According To Luke: A Good Trade

According To Luke: A Good Trade

Opening Illustration: Trading City Life For The Slow Life
Because he had grown up just outside New York City a young pastor barely knew a cow from an ear of corn. That is, until he married a small town country girl from Ohio and traded spaces. Trading New York City for a small rural community, the day of his first sermon he tried very hard to fit in-- Maybe too hard! With his wife sitting in the front pew He began his discourse: “I never saw a cow until I met my wife.”

Point:
Life is full of trading this for that isn’t it? Sometimes these trades lead to good things and other times they lead us to disaster. Sure, this city preacher traded the fast life of New York for the slow life of Ohio. Yet, the Bible talks about more important trades that we make. 

Mark 8:36 ESV
For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?

Now that is a bad trade. The trade of our soul for temporal wealth, power and fame. Our soul, an eternal thing, is vastly more valuable than the riches of this world. Yet, so many people are trading their souls away for things that don’t matter. They are trading their souls away for comfort, pleasure, ease, and happiness. All of which are temporary. 

This is a bad trade. 

So, why do so many people willingly make the trade. They give up heavenly reward for earthly gain. Why?  The answer is really quite simple. There is risk to following Jesus. For those of us that truly follow Christ, we know that the road to saying “yes” to Jesus is paved with pitfalls and filled with difficult obstacles. 

Jesus warns His followers that adversity is at every corner when they follow Him. “In this world you will have trouble.” (John 16:33). Throughout the pages of the Bible, there are literally hundreds of verses that discuss adversity, persecution, suffering, tragedy, heartache, and hardships. 

Matthew 7:13 NLT
"You can enter God's Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way.”

That’s why so many people choose the trade the narrow road of following Jesus for the broad road of chasing after the world. The broad road is seemingly easier. Yet, the narrow road is the only road that leads to reward and joy.  

Fill in this blank for me: There is a Risk and Reward To Following Jesus! As people confronted with the reality of Jesus, we have to determine whether or not that risk of following Jesus is worth the eternal reward that we receive in knowing Jesus. 

There Is Risk and Reward To Following Jesus!

Background:
Jesus is preaching the Sermon on the Mount. The sermon is captured twice in the Gospels. It is also recorded in greater detail in the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus is teaching His disciples and followers who have gathered around Him. Teaching was a common occurrence thus far in Jesus ministry. He has been a traveling preacher and teacher for quite some time. He has also been a remarkable healer. You can imagine that there are thousands now in His midst. 

Jesus pauses for a time to stop and talk to the people. These are broken and beaten down people. They need encouragement and they needed love. Jesus was going to provide them both in His lessons on the beatitudes. 

What is a beatitude exactly? A beatitude is a blessing. Thats why all these statements start off with “blessed”. Jesus was blessing the people even though they were living in a season of discouragement and despair. 

So, lets take a moment and read the next blessing that Jesus gives to the people. 

Scripture:

Luke 6:22-23 ESV
22 “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! 23 Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.

I. Following Jesus Means That You Will Be…

A. Scorned vs. 22
Luke 6:22 ESV
22 “Blessed are you when people hate you… 

Point:
Jesus gives three distinct forms of persecution to His followers. Jesus is laying the cards on the table. He is being fully transparent with them. He wanted them to know that there are consequences for following Him. The road will be difficult and hard. It will not be easy. 

Point:
This message from Christ is vastly different from the health, wellness and prosperity preachers that many of us see on tv. Their message is that Jesus wants you to be the best version of you. Jesus wants you to be happy, wealthy, healthy, and prosperous. They tell us that when we follow Jesus that the world will applaud.  

Brothers and sisters, that is a twisted lie and cannot be found in the Bible. Jesus tells His followers that if they follow Him, they WILL be hated. The will be despised. The will be disrespected. This is not a “maybe” word from Jesus. This is a fact. 

Point:
Jesus knew that His teachings would run counter to the lessons of the world. Friends, when you are living counter cultural, friction is going to take place. People do not like be reminded that they are sinners in need of a Savior. They want to believe the lie that the Devil told in the garden, “can you really trust God”, “God knows that if you eat of the Tree of Good and Evil that you will be like Him.” People do not like being reminded that there is a better way to live, a way to live within the boundaries of God’s Word. 

