Following Christ Amidst Conflict and Criticism

that Jesus faced. So following Christ does not mean that you'll live a life of comfort without distress or without trouble or without conflict. In fact, it's inevitable. It's somewhere along the line you will find that, even in our country. In the rest of the world, it's more pronounced. In much of the world, whenever you say you're going to accept Christ, you know for sure, in communist countries, that it limits your ability to get a job. In the Muslim countries, it's a risk of your life for someone to kill you because you've left Mohammed, and now you have become an enemy of him. And in the world around, in India, you take this step toward Christ and you find suddenly Hindus and the people around them see you as an enemy of their religion and of their country. Most of the world, in this statement, in this commitment of following Christ, sees this great decision as a risky choice to make. The story about Jesus picks up in this part of his life in which he's facing the consequences for his own obedience to the Father. He's living in a way that we are not accustomed to seeing anyone live who is a follower of Christ. In this passage, in Matthew chapter 27, beginning with verse 27, Jesus now has gone to trial before the Jewish court, he's gone to trial before Pilate, and now he's been, they've agreed to crucify him. Then the governor's soldiers took Jesus into the praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. They stripped him, put a scarlet robe on him, and then wove a crown of thorns set on his head. They put a staff in his right hand and knelt in front of him and mocked him. Hail, King of the Jews, they said. They spit on him. They took the staff and struck him on the head again and again. After they had mocked him, they took off the robe they'd put on and put on his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him. Jesus, when he was caught in this situation, was caught here not because he had done anything particularly wrong. He had not done anything to provoke people against him. His own community, the Jewish community, he had proclaimed the truth that God had sent him to give. He had not tried to arouse or disturb any of the people. He had told the truth about what the Father said he should do. He gave the message that the Father said he should give. His primary concern was to do exactly what the Father asked him to do. He could tell as he was doing this that it was generating opposition on the part of the Jewish leaders. He could see their concerns. He could see their anger and resentment. He could see that sometimes when he was teaching, they were taking down notes to be able to say, to record things that he had said that they thought could get him in trouble. But Jesus was on a mission. He knew that he was sent there to tell exactly what the Father wanted him to say. He had no recourse except to say the things that were true, even if it offended the Jewish leaders. So Jesus comes to this place having done everything the Father has told him to do. It has generated great controversy about him. Some people hate him and want to kill him. Some people love him and think he's a messenger of God. But in this moment, now he's caught in the hands of these people who are determined to kill him. Jesus had not tried to provoke the Roman officials. He had not declared anything that would cause them to think that he was an enemy of the government of Rome. He had not done anything to antagonize Pilate. In fact, Pilate was very favorable toward Jesus. But here the Roman soldiers now take him, and they're persecuting him with this crown of thorns on his head, woven crowns of thorns that would press in his head, probably not terrifically painful, but very unpleasant. Jesus then was mocked by the Roman soldiers who were there. He never said anything to cause them to feel any resentment toward him. And there is not one word or indication in the scripture of Jesus' resistance to them or his negative response to them. He accepts the suffering that's brought on him as a normal process of what he's going through. Jesus does not see this in any way to make him angry or upset or distressed. He has already dealt with this when he was in the Garden of Gethsemane. He knew that he was facing this death that he was going to face. He knew what was happening to him because he and the Father had been in conversation about it. And the Father assured him that this is what he was to do. He was to accept it. And so Jesus gives himself up, and he's faithful to the mission that he came to do in spite of what happened to him. It's an interesting thing to me to see what happened with Jesus and his followers. Sometimes it's easy to deal with our enemies. We know they don't like us. Sometimes it's easy to deal with people who are pagans. We know that they don't necessarily care about us either. But Jesus gathered around him twelve people. One of them was a person from the very beginning, the scripture says, that Jesus knew he was not one of his own. But when you read the story of Jesus and his interaction with his disciples, not at any point in all this story does Jesus take offense at Judas. Not once. You can't tell if you take the end of the story of Jesus' life and you were to cut those books out of your Bible, and you read the story of Jesus' life up to the point where he has the Lord's Supper with his followers, you would never know that one of those disciples was not one of his followers. You would never suspect from the language of Jesus toward Judas that there was anything on his part except acceptance of Judas. Most of the time when we're around someone that we know is antagonistic toward us, we begin to withdraw. We begin to think negative things about them. We begin to find the little things about their life that irritate us because we know that they're not on our side. The amazing thing about Jesus is that even though he has an enemy right there with him in every one of his conversations, the Bible says he knew from the beginning what was taking place, he never is critical of Judas. Not one word. Even though he knew where Judas stood, not one word did he say negatively. Jesus knew that he had a man who was a part of his group who was not really with him. He had opportunity. John tells us that he did steal money from the purse that they kept. He had opportunity to catch him. He had opportunity to expose him, but he never did. Sometimes in our following Christ, some of the most difficult things we deal with are people who are part of the group around us. In church life, oftentimes you'll find people who are difficult to deal with, who say things that are negative and critical, who act in ways that are contrary to what the gospel should have, and oftentimes it generates a tremendous response from the congregation of anger and resentment and bitterness to people who act in negative ways toward us and what we're trying to accomplish. Jesus shows us in his suffering that his focus was on obedience to the Father, not correcting Judas. It's so hard