The One Who Rejects You Rejects Me

So I have a question for you this morning to start with. And the question is this, how does one become an enemy of God? How does one become an enemy of God? What do you say? Okay, yeah, you're conceived. Isaiah, what were you going to say, bud? Yeah, they're born and then they lie to themselves, yep. That's right. Now the reason I'm asking you that question this morning is because I want you to see that if enemies of God are conceived, That at conception, what you have is an enemy, a hater of God. That means that as they grow up, unless God changes them, they remain haters of God, enemies of God, opposed to his word and to his will in this world. And there's not one man who's ever been born, who's ever lived, who's ever been conceived, who was out of relationship with God.

You see, sometimes we think that, you know, if I were to ask you, wouldn't it be better if we could just get people in a relationship with God? What people need is a relationship with Jesus. A lot of us would say, yeah, that's right. What they need is they need to get into a relationship with Jesus Christ. And what I want you to see from the very beginning this morning is that everyone already has a relationship with Jesus Christ. Some people have a good relationship with Jesus Christ. They love him. They fear him. They obey him. They have his spirit within them. But everyone that that's not true of also has a relationship with Jesus Christ. And that relationship is marked by hatred and malice and disobedience and rebellion. You think of an example of this would be in our own lives. If a husband and wife get divorced, dad decides he's going to leave. Does he cease to have a relationship with his children?

He doesn't cease to be the father of those children. What happens is his relationship to his children is marked primarily by his absence. He's no longer there. But the fact that he's no longer there is the defining feature of it. The child grows up without a dad. His relationship is, I don't know my dad. He left. But he has a relationship. It's just very broken. And the same is true of every one of us and every person that we interact with, every person that you see at work, at school, when you're driving down the road at the red light, every person you see on TV, every person you listen to on their radio, every single person has a relationship with Jesus Christ. They either love him and serve him, or they hate him and they rebel against him. There's no neutral man.

There's no, well, I'm wondering. Well, I'm not sure. Well, I need more information. Well, I need more time. Those sorts of statements are an articulation of deception. They're contrary to what Scripture says because Scripture doesn't describe any man that way. And so everyone is in a relationship with God. The question is not whether they are. The question is what's the state of their relationship. Are they his children? Are they forgiven and are they received in mercy? Or are they his enemies who are still dead in their sins and awaiting his judgment? Everyone has an active relationship with God. This morning we're going to be studying the account of Jesus sending out the 70 disciples to go before him into Judea and to heal people and to preach. As they go, Jesus warns them about the danger that they're going to face and he instructs them about what they should take with them. And he also tells them how they ought to conduct themselves while they're gone on this trip. So that's what we're going to be studying this morning. Would you please stand for the reading of God's word?

From Luke chapter 10, verses 1 through 16. Go, behold, I send you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. Carry no money belt. No bag, no shoes, and greet no one on your way. Whatever house you enter, first say, Peace be to this house. If a man of peace is there, your peace will rest on him. But if not, it will return to you. Stay in that house, eating and drinking whatever they give you. For the laborer is worthy of his wages. Do not keep moving from house to house. Whatever city you enter and they receive you, eat what is set before you and heal those in it who are sick and say to them, the kingdom of God has come near to you. But whatever city you enter and they do not receive you, go out into its streets and say, even the dust of your city, which clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet be sure of this, that the kingdom of God has come near. I say to you, it will be more tolerable in that day for Sodom than for that city.

Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, which occurred in you, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You will be brought down to Hades. The one who listens to you listens to me. And the one who rejects you rejects me. And he who rejects me rejects the one who sent me. This is the word of the Lord. Please be seated. You remember when I read the scripture lesson this morning, I said that the church is marked by conflict. This is what the church deals with. This is our place. This is what it means to make disciples of the nations. It means to engage the hatred of God and by the power of his spirit, work to change it.

