Sermon Transcript
August 30, 2026
How many of you have been to the World War II Museum in New Orleans? It’s the National World War II Museum. Oh, you guys are missing out. I love the World War II Museum. I love World War II history. One of the things in World War II history that has infected the English language tremendously is the Enigma machine. We now use this word in everyday speech. If you don’t understand something and it appears to be cryptic, we will call it an enigma. The Enigma machine was the Nazi device that would encrypt their speech and their communication.
Well, when the Allies broke the code to the Enigma machine, they didn’t tell everyone. In fact, they had to sometimes let attacks happen to their ally friends—attacks they had intercepted knowledge about. They had to let them happen because if they warned them, the Germans would notice, “Hey, these guys are missing out on all our attacks.” They would know that the encryption was broken, and they would change their communication strategies. It was a strategic move to pretend like you don’t have knowledge when the knowledge was there.
We are in similar warfare as Christians. We endure pain. We endure struggle. The enemy comes after us. We will suffer at the hands of those who oppose Jesus. These are promises. And it might seem a little bit like God has the encryption codes and He’s not doing anything about it. But the truth is, you’re going to find in today’s passage that the fact that He knows all the enemy’s attacks is actually the blessing. It doesn’t mean He’s going to stop you from feeling the brunt force of that attack, but His very knowing is meant to comfort you. So rise with me as we read from Matthew 10:26–31.
Therefore, don’t be afraid of them, since there is nothing covered that won’t be uncovered and nothing hidden that won’t be made known. What I tell you in the dark, speak in the light. What you hear in a whisper, proclaim on the housetops. Don’t fear those who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul; rather, fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Aren’t two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s consent. But even the hairs of your head have all been counted. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. (Matthew 10:26–31, CSB)
This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated.
Oh Lord, I come to You right now as Your humble servant. Father, You know what our weeks have been like. You know where we have fallen short. But we gather as Your people with an expectation that You will put us on solid ground every week. And I’m no exception. Will You please speak to everyone’s hearts by the power of Your Spirit through Your servant today and cause us to see things that we would not normally see by our mere carnal abilities? I want You, Father, to break through and to pierce open our mind’s eye and help us to be captivated by visions of You on Your throne, orchestrating all human events to culminate to the consummation of the Kingdom of God on earth.
Help us to break out of the entanglements we feel we have in the world—the bills, the medical stuff, the pressures of school, recent deaths or diagnoses. I pray that for this moment You would give our minds sweet balm to not think about them, but rather to think only of You. Grant us great attention spans and motivate our hearts to pursue understanding this text so that we can take seriously our mission to make disciples. Help us, Lord Jesus.
Now I pray that You would do a supernatural work with my mouth. Just like every week, I ask You to take over and take ownership of this service and make it Yours so that Your people can be fed by You and not me. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
The main point of today’s sermon is: when faced with persecution, we must focus on the mission, God’s power, and His gracious presence. We’re going to tackle these three ideas today because Jesus is telling us exactly how to handle persecution.
You might be walking throughout your Christian life and go, “I’ve never experienced persecution as a Christian.” And that might be the case because you have been raised in an America that benefited from cultural Christianity. But, my friend, the tides have turned. If you have gone throughout your life in the last five years and not once been chided, ridiculed, or mocked for being a follower, it is because you are not obeying the passage at hand today.
What you’re going to see is we are actually called to uphold this mission. We have seen the mission be proclaimed at the end of the Gospel. It’s the whole point of this current sermon series, which is:
Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19–20, CSB)
So, we must know what it is that Jesus has taught us in order to make these disciples. The topic of our sermon series for now is: Who is Jesus and what does He want? Well, today He wants you to be able to face persecution.
Replace Your Fear of Man with a Focus on the Mission to Make Disciples
So what does that persecution look like, and who does it come from? This is the first point in the sermon: replace your fear of man with a focus on the mission to make disciples. This is the first step in facing persecution—we’re going to trade it. I want you to trade your fear of man with a focus on the mission.
Jesus comes out of the gate in this passage and He says, “Do not fear them.” Who is the “them”? Right now, we are in what is called the Mission Discourse. It starts at the beginning of Matthew 10:5. Jesus sent out these twelve, His twelve disciples, giving them these instructions. And from v 5 all the way to v 42, Jesus is giving instructions for the mission. And starting in v 16, He starts to describe who are those that are going to persecute the Christians. He calls them wolves in v 16. And He says that they will flog them and beat them in synagogues in v 17. In v 18, it says that they will be dragged out and brought before government officials to give an account for what they believe and why they are preaching this nonsense.
