Show Notes
Matthew 10:17-25
Pastor Stephen Lauer
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Let's pray.
[00:00:04] Speaker B: Our great God, the stories that we read in the Book of Acts, of the persecution that your people and your preachers faced, while they are exciting at times, they give us a sense of hope and courage for how you work among your people. Yet at the same time, we confess a bit of terror and we confess that we have our doubts.
Were we to face such persecution, would we endure and hold fast?
And yet further, Lord, as we consider the plight of your church, our brothers and sisters in various parts of the world really are facing this kind of persecution.
Their family members betray them, they're brought before courts and rulers, punished, beaten, imprisoned, even put to death. For your name's sake, Lord our God, we ask that you would be near to your church.
Lord Jesus, look upon your beloved bride.
And we ask that you would protect her, keep her, keep her most of all, pure and holy and near to yourself.
And we ask that you would sustain our brothers and sisters as they go through such trials, that they might bring you honor and praise and that they might win the martyr's crown.
Lord Jesus, we ask for ourselves that you would prepare us for opposition, whether it be in the ordinary course of things with non Christians in various parts of our lives, when we are called to bear witness to you and face small amounts of shame or opposition, or whether it be that you should call us to stand before courts and face the threat of violence and death.
Lord Jesus, we ask that you would prepare our hearts for these things, that our faith would grow stronger and that we would grow closer to you, that we would remain firmly united to you, come what may.
Lord Jesus, we come to you in your word and we ask that you would speak to us, that you would clear away our doubts and misunderstandings and that you would open our hearts to receive your word and in it to receive you.
Help us to grow in our love for you and in our faith, that we might serve you and honor you in all that we do.
Hear us, we ask. Amen.
Turn once more to hear from God in his word.
We're going to read Matthew chapter 10, Matthew 10, 1725. And that will be our sermon text this evening.
Matthew 10, beginning in verse 17.
This is God's word for you and for me.
Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake to bear witness before them and the Gentiles when they deliver you over.
Do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say for what you are to say will be given you in that hour.
For it is not you who speak, but the spirit of your father speaking through you.
Brother will deliver brother over to death.
And the father, his child and children will rise against parents and have them put to death.
And you will be hated by all for my name's sake.
But the one who endures to the end will be saved.
When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next.
For truly I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.
A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master.
It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher and the servant like his master.
If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more will they malign those of his household as far as God's word? Please be seated.
All of us at different times in our life have to go through things that are hard for us. There's a whole range.
Maybe a particular season of study as a student was hard.
Maybe there's times when the work that you have to go through is hard. Maybe you go through a period of sickness. That's hard.
Whatever it is you're going through. There's certain hopes that you have in your heart that you carry with you, certain promises that you have that you carry with you as you go through that hard time. And it's kind of what keeps you going at those hard moments when you feel like you can't keep going, or you don't really have the will left to go, but you have a reason, you have some promise of some good at the end of this, or a promise of some help from someone to get you through whatever that is.
You think of an Old Testament story that illustrates this idea that we need promises and hopes to get us through hard times.
Remember Jacob.
Isaac had two sons, Esau and Jacob. Remember Jacob? He had to run away because he tricked his brother Esau and made him mad. He had to run away, flee for his life. And he was. He ran away to his uncle Laban.
And he immediately fell in love with his cousin Rachel.
And he longed to have Rachel as his bride, his wife. And so he went through a. He agreed to go through a very long period of hardship. Jacob agreed with. Had made a deal with Laban that he would work for Laban seven long years, no pay.
I can't imagine that working for seven years with no pay for someone else.
But he had a promise, a hope that kept him going all seven Years long. And then, if you remember the story, his uncle Laban tricked him and he had to work another 7 years, 14 years of working hardship, hard labor as a shepherd with no pay.
But he had a promise that he would get to marry Laban's daughter Rachel. He longed for 14 years and kept working faithfully day after day through all manner of hardships so that one day at the end, he might marry Rachel. He had promises and hopes that kept him going through hardship.