And so Paul tells Timothy, you're going to face this kind of stuff. People are going to be there who don't understand the law, who want to be teachers, who want to raise up men after themselves. In Acts 20, he describes them as savage wolves. And here we have Jesus as he's ministering. He's appointed 70 men. Go out two by two to the cities. Go and prepare my way. Heal people. Preach to them before I come to them. And if we were to only read verses 1 and 2, we'd find... we would be deceived into what that work looks like. I think those verses are very common to us. When you think about the harvest, when you think about the harvest being plentiful, but the laborers are few, you're excited and you go, that's a good thing. We need to pray to get more people out there and harvesting because there's just so much mature grain to be harvested and to be picked. We just need people to get out there and just load their baskets full of it.

And that's where we stop. Now that's a delightful thing. If you have a garden at home, what's the part you enjoy the most? Eating. But what do you have to do right before you eat it? You have to pick it. And so what are the things you have to do in a garden? You have to till it. You have to plant it. You have to fertilize it. You have to weed it. You have to keep critters out of it. You have to treat it when disease comes. There's all this stuff. Now is that the fun part of gardening? No. But you do all of it. You realize if I'm going to have...

tomatoes from my garden to eat. I have to do all that other work, all that other undesirable work. And the same is true when he sends them out. And if we only read verses one and two, all we see is harvest. Look, fields white with the harvest. Let's just go on out there and just grab all of it. It's going to be great. But right after that, he comes to them and he says, go. I send you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. And you go, wait a minute. You're sending me out. So this is like if I was going to send you out into a field, it'd be like this. I want you to go out and I want you to harvest that field. I want you to know that there actually is fruit out there in that field, but that field is filled with the nastiest multiflora rose and thistle that you have ever seen. Thorns everywhere. Rocks to trip over. Poison ivy. But there's fruit out there. My fruit is out there. Now go out into that field and pick it.

and you're going to have to get through the thorns, and you're going to have to get through the thistles, and you're going to have to get through the poison ivy, and the creeks, and the ditches, and the sharp rocks, and the snakes, and all the other stuff that actually is in a field. So he describes to them what this work is going to be like. The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Why are the laborers few? Do you want to go into that field in yourself? Do you want to walk out into a field full of thorns, full of thistles, full of briars? You guys ever picked blackberries before? It's very unpleasant. Blackberries aren't...

They're not worth it to me. Raspberries, I can do it. Raspberry thorns are a little smaller, but blackberries are the most awful bushes that produce something desirable that I know of. Their thorns are just so sharp, and there's so many of them, and they're just a big snarled mess. And you can't pick blackberries without just getting completely cut up. And so you look at the plant, and you go, there's fruit there. It's blackberry season. Look at those fruit. I can see them. When I stand far enough away, all I see is the fruit. But when I get up close, I see all these thorns and all this nastiness. And so if you're going to pick those blackberries, what do you want? You want gloves? You want long sleeves? What's Jesus tell them? He says, don't take any money. Don't take any shoes. Don't take the things that would protect you. Go pick the blackberries. Barehanded, barearmed, nice hot day, you're all sweaty. Go pick the blackberries in that weather. Do you want to do it? You don't want to do it. So can you understand that these men...

were intimidated to do this work. That's the first thing I want you to see. They were intimidated. And we'll see next week their response to this work. And they're in awe that it worked. They come back going, we have authority over demons. You'll never believe it. So they set about this work by faith. They set about it because the Lord Jesus Christ told them to do it. And he told them it was going to be hard. He was honest with them. I send you out as lambs in the midst of wolves. You remember at the beginning I said that the world is full of the enemies of God. There's no one neutral. There are people who might seem friendly as long as you're not engaged with them about their sin and about righteousness and about judgment and about their obligation to serve the God who made them. They're pleasant enough. But when you engage them about those things, all of a sudden they're not so friendly anymore. They're not so pleasant because they're not neutral. They're either men of peace.