And in v 21, He describes these persecutors in a way that I know many in this room have actually already experienced. They will be blood-related betrayers where fathers will turn on their sons, brothers will turn on brothers, and children will turn on their parents. The idea in v 21 is that they will report you to the government. We see this already in communist nations. One of the tactics of communist governments is to indoctrinate the children early in their youth and train them to trust the state more than they trust their parents, and then to tell on the parents when they do anything against the state. So Christian parents in communist nations have always struggled with this dilemma: “How do we disciple our children without having them turn us into the government?” These are the marks of persecutors.
Why do they do this? Matthew 10:24–25 makes this very clear:
A disciple is not above his teacher, or a slave above his master. It is enough for a disciple to become like his teacher and a slave like his master. If they called the head of the house ‘Beelzebul,’ how much more the members of his household! (Matthew 10:24–25, CSB)
The point is, if they did it to Jesus, they will do it to us. You will know how much you are living your life like Jesus based on how much persecution you endure. If you’ve endured very little persecution for your faith, it is because, more than likely, you have shown just how little you are truly like Jesus.
It is an inevitable fact. Satan is the prince of the power of the air, according to the Scriptures (Ephesians 2:2). He is the one that is wielding the forces of the nations. He is the one that directs persecution against Christians. And it is very clear according to Revelation 12 when Satan is expelled from heaven. He is sent to earth, and all of this is accomplished at the cross. When Jesus defeats death on the cross, Satan is no longer permitted an audience with God to be the person who declares our wrongdoings before God. And he is removed from heaven, no longer granted an audience. And it says that he is angry and he knows his time is short. And what does he do? He goes after the children, which are the disciples of Jesus.
So the dragon was furious with the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring—those who keep the commands of God and hold firmly to the testimony about Jesus. (Revelation 12:17, CSB)
This is why 1 Peter 5:8 says:
Be sober-minded, be alert. Your adversary the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour. (1 Peter 5:8, CSB)
Your enemy never stops hunting to hurt the people of God. If you are like Jesus, persecution is promised. If you are like Jesus, your persecution is promised.
The world will tell you that being like Jesus means you’re just going to be loving and kind. And this is true. That you’re just going to be forgiving. And this is true. But do not forget that being like Jesus is also telling them, “No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Being like Jesus means you are not afraid to tell people, “Muhammad is not the answer. It is only Jesus.” Being like Jesus is not being afraid to say that these things will not save you, only the Son of God. Being like Jesus is not being afraid to say, “I love you. You are wrong.” But rather, fear Him who is able to destroy your soul. We forget in our culture, our Christian culture, that Jesus was confrontational. But for those who are like Jesus, the persecution is promised. It will come for you.
So what kind of persecution have you already experienced? Even in America, I can tell you that it is inevitable that you will have members of your family who will turn on you, right? For me, I was called Jim Jones. I was laughed at and mocked. There was an email chain that went about our family talking about me, using euphemisms in our family because my mom and dad and my sister had followed in my footsteps. We had a gay family member who decided that she wanted to get married, and our family was the only one that said we weren’t going to show up. We expressed that we loved them, that we pray for them, but we could not show approval merely by appearing. We were invited to very few family events after that. But that is what Jesus promised would happen.
So they’re in this Mission Discourse, and it does appear from v 1 that the Mission Discourse here is all about just the twelve disciples. But there are clues that it’s going beyond that. First, in this mission, you see in Matthew 10:1, it says that Jesus gives them authority over the demons and sickness. So, they are to go throughout the local Jewish towns and proclaim a message in v 7, which is: “The kingdom of heaven has come near.” And while they’re going out in v 8, they’re supposed to heal the sick and drive out the demons.
But then Jesus starts to explain that they are going to be doing things and enduring things that go beyond the very mission they’re about to do. The mission at hand is that they are only supposed to go to local Jewish towns and proclaim to the children of Abraham that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. He tells them for this mission, “Don’t go to the Gentiles yet.” We know that that does happen later, but it’s not for this moment.
