Flogged in the Synagogue

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Reminded me of like a late 90s, early 2000s Vineyard song. Traditionally, they'd have a simple line. It would be like, I will call upon the Lord. And then in true musical genius, the people who were singing along, they would then have this, like, prophetic response. They would say, I will call upon the Lord.

They say, who is worthy to be praised? And nobody knew what was coming. Then the prophetic came and it's like, who is worthy to be praised? And then he said, so shall I be saved. Nobody had any clue what was coming.

So shall I be saved. And they just repeated the same thing over and over and over again. So what we had is our Father. Our Father, who art in heaven. Who art in heaven.

So it was like a digital delay without delay. It was just a late 90s, early 2000s Vineyard worship song. So we have been in the book of Matthew since Jesus first coming. And we are almost done with Matthew chapter 10. We've got about two or three more weeks where we're going to complete Matthew chapter 10, which will complete our kingdom in action series.

And then CAM actually will be preaching the last week, do unto others. And then we will be transitioning into Matthew chapter 11, what we're going to call our kingdom Messiah series. And Jesus has this flashback, so to speak, where John the Baptist had come before him and John was ministering, but now John is in prison. And so Matthew's writing all of these things, and then Jesus is kind of like, well, let me go back on. Talk about John the Baptist and what's happened.

And some very interesting texts in there. Talks about in Matthew chapter 11, verse 14, that all of the Torah and all the prophets had prophesied until John and John came out under the spirit of Elijah. And so again, this helps frame what Matthew is doing in his gospel. In Matthew's gospel, he is giving us the highlights, the important things of what Jesus as the Messiah. How do we know Jesus is the Messiah?

It's not because we just feel good. It's not because we went to mass as a kid or you grew up in a Methodist church or a Presbyterian church, or because you had this emotional thing when you went to Falls Creek Falls or any of those things. It's because Jesus fulfilled the Torah and the prophets. If Jesus doesn't fulfill the Torah and the prophets, then he's not Messiah. Because the Torah and the prophets were given to point to the one who would come, who was the fulfillment, the essence, the all of the Torah and the prophets.

So Yeshua is that. And so as Jesus is going about this mission, this kingdom in action. You know, we did the Torah of the Kingdom first where Brent took us through the Sermon on the Mount. As we're going through this, we're watching Yeshua Jesus take his words and now put his feet, his hands, his body into action for the fulfillment of that. We've seen some really cool things.

We've seen the fulfillment of bunch of prophecies in Daniel. We've seen a bunch of fulfillments of Ezekiel and Jeremiah and Isaiah and all these different things. And so how do I know Jesus is the Messiah? Not because I had some really cool interaction with him on some really nasty maroon carpet in a small Nazarene church in Mason, Ohio at the age of 13, which I don't really remember how many years ago that was because once you turn 40, all the years and the birthdays run together. But I know Jesus is the Messiah because when I look at the Gospels and I watch what he did and I watch what they record, I can see the fulfillment of the Torah and the prophets.

I know that I met Jesus in that room in that small Nazarene church. But there is many, many, many times in my life, especially while working in ministry, which you would think you're probably going to be the safest in. But you know, not really. When you work in ministry, sometimes you're around people who they want to teach you about certain things in the Bible that actually try to minimize Jesus. Kingship minimizes Jesus.

Lordship minimizes his role. Guys, the moment we minimize Jesus role in the world and in our life, pack it up, move on, load up the U haul. This place is desolate. We need to move someplace else. We need to find the spirit of the Lord.

Because there is no overcoming addictions. There is no overcoming anger, bitterness, generational trauma. There's no overcoming anything in your life, even the stuff that isn't self induced, let alone the stuff that's self induced if Jesus isn't king. Because if Jesus isn't king, then the spirit that has come, the spirit of Jesus that Paul says, then it cannot manifest inside of us. And if it doesn't manifest inside of us, we can't have a new heart, we can't have a new mind.