when you see somebody who's not doing exactly what they ought to do in church to want to say, this is what you need to do to straighten your life out. And if we don't do that, sometimes our own mind begins to think it, and we have a negative attitude toward the people we think are not carrying their full load because we think they should be doing the things that we think are right. And when they're not doing the things that we think are right, we have an attitude toward them that is critical, and we think about them in negative terms. Jesus never did that. He had every reason to do it. Judas was on the wrong side of the table from him, but he didn't. What he teaches us is listening to the Father and being obedient to what the Father asked us to do makes Jesus a peacemaker even with his enemy. Jesus then never was critical of Pilate. He was very critical of the Jewish leaders because he saw them leading the Jewish people away from the Father. His criticism of the Jewish leaders had nothing to do with the fact they were trying to kill him or wanted to kill him. It had everything to do with the reality that these leaders were presenting to the people of Israel a false picture of God. And he was angry because when he came into the temple, and they had created in the temple not a place of prayer but a business deal, he was angry for what they did to the church, how they distorted it, and he drove them out. Jesus' conflict with the religious leaders was a conflict born out of the truth of God as opposed to people who were preaching the false message from God. And it was that issue that drove Jesus so powerfully in conflict with them. When Jesus faced these people, he faced people who were his enemies, but he didn't make them his enemies. They became his enemies because of his faithfulness to God. Jesus gives us a perfect example of how to live in a world where there are all kinds of different things going on that hurt us. If you take up your cross and follow me, you are bound to have conflict. Sometimes it's conflict from the people who are around you who are your friends, as in the case of Judas. Sometimes the conflict is around you with people who are your enemies. And all of you will have, as you begin to follow Christ, people who will look at your life and find criticism for what you do. Now, don't mistake the criticism about the things you do wrong as Christian persecution. But whenever you're doing the things that you know that God wants you to do, and you find family and friends and fellow workers who are critical of you for what you're doing, you're simply walking in the footsteps of Christ. Sometimes people generate this animosity between them and others because they act like they're better than others. They're critical of the people that are not followers of Christ. They have an attitude toward them that's negative. Jesus did none of that. And if that brings persecution to you, it's not walking in Christ that brings it. It is your own sinful human nature that's generated that for you. But if you're carefully following Christ and trying to do what he wants you to do, and you find that criticism and opposition arises, you should expect that. Jesus told us it would come. No one lives following Christ and is obedient to him that doesn't find criticism. You will find opposition and criticism from those within your group, as Judas was, and you'll find it from people outside, either religious leaders who may not have the full message of Christ who will criticize what you're doing, or you'll find it in pagans who are opposed to what you have to say because your proclamation that life without Christ leads to eternity in hell, and people don't like that. So those three sources of the danger and the negative response that comes to you are always there. Now what we have in this picture is Jesus' response to what they did. When you read this story, there is nothing here about Jesus. Then the governor's soldiers took Jesus to the praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. They stripped him, put a scarlet robe on him, and then wove a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand and knelt in front of him and mocked him. Hail, King of the Jews, they said. They spit on him. They took a staff and struck him on the head again and again, and after they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put on his own clothes on him, then led him away to be crucified. Jesus doesn't say a word in the story. He had every reason to. The charges against him were false. The people who were doing all these things to him had no reason to be angry with Jesus. He'd never said one word against the Roman Empire or Roman soldiers. But here were men who for no reason took the opportunity to take advantage of a prisoner. There is a lot of cruelty in the world, and when people get in a crowd of people where something negative is going on, it seems to urge that. It's kind of a mob kind of mentality. And so here is a man who's helpless before them, and the soldiers take advantage of that helplessness. They do painful things to Jesus physically. The crown of thorns in his head. They insult him because he was sent here as the Messiah, and he's a king, the ruler of the universe today, and they're making fun of him. What they were saying about him was true, but they're acting as if it was a joke, an insult of the highest order. They put a robe on him, mocking his kingship, letting him know that they thought it was stupid and foolish and wasn't true. They did everything they could to make Jesus seem submissive or to exercise their power to hurt him physically, emotionally, spiritually, psychologically. They tortured Jesus. Now there's one big difference for us when we live in this world like that. It's when we get caught in situations like this, there's not one single thing in the world we can do about it. But it wasn't true for Jesus. Jesus could have called for all the help that he needed and wanted. He could have asked the Father to strike dead every one of the soldiers who were there, and he didn't. Most of the time when we encounter suffering, we don't have an option. It just comes to us, and we can't change the circumstance or events around us. And I think the story of Jesus helps us to understand that he's setting an example for us about how to face times in which conflict comes to us and opposition comes to us, either by people who are criticizing us or people who are trying to hurt us or our reputation or people who are trying to do something to us that makes us feel like we're worthless or unimportant or not valuable. He said, deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me. I think you believe, because the scripture says Jesus was human, that he was human. What does a human think about when he's put in this situation? Here are these soldiers. They're punishing him. Put a crown of thorns on his head with the pain there. Put a robe on him, acting like he was a king when they were just making fun of him. He's a grown man, 33 years old, and they're treating him as if he