But these instructions are meant for more than just that one mission. How do we know that? Because Jesus just promised them, “They will hand you over to the government officials and flog you.” But we don’t see that happen here. It also says that your family members are going to turn you in. We don’t see that happen here either. Which means the Mission Discourse that Jesus is giving them is more than just this mission, and it’s for more than just these disciples.
The instructions that Jesus gives for the mission here are the same instructions that we are called to abide by. They include very strong principles that we are to carry with us in our own mission. And the news is this: every disciple of Jesus is called to fulfill this mission. Not every disciple moves overseas, but every disciple is involved in mission. And the mission is this: you are to tell them that the Kingdom of God is at hand, and the time to turn to God is now.
So, just like these disciples are taught things in private with Jesus, guess what? So are you. Jesus tells them to replace their fear of man by focusing on the mission. And what is the mission? It’s in v 27: “That which I tell you in the darkness, say in the light, and that which you hear whispered in your ear, proclaim on the rooftops.” This is what the Great Commission in Matthew 28 is getting at.
But here’s something peculiar. Jesus says, “The things that are taught in secret.” What in the world is that about? He even says, “Whispered in the ear.” I don’t remember reading anything in the first ten chapters or in the next eighteen chapters about Jesus whispering in their ear. What’s going on?
In fact, there’s also this interesting part. If this is about this coming mission in chapter 10 and He says proclaim it out in the open, shout it on the rooftops, why do we read in Matthew 16 that Jesus gave the disciples orders to tell no one that He was the Messiah in v 20? The reason is because these instructions go beyond just the mission of chapter 10 and chapter 11.
But what about the whisper? The only place where we have a hint of this is in Matthew 10:19–20 when Jesus says that when they hand you over to the government officials to be persecuted, He says, “Don’t worry about how or what you are to speak. You’re going to be standing before them. They have the power to take your life—one of the scariest moments of your life.” And Jesus says, “Don’t worry about what you’re going to say. For you will be given what to say at that hour, because it isn’t you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father is speaking through you.”
This is the closest thing to the context of this verse to explain what does He mean by the things you hear in darkness and the things whispered in your ear. More than likely, Jesus has in mind the communication that comes from the Holy Spirit in times of suffering. But it’s not just in times of suffering, is it? Because in John 16:13, Jesus tells His disciples:
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth. For he will not speak on his own, but he will speak whatever he hears. He will also declare to you what is to come. (CSB)
The Holy Spirit speaks to us today. The greatest way that He speaks—the most prevalent way and guaranteed way that He speaks—is through this book (i.e., the Bible). This is the most important purchase or gift you will ever receive in your entire life. I cannot emphasize that enough. The success of marriages depends on how well you know this book; the success of your business; the success of how good of a Christian, how good of a husband and a father you are—it depends on how much this book has dented your heart.
This book will give you everything you need to suffer well. This will teach you work ethic. This will teach you love. This will teach you worship. This will teach you wisdom and knowledge beyond all the self-help books of every human language over all millennia. Nothing will touch the power that is in this book. And this book has power because it is composed by the Holy Spirit, according to 2 Timothy 3:16.
This book must be your favorite pastime. Psalm 1:1–2 says:
Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night. (ESV)
That might sound weird to you; I know it does. C. S. Lewis has this wonderful illustration he tells. He says, you know, becoming holy, becoming more like Christ, it’s a lot like learning classical Greek, where you have this schoolboy—he loves to read Homer’s The Iliad, but he only likes to read it in English because he doesn’t want to sit there and learn classical Greek.
Well, in England in his day, it was common practice: if you were going to school, you were learning classical Greek. Some of you are thinking, “Glad it’s not like that anymore.” But in those days, it was an illustration that landed home very well because in order for you to truly capture the majesty of a book like The Iliad, you want to study it in the language that it was originally written.
But that takes years. It takes years. And I can tell you how great Homer’s The Iliad truly is, but you will not grasp it truly until you read it in the language it was written. But in order to get there, you have to work. You have to acquire. You have to memorize vocabulary. You have to read the textbooks. You have to struggle and struggle and struggle and struggle through it. But then, when you finally get it, you’re like, “Oh my goodness, Homer’s The Iliad is so much greater than I ever thought it was in the English translation.”