as our text describes them, or they hate God. And when you engage with them, it becomes evident very quickly what you're dealing with. And so the main body of our text this morning is Jesus explaining to these disciples how to go about this work. The first thing he tells them is don't take any money, don't take any bag, don't take any shoes. So what does that create in them? That creates dependence in them. That creates dependence in them. Dependence on whom? On what? Dependence upon the grace of God. Dependence upon the grace of God to go do this work. And then he tells them this very strange thing that I had never noticed before when I read this text until I was preparing to preach. And then he tells them, and greet no one on your way. Greet no one on your way. Why are they not supposed to greet anybody? The reason they're not supposed to greet anybody is because they've been commissioned by Jesus Christ to go do work. It's like you getting a job and your boss saying,

Don't be on your phone. You mean don't talk to my friends? Don't be social? Don't care for the people that I love and that love me? Yes, that's exactly what you're being told. You're at work. Get to work. 2 Timothy 2 verse 4 says, John, is that what being in the Marines was like? Did you get to talk to all of us while you were gone away? No. John was in the Marines, and I went into his graduation, and they locked him away, and he couldn't communicate, and he couldn't do anything. His life that he had outside of that base, he didn't have any contact with it while he was there because he was enlisted, and he had work to do. He had things to learn, and that's what Jesus is doing with these 70. He's enlisting them. He didn't say, hey, raise your hand, fill out your connection card.

If you want to go be one of these people, just mark it on your card, and we'll get in contact with you about it. No, it says he appointed 70 of them. You, go. And so there's a real danger to the disciples to be negligent in their duty, to not attend to their duty faithfully. And so he tells them as you go, don't take anything. Trust me. Depend on me. And don't waste your time greeting people. I've given you work to do. You need to be about this work. So if you were one of those 70, would you be excited, scared, frustrated? I'd probably be all three of those and some other things. It's no longer theory. It's no longer, oh, we love you and we follow you and you're teaching and it's amazing to see what you're doing. All of a sudden he says, you're here. I have work for you. This is what it looks like. Go out there and do it. It's going to be really hard. As an aside, one of the things we learn from this text is that being a Christian means you don't get to be passive.

You don't get to be a receiver. You're not a consumer. You're to be a producer. You're to produce fruit for God. And you're to produce the fruit that he tells you to produce. If you were going to sell something to a market, you go, well, we're going to grow some stuff and we're going to sell it to the market. And the market says, well, we're buying potatoes. And you go, well, we didn't want to grow potatoes. We wanted to grow carrots. So here's bushels and bushels of carrots. What's the market say? We don't want your carrots. We want potatoes. We hired you to grow potatoes. Why did you plant carrots? And so these disciples who've been appointed to this work are to be of a single mind. They're to cover this work in prayer, beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out more people. When you do something difficult, it's very desirable to have other people with you doing it. It's encouraging. It's strengthening. He sent them out two by two. Why?

Because this is super hard work, and when you go try to do it by yourself, your temptations and your failures will multiply. What in Proverbs does it say about when a man falls down, he has a friend with him, what's the friend do? He picks him up. So what happens when someone falls down and they're out two by two? The other one can help them. And you see this principle all throughout life. You guys have heard of wingmen. You have a wingman. You have a sidekick. That's this principle, just being... being lived out in all of life. Those who take on life by themselves with no help will fail. Because when they fall down, there's not going to be anyone to help them, to encourage them, to support them, pick them up, rebuke them when they need it. So they go out two by two because of their weakness. They go out two by two because of their fear. They go out two by two so that God's will will actually be accomplished. And so then Jesus moves on and he gives them instructions about what they're to do.