Point:
When we look, act and sound like Jesus in this world, the world will not respond with applause. It will respond with jeers. 

Mark 13:13 ESV
And you will be hated by all for my name's sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

I. Following Jesus Means That You Will Be…

A. Scorned vs. 22
B. Shunned vs. 22
Luke 6:22 ESV
22 “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you…

Point:
It is hard to believe that someone would be ostracized for living out their Christian faith. Yet we have seen it over and over again. We have seen it in politics. Vice President Mike Pence was roundly criticized for holding his marital vows so close to him that he refused to travel alone with a female counterpart or have dinner exclusively with another female. What about sports. Tim Tebow was criticized for kneeling before games and praying in public. Even today, Tebow is a punchline in the sports world. What about education? You have not heard of her but her name is Toni Richardson. She is from Augusta, Maine. Toni was confronted with a struggling co-worker. Toni gave this co-worker some advice, some encouraging words and then told the co-worker that she would be praying for her. The conversation was overheard and Richardson was publicly reprimanded by the principle and the board of education. What about religion? There are churches all around the United States who are feeling the pressure to remain current to the day they are living. They are trading their long held Biblical beliefs for cultural relevance. Churches are wholesaling massive parts of Scripture in the name of tolerance and acceptance. May it never be said of us. 

Point:
If you choose the Christian life, you will be left behind by the worldly society. 

Point:
Shunning is the new wave of American persecution. We see people being persecuted in just about every field. We see this new wave of persecution being played out in the newspapers, magazines and most especially on social media. 

Point:
Friends, living for Jesus may very well set you up for not having very many friends. I know that is hard to hear, even more difficult to come to grips with, but it it long since time that we make a decision as to what matters more, this world or our commitment to Christ. 

2 Timothy 3:12 ESV
Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted…

C. Slandered vs. 22
Luke 6:22 ESV
22 “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! 

Point:
The word that Jesus uses here is very interesting. It is į½€Ī½ĪµĪ¹Ī“ĪÆĪ¶Ļ‰ and is pronounced o-nā-dē'-zō. It means to insult someone. Yet there is another meaning to it as well. It means unbraid. What an interesting image that Jesus is providing for the hearer. For those of you who have daughters, you probably have put up their hair in braids. My nieces often wear braids because they are softball players. I can remember after a long day at the park, their mother, my sister in law, taking down their hair. When she unbraids their hair, their hair seems to fall apart. It is a mess. Hair just goes sort of everywhere. 

Point:
Jesus is saying, blessed are you when others unbraid you. Blessed are you when people make a mess of your life. When they lie about you and tell falsehoods about you. Blessed are you when people are critical and cynical of you for living for me. 

Point:
Oh friends, I have felt the overwhelming hurt of being unbraided by people. Most people do not understand the power of their words and how deeply their words can hurt someone. 

Point:
Perhaps you are feeling unbraided today. Maybe someone has insulted you because of your walk with Jesus. Well, Jesus says that you are not alone. You are in good company. 

I Peter 3:16 ESV
Having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.

“If you live in such a manner as to stand the test of the last judgment, you can depend upon it that the world will not speak well of you.” 
Alistair Begg

Illustration:
I want to transition from the negative to the positive. Sure, there are comforts of this world that we will trade for following Jesus. However, it is worth it when you consider the eternal impact you are making on someone’s life. Consider Ahn Ei Sook.

Ahn Ei Sook, was a Korean woman who lived through terrible times during the Japanese occupied Korea in the ‘30s through 1945. She took a powerful stand alone for God’s truth, despite arrest, imprisonment and possible execution. She writes in her book If I Perish that she was imprisoned in a prison camp for her faith, and refused to bow down to Japanese idol worship though many Christians did that day. She was tortured for six years until her release. Throughout her life, there were countless examples of God’s intervention. 



On the day of her release, a sympathetic prison guard shouted “Ladies and gentlemen! These are the ones who for six long years refused to worship Japanese gods. They fought against sever torture, hunger and cold, and have won without bowing their heads to the Idol worship of Japan. Today they are champions of the faith!” The crowd then shouted “Praise to the name of Jesus,” and began to sing joyously. She made the decision to go to the parliament of Japan and speak out against the injustice of the persecution of Christians.