When I tell you how great the Scriptures are, it’s a lot like that. You have to work at this book. And the more you work and the more you struggle with it, the more you see its greatness for yourself. You have to stick with it and continue and continue and continue. That’s why the Psalmist says you must meditate day and night. That was a rant, and that was for free. All right.
Just like these disciples are taught to do these things in private, so are we. The Spirit is within those who are disciples of Jesus. If you have called out on Jesus as your Lord and Savior, the same Spirit that guides the disciples in John 16 is the One guiding you. If you cannot say that you have felt that transformation, come talk to me today.
Therefore, we have the Spirit guiding us in our ears like a whisper. The Spirit will speak to you through the Scriptures. The Spirit will speak to you through the sermons. The Spirit will speak to you through Bible studies and friendships. You will even notice that the Spirit will speak to you through coincidences.
I have a friend—I don’t understand it—but he says that he notices patterns in numbers, and the Spirit will get his attention on things in that way. It’s weird. He’ll go for like two weeks and see the same number repeated every day for two weeks. But for me, the Spirit speaks to me through—well, the Scriptures—and I can sense His words in me. It’s the strangest thing; it’s another sense. It’s a lot like the echidnas or the platypuses. (I think the plural of platypus should be platypi, but I’m told it’s platypuses.) You see, they have these electroreceptors in their bill, and they move around, and their electroreceptors can pick up on electrical pulses. Very few mammals on Earth have electroreceptors. They’re using a sensory device that we can’t comprehend.
Having the Spirit of God is a lot like that. You are a mammal that is walking around with an extra sense, where the world just looks at you and says, “Man, that person’s stupid.” But for those who have the power, you understand that it’s nothing of stupidity at all.
One of my favorite examples is I had a brother—this was what woke me up to the fact that I need to pursue fellowship with the Holy Spirit because He is a person. He is not a thing; you don’t call the Spirit “it.” He is God. And God has Himself living within you.
And a brother told me that he was in prayer one day, and he was being told by the Spirit within him that he needed to go somewhere and help another brother out. Well, this is in the days where cell phone towers weren’t everywhere. He went out there to where he believed his brother might be—he didn’t know for sure. The brother was there, and he was trying to lead a youth event, but he was short-staffed. He didn’t have the help, and he was in a place where there was no cell phone reception. And when this guy showed up, the brother was just overjoyed.
There was not a lot of detail there, but there was that sense. The Spirit will guide you. The Spirit is not a magical potion; He is the person of God. So your pastor is giving you full permission: pursue the relationship with God the Spirit. He wants you to fellowship with Him. All right?
But the things of the Spirit are meant to be declared on the rooftops. When we are tempted to fear the persecution of man, we must remember that Jesus wants us to replace that fear with a focus on the mission. We have a job to do, and that job is to tell everyone everything that God is telling us through the Holy Spirit.
Add to That Focus God’s Coming Judgment
But He also gives us something else to focus on in the midst of persecution, and that’s the next point: you must add to that focus God’s coming judgment.
This is clear in v 28: “Don’t fear those who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul. Rather, fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” Jesus has actually already alluded to comfort in v 26 when He says at the beginning of that verse, “Don’t be afraid of them because there is nothing covered that won’t be uncovered and nothing hidden that won’t be made known.” This is getting at that idea of when the day of judgment from God will be a day of disclosure.
There was a very funny story. India told a small child, “When God comes back, He’s going to declare everything every one of us has ever said.” And he goes, “Everything?” And she goes, “Yeah.” And then he replies, “Well, the guy behind me might want to sit down. I’ll be there for a while.”
I love that. But the day of judgment will be a day of disclosure. Every thought, everything we’ve uttered, will be disclosed. And that’s why it’s comforting for the Christian who is being persecuted, because the things that they are uttering against you and slandering your name—the entire world will know about it. So when they come at you today and tell you that you are a Bible-thumping lunatic, you don’t worry about defending yourself. You just endure it because all of it will be made known when they are judged by God. Everything bad that happens to you, said about you—it will all be disclosed.
But Jesus is now adding to this focus, right? We have to focus on Judgment Day. Not just because Judgment Day can be comforting for us, but He wants you to understand that Judgment Day includes the destruction of the soul and the body in hell.