Which means we're going to create the same exact cycles that the Israelites did for generations and generations and generations. What makes us different. And I'm sorry I'm off my notes today. Well, I'm not sorry I'm off my notes. I'm sorry if you were planning on getting to the Ole Miss Oklahoma game at 11 o'.

Clock. That's not going to happen. You can just go ahead and mail that in. That's a word of prophecy for you. It's not going to happen.

If the spirit Jesus doesn't live inside of you, then our spirit is the best that we have. As a guy who has only spent 43 years on this earth, who's made way more than 43 bad decisions, I need the spirit of Jesus in my life. If I don't have the spirit of Jesus in my life, I have the spirit of Chris, not the spirit of Christ. And the spirit of Chris is uber limited. Uber limited.

I can't even refrain from having a negative thought when somebody comments on my man bun on YouTube. What am I going to do when I have a real problem? The spirit of Jesus. Today we're going to be in Matthew, chapter 10, 16, 23. Last week we looked at how Jesus had taught his apprentices to travel light, that they wanted to do exactly what we would have done.

I'm getting ready to go to Ohio for two weeks for our family Thanksgiving and we're. What do I want to do? It's gonna be 50s, 60s during the day and 30s in the evening. I wanna have all of the clothes. I wanna have the flannels with the comfy cardigans with the little beanies.

I wanna look like I walked out of a Hallmark movie. And yet the reality is that's not gonna happen. Why? Because we're flying. And I'm flying with five kids, which means I'm not spending four hours at baggage claim, which means we're carrying on a backpack and we're trial and tribulationing all the way to Cincinnati, Ohio.

So I get trying to travel light even though I wanted to take everything. Why? Because we have to trust God for provision. We have to discern where the soil of the kingdom was fertile. Last week we talked about how Jesus said, if they do not receive you, to dust off the dust off your shoes and to move forward.

Why? Because a lot of times we want to see that place, planting of that seed come to fruition. But if I plant that seed and Misa' El is supposed to come back and see that seed to fruition, I am robbing Misa' El of his ability to work in the kingdom in action. By saying the kingdom in action can only work through me. We use the analogy of the volleyball player.

Everybody wants to be the star. Everybody wants to have the spike. But how many people want to be the person who is known as the best set her upper where they just set the ball right there for the spike in football, everybody wants to be the quarterback and yet the kicker only has to play like six plays a game and he makes millions of dollars. See how our pride and our ego kind of interject ourselves into what's there? That's not the kingdom of God.

That's the kingdom of Chris. He had prepared them not just to preach, but how to handle the rejection without carrying rejection on to the next mission assignment. And the mission was not about comfort. It was about kingdom fruit. Freely they had received, so freely they give.

Now Jesus continues his instructions and it turns even more intense. Look, I am sending you out as sheep amongst wolves. So be as shrewd as serpents and as harmless as doves. Beware. You will be handed over to the courts.

You will be flogged in the synagogues. You will. And you will stand trial before governors and kings because you are my followers. But this will be your opportunity to testify about me. Jesus didn't sugarcoat what the cost of the kingdom was.

He told them plainly, this mission will hurt. He's sending you out not into safe spaces, but into systems that hunt the righteous. How comfortable we get when we think we're on mission for the kingdom, where we say, well, how dare they go into that place? Who needs to hear the gospel? Granted, we understand today there are many people who attend churches who haven't professed Jesus as their salvation.

There are many who attend churches for social functions and things like that. But the majority of the people who are engaged in a church find value in Jesus lordship and they find value in Jesus authority to speak into their life. And so it. If we're not going to just talk to an echo chamber of people who already believe Jesus is the Messiah, we might have to go some places that people probably don't want to go. Sorry, you haven't read the Gospels.

They go to some interesting places. Paul finds enjoyment in prison. Still working on that one. Working on that heart posture change, hope. I never have to have to figure it out.

