Look, I am sending you out as sheep among wolves. So be as shrewd as snakes and harmless as doves. But beware! For you will be handed over to the courts and will be flogged with whips in the synagogues. You will stand trial before governors and kings because you are my followers. But this will be your opportunity to tell the rulers and other unbelievers about me. 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. A brother will betray his brother to death, a father will betray his own child, and children will rebel against their parents and cause them to be killed. And all nations will hate you because you are my followers. But everyone who endures to the end will be saved. When you are persecuted in one town, flee to the next. I tell you the truth, the Son of Man will return before you have reached all the towns of Israel. (Matthew 10:16-23)Tim Tebow, the quarterback for the Denver Broncos, is all the talk right now, mainly because he has the utter gall and audacity to pray in front of people. When he scores a touchdown, he bends his knee and prays.
It drives the unbelievers wild with fury. And the worst part of it all (to them) is that he is winning all his games.
The scream from these people is that we do not have the right to interject religion into regular life. As one man put it, religion is supposed to be in places that are dark and mysterious. It is not designed, he said, for the open air and regular life.
He is a fool, of course. When Jesus sent out his disciples in the passage above, he told them that they would have all kinds of trouble when they told people about him. And they did.
He told them that all nations will hate you because you are my followers. And they still do.
It is always surprising to new Christians when they get their first pushback when they tell someone else about their new faith. It is so good to them that they cannot imagine others not wanting it too.
But the devil does not want the gospel of Jesus Christ to be preached. When it is, it sets people free from him and he hates it. The world acts on his behalf when they scream and holler about Tim Tebow praying, or a school hiring only Christians, or someone actually bringing their faith into the workplace.
They have no problems with religion. It is compartmentalized and doesn’t require much. Faith, on the other hand, requires your entire life. That is the one thing those who do not believe do not want.
Jesus says here in a sideways fashion that anyone who leaves his faith at home when he goes out into the world is not truly a believer. With God, it is all or nothing.
In Luke 11:23, Jesus said: Anyone who isn’t with me opposes me, and anyone who isn’t working with me is actually working against me. In other words, you are with him or not. There is no middle ground. There are no neutral people in the kingdom of God. There can be no such thing as a moderate Christian.
In fact, about moderate Christians, those who try to be part of both the world and the kingdom of God, Jesus says: I know all the things you do, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish that you were one or the other! But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth! (Revelation 3:15-16)
Be somebody in the kingdom. Show your faith.
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