This has fallen out of fad big time. I know that our culture is infatuated with Christianity still, for the most part. We still have a cultural Christianity. But even among that cultural Christianity, evangelical Christians are now challenging the idea that hell does not last for all eternity. I don’t know how you get around that.
It says in Matthew 25:46:
“And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (CSB)
And Revelation 14:11:
[A]nd the smoke of their torment will go up forever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image, or anyone who receives the mark of its name. (CSB)
This is why we mourn and we weep for those who do not believe like us. You should not wish this on your worst enemy. And if you remember that you yourself deserve it because you rejected God from your birth, then it should move you to pray for those who persecute you. And it should also build a reverence in you for God the Father.
Jesus says, “Don’t fear man. Instead, fear the One who has the ability to destroy all of you.” And this warning is actually for the believers. He gives you the mission in v 27: “Proclaim loudly on the rooftops what the Spirit is communicating to you.” But He says, “Don’t be afraid of the people who are going to try and kill you for your mission, but rather fear Him who is able to do far worse to you if you refuse or neglect this mission.”
Jesus says very clearly:
Anyone who is not with me is against me, and anyone who does not gather with me scatters. (Matthew 12:30, CSB)
The decision not to act for Jesus is a decision to act against Jesus. There is no middle ground. It is a very black-and-white issue. You are either for Him or against Him. You cannot be neutral. And the warning here is there is One who will judge you if you do not participate in the mission of His Son.
As Americans, we are so infatuated with ourselves. We struggle with the idea of what it means to live under a king. In America, you are told, “You are the king.” That has no place in the identity of a Christian. “You are not your own, for you were bought at a price” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20, CSB). Proclaim the Gospel and don’t give a rip what people think about you. That is your calling. And they will mock you. They will spit on you. They will rebuke you. They will shred you to pieces. And you just say to yourself, “I would rather face your persecution than stand at the judgment of God.” That’s what Jesus is calling you to today. Replace your fear of man with thoughts of Judgment Day.
Now, all of this can be very ominous and be very hard on the soul to hear because this might not line up with the cute and cuddly Jesus that your culture has taught you about. Well, let me offer you this: Jesus balances this heavy-handed topic by giving us some images that are meant to comfort us. He has already offered a little bit of comfort in the warning, actually, because He says that your persecutors cannot destroy your soul. The comfort is this: “Let them destroy your body; I’ve got your soul. They cannot touch it.”
When I was a kid, I went to a convention, and I met this artist. I didn’t have the money to pay this artist to draw me and my friend. And so, as a sicko, this man said—way before I knew Jesus, okay? So don’t judge me; Jesus already has deemed me forgiven—but he said, “All right, how about you just sign this paper that says that your soul is mine?” And as a thirteen-year-old kid, I’m like, “Okay.”
When I became a believer at seventeen years old, I remembered that moment and it wrecked me, and I really struggled as a new believer: “Did I really forfeit my soul forever to another man?” This passage is the answer: man cannot touch your soul. That is in God’s hands alone, and that’s why you can withstand persecution—because something far more valuable than your body exists, and there is only one person who can touch it.
The soul here refers to the inner person, but we must not get this word confused. So the Greek word here is psyche, and psyche can refer to the soul, like outside the body as it’s translated here in this passage. But you must understand that this word is much more versatile than we use it in English because it can also just refer to the personal self, and it can also refer to life in general.
For example, in Matthew 16:26, Jesus says:
For what will it benefit someone if he gains the whole world yet loses his life? Or what will anyone give in exchange for his life? (CSB)
In that passage, Jesus is promising the destruction of your body and your soul. So you must understand that psyche refers to your whole person. And there is a moment in your future history where your body will be damaged and decay, but your psyche will not be touched. But the ultimate goal for God in your life is that you will dwell with your soul and your body married forever in perfection. The true human nature is the body and the soul married without decay—what our ancestors had in the garden. And that is your encouragement: your persecutors can only hurt your body; they can’t touch your soul.
While Focused, Be Comforted by His Sovereign Goodness
And He now comforts them with two more images. And the first I want to talk about is the hair, and then we’ll come back to the sparrow. Jesus tries to comfort you by telling you… oh, sorry, the point in the sermon, this third point is: while we are focused, we must be comforted by God’s sovereign goodness.
