STAND FIRM … AND BE SAVED
Matthew 10:16-23
Pastor Jeremy Mattek – November 2, 2014
This past Tuesday, someone happened to be walking by a dumpster in the city of Beaver Dam when he heard some whining coming out of it. He opened it up and found two dogs that were stuck inside. One was a poodle/Shih Tzu mix named Lucky. The other was a purebred Shih Tzu named Chance. Apparently, the owner couldn’t afford to take care of them anymore, so he just threw them away. “Lucky” and “Chance were, well, lucky someone heard them. Now they’ll get another chance at living. There aren’t too many people who would do something bad like that to dogs. But obviously, some would. And not just to dogs.
I was jogging this past Thursday morning on the Menomonee River Parkway, which is a nice path running through the city. I was on a part of it that had trees growing up on both sides of the path when I saw something on the path ahead of me. As I got closer, I saw that it was a very nice scooter, the kind a little girl would ride. But there was no one riding it. It was just lying there in the middle of the path. I was wondering how it got there when suddenly it dawned on me that this would be the ideal place to kidnap a little girl if that’s the kind of thing you were interested in. No one else around. No houses to be seen. From where the scooter was, I couldn’t see the street. It would be very easy for someone to hide in the trees. I don’t know if that’s what happened, but you only need to watch the first 10 minutes of news at night to know that it could. That’s why we put GPS trackers on our kids’ phones, surround them with attention and tell them to run away when they see danger coming. We want the fragile lives of Jesus’ little sheep to stay safe. But what do we do when it’s not their life that’s in danger, but instead their faith?
When Jesus calls us his sheep, he’s talking about our faith. When he talked about Judgment Day, he said that the sheep are the ones who have faith in him; those on his right who get to walk into heaven, and the goats are those on his left who, because of their unbelief, have hell waiting for them. Your faith in Jesus is the difference between hell and heaven. To God, your faith is the most important part of who you are. His sheep are valuable to him. And so you might wonder why Jesus, in our sermon text this morning, throws the most valuable and vulnerable part of his kingdom into the dumpster. As he sent his disciples into the world, he didn’t say, “I’m going to keep you far away from the predators and wolves.” He said, “I am sending you out as sheep among wolves.” And the reason he did was because Jesus apparently believes that you don’t need to be afraid of them, which means the question you and I have to answer every day in some way is: Do you believe him?
Do you believe it’s possible to walk on the path through this life, surrounded by the angels of Satan hiding in the trees, and not be afraid? Do you believe you don’t need to be afraid for your children? Do you tell them they can confidently stand right in the middle of every wolf that tries to tear them down or take them away because you know without a doubt that, in the end, they’ll be saved? Do you believe that your family can overcome Satan and all his temptations? Do you believe, like Daniel did, that you can walk safely away from a den of hungry lions? Do you believe you could confidently walk into a den of hungry lions? Some days it seems kind of hard to believe that you could. But today Jesus tells us exactly how he believes you can.
16 I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. 17 “Be on your guard against men; they will hand you over to the local councils and flog you in their synagogues. 18 On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. 19 But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, 20 for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. 21 “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. 22 All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. 23 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.
Obviously, not everyone would want to hear about the disciples’ faith as they went out to share it. And you can pretty easily cite all sorts of recent examples to show that things haven’t changed. There are the beheadings of Christian children happening right now in other nations. There’s the mayor of Houston who subpoenaed the sermons of five Christian pastors because she didn’t want them to say that homosexuality is a sin. There’s the man in Hawaii who was found not guilty, responded by shouting, “Thank you, Jesus,” and had to spend the next six hours in prison. There’s the entire pornography industry and the fact that life in college isn’t always very accommodating for someone who calls himself a Christian. The world hasn’t gotten more accepting of God’s sheep since the day Daniel was thrown to the lions. When Jesus said, “I’m sending you out as sheep among wolves,” it wasn’t because he doesn’t care for us. He was reminding us that earth will never be heaven. And we shouldn’t act like we expect it to be.
Last week, a 911 dispatcher took a call and said, “911, where is your emergency?” “123 Main Street,” a woman replied. “Ok, what’s going on there?” “I’d like to order a pizza for delivery,” the woman said. “Ma’am,” the dispatcher said, “you’ve reached 911.” “I know, the woman replied, “Can I have a large with half pepperoni, half mushroom and peppers?” “You know you’ve called 911, right?” the dispatcher said. “Yea, and do you know how long it will be?” the woman said. “Ma’am,” the dispatcher replied, “Is everything ok there? Do you have an emergency and you can’t talk about it because there’s someone in the room with you?” “Yes, that’s correct,” the woman replied, “Do you know how long it will be?” “I have an officer about a mile from your location,” she said. The officer came to the house and arrested the boyfriend who had been abusing the woman. The woman knew she needed to be in a different situation. And she figured out a way to get there.
That’s what Jesus means when he tells us to be a shrewd as snakes. People who live in desert areas know that you can’t really keep snakes out of your house. No matter what you do, they always find a way to get in. They know where they want to be. And they find a way to get there, which means the question Jesus wants you asking yourself each day is simply, “Where do I want to be?” What do you consider the number one destination of your life? When Jesus said the world will hate his disciples because of him, he was assuming his disciples weren’t going to give up being with Jesus for anything. He was implying that figuring out how to be with Jesus forever, and helping those around us do the same thing, would be more important than anything. And that’s not the most popular message these days, especially during Wheel of Fortune.