And he gives a couple of different scenarios. One is where they enter into houses, and then two, where they enter into cities. The interesting thing that he tells the disciples, I don't know if you caught it when we read it, is he tells them to say the same thing to both groups, both those who receive them and those who reject them. He says, whatever city you enter and they receive you, eat what is set before you and heal those who are sick and say to them what? Say to them, the kingdom of God has come near to you. What about the city, the people that reject them? They're to go out into the streets. They're to shake, they're to wipe the dust off of their feet. They're to pronounce a judgment, God's judgment against this city. And what are they to say to them? The kingdom of God has come near. And so the same thing is said to both groups, both those who receive them and those who reject them. But they mean different things. You understand this. When you say to the one who is sick, who's come, who's received the teaching, and who is healed, and you say to them,

The kingdom of God has come near to you. What are you saying to them? What these disciples were saying to them was they were attributing to the source, they were acknowledging the source of the healing. The healing that you have, the peace that you have, comes from your nearness, your proximity to the kingdom of God. These men were sent out as Jesus' heralds. They were going before him to prepare his way. The kingdom of God is drawn near to you, and you've received it. This is a blessing. It's meant to comfort them by acknowledging the source of their healing. It's also meant to stir them up to greater faith and obedience. They've received the disciples. They've been healed. Their faith ought to be confirmed and ought to be strengthened. So how do we describe those who reject Jesus Christ, who reject his disciples, who won't have them? You call it a curse. The disciples are told, go out in the streets and publicly curse them for their rejection of Jesus Christ, for their hatred of him.

That's what you're supposed to do. Does that sound hard to you? To be the one to do it. Go out into the streets and declare to them, you know what happened in Sodom, right? You people in this city who haven't received us, you know what happened to Sodom. These cities are in Judea. They would have known. Hellfire and brimstone consumed the city. You remember? It's going to be worse for you when God comes in judgment and then leave. And they're told the same thing. The kingdom of God has come near. But they didn't receive the kingdom of God. They rejected it. Why did they reject it? They rejected it because they hated God. That's why they rejected it. They didn't lie about it. They didn't play nice about it. They didn't let you finish. You know, like when you get those phone calls, those obnoxious phone calls, people trying to sell you stuff or steal your credit cards or whatever they're trying to do, tell you about your bank account that you don't actually have as in something's wrong with it.

Don't you all have this idea that you're supposed to be nice to them? Or you feel bad if you're just mean to them? You feel bad, right? Oh, I can't just hang up and tell them they're wicked, awful people for calling me because that's not nice. Now, just as an example, when they call you and they tell you that you have your credit card with ABC Bank that you don't actually have, what's the thought you have in your mind? The thought I have in my mind is, do I? Do I, is there a credit card in my name with that? Did somebody else, you know, is it fraud? What's going on? I might want to hear what they have to say. And so you listen. And eventually I convinced myself, no, this is just a big fat lie. And you're trying to steal things from me. So what should you say to someone who's trying to steal your money? You can't have my money. And you're an awful person for trying to steal it. Shame on you. Is that wrong to say?

That's absolutely appropriate to say. They're sinning. Tell them. It's the same sort of thing, only far more intense with the cities that refuse Jesus Christ. It's going to be so bad for you that we don't even want the dust of this place on our feet. You didn't receive us. You didn't give us water to wash our feet with. So we've got our feet are caked with dirt. And it was customary that if you receive someone. into your house, one of the things you would do is you'd give them water. You'd give them a basin so they could wash their feet. So these men come out of the house into the street. Their feet are not washed because they were rejected because of what they had to say. And they say, we don't even want the residue of your wickedness on our feet because God's going to judge you. And it's going to be worse for you than it was for Sodom. Yikes. Where in the world do you hear anything like that being said? Do we have in our minds?

The capacity to understand that these sorts of things need to be said to the enemies of God. Jesus then goes on and he compares these Judean cities. Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum. He compares them to Tyre and Sidon. Well, if you don't know what's going on, you're going, okay, so I get that he's saying it's going to be better in this city than that city. But Tyre and Sidon are leading cities of the Gentiles at this time. They're wicked cities. This is like Nineveh. This is like Jonah being sent to Nineveh. The capital of hatred toward God. And what does Jesus say about those cities? He said it's going to be better for them because if they had seen what you saw, they would have done what Nineveh did. You see the same thing happening again. Jonah doesn't want to go to Nineveh, hates Nineveh, wants them to be judged. God says, no, you're going to go. You can't run from me. Get over there to Nineveh.

