Reading Assignment: Matthew 10:16-31
Main Idea: Disciples face opposition.
Truth: Fear God, not man.
Key Verse: Matthew 10:28
Five lessons on opposition/persecution when we try to lead lost people to Christ:
1. Wisdom: Jesus teaches us to be “shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves.” When we reach people, we must speak with wisdom and without reproach. We should not find ourselves in a bad spot because of our carelessness with our words and our demeanor.
2. Holy Spirit: Jesus promises us the Holy Spirit to give us the wisdom to know what to say and when to say it. We do not have it in ourselves to be wise, but the Holy Spirit will give us what we need in our time of need.
3. Hatred: Jesus prepares us for the onslaught of opposition, even to the level of hatred. This can be very painful, as hatred can even come from those whom we love the most, our own family members. This is the level of opposition we may face when we try to lead people to Christ.
4. Fear: Jesus teaches us not to fear men but to fear God. He has the power over not only our physical lives but our eternal souls. But this is not phobic fear we should have toward God, for He cares for us and we can trust Him.
5. Care: God cares for us; therefore, we can trust Him with what may come our way. God’s care cascades over His creation even down to the sparrows. If He cares for the lives of cheap birds, certainly He will care for us. This is Jesus’ argument. Moreover, He teaches us that God even has all our hairs numbered. This is the extent of the Father’s care for us. We need not fear. We can step out in faith and speak up for Christ and lead lost sheep to the Good Shepherd.
Prayer Suggestions:
1. Jesus, I am Your follower. I want to lead lost people to You so that they, too, can become Your follower.
2. Jesus, I don’t think I’m strong enough to be as bold as You. Teach me to be strong like You. Show me how to fear God and not man. Show me how to trust in God’s care for me. Teach me to be like You.
3. Grow in me wisdom. Help me to live blamelessly. I don’t want to end up in a bad situation because of my own carelessness.
4. Help me to be a good representative for You to help others to become Your disciples also.
Transcript
OK. And we'll begin our time together.
Our Lord, Thank You for Your great love for us. Thank You that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and so every day, we wake up and we know we have an open door into Your presence. And we come to You humbly, dependent on Jesus, who paid the price for our sins so that we can commune with You, the living God, who is holy. Thank You that Your care for us extends to everyday life, and that Your word continually teaches us how to live life, to live in a way that is pleasing in Your eyes, and to live a fruitful life. We pray that You will teach us this day. Thank You for everyone here. Grant to them Your encouragement and Your truth. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
The next scripture passage to be read is Matthew, Chapter 10, verses 16 through 31. The main idea here is that disciples face opposition. Disciples face opposition. Now, there's a particular truth that I'd like to highlight, which is not so much about the opposition, but about the fact that God cares for us. That we do not need to fear. And so the truth I want to highlight as we get to the end of today is fear God, not man. Fear God, not man. The key verse is found in Chapter 10, verse 28. And it extends to the verses immediately afterwards also, but it says this: “Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul, but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” But as Jesus continues in the verses immediately afterwards, what He highlights is that this awesome God, who is fearsome, He also has a deep care for His own children, His people, disciples of Jesus; and so even when we face opposition from the world, we need not fear, because we have God on our side.
Well, just to remind us of the context in Chapter 10 of Matthew, Jesus is at this point teaching His disciples to be an extension of His ministry. He sees lost people as lost sheep without a shepherd, and He has deep compassion for them. We saw that at the end of Chapter 9. And He employs His own disciples to do what He does to reach lost sheep and to lead them to Him, the shepherd. And so the context is one of outreach. And it's also a context of compassion. If you keep in mind that this whole section is not so much about persecution (though it does touch on the topic of persecution). But it has more to do with how do we reach lost sheep and lead them to Christ. And as literal, physical sheep are, sometimes they bite. And so, even though you're trying to lead lost sheep back to the Good Shepherd, sometimes a sheep bites, and Jesus is teaching us wat to do when we face opposition from the very people that we're trying to reach. We have already hinted at this in the previous section in verse 14, where He mentions how some people will not receive the message that we bring to them. And so starting from verse 16, Jesus shows us that not only will people resist the truth of God's word, they may actually launch a strong opposition to those who herald the word of God. In this passage, they're all together 5 lessons on opposition, or I suppose we can say, persecution.
Number one is wisdom. Jesus says in verse 16 that we should be shrewd as serpents, but at the same time that we should be innocent as doves. What Jesus is teaching us is that we should never end up in a bad situation because of our own carelessness. We should know our audience. We should be aware of our tenor, our tone of speech, and be careful how we go about reaching people with the good news of Jesus. Jesus definitely did this. He always spoke with great wisdom and He was always above reproach. He never behaved in any way that caused people to point their finger at something off-putting in His life. Now, when you think about Jesus' wisdom, that is something tremendously difficult to imitate. And so Jesus goes on to tell us that we will have help to be able to say the right thing in times of opposition.
This is the second lesson here: Help. The help that Jesus gives us is through the Holy Spirit. Jesus says that when we stand before even government officials in times of persecution, even in those critical moments, that we can be assured that the Holy Spirit will give us the right things to say. We find examples of this in the book of Acts. Where the apostle Paul faces great persecution and sometimes he stands on trial, and indeed, the Holy Spirit gives him wisdom to say the right thing at the right time. And this is Jesus's promise to His disciples. He says the Holy Spirit will help us. And so, on the one hand, we should behave with wisdom; and on the other hand, we can depend on the Holy Spirit to give us that wisdom.
