Acts Part 18

Acts Part 18

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Good morning. This is the 29th of chapter, number two, in that series. So the world hates us for the law and the gospel. The Jews, there are a few Jews who truly love the law, and they're sincerely, have sincerely misled themselves, but there's a real love for God's law. And there are a few Christians who sincerely love the gospel. And I would even go further and say there are a few Christians in false churches who sincerely love the gospel, but they just have not been taught. So I want to examine what does Christ say about hatred? In Matthew 5 11, he said, Blessed are you when others revile you. That means revile means just abuse of angry and insulting language. They revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. These people lie, they make up lies about people they hate. And Christ says, Rejoice and be glad. That's a hard thing to do when we're being persecuted and we're being mistreated and we're not being understood and treated fairly to rejoice and be glad for it. And then Christ says, For soul, they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Do you deserve better? They persecuted the prophets. Are you better? Are you better than Luther? He was persecuted, he was reviled. But I want to hasten to say that he was also protected. Some people around Luther died for the cause of Christ. But Luther was protected. Some of us may die at some point for the cause of Christ. But in the meantime, we are protected. We will die when God wants us to die. Period. Period. In Matthew 10, 21, Christ warns us. He says, brother will deliver brother over to death, and father, his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death. Are you hearing this? Do you see the treachery even amongst loved ones? And when you consider the selfishness of our age and the virtual destruction of natural affection? I can see this easily happening today. And he says, You will be hated for by all for my name's sake, simply because you love, believe in Christ. Then Christ says, But the one who endures to the end will be saved. The one who endures to the end. You have to endure to the end. And you have to ask yourself, and I believe it's a fair question, do you really there's an old hymn, and there's a line in it about, shall I be taken to the skies on flowery beds of ease? Do you really just want to, you know, waft up to heaven, you know, with angels taking you on a bed of roses? Is that what you want? Is that what you think the Christian life is? Just completely easy? So life is hard, but the Christian life is easy. That doesn't make any sense. But Christ did say his yoke is easy and his burden is light. Now why is that? Because he gives you the grace to endure what looks really hard. But he's not going to give you that grace until you, you must in faith take that step to prove not to him, but to yourself, that the next world means more to you than this world. In the meantime, you have to understand that people will save their own skin. Because this world is all that matters to them. It's all they believe in. I don't care how much they say, Jesus, Jesus, heaven, heaven, can't wait, can't wait. This world, they prove it by their actions, is all that means anything to them. They only wear a cross because they think it, you know, it's it's an insurance policy. It doesn't mean anything down deep in their heart. You know, Tanya makes cookies for everybody, makes breakfast for her co-workers. Tanya has to consider that these people she's made this food for and all the kindnesses she's shown are going to be hated. She's going to be hated by the people she served. She's going to be hated. The tenants you serve. Hatred. You've faithfully served them. You've not been out to fleece them, take advantage of them. You have asked for a fair monthly can't even think what you call it. A monthly rent payment. You've treated them fairly, you have served them faithfully, you've done your best to give them a nice place to live, and what will you get for it? Hatred. The businesses you have frequented, you have faithfully given your money to. Hatred. Hatred. So be careful. Keep this in mind. Don't die as a fool. Be careful. The Bible says a fool speaks his whole mind. You need to be as wise as a serpent and as harmless as a dove. Be wise. Don't be speaking your whole mind to everybody. They'll use it against you at the wrong time. Now there's nobody, nobody can be that alert and hold their tongue and keep their words to themselves that much. But you need to do the best you can do. Be very careful who you trust. But when it comes out, it comes out and God will protect you. God will protect you. I think it's important. All these people in the Bible that God protected with angels, you know, it's important to me that God protected Luther. The two most powerful people in the world wanted him dead. The emperor and the Pope wanted him dead. And God protected him. Now hopefully we will be a safe place. Our space will be a safe place for us. But one of us could slip momentarily and bring harm on us. I hope that doesn't happen. But it could happen. Somebody gets mad or they've been carrying some bitterness that nobody really knew about for years and you know they they spit it out onto us. That could happen. But God will protect us from that too. Then Christ says, if they hate if they call the master of the house Beelzebub, that means Satan, a devil, how much more will they malign those of his household? So if they had the nerve to call Christ, who came to earth to die on the cross for our sins, the Bible says he went about doing good. He went about doing good. He did good to people. Yes, he was firm with the hypocrites, but he did good to people. And if they called him the devil, how what are they going to say about you? You need to be careful that you fear the right person. Fear the right person. You sacrifice your child, you sacrifice for your child, excuse me, because you fear for them. You want them to have a leg up in life. You want them to have a good start in life. You want them to be prepared for life. And so you sacrifice, you drive hither and yon. You spend money you could be spending on yourselves like most parents, just spend money on themselves. The parents in this family are amazing. We sacrifice for our children. And why do we do it? Out of fear. Because we don't want our children to grow up and be bums and be second rate. There's an amount of fear there. But we need to fear the right person when it comes to the spiritual world. We need to have a respect for Christ and to want what He wants for us. You have to think about the fact that your hairs are numbered. If you will step out in faith and trust God when you are in a very precarious, scary situation, you need to consider the love of God and have some fear for Him. Have some respect for Him. Just like you have respect for your children, have respect for Christ. Because the Bible says, even your hairs are numbered. Christ also said, you know, every bird that drops to the ground, he knows about it. So if God knows about every bird that drops dead to the ground, do you think he doesn't know what you need? You think he's not aware of what those who love and serve him need