Jesus here tells us that the church is going to face hardship. He tells his apostles, I, I'm going to send you out to preach the gospel of the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of light, and guess what? You're immediately going to be faced with persecution, hardships. The kingdom of darkness is going to feel like it's been assaulted, because that's what you're doing. You're assaulting it. You're trying to set people free from the kingdom of darkness and it's going to strike back.
It's going to persecute you and it's going to persecute you viciously.
You're going to face hardship. I'm sending you out there into the wolves. We looked at last week to face hardship.
But in the midst of that hardship, Jesus promises, promises, helps and hopes for his people.
Even as he warns of persecution, he gives us promises and hopes that will carry us through that suffering. So we want to look then this evening at the promises Jesus gives us in the midst of persecution. Promises in persecution.
First promise is the promise of the Holy Spirit. The promise of the Spirit. Secondly, the promise of salvation.
And thirdly, the promise that we will be treated like Christ.
The promise of the Spirit, the promise of salvation. And it doesn't alliterate, I know, but the promise of being treated by like Christ.
Well, first, to carry us through persecution, Jesus offers us, gives us the promise of the Spirit.
Looking Here at verses 17 through 20 in particular, Jesus says here that you're going to be put on trial.
He tells the apostles, I'm going to send you out and you are going to be arrested and hauled in front of courts and you're going to be put on trial.
The way he says this, it's very clear that this persecution, this is being placed on trial is inevitable. It's going to happen, you might say, even as they're, they're promises of help and of hope in the midst of persecution.
There's also the promise of persecution itself. It's coming.
You will be put on trial. The kingdom of darkness will strike back.
It will Arrest you. It will put you before courts. And the way Jesus lays it out, it's this pattern of expansion from the lowest of courts, the synagogues, to the highest of courts, the appeals courts or the council, the Sanhedrin.
It's going to start at the bottom and you're going to have to peel your way up and work your way through the court system.
Not only is it going to be courts, but lesser rulers, the governors as well as high kings.
It's not just going to be every governing authority pretty much that you can think of, and every court that you're going to stand trial and face.
It's both Jew and Gentile.
Everywhere you go, this is going to happen.
You could think of it this way. Jesus is saying, as you go out to preach the gospel and set men free from the kingdom of darkness, Satan is going to come after you with every possible avenue of illegal assault. He's going to throw the whole book at you everywhere you go.
Not only will you stand trial, but you will be convicted wrongly and you will be punished.
He says you will be flogged in the synagogues, you're going to be beaten. In other words, you'll be wrongly convicted and you will be punished.
You will be persecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
What is the purpose of this tr?
Jesus tells the apostles, and us too, that in the midst of that trial and as we sit there in prison awaiting that trial, he says, we are not to be anxious.
Don't worry.
Don't sweat it.
That's easy to say, I suppose.
Maybe it's easy for me to say, okay.
Jesus says it, don't worry.
In fact, he doesn't just say, don't worry. He says in particular, don't be anxious and worry about preparing a legal defense.
Don't worry about what you'll say or how you're going to say it when you're put on trial. In other words, you don't need to hire a lawyer and you don't need to come up with a grand legal plan to get yourself out of this. False accusations and trouble.
That's what he's getting at here.
Well, if that's the case, that gives us a clue as to why we're on trial or why the apostles were on trial.
Jesus says, don't prepare and don't be anxious because you stand trial for my sake.
You're not on trial for your sake. You're on trial for my sake. Yes, they have trumped up charges against you, but it's because they're coming after me.
They're after me and my kingdom. That's why you're on trial.
So don't be anxious. I've got you.
I have put you before. Yes, they think that they've handed you over and they've dragged you before kings and so on. What Jesus is saying is, I've put you there. I've sent you to stand before courts and kings and rulers.
I sent you before them with a particular purpose, to bear witness.
I sent you there not to give legal briefs and motions and have legal defenses. I sent you there to preach the gospel of the king kingdom.
So don't worry about preparing a legal defense. You're there to preach the gospel. And of course, as you read through the Book of Acts, every time anyone, any Christian is placed before the authorities, what does he do? He preaches the gospel.
That's what the apostles got from this.
What do we do with this?