So he gets on over there to Nineveh and he preaches to them. And what do they do? They repent. And here Jesus says, Tyre and Sidon, these cities that are in your day, not way back in some other theoretical day, those people right over there, they wouldn't have hated me. They would have repented fully and completely, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. They would have understood the shame of their behavior and they would have turned from their ways, but not you. And it's going to be worse for you than for them. I want to talk to you a little bit about shame. Jesus is shaming. What he's doing is he's telling his disciples to shame those who reject Jesus Christ. He's telling them to shame them. And shame is something in our culture that you could do just about anything except say shame on you. What you're doing is awful and it's an abomination and you should never do it. And you should feel shame because of your association to it. Our culture absolutely hates shame.

Cannot abide it. And so, consequently, Christians being what we are, don't use shame anymore. We don't tell anybody, shame on you. If you're older than me, I'm 35, did your parents say shame on you when you were a child? Or your grandparents? That was the rebuke. Shame on you. But those of you who are younger than me, have you been told shame on you? You children, have you been told shame on you? Doesn't it just cut right across the grain and just turn something in you, like flip a switch in you that just infuriates you? That someone would say, what you did was shameful and you ought not to do it. It evokes a response out of you. You can't just go, oh yeah, I know, it's shameful. It really is just an abomination. You really shouldn't do these sorts of things. You can't use these kind of words and have these kinds of apathetic responses.

Shame is meant to evoke a response in us. And so Jesus tells his disciples, you go into those cities and those ones who won't receive you, shame them. Shame them. And so I want you to know that there must be a place in your mind and in your life to both feel shame and to shame others. You ought to have that in your arsenal. You ought to be sensitive to it. You ought to use it when it's appropriate. So when would it be appropriate to say shame on you? Well, when you were a kid, what sort of things did you get told shame on you for? Disrespecting your mother? Shame on you. How do you answer? What do you say in response to someone saying shame on you? You either fight, you double down and you fight, or you're silent. Because what can you say? What you did was so shameful, you're either going to defend it like a fool, or you're going to say, yeah.

That was. It is. Where else should we be particularly sensitive to shame? You should be particularly sensitive to shame in the area of purity. There's no shame before the eyes of our culture, particularly as it regards to sexual purity. There's no shame associated with the wickedness that we're surrounded by and that we partake in. And there ought to be. When you're sexually immoral, when you're tempted to be sexually immoral, the shame sensor in your mind ought to go off and go, this is shameful. And even if no one in the world sees what I'm doing or ever knows, God does. And it's shameful. And I will give an account for it. And what these cities of Judea are told is it's going to be worse for you than it will be for those who never heard, never saw the miracles, never received the teaching. It's going to be worse for you than for them. That's your shame. You saw, you knew.

You understood. You didn't act in ignorance. You did it with the full knowledge of what God demands of you. And you went, I don't care. I want it. And at that point, in your temptation, you ought to feel shame. And if you are not the person doing it, but you're aware of someone who's in that hell, in that slavery, you ought to tell them, shame on you for that. What you have done is wicked and awful and it's shameful and you ought not to do it. Because it's not going to end well for you. That's what the disciples were saying to these cities that rejected them. Shame on you. You're rejecting Jesus Christ. Another place in our culture where shame would be really useful is when you're dealing with homosexuals. You should tell them it's shameful. That they commit indecent acts that are shameful. What about someone who has an abortion?

