“Look, I am sending you out as sheep among wolves. So be as shrewd as snakes and harmless as doves. But beware! For you will be handed over to the courts and will be flogged with whips in the synagogues. You will stand trial before governors and kings because you are my followers. But this will be your opportunity to tell the rulers and other unbelievers about me.”
Jesus keeps it all the way real with His disciples then and now. The mission will be challenging and even dangerous, but the trials will be turned into opportunities to tell people about Him. Because being sent by Jesus means…
YOU’RE FULLY AWARE IT’S A DANGEROUS OPPORTUNITY.
It’s like when people want to get married. Their understandably caught up in the opportunity before them of getting engaged and celebrating a beautiful wedding day.
But whenever I get the privilege of talking to couples that are dating, I strongly encourage them to get pre-engagement counseling, before they’ve bought an engagement ring, picked a wedding date and gotten themselves and their loved ones invested. Because as wonderful as engagements, weddings and even marriage is, with godly wisdom and love, they’ve got to be told the real deal about what married life is. And honestly, it is beautifully dangerous with all it’s complexity and shouldn’t be entered into lightly. And this is the same kind of awareness Jesus wants us to have about the dangerous opportunity He calls us to.
Jesus says you can expect the dangers of persecution, arrest, physical suffering, being called names, being hated by people of all nations, have your very life threatened and even experience the unnatural betrayal of close family members, because you follow Him. Yet while He wants them and us to be fully aware of the difficulties, He also gives strong promises that these difficulties will be turned into opportunities for the Holy Spirit to speak through them in order to give witness to Jesus. He promises that if they endure by faith in Him, to the end, they will be saved. He encourages them repeatedly not to be afraid of those who threaten their lives, because these people will face the just judgment of God. And He also strongly assures them of the depth of God’s loving care for them as they go through these trials.
Jesus basically wants you to know that He sees you in 2021 and He saw you in 2020. He knows the difficulties you face because you follow Him and are leading others to do the same. And what He wants you to know, though it may be hard to see, is that He’s actually at work in the midst of your trials. He’s working to turn them into opportunities for you to give witness to Him. He’s turning them into opportunities for the mission of disciple-making. He says to you, “Don’t be afraid.” He is with you and will lavish His love on you in order to get you through the difficulties. He just needs you to hold on. He needs you to endure a little while longer, by His strength.
But now, Jesus has one more thing He needs His followers then and now to understand about what it means to be sent. And it is as equally challenging as it is encouraging, beginning in verse 37…
Stay tuned for part three!
So, what are you going to do about what you just read? Are you ready to take the NEXT STEP on the journey with Jesus?
CJ Cousins
Follower of Jesus, Husband, Father, Associate Pastor for Younger Generations at Vienna SDA Church and Speaker/Author for Living For Him. CJ’s passion is to live, preach & teach the Good News about Jesus and multiply disciples for His Kingdom.