First of all, in the midst of persecution, on trial, Jesus promises to give us the gift of his Holy Spirit.
That when we are faced with persecution and called to bear witness to the gospel, we will have the Holy Spirit in us, guiding us as to what we will say.
When Jesus puts his people on trial, he will be with them and help them.
He will enable us to speak before kings and rulers. I'm not equipped to do that.
I'm not a lawyer, I'm not some great public speaker, and neither are most of you.
But what we have is Jesus promise that his spirit will be with us, in us, working through us to speak what we need to say to. To bear witness to the kingdom of heaven.
There's a freedom that Jesus gives us here. We don't have to worry about the legal matters.
We can. Instead of preparing and relying on ourselves and on human wisdom, we can focus on relying solely on the power of the Spirit that we might bear witness to him that's free.
That's why we don't have to worry.
Now there is something here that we can note. And you might be thinking, but Pastor, look at Jesus words. They sound like they're especially for the apostles.
Don't worry what you will say. It will be given you in that hour when you're on trial.
For it's not you who speak, but the spirit of your Father speaking through you.
Yeah, it's true. The apostles have a special role that they played in the New Testament story. In that history, Jesus had appointed them, those 12 to bear witness to Jesus, to his ministry, his preaching, his life, his death, his resurrection.
And for the purpose of that testimony that they were to bear. They had the Holy Spirit to remind them of the things Jesus had said to inspire them both, particularly in writing the New Testament, but also when they went out to preach, to remind them of the things that they had heard from Jesus and seen Jesus do, they had a special inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And that's part of what Jesus called them to do and equipped them to do.
But Jesus has given us the same task, that task of testifying to the kingdom and proclaiming the Gospel. In other words, their task is still our task at root. And the testimony that the apostles bore at the time has been recorded for us in the Gospels and in the epistles of the New Testament. In other words, we have their testimony.
And it's our job to then go and proclaim that when we're called to, when Christ places us in those situations, we're to be Gospel witnesses. And he equips us with the same spirit to bear that testimony.
The witness of every preacher and also of every Christian, something we all know is the same. We can all bear witness by the power of the Spirit to the fact that Jesus came and died for the sins of men, that he rose from the dead and now Jesus is king, reigning on high, and that he calls men everywhere to repent.
Every single one of us can bear witness to that basic gospel truth.
We can bear witness to our co workers, to our friends, our loved ones who don't know the Lord. We can bear witness even to rulers and kings if we're called upon as we rely on the Spirit.
Now, Jesus chose the most terrifying moment, perhaps that a person could be called to bear witness when we stand before a judge and possibly face punishment or even death.
But we're called to bear witness at all sorts of other times. Less terrifying.
Jesus, who sends men sometimes before rulers, also sends and places us to bear witness in other situations.
And we have the same promise, whether in persecution or at other times, the same promise of the Spirit.
And it isn't just the promise of the Spirit.
This is the last thing, last thought here.
It isn't just the promise of the Spirit, but it's a promise that the Spirit of our Father will guide us and give us what to say.
You can think of it this way, when Jesus places us in a situation where we're called to bear witness, we have the promise not just of the Spirit, but of the aid of all three persons of the Trinity.
As we bear witness to the Gospel, our Father looks upon us and sees where His Son has sent us and he sends the Spirit, as we bear witness to King Jesus and to his gospel.
So first, as Jesus sends his church into persecution, he sends them with the promise of the Spirit.
Secondly, he sends the apostles and the church with the promise of salvation.
Persecution. The response to the kingdom of darkness is inevitable.
But in sort of the little mini story that's told as Jesus is giving these instructions, a question arises.
Who will turn us over to the courts?
There's a progression or an expansion. We saw a pattern there. Of all the different possible places and ways in which someone might be tried by legal authorities, things expand, expand beyond the courts to the family.
As the kingdom of light expands, as the gospel comes to individuals and to their families, the persecution comes into the family.
We see a progression then from persecution coming to the apostles, now coming to to all Christians.
It's not just apostles and pastors who will be handed over, but all Christians may face persecution. Brother will betray brother, fathers will turn their children, children will turn on their mother and father and hand them over to the courts.