Jesus didn't sugarcoat the cost of the mission. He told him that it was going to hurt. There was going to be wolves in robes. We see this in the church where we're finding that there has been individuals who have sat in the pulpit and they have taught one thing while doing the opposite and granted everybody sins and falls short of the glory of God. But it's ironic to me when people will make professions about what is holy and not holy while knowing that they're doing absolutely Atrocious things.

The background. When you stand in a position like this, when you hold a position like this, you are held to a higher accountability. And if you don't want it, don't sign up for it. But don't be wolves and ropes.

He's sending us out to places where the courts will call their own truth rebellion. Synagogues will claim to defend God, but they'll beat the very ones that were the messengers of God. And even in the house of religion, persecution will come. Because when the kingdom shows up, it exposes every counterfeit throne. Every counterfeit throne will bow at the real throne of Jesus Christ, including the ones that we hide, including the ones we act like don't exist.

Everybody in this room, including myself, wrestles with putting something or someone on a throne when they should be taking them off and allow Jesus to go back into that space of their life. But notice what Jesus does. He doesn't call them to fear. This is exactly what we do. We fear everything.

We fear everything. And you're talking to the guy who's got cameras all over the exterior of his house. Got guns everywhere in my house. He said, don't fear again. I'm a work in progress.

Why? Because he calls us not to fear, but to use wisdom.

Be as shrewd as serpents and as harmless as doves. Be strategic without being cynical. Be alert without becoming anxious. Be strong without becoming cruel hearted. The kingdom of heaven operates in tension.

Innocence with intelligence and purity with precision.

He continues on in verse 19 through 20. When you are arrested, don't worry about how to respond or what to say. God will give you the right words at the right time. For it is not you who will be speaking, it will be the spirit of your Father speaking through you. In the kingdom of Heaven, Jesus reframes persecution into opportunity.

You're not on trial. The kingdom is witnessing through you. Some of us in this room is like, I ain't ready to be that holy.

If I'm subpoenaed, if I'm called into the court, like I'm on trial, like I'm on trial. Jesus is saying, if you are on trial, if you are called in, if you are put in those situations, that you shouldn't see it as you being on trial, you should see it as an opportunity to testify. There we go all the way back to the start of our Kingdom in Action series. What we speak with our mouth testifies about who we serve.

You're not abandoned. The spirit of the Father will speak through you. For all of my Hebrew loving Individuals, Torah loving individuals. Where do we hear this? This isn't the first time this shows up.

There's another really, really significant time in the Bible where somebody says, hey, God, you obviously didn't read my resume. You obviously didn't see, you know, that four year degree that you said was kind of like base level to get the, the job interview. Yeah. I don't have that, like, so why don't we go ahead and send somebody else? I don't know what to say.

I don't know what to do. We see this in Moses interaction with God in Exodus 4. He's being sent back to Pharaoh and he says, I'm not eloquent of speech. Why are you sending me? Is Marco Rubio not available?

Why are you sending a guy with a stutter? And God says, I want you to go and I will give you the words. This is the same thing we're seeing now with the apostles, is that Jesus is saying to his apprentices, you don't have to have it figured out. What you have to do is be in submission to me and allow me to be your Lord. And if you will do that, I will fight for you.

I got to tell you, without going into any great detail, it'll come out one of these days. If I ever sit down and write the memoir of my time in ministry, there have been a lot of things that I have witnessed in my life. There's been a lot of allegations that have happened in my life too. And my wife and I knew, we knew they were false. We knew there was not even a single bit of information that was true there.

We didn't know why. Hindsight's always 20 20. Hindsight would be a little bit, you know, lord, can we have a prophetic vision versus the hindsight when you're in tough situations? But that's not normally how he works. And so we've been in these situations and everything in me wanted to say, you know, it's not right, you know it's not true.

Here's where this is, here's what that is. I have, I have copies upon copies upon copies of the transcripts of conversations and everything. And God said, hey, Chris, can you shut up for a second? You're about to screw this up, dude. Can you sit and be still and can you allow me to work and can you move forward?

