, not power and prestige.
In our way of thinking, second fiddle is for losers, suffering as reward is preposterous, and blessings given to the wicked is just wrong. Sound about right? But, we need to see those things completely backwards from how we see them if we are going to have God’s perspective on things and be able to have His joy in the midst of the trials that we are going to face – no matter how bad they get – and we are going to face them.
Turn with me to James 1:2-4. Let’s look at it in the versions we have available here, and then I want to share with you how the Good News Bible renders it:
NASB: Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
ESV: Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
NIV: Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
GNB: My friends, consider yourselves fortunate when all kinds of trials come your way, for you know that when your faith succeeds in facing such trials, the result is the ability to endure. Make sure that your endurance carries you all the way without failing, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
Not with fear and anxiety, but with joy – calm delight – is how we are to consider the trials and provings of our faith for the sake of the Gospel. There is a purpose for them in our lives, and that not to torment us but to develop patience in us and to bring us to maturity and completeness in Jesus Christ.
Remember that we are not our own once we have given Jesus Christ the throne of our life. He paid the highest price possible for each of us, so there really is nothing for us to fear.
Why are we so often afraid and reluctant then, do you suppose? Could it be that we are holding on to some idea of our own of how things ought to be that is in conflict with how things are? Could we perhaps have an inaccurate understanding of the sovereignty and authority of Almighty God and so we have a resistance to what He allows or brings in His sovereignty? Or, perhaps we really don’t believe what His Word tells us about Him and how He deals with us who are His, so we doubt that He will take us through whatever we are facing?
Do you see where our lack of understanding and our lack of true belief create the difficulties we have in dealing with the trials of life and cause us to avoid persecution, let alone discomfort for the sake of the Gospel? Do you see how our unbelief causes us to be disobedient?
We do not belong to ourselves but to the all-powerful, gracious, merciful God and Father of Jesus Christ who has sealed us in Himself until the day He comes back for us. He can do with us whatever He so chooses because it is His right, and we have nothing to fear because He has promised us that what He doesn’t spare us from He takes us through.
1 Corinthians 10:13 is quite clear on this: “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it..” The word there for “temptation” is the same word found in James 1 for “trials”. It’s about testing and proving, not setting us up for torment and defeat.
Jesus tells us way ahead of time to expect all of this, and what to do about it. He warns that betrayal and persecution will come from those closest to us when He says in Matthew 10:21, “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death.” The animosity and hatred of the Gospel and its messengers and the desire for self-preservation will cause even those closest to us, those whom we would most expect to protect us, for them to seek to have us destroyed – some even doing it themselves. That is how much those who hate the name of Jesus Christ will hate those who bear His name and openly bear witness to Him in their lives (see also verse 22).
Hate! What a strong word! Abhor, detest, loathe, find repulsive, repellant, revolting, odious…the list goes on. All because we love and serve Jesus Christ and are not ashamed of His name. Anyone hating you lately?
Yet, we are not to fear. We are not to be worried about how to answer those who demand to know how we can possibly believe something so fanatical and intolerant and bigoted and narrow-minded. It is only for us to put our faith and trust in Him and open our mouths – He will speak for us; He will speak through us.
Jesus ends this little section with an assurance to them that they will indeed be forced to go from one city to another within their own nation to avoid being put to death by their own people right there in Israel. This is exactly what we see happening in the first few chapters of Acts when Saul is persecuting the Church, and later on as the time of Jerusalem draws to a close in the late 60’s. We know that Jesus put an end to the mass persecution of His followers by the Jews in Israel when their temple and their cities were destroyed by the Roman legions in 70 A.D. Many of them were killed and the rest taken away as slaves. Even today, however, whenever a Jew converts to Christianity, they are persecuted by their friends and family, though on a somewhat smaller scale.
There is story after story of people converting to Christianity from Judaism as well as a myriad of other religions and those converts being shunned and seen as dead by their families. Some have even had funerals for their seen-as-dead child.
Some have misinterpreted this statement in verse 23 to mean that the coming of the Son of Man in judgment took place in 70 A.D., and there is no real Day of Judgment in the future. The problem with that is the rest of Scripture, including some very specific teaching of Jesus Himself, deals with His coming on a day when He will come in full array of His power and glory and bring final judgment upon all of creation and all of mankind, living and dead. We see throughout history occasions when He has exercised His power and judgment to a lesser degree by putting an end to an unrighteous people or unrighteous nation. None of those was the Day of Judgment He referred to back in Matthew 10:15 that we saw a couple of lessons ago, or in Matthew 11:22; 11:24; 12:36; Romans 2:5; 2 Peter 2:9; 3:7; 1 John 4:17; Jude 1:6, and dozens of other texts.