We move beyond just the apostles, just the preachers of the gospel, not now to the whole flock.
It expands not just to all Christians, but you might say the degree to which the kingdom of darkness shows its evil face is that not only is it willing to persecute not just the shepherds, the preachers, but all the Christians. It goes further.
The kingdom of darkness is willing to subvert and to use the natural bonds of the family to persecute Christians. It so hates the seed of the woman that the serpent is willing to destroy even the family. The natural bonds of love and of protection and provision that exist in the home, the trust that we have with our family members. Jesus says one brother is going to find out that another one became a Christian and he's going to go rat him out to the authorities so that his Christian brother might be put to death.
It expands to all Christians. And then we see this dark twist of the family itself being subverted and used for the purposes of the kingdom of darkness.
That's all dark.
But now we move from the punishment of flogging to something worse.
The section here, verse 21 begins and ends with the idea of people, family members trying to have their loved ones be put to death, not just in prison, not just beatings, they hand them over deliberately to because they want them put to death.
That's how much the kingdom of darkness hates those who turn to Christ and follow him.
Now many of us have unsaved loved ones or have friends or co workers we care about who don't know the Lord, and we know the tension that's there. Sometimes it turns into conflict, sometimes there's even alienation over this matter of the Gospel.
That's about how far it goes here in our culture, our society here. But if we go to other parts of the world, there are Christians who face this.
Someone converts, his family members, find out. I mean, how can you hide the fact that you've become a Christian from your loved ones? It's pretty hard. They're going to find out pretty soon, and then they turn them over to the authorities to be put to death.
This happens today.
If our families want us dead, it's no surprise that, as Jesus says, all men will hate us for Jesus sake.
In the midst of this, it's like a downward spiral. Or maybe as you're reading this, you're seeing the storm clouds get bigger and bigger and more thunder and more lightning. It's getting worse and worse. And that's the imagery Jesus is evoking because it's real. He wants to get through to us.
Now, as these storm clouds get bigger, as things seem to get worse, what does Jesus say?
You need to endure, Persevere.
Keep going.
Flee from one city to the next.
If they persecute you, pick up and run.
Proclaim the gospel in the next place. If they come after you there, keep going. That's what we saw with Paul.
The Jews even follow him from one city to the next. Wherever they find him, they turn the city against him and he just has to keep going and going.
That's we would say as we read this, we think about it without the promises.
That's discouraging and demoralizing, isn't it?
You fled for your life.
You've left your home and your family and your loved ones and your friends and your community and your job and everything you have behind.
Because you've been persecuted.
And you go out to a world that Jesus says is against you, it hates you. Everywhere you go, you will be hated.
And if you try to go back to your family, they want you dead.
And yet Jesus says, endure, persevere. Stand firm in what?
The Gospel Witness.
That's what this whole section is about. The Gospel Witness.
Persevere. Stand firm in the Gospel witness.
Yes, look to the promise of the Spirit for help in the moment.
But as he calls us to endure, what promise does he give us? It's the promise of salvation to the one who endures to the end will be saved.
He offers us. In the midst of all of these terrible circumstances, everything's going to be against you. There's no hope from a human perspective. You've lost everything.
Jesus offers the promise of salvation.
The one who endures will be saved.
Now note what he doesn't promise.
He doesn't promise a successful defense against false charges.
He doesn't promise that if you keep running, you won't be caught.
He doesn't promise that if you endure, you won't be wrongly executed and murdered.
He doesn't promise that if you persevere long enough in your gospel, witness through all the persecutions and trials. He doesn't promise that eventually it will subside and end and you'll be able to start life over again and live out your days happily ever after here on earth. He doesn't promise any of those things.
He promises one thing.
Salvation.
If you persevere to the end, you will be saved.
You could think of it this way.
As you're going preaching the gospel and you're persecuted, every time you open your mouth to preach the gospel, you are reminding yourself of the very promise, the very thing Jesus holds forth for you in the midst of persecution.
Salvation. You go and preach salvation. That's your hope.
Your hope isn't here in this life.
