NXR Podcast - THE SERMON - Cowards Will Go To Hell
Aired: 2025-07-07
Duration: 01:09:29


=== The Cost of Discipleship (10:27) ===

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[00:00:27]  Amen.
[00:00:27]  Please join me in standing for the reading of God's word.
[00:00:29]  Our text for today is the gospel according to Matthew 10, verses 24 through 33.
[00:00:35]  Again, that's Matthew chapter 10, verses 24 through 33.
[00:00:38]  I'll read our text for us in its entirety.
[00:00:40]  When I finish reading the text, I'm going to say, This is the word of the Lord, at which point I would appreciate very much if you would respond by saying, Thanks be to God.
[00:00:48]  One final time, our text for today is the gospel according to Matthew chapter 10, verses 24 through 33.
[00:00:55]  The Bible says this A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master.
[00:01:01]  It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master.
[00:01:06]  If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household?
[00:01:14]  So have no fear of them, for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known.
[00:01:21]  What I tell you in the dark, say in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.
[00:01:28]  And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul, rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
[00:01:37]  Are not two sparrows sold for a penny, and not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your father, but even the hairs of your head are all numbered.
[00:01:48]  Fear not, therefore, you are of more value than many sparrows.
[00:01:53]  So, everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my father who is in heaven.
[00:02:00]  But whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my father who is in heaven.
[00:02:07]  This is the word of the Lord.
[00:02:10]  All right, please be seated.
[00:02:11]  Let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:02:13]  I want to focus our attention on verses 24 and 25, the first two verses of the text, seeing here the calling of the disciple.
[00:02:23]  What's at stake?
[00:02:25]  What the qualifications are, the conditions, the criteria, what the cost of discipleship entails.
[00:02:32]  Jesus says to his disciples, A disciple is not above his teacher.
[00:02:39]  And the point that Jesus is making here is that.
[00:02:43]  The disciple, a student, should not expect to have a radically different experience than his teacher.
[00:02:51]  If something happens to the teacher, it is very likely that the student will have a similar experience.
[00:02:59]  If they persecute the teacher, they will persecute the disciple, the student.
[00:03:04]  If they persecute the master, they will persecute the slave.
[00:03:09]  There's only one way, ultimately, to escape persecution in this life, and that is to be a bad disciple.
[00:03:16]  You can be loved by the world, and it's actually not that complicated.
[00:03:20]  It's fairly simple.
[00:03:22]  All you have to do is look nothing like Christ.
[00:03:25]  That's all you have to do.
[00:03:27]  And the cost is also straightforward.
[00:03:30]  It's heavy, I won't lie, it's a steep cost, but it's straightforward.
[00:03:34]  The cost is your soul.
[00:03:35]  You will be denied by Christ before his Father and cast into hell.
[00:03:42]  So easy to garner the love of the world, easy to escape all forms of persecution from the world.
[00:03:50]  And all it costs you is eternity in hell.
[00:03:54]  Now, the alternative is to actually be commended by Christ before his Father who is in heaven and to experience the eternal bliss of joy and peace in the presence of God forever.
[00:04:09]  But the cost of that, namely the cost of discipleship, is that you will endure some degree, some measure, at some periodic moments of time, seasons in this life of persecution.
[00:04:21]  Why?
[00:04:21]  Because Jesus did.
[00:04:23]  And a good disciple, a good student, Is going to be formed more and more into the likeness of his teacher.
[00:04:31]  A good servant is going to love his master and obey his master, behave as the master behaves, and he's going to slowly, gradually, through sanctification, look more and more like his master.
[00:04:44]  So, whatever the consensus is of the world toward the master, that will be the consensus toward the slave.
[00:04:53]  Whatever the consensus is of the world, Toward the teacher, that will be the opinion that the world holds toward the student.
[00:05:02]  This is inescapable.
[00:05:04]  A good disciple looks like Jesus.
[00:05:07]  And if you look like Jesus, you should assume and anticipate experiencing what Jesus experienced, which is both sharing in his glory and sharing in his suffering.
[00:05:22]  I've written in your notes true Christian discipleship will always involve at least some degree of identification with Christ in his suffering.
[00:05:30]  If we are in Christ, that union brings with it a share in both his glory and his rejection.
[00:05:38]  Remember, Isaiah prophesying, speaking of the Christ, said, He came to his own people, but they received him not.
[00:05:46]  That persecution contains within it a rejection, rejection from the world.
[00:05:54]  The believer, therefore, must count the cost of discipleship.
[00:05:59]  Faithfulness leads to conflict.
[00:06:02]  Faithfulness leads to conflict.
[00:06:05]  There is a cost to discipleship.
[00:06:07]  When it comes to salvation, salvation is a work of God's grace.
[00:06:12]  And God's salvific grace is free, it is without cost.
[00:06:17]  All who are weary and heavy laden come to me and I will give them rest.
[00:06:23]  Jesus promises that he'll give honey and milk without price.
[00:06:28]  So the salvation that we have is free, it is the free gift.
[00:06:33]  Of God.
[00:06:34]  It is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
[00:06:37]  But discipleship, there's a distinction here.
[00:06:41]  Discipleship is the lifelong process from the point of conversion, salvation, to the point of death, where we are following Christ and becoming more and more conformed into his image.
[00:06:54]  And if we are to do this, which is also by grace and the work of the Spirit within us, if we are to do this well, then we will experience a cost.
[00:07:05]  We will experience what Jesus experienced, at least some measure of that.
[00:07:09]  Some degree of the persecution that Jesus experienced will be our experience as well.
[00:07:15]  So there is a cost to discipleship.
[00:07:17]  So, again, I don't want to blur lines here theologically.
[00:07:20]  Salvation is free, discipleship is costly.
[00:07:25]  Now, that said, there is no salvation apart from discipleship.
[00:07:31]  So, what does that mean?
[00:07:32]  Is it tit for tat?
[00:07:33]  Quid pro quo?
[00:07:35]  Is it I have to be a disciple?
[00:07:38]  And do a good job following Jesus and rack up persecution and suffering points in order to earn or merit salvation?
[00:07:46]  No, it's exactly the opposite.
[00:07:49]  It is not if we work hard at being disciples and experience the rejection and persecution that Christ Himself experienced, then we will somehow earn or merit salvation.
[00:08:00]  No, it's if we have in fact received salvation freely, completely free, then we will necessarily, not to earn salvation, but as an evidence of salvation, we will be good disciples.
[00:08:14]  And if we're good disciples, because we've been saved, and salvation entails salvation, Being transformed and being made a new creature in Christ Jesus with a new nature that allows for us and also compels us to live in new ways, to go against the grain.
[00:08:35]  If these things happen by grace alone, as a free gift without cost alone, it will necessarily evidence itself.
[00:08:43]  This salvation, this transformation, being made a new creature in Christ Jesus will evidence itself in a new life.
[00:08:52]  In a countercultural life.
[00:08:54]  And that life of discipleship, that's what will merit persecution.
[00:08:59]  So, no, it is not be a good disciple, get persecuted, earn salvation.
[00:09:04]  No, it is receive salvation as a free gift of God through faith, which is also a gift, right?
[00:09:12]  Salvation itself is the grace.
[00:09:14]  Grace is free, unmerited favor, undeserved love.
[00:09:18]  So, the grace of salvation is free, and the empty hand.
[00:09:23]  That receives the gift of grace is faith, which is also a gift.
[00:09:29]  So it's the gift of salvation that is grace.
[00:09:31]  Grace is a gift.
[00:09:33]  That grace is picked up by the hand, empty hand of faith, which is also a gift.
[00:09:38]  God gives faith.
[00:09:40]  Faith comes from God.
[00:09:42]  It is not something that we, in ourselves, apart from God's miraculous work in conversion, faith is something that no man is capable of conjuring up in and of himself.
[00:09:54]  So, it's both the grace, salvation itself, and the faith that picks up that gift of grace.
[00:10:01]  Both are a gift from God.
[00:10:02]  Grace is a gift, faith is a gift.
[00:10:05]  And if God freely gives you these two gifts of grace and faith, then you will be a new creature in Christ Jesus.
[00:10:13]  And all of that comes without cost.
[00:10:16]  But the evidence of that, the outflow and manifestation of that, is a new life, a life of discipleship that looks more and more like Jesus and therefore merits.