Because in those situations I can do better. Not only for you, but in the Justice Department, you're gonna screw this up. And the truth is, I probably wouldn't. And so it wasn't Easy was not easy. But we stayed silent.

And every single time, every single time, the Lord has fought our battle. Not one out of three, one out of five. Every single time the Lord has fought our battle, he has brought to light the things that were kept in darkness. And he has vindicated the false witness against us. This is the kingdom mission.

Die to yourself so you can be alive in Christ. Shut your mouth so you can actually speak. It's the. There I say it. Juxtapalooza.

If you send yourself, you're going to have to sustain yourself. But if God sends you, he will fill your mouth with wisdom and your heart with courage. When you go on a mission from the Kingdom, you go with heaven's vocabulary. You don't go with your own vocabulary. The world's courts might try to change your body, but they cannot change the word that will live inside of you.

We saw this with Moses and this is the promise. Even though there's a great deal of warnings in this from Jesus to the apprentices, and God continues on with all of the fun stuff, just keeps amping up that volume a little bit more. 21, 22. You're going to go to a church and they're going to flog you in the synagogue. What could get worse?

Lord, wait. A brother will betray a brother to death, a father, his child. And the children will rebel against their parents. You will be hated by all because of me. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

Enduring to the end does not mean that you can get a deer cart, you can get a fifth wheel, and you can seek to sustain and save your physical being. Enduring to the end is enduring upon the calling God has given in your life. Remember, when we look at the Gospels, we see that there is fruit of the Spirit, there are offices of the Spirit, there are gifts of the Spirit, and all of them are given as a part of God's righteousness. What? Not so that we can have an office.

Not so that we can be popular. So that you can strengthen the body of Christ as a whole. So when you decide that you're going to pack all of your stuff up in some sort of like bug out bag, off grid, whatever it is, you have decided that what gift God has given you no longer needs to be used for the body of Christ who made you God.

Enduring to the end in this context was that they would endure on the mission to do what they would endure on the mission to preach the Gospel. The good news that the kingdom of heaven is near.

People say, well, that's that's just the entry level of the word. Like, we really want to get into the. We want to get into the deep stuff. Let's. Let's do.

That's okay. No judgment zone here. That's okay. We're a family fellowship. It's not the worst thing.

I had somebody FaceTime me on my iPad one time while I was preaching. That'll send you for a shock. I did not answer. No. That would have been even weirder.

The irony is, the person who did it, they knew I was going to be preaching. So enduring to the end is preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. Enduring to the end is not getting tired with what we consider to be mundane. When Jesus considers it to be literally the life source of all things. The life source of all things is the fact that you were dead in your transgressions and Jesus came and willingly gave his life for you.

He hung on a tree for things he didn't deserve so that we could be reconciled to God and that we could be no longer worried about our own bloodline, but we could be covered in the same bloodline, the bloodline of the Lamb.

And when we're covered by the blood of the Lamb, the DNA bloodline we have seems of little importance. Because, Carlos, there is no doubt in my mind that we are not related on our family trees. But the moment we accept Jesus, we are absolutely brothers in Christ. As if our trees were always connected and it doesn't matter who we are. This was the plan of God.

And yet he tells us, brother will betray brother. Sister will betray sister. Jesus shifts from the religious and governmental opposition to the most painful of all. Family betrayal. Some of you in this room are in places where you're still attempting to heal from family betrayal.

You know how hard and how much that rips your soul.

Yet when the Kingdom divides light from darkness, even our bloodlines will split.

The phrase blood is thicker than water came to my mind multiple times while writing this sermon. Yet blood is thicker than water won't stand when you choose to stand on the blood of the lamb, because the blood of the lamb is the only way we can be bought and made into one family. It doesn't matter whether you're a Frankie or you're a Wallace or whatever your name is, that ceases to be of importance to the global scheme of things. In the Kingdom mission, when Jesus steps in. The Kingdom does not destroy families.

I need you to hear me. Hear me.