Your hope is that you will be delivered from your sins and escape the wrath of God that's coming.
Your hope is that you will live forever with God and that you will be enjoying the delights of his presence forever.
Jesus says, as the world persecutes us and takes everything away, everything that's precious to us in this life, your hope is not found in this world. Your hope is found in the world to come as you're hated and hunted.
Jesus says, remember that I love you, and I have gone to prepare a place for you, and one day I will come again and bring you to myself.
Jesus says, that's my promise. As you go through unending hate and persecution, so fix your eyes on me, look to me and be saved.
There's the promise of the Spirit, the promise of salvation, and thirdly, lastly, the promise of being treated like Christ doesn't alliterate, but that's what's going on here. Jesus promises us that in the midst of persecution, there's a hope found in our being treated like Christ.
What's the problem of persecution? At root, there's all the negative, nasty things that happen, the awful things.
But the problem of persecution is fundamentally that we are being treated like Christ.
Jesus says, the disciple is not above his teacher, the servant, the slave is not above his master.
That's what's happening in persecution, we are being treated like him.
The Kingdom of Darkness sees us. It sees that we're aligned with the Master. It sees that we're like the Master and it hates us and it treats us the way it treated him.
And that's terrifying because think of how the Kingdom of Darkness treated our master.
It spat him. It spat on him. It beat him.
It put a crown of thorns on him. It wrongly convicted him. It marched him off to Golgotha. It hung him on a cross.
That's terrifying.
I've never had to face those things. But the thought of it terrifies me.
The thought of being treated like my master terrifies me. That's the problem of persecution.
But the goal of every teacher is that his students would become like him in whatever he's instructing them in. That's the goal of instruction. A successful student becomes like his teacher.
That's the whole point.
Think of the servant and the master. Where is a servant's allegiance?
It's to his master. It's to his master's cause, his mission.
His master's work is his work.
His master's calling is his calling. Where his master goes, he goes.
Loyal servants.
Loyal servants will suffer whatever their master suffers because his enemies are their enemies.
And successful students will be treated just like their teacher is, including persecution.
Think of it this way. If King Jesus is successful in making you his disciple, you're going to face what he faces.
Now, we think then that this idea of being persecuted and all the nasty things we've talked about is kind of the worst of it. But I think Jesus actually saves the worst for last.
If we're successful in being like Jesus and following him and serving him and preaching his gospel and leading men to him, Jesus seems to leave the worst for last.
They hated me, he says, and they called me Beelzebul, the Prince of demons.
Think about that for a second.
Jesus came to set men free from the kingdom of darkness. And he went around doing that, and he showed that he was doing that not just through his words and how he treated people in forgiving sins and men's lives being changed. He even showed it as he cast out demons and as he healed men.
It was very clear that this is what Jesus was doing when was coming to destroy the works of Beelzebul, the devil.
And yet what did the world do?
It said, you, Jesus, you're the devil incarnate.
I can't think of a more demoralizing thing than that.
To be told that the very thing you came to destroy is what You've become.
You're going to preach the gospel of freedom from the devil.
And they will call you devils for following Jesus.
When you proclaim God's love and forgiveness, when you proclaim that God offers salvation and eternal life to wicked men who don't deserve it, when you call men to freedom from the devil, they will lie about you.
They will call you demons. They will say that you are hateful, that you are judgmental.
When you tell men enslaved to homosexuality that there is freedom from that sin, that there is a life of joy and peace in serving the Lord, they will call you homophobic.
Yes, this happens today.
When that happens, Jesus says, you are being treated like me.
Jesus is saying here that the world is testifying about you the way it testified about him.
It is saying this. When the world calls you Beelzebub and it utters lies about you, it is treating you the way it treated Jesus because you have come to look like Jesus.
In other words, the world is saying, you're a Christian, and I can tell, so I'm going to persecute you and lie about you and try to stamp you out and oppose you.
This is the world's testimony against you.
And Jesus says, that is enough.
That is enough for any student, any servant.
You have achieved and attained the goal of the student or the servant to become like his teacher and his master.