Point:
Jesus tells us that we are blessed when we are persecuted. Persecution gives us the chance to add feet to our faith. Sook used her persecution to be a witness. We can do the same. 

Point:
So we have seen the hardships of following Jesus, let’s look at the benefits.

II. The Benefits For Following Jesus Include…

A. Rejoicing vs. 23
Luke 6:23 ESV
23 Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.

Point:
Be glad. Rejoice exceedingly. Be well. This is the meaning behind the Greek word that Jesus is using. There is another word that stuck out to me. Thrive. Jesus is telling His followers to thrive under the weight of persecution. Jesus’ words remind me of the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. These Jewish men who were being held under Babylonian captivity were told to bow down and worship a false God. If they didn’t they would be thrown into the furnace to be burned alive. They refused and we know the rest of the story. They were tossed into the furnace and they thrived in the flames. They danced with the Son of God. 

Point:
We should be happy when we are persecuted because that means that we are actually doing something worth being persecuted for. If we are not being persecuted, could it be that we are not doing anything for the Kingdom or for our King. 

I Peter 4:12-14 ESV
Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.

II. The Benefits For Following Jesus Include…

A. Rejoicing vs. 23
B. Renewal vs. 23
Luke 6:23 ESV
23 Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.

Point:
It is very difficult to imagine anyone leaping for joy when they are suffering persecution. Yet it happens. I have seen it first hand. I have seen believers in China dance in the street because someone had accepted Christ as their Savior. I have seen people in China give out Bibles even though they might lose their homes for doing so. These men and women find it worth it if someone comes to know Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. 

Point:
We need to understand that God can use persecution. In the first century church, God uses persecution to grow the church and spread the Gospel across the known world. Acts 8:1 tells us ““a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria”. 

Point:
Persecution also reveals the Glory of God in our lives. It seems that persecution is the switch that God uses to turn on the light of His power, grace and mercy. Don’t resist persecution but allow it to renew our faith in God and allow it to grow out dependance on Him. Peter wanted them to “not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you” (1st Pet 4:12), but instead, he wanted them to “rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed” (1st Pet 4:13), so “If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you” (1st Pet 4:14).

2 Corinthians 12:10 ESV
For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

C. Reward vs. 23
Luke 6:23 ESV
23 Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.

Point:
Jesus tells His followers that there is a reward in heaven awaiting us for our steadfastness in the face of persecution. We are not just blessed, but we will be rewarded. That is good news and a good trade. 

Point:
One of my favorite stories in the Bible concerns the character of Stephen. Stephen was in the presence of the Sanhedrin. He had just shared a beautiful testimony concerning Jesus Christ. He delivered a powerful message concerning the Gospel and salvation. The response of the Sanhedrin was not so positive. 

Acts 7:54  and 57 NIV
54 When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him.

57 At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, 58 dragged him out of the city and began to stone him.

That is something that none of us would sign up for. None of us would welcome our peers and neighbors hating us, dragging us from our homes and stoning us in the streets. However, look at what Stephen saw:

Acts 5:55-56 NIV
55 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56 “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”

Can you imagine for just one second what that must have been like? Can you imagine seeing Jesus rise from the throne of heaven and the universe in honor of your sacrifice? Can you put a price tag on that? I would say that Stephen made a great trade, his life for Christ. He was indeed blessed, renewed, rejoicing and rewarded. 

Point:
Even though I do not preach from Eugene Peterson’s “The Message”, I do occasionally use it because it offers a differing perspective to Scripture. Listen to how he translates Matthew 5:10-12.

Matthew 5:10-13 The Message

"You're blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God's kingdom."

"Not only that -- count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens -- give a cheer, even! -- for though they don't like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble." 

Point:
So today, if you are being persecuted, well done. It means that you are living out your faith and that you are a member of a tremendous club that includes Jesus, the disciples, the prophets, Elijah, Stephen, and so many more. Remember when the world mistreats you because of Christ, you are blessed. So rejoice, be renewed and enjoy the reward of Christ being with you each and everyday. 

Matthew 5:10 ESV
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Let This Information, Be Your Inspiration!





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