Our family was watching Wheel of Fortune Friday night, and roughly 80% of the commercials were for Scott Walker or Mary Burke. Can I point out something that’s really obvious about Mary Burke and Scott Walker? We don’t know either of them. We know what their political parties typically do. We know what their commercials say, and what their opponents think about them. I’m not saying we can’t come to certain conclusions about politicians from a distance. But we don’t know Walker and Burke as well as Daniel knew King Darius. And neither Walker nor Burke is thinking about any one of us here at the moment. But the king was thinking of Daniel. Scripture says that “he was determined to rescue Daniel and made every effort until sundown to save him.” And yet, he couldn’t. Daniel lived in the same world in which we do – one in which even the people we know and trust won’t always come through for us, which is why, while Daniel respected the king, he didn’t give anyone the impression that he loved the king more than he loved God.
If we spend more time trying to shrewdly figure out how to get more people to the polls to elect a politician than we do figuring out how to keep us and our families on the path to heaven, then what does that say about where we think we need to be, or who we’re really trusting in? What does it say if we feel better prepared for Election Day than we do for Judgment Day? Where do we believe we need to be? If the answer is: with God, and in heaven, then we need to be shrewd in figuring out how to use everything available to us to bring us and our families and our church closer to Jesus today than we were yesterday. And we need to pay attention to how important that message is.
A number of years ago, a man named Darren Chick bought a parrot named Nigel. Nigel is a talking parrot, and he spoke with a British accent. But four years ago, Nigel went missing. And Darren didn’t see him again until just earlier this month when someone found Nigel and figured out he belonged to Darren. Darren was happy to see Nigel again after four years. But after four years, Nigel no longer had his British accent. And now, instead of speaking English, he speaks Spanish. He wasn’t the same parrot Darren expected him to be.
Jesus doesn’t tell us to speak like parrots, but to be innocent like doves. Doves were one of the Old Testament sacrifices that were considered pure; nothing was wrong with them. Jesus is saying that our lives should look pure to anyone who’s watching; which means that, in addition to asking where you need to be, we ought to also ask: Am I doing anything I know I shouldn’t? Am I using my tongue to speak in ways other than the ones God expects of me? Am I spending my time in places where I’m learning to be someone other than who God wants me to be? Am I breaking any of his commandments and thinking that it won’t come back to bite me? Jesus said, “He who stands firm to the end will be saved,” which means that he who is doing something they know they shouldn’t isn’t standing firmly on God’s Word. They’re walking away. And if they’re not standing firmly, then in the end … they won’t be saved.
What we say with our lives is incredibly important to God. And we see this in that, when Jesus told his disciples that they were going to be hated, rejected, whipped and beaten on account of their faith, he didn’t say he’d help them by minimizing the pain or taking it away. He promised that he would give them the right words to say so that they could do the job Jesus considered more important than anything: telling the world how important God really is. Jesus didn’t tell us to go looking for hard situations. But he did say, “Do not worry” when life is hard because of our witnessing. But do you anyway? Do you ever find it hard to be a witness of your faith when someone you know is doing something God says they shouldn’t, or when you might lose a friend or a relationship if you say that you love God and his commandments more than anything? Do you ever hope the situation changes all on its own so that you don’t have to tell anyone what you believe in? Then we’re saying something.
Genoveva Figueroa is 30-years-old, and she’s single. She signed up for one of those online dating sites, but after meeting a nice guy and going on 6 dates with him, he said he was no longer interested. He dumped her. And so, she did what any normal person would do in that situation. She tried to break into his house in the middle of the night by sliding down the chimney. But she got stuck about 8 feet down, and she couldn’t get out. She was there for almost three hours before anyone noticed. And then she had to wait another three hours while the firefighters got her out. When they finally did, her body was covered in black ash and she couldn’t stop coughing. That’s a lot of trouble to go through for someone who’s already said he never wants to see you again. A lot of people think she’s pretty foolish for what she did.
And not just her. Jesus came to seek a world full of people who pretty regularly indicate they’d prefer to be closer to someone or something other than him. But unlike Genoveva, Jesus knew exactly what would happen if he did. He knew he would spend six hours suspended in horrible pain, covered not in black ash, but in his own blood that kept trickling out of his skin. He knew he was going to be hated, rejected, whipped, and beaten. But even though he could have changed the situation, he didn’t, because his only concern was getting to the one place he believed he needed to be; on a cross, looking up to Father, and forcing his trembling, weak lips to say what he considered more important than anything: “Forgive them.” He wanted to give you an unbreakable love you could always stand on; so that no matter how many wolves surround you, no matter how often you’ve given in, no matter how life feels, no matter how this world might change, one thing never will: your place with God, in heaven. That’s where God believes you need to be. And at the cross of Jesus, he made it happen.
That’s why Daniel didn’t complain when his faith threw him to the lions. He knew what he believed in. The last verse we read from Daniel chapter 6 said that Daniel was saved “because he trusted in God.” Imagine what would have happened if he didn’t. Or imagine what your family, your children, and your community would look like if you weren’t here to show them what it means to trust in the same God Daniel did. Imagine how much emptier this world would be without the valuable sheep God sees sitting in your seat this morning. Your life is valuable, my friends. It’s here to give a dying world a reason to live by giving it something strong to believe in.
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