and what's going on in their life? And then in John 17, 14, Christ said that chapter 17 is what we call the high priestly prayer of Christ. He's talking to his Father. He says, I have given them your word. So Christ came to earth to give us the word of the Father. The Father gave Christ a word, a message. And the world has hated them because they are not of this world, just as I am not of this world. So you have to ask yourself, why aren't you of this world? Because you follow Christ. And Christ is not of this world. And only you know if you're of this world. Deep in your heart, only you know if this world is the most important thing to you. Only you know if the next world means more to you than this world. That does not mean you have to be like my father used to say of me, I was so heavenly minded, I was no earthly good. I think he picked up something in me because, you know, fair frankly, false religion taught me to be too heavenly minded. And he didn't understand that because he was completely enmeshed and in love with this world. But I'm not saying you have to pray 24-7, read the Bible 24-7. I've been criticized for reading the Bible, I've been criticized for everything I've done. It doesn't mean you it doesn't mean you can't you shouldn't be going to work and enjoying life and riding your bicycles and you know going to movies and going to party. I'm not saying that. But in your heart, what's deep in your heart? And how do you express it? Do you honor communion? Do you honor your baptism? Is being faithful, attending church and hearing the word of God? Is that deeply important to you? Only you know which world you love. Even though you may spend most of your energy in this world because that's just how the system's set up. You've got things you gotta do to be faithful. Remember one time I was probably 16 out driving, kind of late at night. I don't know, probably 11, I don't remember what time. But I'd done something stupid, not you know, stupid, stupid, but just I had done something that caught a policeman's eye. And um it was just not even uh who cares? It wasn't even against the law, but I don't remember exactly what it was, but just some minor stupid thing that you know young driver does. And two or three police, I went into the gas station to get gas. I think you know one or two friends were with me, and uh two or three people, two or three troopers pulled in behind me like I was a criminal. And um I was in my father's you know, demo car, and I don't remember really even what they even said. All I remember was us trying to explain that my father was Chuck Vance, because I thought that would, you know, I don't know. I knew him, I assume they knew him too. So I you know, my father loomed large in my mind. I said, My father's you know, Chuck Vance, and one of the troopers said, I don't care if your father's Jesus Christ. Oh, okay. So I thought it was important to be a child of my father, but that wasn't in that didn't impress the trooper. So you have to ask yourself, who whose child are you? Is it important to you that your earthly daddy looms large in your mind, or is it important that your heavenly father looms even larger in your mind? You don't want to be a child of the world. You want to be a child of the Word, of the Father. And then John 15, 18, Christ says, If the world hates you, no, it has hated me before it hated you. If you are of this world, the world would love you as its own, but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. The world hates us simply because we associate from our hearts, not by wearing a cross on our neck or tattooed on our arm, or go to church on Easter, or go to church every day. No, no, no, no. We have a relationship with Christ deep in our heart that's deeper than any other relationship. That's why we're hated, because we honor the word of the Father. And we're hated because Christ chose us out of the world. And for this reason and this reason alone, the world hates us because we don't function the way they function. They're threatened that we see life differently. Now seeing life differently is not the prime objective. There are lots of religious organizations that see life differently and in a very stupid fashion. They they try to be hated. It's important to them that they make sure they're hated. You don't have to, if you're if you're a true Christian, you don't have to try to be hated. You don't have to do anything. It can be the furthest thing from your mind, but if you truly follow Christ, you will be hated. You have to have keep this idea in mind that you were chosen, you should have a spiritual pride in the fact that you were chosen, not an earthly pride, but a true spiritual pride that you've been chosen. I mean, just imagine if you were in an orphanage and somebody you know came to check you out, and they're going from room to room or walking down a line or however they do it, and you're wondering, will they pick me? Will they pick me? And then how would you feel once you were picked? How would you feel? Well, Christ has picked you. He has picked you. Not that you can gloat over the ones that weren't picked, but you were picked. It's none of your business why you were picked. You were picked. You were picked. Maybe they like the color of your hair. Maybe they liked your personality. Who cares why you were picked? Maybe you will never understand why you were picked. Maybe the adoptive parents don't even understand why they picked you. There's just something about you. But Christ picked you. And that should humble you, and that should touch your heart. Because you know what? You were an orphan. When you were born, you were an orphan. And Christ picked you. You're chosen. This should be a word of comfort. Like being chosen to be on a team. All of us have had the experience. Let's pick up teams. You're in gym class, you're a neighborhood team, or whatever. And all right, let's pick teams. All right, let's these two people be the captains. And you they start picking. Well, a couple of them know they're going to be picked first. They wouldn't, they wouldn't enter their mind that they wouldn't be picked, you know, first or second. Wouldn't it cross their mind? For whatever reason. Wouldn't cross their mind. But the rest of us are wondering, oh God, I hope I hope I'm not picked last. Hope I'm not picked last. So once you're picked, you think, oh, at least I wasn't the last one. And then those two or three people, you know, that have to be the last one. I mean, how humiliating that is. But Christ picked you. And that's very special. Then Christ said, But the word that is written in their law, talking about Christ in Psalm 35, 19, must be fulfilled. So in Psalm 35, 19, the Bible says they hated me without a cause. And so everything in the Bible is fulfilled. Everything, especially the things written about Christ. He was hated without a cause. And so Christ had to be hated with no cause. He came to earth to die and to serve, and he was hated. We take pity on underdogs. Think of it. A lot of us, you know, there's a general tendency to take pity and to root for the underdogs. Well, God takes pity on you because you're an underdog. He has compassion for you. He knows that you are suffering because of him. And he has compassion on you.