=== Persecution Beyond Physical Pain (14:23) ===

[00:10:28]  And garners similar experiences that Jesus himself endured, namely persecution.
[00:10:34]  That's verses 24 and 25 of our text.
[00:10:38]  Now, John chapter 15, verse 20.
[00:10:41]  Jesus is teaching the same concept here, and he says, Remember the word that I said to you, a servant is not greater than his master.
[00:10:50]  If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.
[00:10:54]  So, thus far, what we've discussed is the idea of the student should look like the teacher.
[00:11:00]  Right, the slave should look like the master, and if the teacher/slash/master experiences persecution, then so will the student/slash/slave.
[00:11:11]  But to get a little bit more specific now, see, John just speaks of persecution.
[00:11:16]  John 15, verse 20: Remember the word that I said to you, a servant is not greater than his master.
[00:11:22]  If they persecuted, there's the word me, they will also persecute you.
[00:11:27]  But what's helpful about our primary text for today, namely Matthew chapter 10, verses 24 and 25.
[00:11:35]  Is that Jesus adds a little bit more specificity?
[00:11:38]  He's a little bit more particular and clarifying on what form that persecution will likely come.
[00:11:47]  And what is it?
[00:11:48]  He uses this word in verse 25 malign.
[00:11:54]  Malign.
[00:11:56]  Look at verse 25.
[00:11:58]  It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher and the servant like his master.
[00:12:02]  If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign?
[00:12:10]  Not just they might also malign.
[00:12:13]  If they maligned me, that is slandered and lied about me.
[00:12:19]  Not just nailing him to a tree.
[00:12:20]  That's persecution.
[00:12:21]  That's rough.
[00:12:23]  And I can't promise, but statistically, it is very likely that no one in this room will be crucified.
[00:12:29]  Praise God.
[00:12:31]  That's great.
[00:12:32]  However, that's not the only type or category of persecution that Jesus endured.
[00:12:38]  One of the most frequent forms of persecution that Jesus endured was men's speech.
[00:12:44]  Against him.
[00:12:46]  They lied about him.
[00:12:48]  They bore false witness about him.
[00:12:52]  They slandered him.
[00:12:54]  Or the word in our text today, they maligned him.
[00:12:57]  And in this case, when it comes to the physical persecution of Jesus, we're probably not going to experience more physical persecution than Jesus.
[00:13:08]  Now, for the record, there have been historically throughout this church age, many followers of Jesus, many Martyrs who did experience that degree or even greater degrees of the persecution that Jesus experienced, even in the physical category.
[00:13:24]  Peter himself was crucified upside down.
[00:13:27]  Men were beheaded.
[00:13:28]  Men were boiled alive, drawn and quartered.
[00:13:32]  I think I explained that a couple Sundays ago, but it's worth explaining again because this is just a fan favorite for the kids.
[00:13:39]  For every mom tonight, having to console their kids, they're too scared to go to sleep.
[00:13:43]  But being drawn and quartered is where they would use a sword and cut.
[00:13:48]  A portion, severing the appendages here, but not entirely, with your arms from your torso, and then also your two legs.
[00:13:57]  And then they would tie your wrist to two different horses and your ankles to two different horses, and then say, Giddy up.
[00:14:06]  And you would be ripped apart, physically ripped apart.
[00:14:09]  Not great.
[00:14:10]  There's a lot of ways to go.
[00:14:11]  That's not the top of the list, right?
[00:14:14]  It's not great.
[00:14:15]  Here's the point there were people who died this way for their faith and devotion to Jesus.
[00:14:21]  So, there have been people in this church age, in this gospel age, who have suffered, even in the physical category of persecution, as much or even more greater physical suffering than Jesus did himself.
[00:14:35]  In our current moment, it's not to say that it could never happen again, but in our current moment, it is likely, can't promise, but likely that we will not endure that degree of physical persecution.
[00:14:48]  So, we will be persecuted if we look like Jesus.
[00:14:51]  We probably will experience less physical persecution than Jesus did.
[00:14:56]  However, the words of Jesus, we can't miss this, the words of Jesus, they seem to promise that we would experience in another realm of persecution, not physical, but in terms of speech, maligning, slandering, that we would experience not less, but actually more persecution than Jesus.
[00:15:17]  Again, the text, this is verse 25, second half.
[00:15:20]  If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, How much more will they malign those of his household?
[00:15:28]  And that, I think, is incredibly applicable and relevant for us.
[00:15:34]  Probably not going to be martyrs, could happen.
[00:15:38]  Hope it doesn't.
[00:15:38]  Pray it doesn't.
[00:15:41]  Physical martyrdom is unlikely for us in this moment, in this context.
[00:15:48]  But being maligned, that is very likely.
[00:15:52]  And not only is it likely or plausible that we might be maligned to the same degree as Jesus or a lesser degree, but again, the words of Christ Himself, how much more will they malign those of His household?
[00:16:08]  See, Christ Himself was called Beelzebub.
[00:16:12]  He was called Satan.
[00:16:15]  They called the Son of God a son of Satan or Satan himself.
[00:16:22]  There's another context in the gospel narratives where Jesus is casting out demons.
[00:16:27]  You guys remember this where the Pharisees and the religious Jewish leaders of that day say of Jesus, well, yeah, he's casting out demons.
[00:16:37]  We can't deny that, but he's doing it by the power of the prince of demons.
[00:16:43]  And Jesus says that that's dumb.
[00:16:47]  No, a house divided against itself cannot stand.
[00:16:51]  Could you explain to me the strategic benefit that Satan would have for casting out his own kingdom?
[00:16:59]  No, that's not what's going on.
[00:17:02]  But the point is, they lied.
[00:17:05]  They continually slandered.
[00:17:07]  They continually maligned.
[00:17:09]  Rather than recognizing Christ as the Son of God, they called him Satan.
[00:17:14]  Rather than recognizing that Jesus was doing things under the supernatural power of God as God, they said, well, the source of his power is actually the devil.
[00:17:25]  This was slander.
[00:17:26]  And this form of persecution, men's speech against you, should be anticipated by the Christian in any season, in any place throughout this church age, but especially, I think, in our current context and where we live today.
[00:17:45]  One more word about this.
[00:17:47]  We saw last week, over and over, and we can't miss this.
[00:17:51]  Jesus talks about the blessing for those who are persecuted, but he doesn't just stop there.
[00:17:57]  He finishes the thought persecuted for my name's sake.