Jesus is using understatement. There is nothing greater, nothing greater or more wonderful to know than to know that you have come to look a little bit like Jesus, a little bit enough like Jesus that the world that hates Jesus says, I, aha, you're like him. I'm going to come after you.
Jesus says, know that when this happens, you are like me. You are my disciples. You are my servants.
You are my children.
Know that you live in my house.
You're those of his household.
You live in my house. And you look and you act and you think like me.
That's the testimony that the world's persecution bears to you.
Jesus says, when it persecutes you, remember you are in my kingdom. And this is a little piece of proof of that.
Maybe we could even press this a little further.
Jesus promise here that you will be treated like him means that you look like him, you are in his household. If he calls you members of his household, Jesus is saying, when you're persecuted, whatever it is, and you know what our brothers and sisters face, they're beaten. They're tortured. Their families are taken away and imprisoned. Some of them lose their lives.
In that moment. Jesus is saying, you're of my household. You are mine.
You are mine.
That's his promise.
[00:36:44] Speaker A: In the midst of persecution, you belong to me.
And when they treat you that way, it's a reminder that you are mine and I am yours.
[00:36:57] Speaker B: Well, these are Jesus promises and persecution.
We noted that Jacob worked seven long, hard years under the promise of marrying Rachel, and then another seven.
He longed to receive a bride.
When Jesus calls us to put our hope and trust in his promises in the midst of persecution, Jesus is calling us to do something he himself did. In other words, he knows exactly what he's calling us to because he went through it.
What am I talking about?
Jesus came and knowingly undertook persecution, the greatest persecution.
He came and undertook the work of salvation. The Father told him, go.
And he said, father, I will go.
Father, I will go to the cross.
[00:37:51] Speaker A: And I will die for those sheep.
And what was the promise, the hope that he had to look forward to as he went through persecution and suffering, even the death, as he hung there.
[00:38:07] Speaker B: Hour after hour on the cross.
[00:38:09] Speaker A: His promise and hope was that the Father would give a bride to him.
[00:38:19] Speaker B: Who, for the joy set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame.
You are Jesus.
[00:38:28] Speaker A: Joy that was in his heart. You were in his heart as he hung on the cross.
Jesus calls you to face a similar persecution, but he promises to be with you as you go through it.
And he offers you the joy of salvation, the joy of possessing him forever if you endure to the end. Let's pray.
[00:39:00] Speaker B: Our Lord and our God.
Some things are too heavy for us.
We struggle to comprehend the greatness of your love. We struggle to comprehend the agony that you bore for us.
It's difficult for us too to think about and also to comprehend the sufferings of our brothers and sisters who lose home, freedom and life for your sake.
But we thank you that you are sufficient for us.
The gift of your Holy Spirit is a promise that we have to bear.
[00:39:40] Speaker A: Us up through these things and through.
[00:39:42] Speaker B: All the trials of this life.
[00:39:45] Speaker A: We thank you for your promise that it is enough for us to become like you.
Oh, how we love to hear those words. For what a joy it is for us to know that our sins are being put to death and that we are being made more and more into your likeness.
We long to have more and more of this in our lives. And Lord Jesus, we ask that you would sustain us and that you would give us courage, that as we press forward in this Christian life, that we would look to you, our eyes would look deeply upon you at all times.
So that as we grow closer to you and the world comes to hate us, we will be ready. And our eyes won't fix, won't waver, but they will continue looking upon you.
And that we might go through whatever it is you call us to in union with you and drawing yet even closer to you. O Lord Jesus, we long for that day when you will come and you will make all things new and you will make all things right.
And all the injustices and trials that we have faced. As your bride, your you, you will make right.
You will heal us. You will heal our hurts, our wounds, our sufferings. You will make us whole, and you will present us before yourself, clothed in garments of a bride and ready to meet you. We look forward to that day, Jesus, and we ask that it would come quickly. We look forward to it, too, for we know that you will deal with your enemies and ours and make everything right again.
Lord Jesus, we thank you that we can put our trust in you. And we ask that you would grant us peace and hope in the coming days.
[00:41:38] Speaker B: Amen.
