The Weight is Worth the Wait
Notes
Transcript
About that time Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. He killed James the brother of John with the sword, and when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. This was during the days of Unleavened Bread. And when he had seized him, he put him in prison, delivering him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out to the people. So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church.
Read Acts 12:1-5
A Characteristic of a Little Christ that of Persecution
Identifying with God will cause the world to hate you.
John 15:20–21 (ESV)
20 Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. 21 But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.
John 15:25 (ESV)
25 But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without a cause.’
Isaiah 53:1–5 (ESV)
Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2 For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.
Proverbs 21:30 (ESV) 30 No wisdom, no understanding, no counsel can avail against the Lord.
John 15:1–16:24 (ESV)
To be a follower of Christ we must be of the Word
I Am the True Vine
15 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3 Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.
5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.
7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
As we abide in Him, our desires will align with His.
8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. 9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
How has He shown love toward us? He has shown genuine interest in us.
Have you ever stopped and thought about God’s love toward us? Here we are experiencing daily life.
Seeing our new child born, driving our child to school. Some of you are in school right now. You are discovering what it means to have relationship. Relationship with friends. Some that will last for a lifetime and some who will fade over time. Some of you are just fresh out of your education and you are entering life. Finding out what it means to be independent, trying to prepare for your future that is yet unseen with challenges that are unknown.
Some of you have this feeling that you have arrived but there is still this angst in your gut about what it is all about. It is like you have arrived yet not already.
SO in any of our walks of life, at any moment, when we cry out to God…. He is there! When we experience something new and say “Look!” He is there.
It is kind of like when my children are watching a parade. I have seen parades. I remember doing this with my parents.
One of my memories growing up is that Every Thanksgiving and New Year ’s Day we would have the parade on. Usually we were at the Cotton Bowl parade in Dallas. I remember sitting in my Grandmother’s living room and they would be in the kitchen cooking. I float would come around the corner and it would blow my mind and I would scream out to mom and dad. You have got to come and see this! So now as I sit with my children they do the same thing. I have already seen hundreds of parades. I get floats.
When my daughter builds a house out of chairs or mud and sticks and the experience is totally new to her but when she shows it proudly, I respond with elation. Wow, look at that! How beautiful! I am genuinely interested and excited, not because I have not been there and done that, but because I love her, and what excites her, what builds her up, what moves her also moves me.
I give the illustration of children because we have all been one at one time in our life. Some of us can relate to the joy of experiencing things for the first time all over again through our children.
So God says to love as He first loved us. That means that our heart goes out to those around us, just as His heart goes out to us. When we cry out to God and He stops what He is doing.
- Is there anything new to God? Is there anything that we face in life that takes God by surprise? No, yet when we cry out to Him, He stops and takes notice.
There is a disturbing behavioral characteristic that I have noticed. I don’t know if it is something new to the South or something that I am just noticing just because I am older. I don’t even know what causes it, but here is what I have noticed. We have become a society that has become unresponsive and unconcerned with those who are around us.
There have been many occasion that I have talked to someone. I mean, gone out of my way to talk to them, to say hello. To even try to make them feel special or to just show them love and kindness and when I attempt to engage them, there is no response. Seriously. “How are you doing?” Blank stare. “Tarkington sure is doing well this year in volleyball.” Blank stare. “Well, I hope you have a great day,” and it is as if I never crossed their path. Disengaged, as if my presence was the worst thing that could have happened at that moment. Am I alone here? It is not like they don’t interact with people. They were just engaging with people at the event. They just didn’t care to have anything to do with me. It was this, “I am doing great in my world with my friends kind of attitude, and you just need to stay in your world and not try to enter mine.
I have cried out to God on many occasion concerning this. Here is something interesting. This is not new to God at all. For how many times has He tried to engage us, encourage us, approach us and love us, only to have us stand there looking through Him as if He was simply in our way.
You see, many times as I have gone to God about my problems here on this earth, the revelation that I receive is that at some point, I am the guilty party. What has bothered me so much about someone is the very thing I have been guilty of in my relationship with God.
John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
Someone asked Jesus at one time, “Who is my neighbor?” (John 10:12). Jesus then gave the story of the Samaritan who offered help to …
John 15:14 You are my friends if you do what I command you.
Is there anyone who has done this perfectly? No, but by doing this we show our gratitude, and love to God.