[00:18:02]  So it's not just persecution for any reason.
[00:18:06]  It's like, I am following Jesus and I am being persecuted.
[00:18:10]  It's like, when's the last time you even said the name of Jesus out loud?
[00:18:14]  When's the last time you were preaching the gospel?
[00:18:16]  Like, my brother in Christ, you are not being persecuted for his name's sake.
[00:18:21]  You're being persecuted because you're a jerk.
[00:18:25]  People hate you, but they're not hating you for preaching the gospel.
[00:18:28]  They're hating you for preaching everything else other than the gospel.
[00:18:33]  And so that has to be considered.
[00:18:35]  That has to be considered.
[00:18:37]  However, all right, so there's a disclaimer, and we talked about that a couple weeks ago.
[00:18:41]  Persecution for his namesake.
[00:18:43]  And what does that mean, his namesake?
[00:18:46]  The overarching impetus of this whole chapter of Matthew, persecution, and the student.
[00:18:53]  Experiencing the persecution of the teacher and the slave, the master is being persecuted chiefly for the proclamation of the gospel of the kingdom.
[00:19:04]  The proclamation of the gospel of the kingdom, preaching Christ, preaching Jesus Christ.
[00:19:10]  That's the big idea.
[00:19:12]  Now, that said, we can make this argument.
[00:19:15]  I'm not going to get too far fetched where it's like, ah, is that exegesis?
[00:19:19]  I think you just made that up.
[00:19:22]  Using scripture, Many of Jesus, of the 12, his 12 apostles, because they were uniquely charged by Jesus to remain in Israel.
[00:19:36]  Remember, we saw that last week.
[00:19:38]  You will have not gone through all the towns in Israel before the Son of Man comes.
[00:19:44]  And that's speaking of Jesus' second coming.
[00:19:46]  I know this is confusing because you've all been taught differently.
[00:19:49]  His second coming, which is distinct from his final coming.
[00:19:52]  So there is a final physical return of Christ to judge the living and the dead.
[00:19:57]  We say that, we confess that in line with the historic church for the last 2,000 years.
[00:20:02]  We say that in the Apostles' Creed, we affirm the Nicene Creed, Athanasius' Creed.
[00:20:08]  We believe that in our future there is a final physical return of Christ and the culmination of all things and ending of the gospel age.
[00:20:17]  We believe that.
[00:20:18]  However, we also, I'll speak for myself, most of us, I believe that there was a second coming of Christ that is actually in our past.
[00:20:28]  So a final physical return of Christ in our future.
[00:20:31]  But there was a second coming, a parousia, that has actually for us already happened.
[00:20:38]  Now, remember, we use this hermeneutic often.
[00:20:41]  All scripture is for you, not all scripture is to you.
[00:20:45]  All scripture is for you in the sense that it's all of scripture, no matter what verse it is, it's useful for training and rebuking, and so that the man of God would be equipped for every good work.
[00:20:56]  But not all scripture is to you in the sense that every single text of scripture has in view an immediate human audience.
[00:21:05]  And so when Jesus is speaking to his disciples, it's to them, it is literally to those disciples who are standing in front of him.
[00:21:13]  But it's for us with many universal, timeless Christian principles and virtues and doctrine that is for all Christians, all of Jesus' broader disciples and future disciples in all times and all places.
[00:21:27]  Okay?
[00:21:28]  But as it relates to the disciples, the 12, Jesus said, and we looked at this a couple weeks ago, Jesus said, You will have not gone through all the towns in Israel before the Son of Man comes.
[00:21:41]  And I believe that what he's speaking of, this was the view of R.C. Sproul and many others throughout Reformed. Tradition and thought that the coming of the Son of Man was in reference to AD 70, and that Jesus did, in fact, come not a final physical return, but a spiritual parousia.
[00:22:00]  That the Spirit of the risen Christ, Jesus, in his body, glorified body, remained at the right hand of God the Father Almighty until he finally and physically returns.
[00:22:11]  But in AD 70, he spiritually returned, and he returned on the clouds.
[00:22:16]  And these are not happy clouds with little baby cherubim, you know, playing harps.
[00:22:20]  No, the clouds signify judgment.
[00:22:23]  The prophet Joel, chapter 2, talks about clouds and billows of smoke, right?
[00:22:28]  Where do these clouds come from?
[00:22:30]  Little wisps, you know, in the air, and there's happy music and pretty angels.
[00:22:34]  No, these are clouds that are filled with blood and soot.
[00:22:38]  These are the clouds that are formed when buildings topple, when there's destruction and desolation.
[00:22:44]  And so that's what's in reference that Jesus actually did come spiritually, a spiritual perusa, and he came in judgment.
[00:22:53]  Just as he promised, Matthew chapter 24, he says, This generation will not pass away.
[00:22:57]  It's not a metaphor.
[00:22:58]  It's not this type of generation.
[00:23:00]  No, he's saying, These people, you who I'm talking to, this literal generation will not pass away until all these things come to pass.
[00:23:08]  And the things that are in reference in the Olivet Discourse in Matthew chapter 24 is not one stone of the temple will be left standing on top of another.
[00:23:18]  And all of this came to pass in the promise of God, in his sovereignty.
[00:23:22]  Titus came in.
[00:23:23]  He destroyed Jerusalem.
[00:23:24]  He destroyed the temple.
[00:23:26]  They didn't leave one stone connected to another because the stones were inlaid with gold.
[00:23:31]  And so they actually separated every single individual stone that the temple was built with in order to scrape off and harvest all of the gold.
[00:23:39]  And those things happened in AD 70.
[00:23:42]  And that was the fulfillment of what Christ said this generation, not this type of generation, but this literal physical generation will not pass away until these things come to pass.
[00:23:54]  Those people that Jesus preached through in Matthew chapter 24, it was about 40 years later that they actually saw the fulfillment of Jesus' words still living in AD 70.
[00:24:06]  70 and 8070.
[00:24:07]  So Jesus says, You will not go through all the towns in Israel until I come.
[00:24:12]  And that's speaking of his parousia, spiritual second coming in 8070.
[00:24:17]  All right, all that being established.
[00:24:19]  Here's the point for the 12, okay, and we know that Judas gets replaced with Matthias.
[00:24:25]  But for the 12, and that's who this text is to it's for you, for me, but to them.
[00:24:32]  For the 12, Jesus commanded them explicitly to fulfill the great commission.
[00:24:40]  But to focus their efforts and attention throughout their lives, all the way up until his coming in AD 70 in Israel.
[00:24:48]  In Israel.
[00:24:49]  That was their focus.