were simply a child. They had power and authority over him. If he was a man, when the insults started, he wanted to get back at them. Don't you, whenever people do something bad, do you want to get back? So he has that temptation inside of him. If he was human, he did. I don't deserve this, Satan probably said to him. You don't have to put up with this, Satan probably said to him. All you have to do is just speak a word and the angels will come. And all the while he's taking this. But Jesus has come to grips with what his mission was here. It was to say to every one of us who live this life, wherever we are in the world, this is how you face the consequences of living in obedience to me. You trust the Father to take care of you. The covenant promise that God makes to us is, I will protect you. That's one of them. He said, Abraham, your enemies will become my enemies. Your friends will become my friends. He said to the people of Israel and Mount Sinai that he would send them into the land of promise and they would win the victories there. They would drive out the enemy and they would win. And here Jesus is, the Son of God, perfect in every way, done everything that he's supposed to do. And he's being mocked, tortured, punished, and he's going to be killed. Where is the promise of the Father? I will protect you. This is an important thing for us to understand because there are a lot of people in the world who start out in the Christian life who have something happen to them. The loss of a child, the loss of a job, the loss of a spouse, and they are enraged because God has not taken care of them as they wished and hoped he would. What God promises is not that we will not suffer. He doesn't promise that we won't have difficult times where bad things don't happen to us. He doesn't promise us any of these things. What he promises us is victory. Now when you read this story and you look ahead to what takes place, who won in this battle, the Roman soldiers or Jesus? When he came forth from the grave to live forever, the victory over death, hell, the grave, and all the Roman Empire was declared. What Jesus shows us here, and I think he had this in his mind, I am presenting to my followers what you do when everyone around you is persecuting you, taunting you, hurting you. What do you do? Your human nature says get even. But Jesus had already taught whenever you are slapped on the face on one side, just turn the other cheek and let them slap you with the back of their hand. That's what he was talking about. I slap you with this side and you hit your head around that way, then my backside, I slap you with the other side when I'm coming back. Don't dodge, Jesus said, and he never dodged this. He taught it and he lived it. What he was confident of was that the victory would be his. That in the long run, when all this was said and done, and we look at this story, we know Jesus won. But in this part of the story, when he's there before these guys being humiliated, insulted, tortured, punished, he wasn't winning. That's the way it looks. But what he shows us is the confidence in God that he keeps his promise, you will win, will eventually happen. Not only true for Jesus, it's true for every one of us. You'll be in places, I want to promise you, when you're following Christ, because of your faithfulness to him, where you'll have people who criticize you, people who don't like you, people who will try to say bad things about you. Even in our country, if you go other places in the world, you'll have people even that want to kill you, because you're following God. But what he says is, all these things might happen to you, but trust me. In this story, as in all the rest of Jesus' life, he does not do one single thing that would cause us to think of him as being selfish, that would cause us to think of him as being someone who wants to get even with the people that are around him. He doesn't do anything to want to control the world that he's in. He knows he's there in the hands of his enemy, and he only has confidence in the Father. So when you go through the difficult times in your Christian life, when things don't work the way you want them to, when people seem to be at odds with you, when everything around you seems to go a different direction than you want, and you feel like life is crushing you, you remember this story. What God says is, follow Jesus. Follow him. It will lead you through some of those difficult times and difficult things, but it doesn't matter. You will find the victory. God is going to provide that for you. So the picture of Jesus suffering is a picture of someone who believes the promise of God, even in the most difficult and trying circumstances. That's what God wants us to do. Jesus warned his disciples carefully in the scriptures about what was going to take place for them. This is a story for us. Matthew chapter 10 beginning with verse 17. Jesus said, no verse 16, but I'm sending you out like sheep among wolves. Now in this story where Jesus is crouching before these Roman soldiers, he appears to be a sheep in the presence of ravaging wolves. So he says, I'm sending you out to face exactly what I'm going to face. I'm sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. What are we to do? We're to be careful and shrewd and we're not to be attacking back, but have no responsibility on our side for what's taking place. We don't cause it to take place. But be on your guard against men. They will hand you over to your local councils, flog you in your synagogues. On my account, on my account, you will be brought before governors, kings as witnesses to tell them and to the Gentiles. But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the spirit of your father speaking through you. Brother will betray brother to death and father his child, and children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firmed to the end will be saved. When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. He didn't say you should invite persecution. Do run from it. Don't try to simply encourage it. Do not encourage it. I tell you the truth, you will not finish going through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes. A student is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the student to be like his teacher and the servant to be like his master. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebub, the prince of all demons, how much more the members of his household. Jesus lets his disciples know from the very beginning that what's going to happen to them will be painful and difficult. They should not accept the idea that following Christ is going to be easy or painless. I meet a lot of people who talk about starting their Christian life, and they've dropped out. Most of them drop out because they went to church somewhere, and there was conflict in the church, and they just quit. A lot of them drop out because they lost a relative that they loved very much and didn't think God was fair and not healing them. you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you