You should tell them it's shameful to kill your babies. Shameful. It's an abomination. It never entered the mind of God that parents would kill their children. You should tell them, shame on you. You think, I could never. I can't. Pastor, you're so far beyond what I'm comfortable doing and saying and thinking even. And I say, then you're standing right next to me. I'm not different than you. But we're to grow up into Jesus Christ who is our head and we're to do and say the things that he did and the things that he said. And we're not to be ashamed of him. And so these disciples were terrified. They were scared. They're going, you're sending us out to die as lambs amongst the wolves. We'll find, well, in a couple of weeks when we get back to Luke, you're going to find out that's not what happened. That God actually sent them out and then he actually went with them and he actually blessed them in the work.

And they come back and they're, wow, they're amazed. We're going to get to that in a couple of weeks. But if you're scared about this work, you're intimidated, your knees shake, you feel your feet of clay, I say you're no different than me and you're no different than them. And God was faithful to them and he bore them through it. And he'll carry you through it as well. Be faithful. Don't be ashamed of Jesus Christ. Because if you're ashamed of him before men, he'll be ashamed of you before his Father. And you don't want that. So what's the application? Of this text. So we come to the last couple of verses. Can you get to the last couple up there? Thank you, Zach. One more. Thank you. This is the application. He says, the one who listens to you listens to me and the one who rejects you rejects me. And he who rejects me rejects him who sent me. What Jesus tells him at the very end is he says, you are my disciples. You are united with me in such a way that if they do not receive you, it's not personal. They're rejecting me.

You remember when the nation of Israel wanted king? They said, we want to be like the nations. We want to have a king. And what were they doing? Samuel gets all worked up. He's all upset. He's all frustrated. He's trying to stop them because he recognizes it's wicked what they're doing. And what does God say to Samuel? He says, it's not you they're rejecting, it's me. And so you ought to take strength and courage from union with Jesus Christ. And you ought to realize that when you suffer, When you're persecuted, when you're slandered, when you're treated poorly, when you lose your job, when your kids hate you because you actually expect them to obey, when your neighbors won't talk to you because you talk to them about living with their live-in boyfriend, girlfriend, that when you experience those things, and faithful Christians experience these things, in some place, somewhere in their life, somebody hates them because they love Jesus.

If that's not true anywhere in your life, I say, where is your faith? Show me your faith by your work. Show me the marks on your back. And so when you get those marks on your back, and when people hate you, and they reject you, and they slander you, and they do all kinds of awful things, say awful things, it's not you they're rejecting. It's Jesus Christ. And that's what he said. Those who don't listen to you, those who reject you, they reject me. And you ought to be encouraged because what he's saying is he's not ashamed of your suffering. He's not ashamed to be united with you in that misery. The second application is when we listen to God's messengers, we're listening to him. When you listen to God's messengers, you're listening to him. I want to talk a little bit about this. You say, oh, you're talking about yourself. And I say, yeah, I am. I wish you didn't have to listen to me some of the times because I don't want all your eyes watching me. That's the truth.

If I could have my way, I wouldn't have all of you watching me and watching my marriage and watching my kids and watching everything that you watch about me. It's unpleasant. You live in a goldfish bowl and there's no cover. You have 360 degree access. And then you have to listen to me. But you're not listening to me. Who are you listening to? You're listening to God. I'm not God. But he and his wisdom gave you men. broken, fallen, sinful men who actually sin against you. And he tells you to listen to them. In Hebrews, it tells you to obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls. Let them do this with joy and not with sorrow, for that would be unprofitable to you. God's fully aware that he's given you sinful men to submit to. These disciples weren't anything special. They followed Jesus Christ.

And they're told to go out and be listened to. Make sure they listen to you. One of the things we'll come to later in the pastoral epistles as we're reading through our scripture lessons is Paul tells Timothy this really awkward thing. He says, essentially, you know you're young and you need to make sure that you don't let them disregard you. Don't let them ignore you. Because that's what they're going to want to do. They're going to want to not listen to you. Tell them they can't do that. Tell them it's not good for their souls if they don't listen to you. If you've never been in that position, it's like...