=== Fulfilling the Great Commission (08:12) ===

[00:24:51]  It was the Apostle Paul who is called to be an apostle to the Gentiles.
[00:24:55]  And there are others who go with him.
[00:24:57]  We have Barnabas and there's Silas.
[00:24:59]  But for the 12, they're focused in Israel.
[00:25:03]  Now, here's the point as it relates to persecution, specifically persecution coming in the form of slander, being maligned.
[00:25:10]  For the 12, because their primary focus, Harvesting grounds, their primary target audience, where they're called, is Israel.
[00:25:20]  For them, when they preach Christ explicitly, He is God.
[00:25:26]  You crucified the Son of God.
[00:25:29]  You crucified the Christ.
[00:25:31]  When they preach those kinds of sermons among their hearers, primarily Jewish hearers in Israel, they get persecution.
[00:25:42]  When Paul and some of the other, not the main, 12 apostles, but some of the other lowercase a apostles of the church, not apostles of Christ commissioned by him directly, but apostles of the church.
[00:25:54]  The apostle Paul was an apostle of Christ because he was a witness of the resurrected Lord.
[00:25:58]  Jesus appeared to him and called him, but others who did not have that experience.
[00:26:03]  So they weren't capital A apostles of Christ, but lowercase a apostles of the church sent by the church outside of Israel to different Gentile cities.
[00:26:12]  When they went into their context with their hearers, non Jewish hearers, What was it in their preaching, more often than not, that garnered persecution?
[00:26:23]  Well, it wasn't so much you crucified the Lord of glory, you crucified the Son of God.
[00:26:33]  That's a little offensive.
[00:26:35]  I'm sure it caused some problems, but that was not what caused the major problems in these Gentile cities.
[00:26:43]  In these Gentile cities, think of Ephesus and the Hall of Tyrrhenius, where Paul is arguing.
[00:26:49]  For three hours a day, for a long time.
[00:26:51]  He's arguing with philosophers and the great debaters of that age and all that.
[00:26:56]  What gets Paul and other apostles with him, not the 12, but other guys in these Gentile cities, what gets them persecution?
[00:27:04]  What gets them in trouble?
[00:27:06]  It's usually not so much their exaltation of Christ, but it's them toppling and demolishing other false gods.
[00:27:16]  It's the great goddess Artemis.
[00:27:20]  It's the preaching that says, and these other gods are no gods at all.
[00:27:24]  That's when all of a sudden they get persecuted.
[00:27:26]  That's when they get run out of town.
[00:27:28]  That's when they get thrown in prison because they're disrupting.
[00:27:32]  They're actually disrupting even their economy, not just religiously and culturally and politically, but even economically.
[00:27:39]  The silversmiths and the blacksmiths in Ephesus are losing customers.
[00:27:44]  Their bottom line is failing.
[00:27:46]  And now all of a sudden they have a problem.
[00:27:48]  They have less of a problem.
[00:27:50]  We see this kind of language in certain Gentile places.
[00:27:53]  They have less of a problem of just the preaching of Jesus, even Jesus resurrected, even Jesus as the Son of God, because they're content.
[00:28:03]  In many places, to simply add Jesus as just another additional idol in the pantheon of gods.
[00:28:13]  They're contented, they're like, sure, we'll take Jesus.
[00:28:16]  Right here in between Baal and Molech, we can clear a spot on the shelf in the pantheon of false gods and we'll put a little Jesus statue there.
[00:28:25]  And that's not really a problem, again, for the Romans, right?
[00:28:29]  They're polytheists.
[00:28:31]  That's not really a problem.
[00:28:32]  That's not really a problem for.
[00:28:34]  A lot of people in Antioch.
[00:28:36]  One of the reasons why many of the Christians, after being so severely persecuted in Jerusalem, actually make their way to Antioch is because Antioch actually had in its legal system certain provisions that allowed for worship of Jesus without being persecuted.
[00:28:55]  But what you couldn't do is say, well, Jesus is the only one worthy of worship.
[00:29:02]  That's when you would get into trouble.
[00:29:04]  So, again, my point is this with the 12 apostles, Called to remain in Israel with primarily a Jewish audience, what garnered persecution for them?
[00:29:14]  Preaching Christ.
[00:29:17]  What garnered persecution for the Christians who went to a Gentile context outside of Israel?
[00:29:23]  Well, it wasn't so much preaching about Christ positively, but preaching about all these other false gods negatively.
[00:29:32]  Does that make sense?
[00:29:33]  And I think, I'm always trying to apply the scripture for us.
[00:29:37]  I want it to be relevant.
[00:29:38]  I don't want it just to be this heady, ethereal.
[00:29:41]  You know, principle.
[00:29:43]  I want there to be application.
[00:29:45]  So, in our place and our day, what do you think we're more like?
[00:29:50]  Do you think that our context and our culture and the religious culture of our day is more like Israel, where if you say Jesus is the Son of God and there is salvation in Him by grace through faith, He lived a sinless life, He died on the cross for your sin, and He rose physically from the dead on the third day.
[00:30:17]  In America in 2025, how much trouble will that get you in?
[00:30:24]  Not that much.
[00:30:26]  Maybe some, but not that much.
[00:30:30]  However, think of now the apostles and the missionaries and the elders who were in Gentile context and preaching not just positively for Christ, but negatively against other idols of the day.
[00:30:45]  So now you preach Christ, Jesus is the Son of God.
[00:30:48]  He lived a sinless life.
[00:30:50]  He died on the cross for your sin.
[00:30:51]  He bodily rose from the grave and he ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father.
[00:30:56]  And you can be saved as a free gift from God by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
[00:31:02]  That sermon will not get you in too much trouble.
[00:31:07]  However, if you say that, and you can't ever say less than that, please don't misunderstand.
[00:31:12]  Never would I argue for anything less than that.
[00:31:15]  Preach Christ, preach the gospel, preach that.
[00:31:19]  But then, if you go further and you say, oh, and these other gods are no gods at all.
[00:31:25]  Feminism is no god.
[00:31:28]  It is an idol.
[00:31:30]  It is worthless.
[00:31:31]  It's destructive.
[00:31:33]  It's poisonous.
[00:31:34]  And it must be torn down and destroyed.
[00:31:38]  We have literally an entire economy built on feminism.
[00:31:43]  Our entire economy is built on two incomes for each household.
[00:31:49]  America, we've gotten so off the rails.
[00:31:53]  Not just culturally, not just religiously or theologically or politically, economically, where America cannot afford, financially, to reject feminism without the economy crashing.
[00:32:07]  Now, in the long run, it'll get better because obedience to God's word always brings blessing.
[00:32:13]  But often with sin, the initial repentance is costly.
[00:32:18]  It gets worse initially before it gets better, it hurts.
[00:32:24]  There's a cost to repentance, just as there's a cost to discipleship.
[00:32:28]  So you preach against feminism as a false God, the divine feminine, as a false God, as an idol.
[00:32:36]  And you begin to give practical, very practical, not just theoretical, not just theological, but practical instructions for husbands and wives and the dynamic of the home.
[00:32:50]  And all of a sudden, it will be like the silversmiths and blacksmiths.
[00:32:55]  In Ephesus, he's desecrating the temple of the great Artemis, and our own livelihood is now in jeopardy.

=== False Gods and Practical Truths (03:55) ===

[00:33:03]  We need to kill him.
[00:33:05]  If I say publicly, Jesus is Lord in 2025, I get thunderous applause.
[00:33:14]  If I say, Feminism is from the devil, and every wife should go home, all of a sudden, like the statements I made earlier about, I don't think anyone's going to be crucified in 2025.
[00:33:28]  I might get proven wrong.
[00:33:31]  Do you see what?
[00:33:32]  So, when it comes to persecution, again, I don't want you to miss this.
[00:33:37]  As we've seen the last two weeks, it is always persecution, if it be genuine persecution.
[00:33:42]  It is persecution for his name's sake.
[00:33:47]  It's not just persecution for your pet ideas and soapboxes.
[00:33:52]  Ask me how I know.
[00:33:54]  I've got a few soapboxes and pet ideas.
[00:33:56]  I'm familiar with this concept.
[00:33:59]  I have received persecution for faithfulness.
[00:34:02]  I have also received persecution for stupidity.
[00:34:05]  I've done a little bit of both.
[00:34:07]  And I hope by God's grace that it would be more of the former and less of the latter.
[00:34:11]  That said, real, true, genuine persecution, the persecution for which we will be blessed by God, the persecution that God favors, that God blesses, that pleases the Lord, is always going to be persecution for Christ's name's sake, not for our own.
[00:34:29]  However, In that category of genuine persecution for Christ's sake, I think there are two primary subcategories, is the way to think about it.
[00:34:39]  You can be persecuted for his name's sake, for Christ's sake, for preaching Christ positively, but also for preaching against every alternative to Christ, every false idol that exalts itself over and against Christ negatively.
[00:34:56]  And I think by and large, obviously, there are some exceptions.
[00:34:58]  I'm giving a general rule, trying to give a 30,000 foot view so we can see.
[00:35:03]  Simplicity, just the general big picture idea.
[00:35:07]  In general, for these guys, right, those that the text is to, it's for us, but to them, for the 12, they experienced a lot of persecution for just preaching that Jesus is God and that the Jews crucified the Lord of glory.
[00:35:29]  That got them in a lot of trouble.
[00:35:31]  But for others, other Christian leaders, apostles, lowercase a apostles, and elders and missionaries in Gentile context, If they went there and said, Jesus is the Son of God, and the Jews killed him, some of those contexts would be like, Yeah, they did.
[00:35:53]  They're not offended by that.
[00:35:55]  They're like, Yep, that's great.
[00:35:57]  Jesus is God.
[00:35:59]  Okay, here's our pantheon.
[00:36:01]  We currently have 4,537 different gods.
[00:36:05]  And let's sweep away some cobwebs here and move a couple of these up.
[00:36:09]  Jesus.
[00:36:11]  We added him on the list.
[00:36:12]  And you said that he came to his own and they rejected him.
[00:36:17]  They received him not.
[00:36:19]  Those other guys over there, they did.
[00:36:21]  So you're telling me I have to add Jesus to the God roster and admit that the Jews killed him.
[00:36:28]  Great.
[00:36:30]  Great.
[00:36:32]  No problem with that.
[00:36:36]  But the second part of the message, the implications, or as the Puritans call it, as we like to, the applications, is oh, by the way, there's one more sticking point.
[00:36:47]  You added Jesus in this pantheon of gods, but all the other ones need to be ground into ash and destroyed.