The kingdom of God does not destroy families, but it does expose loyalties and provides opportunities. You could Say my family is destroyed. That was not God, that was man.

The kingdom of God does not destroy families, but it will expose counterfeit loyalties. Some will love their comfort more than they'll love Christ. They'll love their family peace more than they'll love eternal peace. And when they can't silence your conviction, they'll crucify your character. But Jesus promises all these warnings, all these negative things.

He who endures to the end shall be saved. Don't confuse endurance with survival. For many years there have been popular teachings that say that survival is endurance. That's not what God is saying in this passage. That's not what this scripture is in context.

Endurance is when you keep moving. You're bruised, you're beaten, but you keep believing. You're beaten down, but you're still bearing witness. That's endurance. It is not to survive by protecting yourself from the world.

I don't know about you, but I have been walking this conservative element of Christianity for many, many years of my life. And every time I seek to isolate myself from chaos of other people or that never seems to work. Because when you seem to try to survive on your own and you try to pull away from other people, God continues to force you back to what the kingdom on mission was, what the kingdom action was, which is that he gave a governmental structure to the Ecclesia. The Ecclesia was to function in a certain way. The Ecclesia was to create disciples.

Those disciples were supposed to grow in him. Those disciples then were supposed to go out into the world and they were supposed to bring other people to the Ecclesia and they were supposed to continue to develop and grow. Apprentices of Jesus. This wasn't about church attendance. This was about transformed lives.

When you are persecuted in one town, flee to the next. Truly, I tell you, the Son of Man. There's one of those cool titles again that comes from the prophets. Truly I tell you the Son of Man will come before you finish going through all the towns of Israel. Jesus didn't call them to die on every hill.

I didn't need you to hear me. You know, a lot of us don't walk up hills anymore. But like the hill you want to die on on Facebook or Instagram or TikTok or all the other ones that you even shouldn't be on the truce socials and all these other ones that are off on the guardrail that are there. Jesus did not call us and did not call the disciples to die on every hill. He called them to move when the mission Stalled.

Don't stay in the rejection. Don't argue with unfruitful soil. Shake off the dust and move on. Harvest where the hearts are open, not where pride is rooted. The mission comes with urgency.

It doesn't breed complacency.

People will often talk with April and I when we're in counseling sessions or just hanging out, and they'll say, like, man, you guys are intense. Yeah. Yeah, we are. I've actually got a little chill, like, ironically. But we are intense.

And they're like, ah, I just. I can't do it. I can't do it. It's like, I believe in the power of God to transform everybody. I believe you can do it.

I believe that most times people just don't want to do it. And so it's not that Jesus says that I'm gonna keep you trapped in this anger or this bitterness or whatever. Whatever it is. Like, we all have our stuff. We're all cleaning out our closets.

But. But in the end, I don't believe that God somehow said, okay, in this room, only 30% of you can overcome the things that are involved in your life. So, you know, we're just gonna get stuck and we're gonna keep speaking death over ourself and say, I can't, I can't, I can't. Yeah, you're right. You can't, but Jesus can't.

Yeah, you're right. You can't, but Jesus can't. Are you gonna let Jesus in, or are you gonna keep him standing outside talking to him via the ring? In my case, Google Nest.

Because that's what Jesus is telling them.

Don't keep trying to harvest when people don't want to be harvest. Move on.

Why? Because the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.

He already told them that there was more fruit to harvest than there was people to harvest. So when you go to a field or you go to a plant or you go to a house, and there's no hospitality and there's no desire to overcome these things, there's no desire to shut off your computer because you can't look at it without doing stupid stuff, or no desire to see Jesus in your finances or in your children's life or in all these areas, he says, dust off your feet and go to another field because you're trying to produce fruit and harvest fruit in a field that doesn't have fruit. Now, it doesn't mean that they're a lost cause, because then people will say, like, oh, those people are evil. They're Lost causes? No.

