Our Hope is not in this world

History

Psalm 69:7–9 ESV

For it is for your sake that I have borne reproach, that dishonor has covered my face. I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother’s sons. For zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.

Read Jeremiah 20:7-13

14th CE John Wycliffe and Lollards

Between 1768-1778

pelted with apples and stone

ducked and nearly drowned by 20 men

jailed for permitting a man to pray

meeting broken up by a mob

arrested as a vagabond and schismatic

pulled down and hauled about by hair

tried to suffocate him with smoke

horses ridden over his hearers at jail

shot with a shot-gun

ruffians armed with bludgeons beat him

severely beaten with a whip

whipped severely by the Sheriff

hands slashed while preaching

Imprisoned Preachers and Religious Liberty in Virginia

Theology

Romans 6:1–5 ESV

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

We Identify with the death of Christ in the dying to self and sin.

We identify with the life of Christ… the earthly life.

Alive to God = the life Jesus lived before the cross

John 2:17 ESV

His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

This is the complete undoing of all so-called prosperity gospel!

Your best life now

Name it claim it

This should be the expectation for Christians

Revelation 1:1 ESV

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John,

Matthew 10:16 ESV

“Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.

Matthew 10:24–25 ESV

“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 Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household.

Good News

Read Matt 10:26-33

God knows

This is a present comfort; Immanuel = God WITH us

All will be made right

Our hope is NOT in this world; but he next

Justice is in eternity as is relief

Therefore we are encouraged to go boldly

Proclaim on the housetops!