=== Fear Cast Out by God's Love (14:16) ===

[00:36:58]  It's only Jesus.
[00:37:00]  All the other ones are false gods.
[00:37:02]  Feminism is a false god.
[00:37:04]  Zionism is a false god.
[00:37:06]  Egalitarianism is a false god.
[00:37:10]  All these other ones are false gods.
[00:37:13]  Secularism is a false god.
[00:37:16]  Globalism is a false god.
[00:37:20]  All these other idols must be destroyed.
[00:37:23]  It is only Christ and anything that asserts itself as the ultimate orthodoxy, the ultimate dogma, the ultimate religion, because that's what we're talking about.
[00:37:33]  These are not just ideas.
[00:37:36]  In our current context today, these are religions, these are faith systems.
[00:37:42]  We're talking about worship.
[00:37:44]  It is absolutely worship.
[00:37:47]  The post war consensus is real and it is a religion.
[00:37:52]  Egalitarianism is not just an idea, it is God in our culture today.
[00:37:59]  And when you begin to say, No, it's only Christ, and it's the Christian worldview, and the world as Christ made it in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
[00:38:13]  And by Christ, by this Word, the Logos, all that has been made was made, and He has a natural order for the world.
[00:38:21]  That he made, and we must abide by it humbly for his glory.
[00:38:27]  When you start preaching that, all of a sudden you get in trouble.
[00:38:31]  You just preach Jesus loves you, he died for your sin.
[00:38:37]  There's a bunch of MAGA guys that'd be like, Yeah, uh huh, Jesus and Trump, amen.
[00:38:45]  And don't get me wrong, I appreciate Trump.
[00:38:48]  June, not the best month for Trump.
[00:38:51]  July, seeming promising, I'm excited.
[00:38:54]  Right?
[00:38:55]  I think there's a little bit of hope.
[00:38:58]  ICE is now funded.
[00:38:59]  I think the budget is equal to the budget for the Marines.
[00:39:05]  Love it.
[00:39:06]  I love that.
[00:39:07]  That's great.
[00:39:08]  That's great.
[00:39:08]  America might actually have a chance.
[00:39:10]  We might get our country back.
[00:39:12]  That's incredible.
[00:39:14]  Here's my point.
[00:39:15]  I like Trump.
[00:39:15]  Here's my point.
[00:39:16]  That's not my point.
[00:39:17]  My point is this you can preach Christ positively and you'll get a lot of acceptance.
[00:39:24]  But when you preach against false gods negatively in our context, that's where you start to get a lot of persecution.
[00:39:32]  So, persecution, if it be genuine, And pleasing to God, it will not be persecution for your namesake, it'll be for Christ's namesake.
[00:39:41]  That's the only kind of persecution that's genuine.
[00:39:44]  Within that genuine persecution for Christ's namesake, I do think there are two subcategories preaching Christ's name positively and also preaching against all false anti Christ negatively.
[00:39:59]  Both of those, I believe, are genuine, authentic forms of preaching Christ.
[00:40:05]  And that, in some contexts, the first one gets you in trouble.
[00:40:09]  In Israel, for the 12.
[00:40:12]  In the first century, the first one, Jesus is God.
[00:40:15]  You crucified the Lord of glory.
[00:40:18]  That got them in trouble.
[00:40:20]  In more Gentile contexts, like Ephesus, Artemis is not God.
[00:40:26]  And your blacksmith business is about to go out of business.
[00:40:30]  That's the one that got them in trouble.
[00:40:33]  And if I'm comparing it, trying to give application and relevancy for us today, in the year of our Lord, 2025, in America, I think it's going to be preaching against false gods that will probably garner more persecution than positively preaching the true God.
[00:40:51]  You can't do one or the other, okay?
[00:40:53]  I've said that.
[00:40:54]  I want to say it one more time.
[00:40:55]  I'm not advocating for you can just do one.
[00:40:58]  You must do both.
[00:40:59]  You must preach Christ and exalt Him, but you also must preach against idolatry and decimate that.
[00:41:10]  And there are some places where The exaltation of Christ garners persecution, and there are some places and times where the demeaning of idols is what garners persecution.
[00:41:23]  But both, I believe, are genuine forms of being persecuted for his name's sake.
[00:41:30]  All right, verses 26 through 31.
[00:41:32]  I've written in your notes this Do not fear those who kill the body, fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
[00:41:39]  A beautiful and comforting verse.
[00:41:43]  This one goes against a lot of modern evangelical sensibilities because you might think, hey, you don't need to be fearing man.
[00:41:51]  You don't need to be a man pleaser, right?
[00:41:53]  The fear of approval.
[00:41:55]  But instead, the antidote for the fear of man's approval, this fear of rejection, the antidote is the love of God, right?
[00:42:05]  Yeah, man might hate you, but God accepts you and loves you, right?
[00:42:11]  You might be rejected by people, but you're accepted by God.
[00:42:14]  But that's not actually what Jesus provides.
[00:42:17]  That is true.
[00:42:18]  But what Jesus explicitly says is this He doesn't say, Do not fear man in his rejection because you have God in his acceptance.
[00:42:26]  No, he says, No, man can reject you, but God will reject you forever.
[00:42:31]  God will reject you harder.
[00:42:33]  God will reject you far worse.
[00:42:35]  Man might reject you all the way to killing your body.
[00:42:38]  God will kill your body and kill your soul forever.
[00:42:43]  Powerfully motivating.
[00:42:44]  That's wonderful preaching.
[00:42:46]  Jesus is a good preacher.
[00:42:47]  I mean, he really knows how to motivate people.
[00:42:49]  The people.
[00:42:50]  He's like, hey, you need to fear God.
[00:42:52]  Why?
[00:42:53]  Because he's terrifying.
[00:42:56]  Oh.
[00:42:58]  And the reality is this the only true antidote to casting out lesser fears is a greater fear.
[00:43:09]  Right?
[00:43:10]  It's the person who, I mean, there's so many examples of this, but just for instance, there could be someone who's scared to death to leave their home for whatever reason.
[00:43:21]  But if they run out of food and they've gone without eating and water, food and water long enough, Well, the fear of starvation might eventually begin to override the fear of leaving their home and it drives them out.
[00:43:36]  And that's the concept that Jesus is providing here.
[00:43:38]  Now, I'm not saying that it's not true that for those who are in Christ, God accepts us and loves us and consoles us.
[00:43:47]  The Holy Spirit, one of his names, is Comforter, right?
[00:43:50]  All this is true.
[00:43:51]  And 1 John even says, Perfect love casts out all fear.
[00:43:55]  So there is an aspect of the love of the Father.
[00:43:59]  1 John 3, verse 1.
[00:44:00]  See what.
[00:44:01]  Love the Father has given to us that we should be called the children of God.