I don't know how to describe it to you. It's the most awkward thing in the world to say what I'm saying right now. But if you're a husband, you understand it. You should. Because you should tell your wife, I know I'm not perfect, but you still have to listen and do what I said. And I'm saying that to you knowing that I'm going to stand before God and give an account for what I'm telling you to do right now. Now do it. I love God and I love you. I'm not perfect and I might be wrong. And I know you don't agree. But you need to do it.

If you're a husband, you should have that conversation. At some point and in some context, that should happen in your marriage. You need to take responsibility to be faithful to what God's commanded you to do as a husband. You wives, you need to be faithful to listen. Just like the cities are supposed to listen, just like you're supposed to listen, you wives are supposed to listen. It gets really dicey and hard and ugly, and there's lots of sharp edges in this kind of stuff. And you're right, there is. If you feel that, you feel the right thing. When we listen to God's messengers, we're listening to him. Here's the other thing I want to say to you about that. You should listen to messengers who were sent to you. You should listen to messengers who were sent to you. Why do I say that? I say that because in our day and age, you can listen to anybody you want. You like John Piper? You listen to John Piper.

Like John MacArthur? You listen to John Pipe? John MacArthur. Like Alistair Begg? Listen to Alistair Begg. Like Jeff Durbin? Listen to Jeff Durbin. Like Doug Wilson? Listen to Jeff Doug Wilson. Who do you like? Who's your guy? Who gets you? You know what he is? He's a stranger. He doesn't know you. Right? He doesn't know you. He wasn't sent to you. And you ought to make a... I'm not telling you you can't ever listen to stuff that's not from us. But I am telling you, you ought to give priority to the ones who were sent to you. If you're ever debating missing church and you go, we'll just listen to a MacArthur podcast and it'll be fine. No, it's not. Your priorities are all out of whack. Listen to the one who's sent to you. Be at church on Sunday. Listen to your elders. They were sent to you. Don't submit yourself to people that don't know you. They won't be nearly as helpful to you. Listen to those who are sent to you. Romans 10.

14 and 15. Speaking of the Gentiles, the nations coming to faith, Paul writes, how will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how will they believe in him in whom they have not heard? Well, they'll listen to a podcast. Facebook live stream. No. How will they hear without a preacher? And how will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things. The harvest. is plentiful. The laborers are few. What should you pray for? You should pray for God to raise up more pastors. You should pray for God to have more churches planted. The flip side of that is you should pray for unfaithful pastors and unfaithful churches to be shut down. You should pray that God would shut their mouths, break their jaws, shut them up, because they're doing the souls under their care harm. We want faithful men preaching God's news. We don't want unfaithful men lying to people.

So listen to the messengers that God sent to you. Realize that if you don't listen to them, it's not good for your soul. It does harm to your soul. Unless you think I get a kick out of being able to be the one that gets to do that. James tells me that I'm going to face a stricter judgment than any of you. And it's terrifying. That was the thing that was writ large in my mind as I was being ordained. No more excuses. You were like pastoring, but you weren't ordained yet. You're in the process. But once it happens, all of a sudden you go, oh.

If I believe the word of God, I'm going to face a judgment that none of you will. So don't live in a fantasy land where you think it's sweet and fun and I get all the perks. I don't. I get a stricter judgment. It's terrifying. And so if that's the context under which I'm supposed to do my work, then it would behoove you to listen and to obey. The last thing I'll say is, so how long does all of this go on? How long should you pray for this? How long should you seek this? How long do you have to listen? And I say, until either Jesus returns, you die, or the world is filled with the glory of God. That's how long this work goes on. You have to be about it right now, and you're going to have to be about it until one of those things happens. Numbers chapter 14, verses 20 through 23, it says, The Lord said, I have pardoned them according to your word, but indeed, as I live, all of the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord.