The point being that we are to anticipate the probability of the worst type of persecution possible, that we are not to fear or be anxious about it, that we are to put our faith and trust totally in Him, and we are to know that He will take us through it or take us home. We are also to know that one day it will all come to and end and those who have endured will last.
Really, that’s all we need to know and believe, isn’t it? If we are looking for anything other than what He has given us here and in the supporting Scriptures, then we are trying to find loopholes in our commissioning and trying to make Him conform to our image – we are trying to change our ‘thought’ into the ‘ought’ of things. Both of those are dire sins and dangerous practices to undertake.
Look back at two stories briefly in the book of Daniel. The first one is the story of the three Hebrew children known as Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego in Daniel 3. The entire chapter tells their story, of how they refused to bow down before an idol that the king had constructed, how they were threatened with violent death, and how they stood their ground despite whatever might come their way. Most of us are at least somewhat familiar with the story of the Fiery Furnace, right?
The key verses in this story are in Daniel 3:16-18: “Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego replied to the king, ‘O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.’" Full of respect, yet full of determination; shrewd as serpents yet harmless as doves.
They had purposed in their hearts not to worship anyone or anything but the One True God, even if it cost them their lives. What happened? God honored their faithfulness and preserved them through the fire that had been stoked to the maximum heat it could be heated to – that would be close to 2000 degrees Fahrenheit! So hot was that fire that the men who went to put them into the fire burned up themselves even though Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego did not. The fire had no effect on them or even on their clothing, and they stayed in the midst of the fire with a pre-incarnate Jesus until the king told them to come out. Jesus took them through it and was exalted before the king and his kingdom as a result.
How about their friend Daniel? Perhaps one of the most famous stories in the Bible of all time is the story of Daniel in the lion’s den, recorded in Daniel 6. We all know the story of Daniel refusing to stop worshiping God in plain sight three times every day as had been his custom since he was a teenager. The penalty for this was to be fed to a den of lions. These lions were not like those we see when we visit the zoo; calm, passive, well-fed and laid-back – these were wild, hungry, violent beasts. They had not been fed for quite a while, so Daniel would have made for a quick meal for the lot of them. Yet, God blessed Daniel’s faithfulness by shutting the mouths of the lion’s through the long night that he was with them.
The next morning, those who had tricked the king into making the law that specifically targeted Daniel were themselves put into the lion’s den with their entire households – and the lions immediately tore them all apart and devoured them. There was no nice kitty-kitty.
Does God always do this? No; there were hundreds of thousands of Christians fed to the lions and other wild beasts in the days of the persecutions in Rome or who were dipped in pitch and stuck on poles to be used as human torches to light the festivities of Caesar. Yet, those believers had the same faith and faithfulness that Daniel and his three friends had, the same faith and faithfulness that Jesus Himself had, and the same faith and faithfulness that all of the apostles had when their lives fulfilled the prophecy of Jesus about what their future held.
We, too, have a choice – it always comes down to a choice for each of us, every time we meet and open His Word, doesn’t it? We can choose to believe and obey what His Word says, or we can choose to disbelieve and disobey. There are only two things on the menu – ever.
We have to take an honest look at ourselves and ask the questions, “Am I being faithful to the call of a disciple of Jesus Christ? Am I willing to risk it all for the sake of the Gospel? Am I an obvious follower of Christ or am I camouflaged? What am I afraid of losing that is more important than what Jesus and the truly faithful have given their very lives for? Am I walking worthy of the name of Jesus Christ?”
These are things that we each have to take to our Lord and Savior and seek Him on. I know all of the reasons and rationalizations for keeping quiet, for keeping a low profile – I’ve made them all myself. But really, they’re all just a bunch of excuses motivated by self-preservation. I don’t have that right anymore. I don’t belong to me anymore. I gave my heart and my life to Jesus Christ – why am I holding on to them?
Let’s go quietly before the Lord and seek His forgiveness and restoration for our disbelief and our disobedience. For those of you who don’t struggle with this, pray for those of us who do.