[00:44:05]  And this perfect love of the Father for His children, it does cast out all fears.
[00:44:11]  But also, so it's not either or, but also the fear of God casts out lesser fears.
[00:44:19]  The love of God casts out fear, but also the fear of God casts out lesser fears.
[00:44:26]  And this is what Jesus is saying here.
[00:44:28]  He's saying, look at the big picture, make a wise decision.
[00:44:33]  Invest appropriately, wisely.
[00:44:37]  Yeah, if you are faithful to Christ, you will be rejected by the world.
[00:44:43]  If you're not faithful to Christ, you'll be rejected by my Father.
[00:44:48]  And his rejection is far worse.
[00:44:51]  One, because his power is infinite, but two, because it's also an eternal duration.
[00:44:59]  His rejection is of greater severity and greater length, greater duration.
[00:45:06]  Man can reject you to only a certain degree and for only so long, and then it's done.
[00:45:13]  But not with God.
[00:45:14]  God can reject you forever, and He can reject you completely.
[00:45:20]  That's the idea.
[00:45:22]  Proverbs 1, verse 7 says this The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
[00:45:25]  Fools despise wisdom and instruction.
[00:45:28]  The fear of the Lord is the foundation for knowledge and wisdom.
[00:45:34]  Going back to 1 John again, I wrote a book about it, so 1 John is always just etched in my brain.
[00:45:39]  But 1 John.
[00:45:41]  Talks about no fear of judgment.
[00:45:44]  So, for the Christian, we actually should rest in the love and salvation and justification, acceptance of God to the point that we're not fearing the judgment of the Lord.
[00:45:55]  We should not, our salvation should not be like a little girl sitting on a hillside with a daisy, you know, he loves me, he loves me not.
[00:46:01]  No, no, we need, we desperately need to be assured of our adoption, assured that Christ has loved us and that we have union with him and that the Father loves us as his sons.
[00:46:16]  The Holy Spirit dwelling within us.
[00:46:18]  Our body is now a temple of the Holy Spirit, and He is affirming our adoption within us.
[00:46:23]  Abba, Father.
[00:46:24]  And so we want an assurance of salvation that we're not going back and forth, back and forth.
[00:46:29]  He loves me, He loves me not.
[00:46:30]  Maybe I'm saved, maybe I'm not.
[00:46:31]  Maybe I'm saved, maybe I'm not.
[00:46:33]  But that's not what we want.
[00:46:35]  However, although the Christian should not fear judgment, the Christian should still fear God.
[00:46:42]  And there's a distinction between the two fear of the judgment of God versus fear of the Lord Himself.
[00:46:49]  A reverence for God.
[00:46:51]  A reverence for what He could do.
[00:46:54]  Even though we know that if we're in Christ, He's promised not to.
[00:46:57]  But still, a reverence of His power, a reverence of His glory, a reverence of His strength, of His majesty.
[00:47:04]  And it's the fear of the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom.
[00:47:08]  And it's the fear of God, this great fear that casts out all lesser fears.
[00:47:15]  One of the most powerful things that motivates me day in and day out, to where I just don't care.
[00:47:22]  I don't care if people reject me, I don't care what people are saying, is the fact that.
[00:47:29]  I don't want Jesus to deny me before his Father.
[00:47:34]  And that's how our text ends.
[00:47:36]  We'll get there in just one moment.
[00:47:38]  All right, so first, God is sovereign over all things.
[00:47:41]  He has the power to destroy the body and destroy your soul in hell forever.
[00:47:45]  That said, his sovereignty, God is in control over all things, and he could absolutely decimate you.
[00:47:53]  So you should fear him more than man.
[00:47:55]  But then Jesus gives these words of comfort immediately following and saying that all of that power, All of that sovereignty of God that could destroy you if you're in Christ is now wielded for your benefit.
[00:48:10]  So, the same God who is sovereign and powerful enough to kill your body and destroy your soul in heaven is also so it's not just fear, it's a two pronged motivation.
[00:48:21]  Don't fear man because God's scarier.
[00:48:23]  Also, don't fear man because God's also more loving.
[00:48:27]  It's both.
[00:48:28]  God's scarier than people are, but also God loves you more than people do.
[00:48:36]  So, continuing, verse 27, it says, verse 28, do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.
[00:48:43]  Rather, fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
[00:48:47]  Are not, now look, the power of God now wielded toward your good, are not sparrows sold for a penny?
[00:48:53]  And yet, not one of them will fall to the ground apart from God noticing it, God seeing it, and God allowing it in his sovereignty.
[00:49:00]  Verse 30 now, but even the hairs of your head are numbered.
[00:49:04]  Fear not, therefore, you are of more value than many sparrows.
[00:49:09]  So, what Jesus is saying is, don't fear man because God is more fearful, but also don't fear man because God loves you.
[00:49:17]  All the things about his majesty, his power, and his sovereignty that makes him a greater threat also make him a greater advocate.
[00:49:26]  And if God be for you, who can be against you?
[00:49:29]  And if you're in Christ, he is in fact for you.
[00:49:32]  So, even the hairs of your head are numbered.
[00:49:35]  In your notes, I've written this the same God who can destroy the soul is also the one who numbers the hairs of your head.
[00:49:42]  Of our head and governs even the fall of sparrows.
[00:49:46]  God is meticulously in control over all things.
[00:49:50]  Our trials are not random.
[00:49:53]  What happens in this world is not arbitrary.
[00:49:56]  The believer is called to reverence God and rest in his sovereign love.
[00:50:03]  So it's two motivations for not fearing man reverence and rest.
[00:50:10]  Reverence and rest.
[00:50:12]  Why do we not fear man?
[00:50:13]  Because God is powerful.
[00:50:16]  And that power is worthy of our reverence in what he could do to us in destruction and judgment.
[00:50:25]  But also, that power, if we be in Christ, is being wielded for us on our behalf.
[00:50:31]  And therefore, we can rest.
[00:50:34]  We can rest assured that God is our shield, that God is protecting us, that God is providing for us.
[00:50:39]  So, the power and sovereignty of God over all things, even sparrows and the number of hairs on your head, that power produces both reverence, fear of the Lord, and rest, a safety and a security in the Lord.
[00:50:56]  And it's that double, two sided motivation, reverence and rest, that is the antidote to the fear of man.
[00:51:06]  Last two verses, verse 32 and 33, confessing Christ without shame.
[00:51:11]  We see these words, terrifying words.