Surely all the men have seen my glory and my signs which I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness. And so the Lord's recounting. He says, I'm going to fill this world with my glory. And surely everyone's seen it. And you would think if everyone had seen the glory of the Lord, what should their response be? Repentance. Isn't that what you think? They just need to see the glory of the Lord. Once they see who Jesus Christ is, there won't be any other choice except to love him and to bow to him. No. That is not what people do. Not all of them anyway. Lots of people double down in their hatred and their opposition to Jesus Christ. Surely all these men have seen my glory and my signs which I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have put me to the test these ten years and have not listened to my voice. They shall by no means see the land which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who spurned me see it. Those who don't listen to my words, says Jesus Christ, says the Lord, those who don't listen to my words, those who don't heed them,

They won't enter the land. They're not my people. And they won't be in my heaven. And so it's a humbling thing to be a creator, a creation, a creature, to be made. You live under the constant I of your creator. You live under the constant dictates of his will for you. And there's nowhere you can run and nowhere you can hide and no amount of stiff-necked rebellion that will turn him off of you. You can either receive him and be changed. in this life in a way that prepares you for the life to come, or you can remain in rebellion and in hatred to him. And it will not end well for you. I say all of this to you because I don't want that latter part to be true of any of you. I don't want it to be true of me. I don't want it to be true of my family or my children. I don't want it to be true of you or your children. I don't want your marriages to be broken. I don't want your neighbors to go to hell. I don't want babies to be killed and have us go. I don't want any of that. I want Christians.

who are appointed by God, called by his name to do his will. And that means you. And that means me. It means getting to work in the midst of your fear and your own sin and your own struggle. It means following Jesus Christ, giving your heart to him and seeking to obey him. And when you fail, it means repenting and getting back on the horse. That's what being a Christian means. It means being fruitful in his kingdom. It means saying what he says and doing what he does in the midst of the watching world. And you need to know they're not going to like it.

sometimes. And you know what? That's okay. That's okay. Because Jesus isn't going to disown you if you don't produce a Christian every time. If sometimes the fruit of it is they hate you, they hit you, they fire you, they steal you for your money, they abandon you. Jesus endured all those things. He endured all those things in his own body and in his own life. And he won't cast you out. He won't be ashamed of you. He'll be glorified. So have the faith to plant seeds, the seeds that God would have you plant. When someone hates God and they make it known, you should tell them that it's shameful that they hate God and that it's not going to end well for them and that it's going to go better for the unreached tribe in Africa or India or wherever they're at than it is for them because here you are telling them about the God of heaven and earth. That's your work. That's our place. That's our privilege. You say, where? And I say, just look to your right. Look to your left. Go out that door. Go to the grocery store. Sit down at work.

Get on Facebook. There's people. Find people and talk to them. You don't know how to do it, ask them. What do you think is going to happen when you die? Are you ready to die? You'll be in the conversation. What do you think God thinks about how you treat your wife? Just ask a question and you're off and running. You'll find out whether they're an enemy or a lover of God. So go do the work. Be about the work. And you'll be amazed to see God's faithfulness in it. To you and to them. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we are humbled by your patience with us, how long-suffering you are, your forbearance toward us in our weakness and in our rebellion even. Father, we ask that you would be merciful, not only to us, but to those that you put us in contact with. Would you help us to love them with your love, to speak your truth to them without flinching, without being ashamed. And Father, we ask that you would produce a harvest.

of good fruit. We pray that your kingdom would grow, that as we carry your kingdom into this world, we pray that there would be healing, there would be repentance, there would be faith, there would be new life found in your son. We pray, Father, for strength when your son is rejected and when we're slandered and maligned and attacked. We pray, Father, that you would keep us from discouragement and even, Father, that you'd give us joy. in the midst of it, knowing that we are not enduring anything that your son didn't endure on our behalf and at our hands. Father, we ask that you would glorify yourself. Build your kingdom in us and through us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.