The third lesson is about hatred. Sometimes the opposition will become so strong that it will rise to the level of hatred. The striking thing Jesus says in verses 21 and 22 is that sometimes disciples will even face hatred from their own family members. In fact, He even says that we will be hated by all. I know this is this is a bit of a tough pill to swallow. I mean, no one likes to be hated. I don't like to be hated. But when we try to lead people to Jesus, sometimes people will react. We may have done everything in our power to show gentleness and respect, but people may still react to the message about their sin and their need of the Savior. All of that is humiliating to someone who does not believe. And so Jesus teaches us that we will face opposition, even from our own family members and even in the form of hatred. People may hate us. They may not like us or want to see us. All of this could be very painful, and so Jesus prepares us for that. Jesus also prepares for this by showing us that this is the way people treated Him. And He assures that the reason why people will hate us is because that’s the way they treated Him. This idea is found in verses 24 and 25, where Jesus says this: “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master.” And so, if they persecuted Jesus, then they will persecute His followers also.
The fourth lesson is on fear, and this is related to the key verse that I read earlier. The point Jesus makes is that we ought not to fear man. This might sound a little bit scary, but the worst thing that a human being can do to us is to put an end to our lives. But you know, when you really think about it, for the believer whose sins are forgiven, this is not the worst thing. In fact, it’s actually a good thing. If someone were to put an end to my life, that means I go straight to heaven. Now, this is not to say, therefore, we should have a death wish. But certainly death for the believer is not the worst thing that can happen. The worst thing that can happen is to die and suffer eternally for my sins. But of course, with Jesus as my Savior, I don't have that fear. And so Jesus tells us, don't fear those who kill the body but cannot do anything beyond physical death. If we're going to fear anything, we should direct our fear to the one who truly deserves to be revered and feared. It is God who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell, Jesus says. Now, when Jesus says “fear God" He doesn't mean direct the same kind of fear that we might have toward people toward Him. Instead, what He means is that we ought to honor God, keep His word, be faithful to Him, and be afraid of offending Him. He holds our eternal destiny in His hands, and so we must never ever turn our back on God. We should always be on God's side.
Now after this Jesus also points out how we can trust in God. The very God that we are to fear, He cares for His own people. We can trust in Him. This is the fifth lesson. Jesus gives two examples of why we can trust in God: the example of sparrows and hair. First, the sparrows. This is in verses 29 through 31. Jesus says that God takes care of the sparrows. Sparrows were birds that were worth very little in those times. Jesus points out that two were sold for a cent, two for a penny. And yet God watches over every one of them, so that not one perishes apart from His will. And He compares the sparrows with us, God’s children, and He says you are more valuable than the sparrows. And so if God watches over the sparrows, making sure that not one of them dies apart from His will, we can surely be certain that we will not reach the end of our lives until God Himself has willed it. This means God will always take care of us. Then Jesus also gives the example of how many hairs are on our heads. He says that God so cares for us that He knows the intricate detail of how many hairs are on our heads. There's another scripture in Luke 21:18 where He even says that not a single strand of hair will fall from our head, apart from God's will. That's the extent of God's care for us. Jesus’ point in all of this is that we have no reason to fear man. If someone should ever so persecute us so as to put our lives in danger—again, I know that's frightening to think about, but Jesus often talks about this—Jesus says that even if it comes to something as serious as this, we need not be afraid. The timing of the end of my life is determined by God. He has determined how long I should live and when I should die. And so because I trust in God for my life and for my death, I can live with no fear, no fear of man or the fear of any circumstances.
By the way, Jesus himself lived His life this way. He was fearless because He trusted in His heavenly Father. In Nazareth, there was a time when the people from His own hometown became so upset with Him that they were about to throw him off of a cliff. They cornered Him at the cliff, but Jesus was able to simply walk straight through the crowd. There were a number of times when the Jews had picked up stones to stone Him, and yet they were never able to go through with it. It’s the same with all the times the religious leaders wanted to arrest Him. They simply couldn’t do it. The Gospel of John repeatedly tells us why: His hour had not yet come. Of course, this doesn't mean that Jesus never died, because He was at one point crucified. But you see, the Father would never allow His Son to face death until it was the right time. And of course, Jesus's death led to a wonderful salvation for us, and that's what God does with His own people. He ensures that our death is timely, exactly when it should be, and I would also add that God ensures that our death is a fruitful death. But our death doesn't just result in us dying, but it results in a great testimony for the Lord. And so as we try to lead people to Christ, we should not fear opposition. We should never be afraid. This is what Jesus is teaching us. He shows us that we can trust in God in every situation.
So there is a lot of wonderful lessons for us: wisdom, help of the Holy Spirit, hatred, fear of God, and the care of God that leads us to trust in Him. There are lots of things we can pray for here. We can affirm that we are indeed Jesus's followers. And that we want to lead lost people to Him. We may also feel that we’re not strong enough to face challenges like this. We can bring this to Jesus in prayer also. We can ask Him, “Teach me to be a strong believer. Teach me to be like You, not afraid of men, but fearing God and honoring Him instead.” We can also ask the Lord to grow us in wisdom and to always live blamelessly, just like He did. And that He would spare us from carelessness. And lastly, we can affirm that we will trust in our heavenly Father's care for us, the same way Jesus trusted in His heavenly Father's care. We can also add to this a prayer for His help to wisely lead lost sheep to Him.
I know that for all of us, we have people in our minds, in our own families and in our workplaces who need Christ. They are lost sheep. Jesus knows we need His help to be a good evangelist for Him. So, call upon Him for that help. Let me encourage you to do that. And that's the lesson for today. May the Lord bless you and we are done for today.