*15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.
Romans 5:7–8 (ESV)
7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
John 15:16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.
Proverbs 4:18
18 But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day.
John 15:17 These things I command you, so that you will love one another.
Luke 10:36-37
36 Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?”
37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”
The Hatred of the World
“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.
“Don’t try to be greater than your Lord. The servant should not be more popular than the Master. Just keep giving out the Word.
Those who persecute have two problems:
1. they do not know the Father, and they do not want their sins revealed. Jesus Christ turned the light of heaven upon the souls of men. Whenever one turns on a light, things begin to happen. The rats and snakes and bugs and lizards hate the light and they all run for cover.
2. They will hate the one who turns on the light, too, by the way. Jesus says, “They hated me without a cause.” There is no cause for hate in Jesus. The cause is in the sinful hearts of men.”[1]
If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father also.
“The world does not hate their idea of God, as some vague Someone out yonder.
It is Christ they hate. Jesus says when a man hates Him, he is hating God the Father also. You can say you believe in God and be popular.”
So when you engage your neighbor and they hate you for what seems to be no cause at all, in reality it is because they have sin in their life and your mere presence threatens their comfort.
Someone once said, “God created man in His own image, now man is trying to make God into his own image.”
I have heard people say, “How can these people say that they love God and do what they do?” 1. Well, they love their god who will allow them to as they please. 2. Their god is the friend that won’t engage them in love.
3. There god is the friend, for the sake of losing popularity, will not say nor do anything that will hurt their feelings.
I DON”T WANT THEIR GOD. I want the love of Jesus! For it isn’t beyond Jesus’s love to be unpopular for my sake. He even hung naked on a cross.
Proverbs 14:12 (ESV) 12 “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.” We are so consumed with our selfish desires that we cannot see this. I am thankful to God for Jesus Christ for His clarity in the commands, and His Spirit who burdens the hearts of those who truly believe.
So when Jesus speaks about bringing division and a sword in Luke 12:51. He is speaking about devotion. He laid down his life to ransom man. To restore relationship! “The real test is your relationship and attitude toward Jesus Christ. You cannot be popular and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, because He is the One who is hated.”[2]
There is no excuse for rejecting him.
24 If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father.
The Final Judgment Matthew 25
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.[3]
26 “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. 27 And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.
And these men did indeed bear witness to Him.
“I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you.
“I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you.
John 14:27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.
Stop
Isaiah 50:3–11 (ESV)
3 I clothe the heavens with blackness and make sackcloth their covering.” The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught. 5 The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious; I turned not backward. 6 I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting. 7 But the Lord God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame. 8 He who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who is my adversary? Let him come near to me. 9 Behold, the Lord God helps me; who will declare me guilty? Behold, all of them will wear out like a garment; the moth will eat them up. 10 Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the voice of his servant? Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God. 11 Behold, all you who kindle a fire, who equip yourselves with burning torches! Walk by the light of your fire, and by the torches that you have kindled! This you have from my hand: you shall lie down in torment.
50:10, 11 Here was a call to the unconverted to believe and be saved, along with a warning that those who tried to escape moral, spiritual darkness by lighting their own fire (man-made religion, works righteousness) were to end up in eternal torment.[4]
Psalm 69:3–10 (ESV)
3 I am weary with my crying out; my throat is parched. My yes grow dim with waiting for my God. 4 More in number than the hairs of my head are those who hate me without cause; mighty are those who would destroy me, those who attack me with lies. What I did not steal must I now restore?
5 O God, you know my folly; he wrongs I have done are not hidden from you. 6 Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me, Lord God of hosts; let not those who seek you be brought to dishonor through me, sake that I have borne reproach, that dishonor has covered my face. 8 I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother’s sons. 9 For zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.
10 When I wept and humbled my soul with fasting, it became my reproach. O God of Israel. 7 For it is for your
[1] McGee, J. V. (1997). Thru the Bible commentary (electronic ed., Vol. 4, p. 470). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
[2] McGee, J. V. (1997). Thru the Bible commentary (electronic ed., Vol. 4, p. 470). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
[3] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2001). (Mt 25:31–33). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.
[4] MacArthur, J., Jr. (Ed.). (1997). The MacArthur Study Bible (electronic ed., p. 1034). Nashville, TN: Word Pub.