The Sunday night message given in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on October 22, 2023. The Bible verses used are Matthew 10:5-33.
One of the things people wonder about is why God allows bad
things to happen. And we especially wonder why God allows bad things to
happen to good people. I suspect you’ve wondered about that at
times. Most of us have.
And we especially wonder why God allows bad things to
happen to Christians. After all, if we’re Christians, God’s supposed to
be on our side, right? God’s supposed to take care of us. God’s
supposed to make things go smoothly for us. And the stronger our faith
is, the more we try to serve God and show love to God, the more God should do
things for us. I mean, if we’re doing these things for God, then God should
be doing things for us. It’s only fair, right?
Well, I’m sure most of you know that’s not how it actually
works. Everyone here has gone through some tough things in your
life. Even you young people have had to deal with some things. And
it’s not because your faith was not strong enough. It’s not because you
did not serve God well enough. As we look around, there does not seem to
be any correlation at all between our faith and how many good things happen to
us.
But the thing is, Jesus does not tell us that there is or
that there should be. In our Bible reading for tonight, Jesus is about to
send the disciples out by themselves. Jesus is giving them a
mission. They are to proclaim this
message: The kingdom of heaven has come near. They are also supposed to
heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, and drive
out demons.
That’s one heck of a mission, right?
Heal the sick. Cleanse those who have leprosy. Drive out
demons. Raise the dead. And while they’re doing all this, they’re
supposed to tell everyone that the kingdom of heaven has come near.
That’s quite a job Jesus is giving the disciples. And they’re not going
to have Jesus with them as they do this--they’re going to be out there by
themselves.
I would think the disciples must have been
pretty nervous about this. I know I would be. I was nervous enough
about going into ministry in small towns in South Dakota. And nobody was
expecting me to drive out demons or raise the dead. The disciples must
have been really worried about whether they could actually do this.
So you’d think that, before Jesus sent
them out, Jesus would give them some reassurance, right? He’d tell them
that God would be with them, that God would protect them, that it was all going
to be all right. After all, Jesus is sending these people out to do God’s
work. It’s only fair that God would take care of them, don’t you think?
But that’s not what Jesus says at
all. Jesus tells them they will be arrested by the local town
councils. They will be flogged--beaten--in the synagogues. They
will be hated by everyone. Just because they are telling people the
kingdom of heaven has come near. Just because they are healing
people. Just because they are followers of Jesus Christ and are doing
what Jesus has told them to do.
That does not seem fair at all. And
yet, there it is. That’s probably why Jesus only gave this mission to his
closest followers, to the twelve disciples. He knew that none of the
others would have a faith strong enough to go through with it. And I
wonder if even the twelve had a few second thoughts, had a little lump in their
throats, when they heard this. Could you do it? Could I?
We think of Jesus as bringing a message of
joy and peace and love, and of course Jesus did bring that message. But
that was not all of Jesus’ message. Jesus was nothing if not
honest. Jesus told the truth, and he did not sugarcoat things to make
them more acceptable to people. Jesus told it like it is.
That’s what
Jesus was doing here with his disciples. Jesus was telling them, hey,
don’t think following me is going to be easy. Don’t think this job I’m
giving you is going to be easy, either. Don’t think this is going to be
fun. Don’t think it’s going to make you popular. This is going to
be hard. It’s going to bring you a lot of pain. People are going to
hate you. All because of what you’re doing in my name.
Jesus did that because Jesus knew the
disciples needed to know this. They needed to be prepared. If they
had gone into this thinking people were going to like them, they’d have quit
the first time they got into trouble. Jesus wanted them to know what they
were getting into. And maybe, Jesus was giving them one more chance to
walk away, to leave him if they did not think they could do this.
But after telling the disciples all these
things that were going to happen to them, Jesus also told them some other
things. He told them, when you get arrested, don’t worry about what to
say or how to say it. The Holy Spirit will tell you what to say.
And then, he tells them this: “Do not be afraid of those who kill the
body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy
both soul and body in hell.”
Most of us are very concerned about our
lives on earth. We’re concerned about our bodies. We try to eat
right. We try to exercise. We try to take reasonable precautions to
avoid getting sick. When we do get sick, or when we do get injured, we
go to the doctor to try to get better. We want to be as healthy as we can
and we want to keep our lives on earth going as long as we can. And we
also do things to protect ourselves and our families from people who may want to
do us harm.
And none of that is wrong or bad.
God put a survival instinct into each of us. And God wants us to take
care of ourselves, because there are things God wants us to do while we’re
here. There’s nothing wrong with any of that.
But we also need to live with the
realization that our lives on earth are only temporary. I’m not saying we
should be obsessed with death or anything like that. But we do need to
have an awareness of how short our lives on earth really are. No matter
how hard we try to take care of ourselves, our lives are still short.
Think about the thousands of years of recorded human history, and think about
how short our lives are in comparison to it. Think of the millions of
years the universe has existed, and think about how short our lives are in
comparison to that. And then think about eternity, an eternity that we’re
either going to spend in heaven or in hell. And think about how short our
lives on earth are in comparison to that.
So, as important as our lives on
earth--our bodily lives--are, our eternal lives are much more important.
And so, the most important thing we need to do is follow Jesus Christ. We
need to go where the Lord sends us and do what the Lord sends us to do.
Even if it makes us less safe. Even if it means taking risks. Even
if it means risking bodily harm.
Now, you might think, well, nobody’s going
to physically attack me for following Jesus Christ. And maybe, in our
little town, they won’t. But two things. One, there are people in
the world--there are people in our country--who are physically attacked for
following Jesus Christ. And our little town is not walled off from the
world. Much as we might like to think we’re living in Mayberry and the
worst thing that ever happens is that old Otis has a little too much to drink
on Saturday night, that’s not the way it is. We are a part of the world,
and the things that happen in the rest of the world are going to come here.
But the other thing is, especially for
younger people, you’re probably not going to live all your lives here.
Maybe you will--some people do--but some of you will not. You’re going to
go out into that world. And you will very well might meet people who will
want to attack you for being a follower of Jesus Christ.
But even if not, there are other ways that
following Jesus Christ involves risk. If we take our faith seriously, if
we live it out, there will be people who don’t like us because of that.
There will be people who won’t want to have anything to do with us. We
may lose friends. We may lose business. We may even have family
members who don’t want to have anything to do with us. There are all
kinds of consequences for truly belong a follower of Jesus Christ.
Jesus knew that we needed to know
that. He did not tell the disciples that, and he does not tell us that,
to discourage us. He tells us that so we’ll be prepared. He tells
us that so we’ll be ready to handle this. Jesus tells us this so we’ll
know what we’re getting into. And maybe, he tells us this to give us the
chance to walk away if we don’t think we can handle this.
The disciples did not walk away.
It’s my hope and prayer that you and I won’t walk away, either. Jesus
does not sugarcoat things. He knows that following him will not always be
easy. But he tells us that the Holy Spirit will be with us. The
Holy Spirit will tell us what to say and how to say it. And he tells us
that no matter what someone may do to us, they cannot kill our souls. If
we stay faithful to Jesus Christ, we will receive our reward--eternal life in
heaven.
The Lord does not promise us an easy life
on earth. But the Lord does promise to be with us as we go through our
lives on earth, and to help us through those lives. And through our faith
and by God’s grace, our faithfulness will be rewarded. Our souls will
have eternal life with God.
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