=== The Danger of Apostasy (07:25) ===

[00:51:15]  Jesus says, So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven.
[00:51:22]  But whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.
[00:51:30]  The absolute necessity of public confession.
[00:51:33]  The Christian faith is a public faith.
[00:51:37]  Faith is not a private matter, it is a public allegiance to Christ as Lord.
[00:51:43]  Jesus' warning is real and serious.
[00:51:46]  The danger of apostasy, turning away from Christ, is not mentioned here as a mere hypothetical.
[00:51:53]  Those who deny Christ will be denied by Christ.
[00:51:58]  And this is not a works based salvation, as we saw at the beginning of the sermon, but rather the fruit of regeneration is visible in a bold confession.
[00:52:10]  Apostasy is real.
[00:52:11]  How does it work theologically?
[00:52:13]  It's not that Christ saved me and then I lost that salvation by turning away from Christ at a later date.
[00:52:20]  And then ultimately, he then denies me before his father who is in heaven, and I go to hell.
[00:52:26]  That's not how it works.
[00:52:28]  Apostasy is someone who was a part of the visible church, but who was never truly saved.
[00:52:34]  1 John chapter 2 says, They went out from us because they were not of us.
[00:52:40]  It doesn't say they went out from us, they left the church and left the faith because they were Christians once upon a time, and then they changed their minds.
[00:52:49]  No, they went out from us because they were never saved.
[00:52:52]  Of us, not they're not a part of us anymore, but they were never a part of us.
[00:52:57]  There's a way of a person belonging to the visible church, a way of them being baptized and taking the Lord's Supper and participating in worship and the fellowship of the saints and all these things without having ever truly belonged to Christ, without being regenerate, without being justified, without being a Christian.
[00:53:18]  So the apostate is the one who belonged to the visible church, but never the invisible church.
[00:53:25]  The apostate is the one who looked like a Christian but was not a Christian.
[00:53:30]  And what Jesus is saying is, for those who deny me before men, I will deny them before my Father who is in heaven.
[00:53:37]  He's not saying that there's a way of losing your salvation, he's saying that there is a way of ultimately manifesting, evidencing that you never had that salvation to begin with.
[00:53:48]  And one of the chief ways of eventually proving and bearing fruit that you never really were a Christian is cowardice.
[00:53:59]  There's a number of ways to reveal that you are an apostate.
[00:54:04]  Not someone who lost salvation, but someone who ultimately never had it.
[00:54:08]  There's a number of ways to do this.
[00:54:10]  You can do this through sexual immorality.
[00:54:12]  You can do this by simply abandoning the church and still being a moral person in many ways, but you just don't believe.
[00:54:20]  You don't confess Christ anymore.
[00:54:21]  You don't go to a church.
[00:54:23]  But the way, there's many ways to go apostate.
[00:54:26]  But the way that Jesus. Found necessary to explicitly mention in our text today with his apostles is cowardice.
[00:54:36]  And I don't think that that should be lost on us.
[00:54:39]  Jesus could have said, you know, I'll deny you before my Father if you stop living a life that's filled with the fruit of the Spirit, or if you stop attending church.
[00:54:50]  And those things actually, there's an argument to be made for those things, those forms of apostasy from a whole biblical theology.
[00:54:58]  But the particular type of apostasy that's explicitly mentioned by Christ himself here in our text.
[00:55:06]  Is those who deny him before men.
[00:55:11]  So, what kind of apostasy does Jesus have in mind, in view here in our text?
[00:55:17]  The type of apostasy that is a coward's apostasy.
[00:55:24]  That you could still be living a moral life and you could even still be a part of the church, but you're unwilling to confess Christ publicly before men.
[00:55:37]  And in that case, Jesus promises he will be unwilling to confess you before his Father who is in heaven.
[00:55:49]  Christianity is a public faith.
[00:55:52]  It's an individual faith, right?
[00:55:54]  It can't just be the faith of your parents or the faith of your forefathers or the faith of your country.
[00:55:59]  Well, I'm a part of a Christian country.
[00:56:01]  No, it actually has to be an individual faith.
[00:56:05]  But an individual faith that is not a private faith.
[00:56:09]  So it is personal.
[00:56:10]  Christianity is a personal faith, but not a private faith.
[00:56:14]  It's personal and public.
[00:56:16]  Even our baptism is public.
[00:56:19]  It's publicly confessing Christ.
[00:56:22]  And that doesn't mean that you have to be suicidal.
[00:56:25]  I'm not saying that you have to stand on your desk in the middle of the workplace, you know, and just start railing against feminism in Christ's name.
[00:56:34]  I'm not saying that you need to get fired.
[00:56:36]  We don't have the benevolence fund available for all of you to lose your job.
[00:56:40]  We just, you know, so please.
[00:56:42]  You know, exercise a little bit of wisdom.
[00:56:45]  However, however, yes, be prudent.
[00:56:48]  Yes, be shrewd.
[00:56:51]  But in the name of prudence, brothers and sisters, last thing I'm going to say in the name of wisdom and shrewdness and prudence, don't go to hell.
[00:57:02]  That's what's at stake here.
[00:57:05]  This is not just a hypothetical.
[00:57:07]  And it's not just, you know, just verbose wording.
[00:57:12]  No, Jesus is being literal.
[00:57:14]  He's saying that if you're a coward, you will go to hell.
[00:57:20]  If you will not confess him publicly before men, he will not acknowledge you before his father.
[00:57:29]  And it's not that you will have lost your salvation, it is that you will have proven in the final analysis that you never actually had that salvation to begin with.
[00:57:40]  So don't be suicidal.
[00:57:42]  Yes, exercise prudence.
[00:57:45]  But you better be real discerning and real careful and have accountability in your life to help you see the fine line between wisdom and cowardice.
[00:57:58]  Because a lot of cowardly things have been done in the name of wisdom.
[00:58:04]  Well, I'm just being wise.
[00:58:06]  No, you're being a coward.
[00:58:08]  And likewise, a lot of foolish things have been done in the name of faith.
[00:58:13]  Faith can be a euphemism for foolishness.
[00:58:17]  But wisdom can be a euphemism for cowardice.
[00:58:22]  And we need to have people in our life who help us to not deceive ourselves and console ourselves to think, I'm just being prudent.
[00:58:32]  I'm just being shrewd.
[00:58:34]  No, you're just compromising.
[00:58:37]  You're just compromising.

=== Faith vs. Foolish Cowardice (02:46) ===

[00:58:40]  And publicly confessing Christ in our context, I think it's different.
[00:58:44]  This is my opinion.
[00:58:46]  So I'm suggesting this part.
[00:58:47]  I'll preach it a little bit softer.
[00:58:49]  Other parts are clearly from God's word.
[00:58:52]  This is my application that I think is right.
[00:58:55]  Preaching Christ and being persecuted on account of Christ for his name's sake in our American context in 2025, I think, has a little bit more to do with Ephesus.
[00:59:08]  Than with Paul in Ephesus, than it did with Peter in Jerusalem.
[00:59:13]  So, what I mean by that is, I think that to faithfully and publicly acknowledge Christ before men today in our modern context is not just preaching, exalting Christ, preaching Christ positively, but also preaching against all the antichrist negatively.
[00:59:35]  I think that that peace is a prerequisite.
[00:59:39]  For confessing Christ publicly in our day, in our time, in our place.
[00:59:45]  Because we all know you can write love songs about Jesus and your life, you don't experience persecution, your life immediately will improve.
[00:59:58]  You just go take a Katy Perry song and get rid of the word boyfriend, insert the word Jesus, and you'll be celebrated.
[01:00:07]  You won't be persecuted.
[01:00:10]  There are plenty of people who will publicly say, I'm a Christian.
[01:00:14]  I love Jesus.
[01:00:15]  There are actors who say it.
[01:00:16]  There are athletes who say it.
[01:00:19]  There are politicians who say it, usually with an Israel flag in their office.
[01:00:22]  But there are plenty of people who say, I love Jesus.
[01:00:27]  And Jesus is God.
[01:00:29]  And he died for your sin, penal substitutionary atonement, and bodily was raised from the dead.
[01:00:36]  And it doesn't get you in a whole lot of trouble.
[01:00:40]  But it's then saying, Artemis is.
[01:00:43]  Is no God at all.
[01:00:45]  Artemis is a false Jesus.
[01:00:49]  That Jesus is Lord and he will share his glory with no one.
[01:00:57]  Exclusivity of Christ and the toppling of every antichrist.
[01:01:03]  I do believe, especially in our context today, with as many idols as we have, as many false orthodoxies and dogmas and religions, it's not just ideologies, they're religious.
[01:01:16]  In our day, I do believe that the toppling of these antichrists is a part of the public confessing of the true Christ.