Maybe it was your job to plant a seed that would harvest at some other point in time for Brian's mission to go get. This is about understanding that we're not against each other. We're all part of the same family trying to do the same thing.

Older teaching younger. Younger teaching younger.

The Son of Man is coming. He's not coming as some sort of passive observer. He's not coming as some far off being. He's coming as the Lord of the harvest. And some people saw this fulfillment in 70 AD with the destruction of the temple.

Others saw it when he resurrected. This was not some, like, ambiguous thing. These were tangible solutions to questions they had. Is the Son of Man the Son of Man? Is the Son of Man coming back?

Is this happening? They saw it fulfilled in multiple ways. And if we are alive in the time when he comes back at the end of days, we will see it too. The Son of Man will come. He will come not as a passive observer.

He will come as the Lord of the harvest. And either way, the king will always return to inspect his harvest worship team. You can come back. You might actually get home by halftime.

Wasn't intentional.

The Kingdom's mission will wound you. People are like, I don't want to be hurt anymore.

You're going to get hurt in this life. Like, would you rather get hurt for the world's mission, or would you rather get hurt for the kingdom mission? Because one's going to pass away and one will live for eternity. One has temporal rewards and the other has eternal rewards. The mission will wound you.

You'll be misunderstood. You'll be. You'll be betrayed. You'll be mocked. I mean, you ain't going to get flogged in here, but you might at some other churches.

Power. Christ compels you. I ain't taking my jacket off and trying to flog you with it. You know, it's like, get down.

If Brent's allowed to joke about locking the doors for $49,000, I'm allowed to do about swinging coats around.

But the world's repercussions are no match for the Kingdom's protection.

You will be hated for his name. Not every person you meet, even if you have 20 things in common with him, is somebody that you should be doing life with. You will be hated for his name. But I can assure you, because the Word tells me that if you are hated for his name, you will still be held by his hand.

You will be rejected by men, but you'll be recognized in heaven. The Kingdom in action isn't some sort of part time commitment. People are like, I love the wedding feast analogy because we hear it all the time in ministries. When I get to talk with other pastors, I'm like, thank God. Our church is like the other churches too, where it's like, well, once I get this cleaned up in my life, you know, I'll engage.

I just don't have any time. Never knew what that felt like. Once I get more time, I'll be there, you know, you know, when it feels right, I'll be there. It's not a part time commitment.

I believe with all my heart because I've seen the fruit of this concept in my life, that your reflection in your relationship with your spouse and with your closest friend is normally a reflection of areas of your relationship with God. And so if you are operating in a space where you don't really have time for God, then I, I think it's safe to assume that I could probably say you don't have time for your spouse. If, if God isn't the Lord of your finances, then I can, I can tell you that, that you probably have financial conversations that are somewhat decipled up with your spouse. Because there is a manifestation that is tied in the physical and the spiritual. And a lot of times we want to say, well, like God is judging us or God is putting this down.

No, it's just us. It's how we do things. And until we get less of us and more of him, we will continue in that cycle. Everybody cycles, but not all cycles are bad. Because when you get on fire for the mission of Christ and you're cycling into evangelizing and making disciples and that, that's good, that provides kingdom fruit.

How do we know what cycles are good and what cycles are bad? They must produce fruit.

So what is your cycles in your life? What is your mission?

What is your commitment? Producing fruit.

If it's not the fruit that's outlined in the Bible, then it's not the fruit of God, which is okay, we can adjust. That's why we come to church, that's why we have discipleship. That's why we pray for one another.

But the Kingdom mission was not part time and Jesus was making it abundantly clear the warning of the calling and then also giving promises of what will happen. The Kingdom is not a part time commitment. It is a full time collision with the darkness. It's not a once a week hobby, but it's a lifelong assignment that Jesus has invited each and every one of us into. So go.

Wise as serpents, harmless as doves, fearless as lions. And remember that the same Spirit that spoke through Moses, the same spirit that Jesus promised would speak through the apostles. That same spirit can speak through each and every one of you. If you will stand with me and let's respond.