=== Persecution as a True Indicator (03:21) ===

[01:01:26]  And if you do both, and again, it's not either or, it's always both, but if you do both, then all of a sudden you will start to experience some persecution.
[01:01:37]  And I think that that is an indicator, often not perfect indicator, because you can get persecution for just your own namesake and being dumb and being a jerk.
[01:01:47]  But, okay, so it still requires discernment.
[01:01:50]  But I think in general, persecution is a decently accurate indicator for whether or not you are truly and publicly professing Christ.
[01:02:03]  If you go through your life with zero pushback, with zero persecution, then I don't know.
[01:02:13]  I'll just say this I don't want to be you on that final day.
[01:02:18]  That's that to me, that is terrifying.
[01:02:23]  You were a Christian and you found a way to make it through this world for 75 to 85 years without anybody being upset at you.
[01:02:38]  Jesus is, he might deny you before his father.
[01:02:44]  And you need to feel the weight of that because that's the text.
[01:02:49]  It's like, oh, I don't like this sermon.
[01:02:51]  I feel like you're trying to scare me.
[01:02:52]  Jesus, right here, is talking to his disciples and trying to scare them because he loves them.
[01:03:00]  Jesus, who loves them, is trying to scare them into righteousness and away from all those things that ultimately would destroy them.
[01:03:09]  We do this as parents.
[01:03:11]  I love you.
[01:03:11]  This is right.
[01:03:12]  Also, this leads to death and destruction.
[01:03:17]  Be afraid.
[01:03:18]  Be rightly and appropriately afraid of this and run towards that.
[01:03:24]  It's a very loving thing to do.
[01:03:26]  This is Jesus scaring his disciples, and I hope by God's grace that you're a little bit scared today.
[01:03:31]  You might stand before him one day and hear, Depart from me, I never knew you.
[01:03:37]  You might.
[01:03:38]  And one of the best ways to ensure that you don't hear that is to be a student that looks like the teacher, to be a slave that looks like the master, particularly in the category of persecution.
[01:03:51]  Persecution for his name's sake, which is to preach him positively.
[01:03:56]  But also to preach against all those idols negatively.
[01:04:01]  Both, two prongs of publicly confessing Christ.
[01:04:06]  And you will garner persecution.
[01:04:08]  And then what you can do is take that persecution, lie your head down on the pillow at night with a little smile on your face and say, Well, a lot of people hate me.
[01:04:21]  But one thing's for sure I'm going to heaven.
[01:04:26]  That's like people like, what are some of your lifelong goals?
[01:04:29]  One of my lifelong goals, like top tier, don't go to hell.
[01:04:33]  It's like, I'm like thinking about that every day, seriously.
[01:04:36]  I'm like, don't go to hell, Joel.
[01:04:37]  Don't go to hell.
[01:04:38]  Don't go to hell.
[01:04:39]  Jesus, keep me, preserve me, change me, help me, give me strength, make me courageous.

=== Praying for Courageous Repentance (04:41) ===

[01:04:48]  And some of you, you may think, like, what do you mean?
[01:04:52]  Maybe, like, I'm a coward.
[01:04:55]  I'm a coward.
[01:04:57]  I am.
[01:04:59]  All the time.
[01:05:01]  All the time I'm thinking, I'm worried about this, I'm scared about that.
[01:05:08]  Like some people think, oh, you're so courageous.
[01:05:13]  No, I am constantly convicted of all the ways that I have adopted liberalism, all the ways I've adopted modernity, secularism.
[01:05:23]  Like I read these old Christian writers and I'm like, ah, I'm a lib.
[01:05:29]  I am such a liberal.
[01:05:32]  I am so effeminate.
[01:05:36]  I often am ashamed and asking the Lord, please help me.
[01:05:41]  Grant me the gift of repentance.
[01:05:43]  Sanctify me.
[01:05:44]  Change me.
[01:05:46]  If I was having a lunch with the Puritans, I'm pretty sure I'd be put underneath church discipline.
[01:05:55]  Help me, God.
[01:05:57]  Help me to be a historic Christian, not a 20th century liberal walking around in a Christian skin suit.
[01:06:05]  Help me, Lord, to not promote the Christianity that my Christian fathers hated.
[01:06:12]  And more importantly, that Jesus hates.
[01:06:15]  Jesus hates modern Christianity.
[01:06:18]  You need to know that.
[01:06:19]  He hates your modern Christianity.
[01:06:23]  He loves the faith once and for all passed down to the saints.
[01:06:26]  Historic Christianity that has stood the test of time, that is tried and true.
[01:06:32]  He loves that Christianity, the only real Christianity.
[01:06:37]  And all of us could do with more courage.
[01:06:41]  And there's so many times where we might think, oh, I'm courageous enough, or we're in enough trouble, you know, or we've gotten enough conflict.
[01:06:48]  That's that.
[01:06:49]  You have to look at that and say, pan out and compare yourself to the apostles, compare yourself to the first century church, compare yourself to the Puritans, the reformers.
[01:06:59]  Look, pan out.
[01:07:01]  Because if you're comparing yourself to just the other Christians you know today and saying, well, I'm more courageous than them, well, congratulations.
[01:07:12]  You have more courage than the most cowardly generation of people that have ever lived on the planet.
[01:07:20]  Looking around you in 2025 cannot be the ruler, the measuring rod for what's pleasing to Christ.
[01:07:28]  That cannot be the metric you use for determining Christian virtue.
[01:07:32]  Guys, we are in a sad state of affairs.
[01:07:35]  Are you aware how sad the state of affairs of the nation, of the world, and of the church currently are?
[01:07:43]  So, no, you cannot just say, well, I'm more courageous than that guy.
[01:07:50]  More courageous than that guy.
[01:07:52]  What?
[01:07:53]  That guy has long hair and limp wrists.
[01:07:58]  Jesus is not impressed.
[01:08:01]  That's not going to do.
[01:08:03]  That's not going to do.
[01:08:04]  Preach Christ, publicly confess him, and endure persecution for his name's sake.
[01:08:11]  And if there is no persecution, then come talk to me.
[01:08:16]  Come talk to Connor.
[01:08:17]  Come talk to Michael.
[01:08:20]  And seriously, meet with one of the elders and say, Guys, I'm concerned for my soul.
[01:08:28]  I want to be faithful to Christ.
[01:08:30]  But the last five years, I've never had anybody upset with me about my faith.
[01:08:36]  And that concerns me.
[01:08:38]  And we'll respond by saying, Good, that should concern you.
[01:08:41]  That's good.
[01:08:41]  Let's talk about that.
[01:08:43]  What does it look like for you in your daily life to follow Jesus?
[01:08:47]  Because to not have any conflict, any pushback, to not have any persecution from men.
[01:08:53]  That's the whole point of our text today.
[01:08:56]  It should scare you.
[01:08:58]  Let's pray.
[01:08:58]  Father, bless your word to your people.
[01:09:00]  We pray that you would bring for yourself great glory by the preaching of your word.
[01:09:04]  Whatever I said that's not true to your word, I ask, Lord, that we would forget and that it would not stick.
[01:09:10]  But whatever's true, Lord, I pray that it would not be something that's easy to shove off, but it would remain and that each of us would have to wrestle with that and that we would repent if repentance is needed and that we would be motivated.
[01:09:25]  To be more courageous and faithful toward you.
[01:09:27]  We ask this in Jesus' name.
[01:09:29]  Amen.