All right. So let’s look at this sovereign goodness. “Sovereign” means He’s our King; He’s in control of everything. He is all-powerful. There is nothing outside of His control. The first is we see His omniscience. This means He’s all-knowing. He says, “Every hair on your head is counted.” Okay, great. I don’t have as many hairs as I used to. So, why is that comforting at all?
What we must understand is He’s alluding to a Semitic euphemism that would have been very popular in His day. And that is when you are promising to protect someone, you say, “Not a single hair of his head will fall to the ground.” We see this, for example, in 1 Samuel 14:45:
…as the Lord lives, not a hair of his head will fall to the ground…
It’s an oath of utter protection. But here’s the thing: Jesus is not saying that one of your hairs will not fall to the ground. He is not promising you bodily protection. Instead, He’s saying, “I’m keeping an inventory every time one of your hairs falls because of bodily persecution.” When you are hurt, Jesus is keeping a ledger. When you suffer for Him, recompense is promised.
For example, in Matthew 19:29, He says:
And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields because of my name will receive a hundred times more and will inherit eternal life. (CSB)
You will get more than just eternal life. You will be recompensed, rewarded for everything you suffer in this world. Let that comfort you.
I’m going to be honest with you: I’ve been swindled tons of times because I was trying to be the nice Christian. And there were Christians in my life that were telling me, “Boy, you are being foolish.” I look at this and I go, “It doesn’t matter.” Yes, that person might have swindled me out of a lot of money because I was trying to do a good thing, but I’ve got a hundred times more coming in the next world. It’s a blip; it’s nothing now.
So don’t be afraid, because God is keeping a ledger of every hair that falls from your head. And not only that, He goes to the sparrow. The sparrow is the cheapest and the smallest of birds. I think they’re cute, but they were cheap. Do you know how much it would cost you to buy a sparrow? Thirty minutes of labor. That’s how cheap they were—just thirty minutes of labor. And they were the food for the poor.
And Jesus says that two are sold for a penny. In other words, they’re cheap. “Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s consent.” When He says “falls to the ground,” He’s talking about when they die as they are hunted. If you go on a hunting mission and you successfully kill one, it is because God has given you permission supernaturally to accomplish your mission. You can do nothing without God’s permission or sovereign will. He either enacts it, or He permits it to happen.
And in this passage, Jesus is saying that if a sparrow is hunted and killed, it is because God is there. His knowledge knows about it, and He has allowed it to take place. And He says, “You are worth more than many sparrows.” He is not telling you that you will not fall. He is telling you that when you fall, God is with you. He is telling you that when your persecutors come and they take your life, as He promised they would, He gave them permission.
Now, why in the world would that be comforting? It is not comforting unless you are convinced of Romans 8:28:
We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. (CSB)
If you have a relationship with God, you are both willing to suffer for His name, and you know that in your suffering, God is still showing you His love.
Your greatest opponent right now in your faith might be your spouse. Your greatest opponent in your life might be your boss, your supervisor. And if they fire you, just know God gave them permission. And if He gave them permission, just know that He loves you—that it did not take Him by surprise, and He has plans to reward you. Because there is no one who has given up anything in this world who will not be rewarded in the next.
You know who this sermon makes absolutely no sense for? The people who tell you that God does not want you to suffer or have a bad life.
God wants you to have a fulfilling life, and a fulfilling life comes with pain. A fulfilling life is one that sees God’s hand at play in all areas of your life. And we thank God for the pain, because that’s when we see His presence the most. Nothing falls to the ground without the Father’s permission. So when you suffer, just remember He is near.
So, folks, when the knife is at your throat because radical ideologies are spreading… Just yesterday I saw a video. The town we moved here from, Houston, they had an Islamic parade. Islam is telling you they’re going to take over this nation. You usually should believe your enemy when they make threats.
And let’s say they do succeed, and that knife is at your throat: “Renounce Christ or die.” Remember this: do not focus on the knife. Do not focus on the enemy. Focus on the mission, God’s judgment, His power, and His gracious presence. These will comfort you and help you stand strong.
Let’s go to Him now.
I thank You, Lord, that You have given us strength to hear this message today. I pray that You give us the power to withstand persecution from the enemy, to withstand persecution from our family members, our employers, maybe even our spouses. I pray that You help us to love people like Jesus, even turning the cheek and picking up our cross to die to ourselves. Help us to endure and to focus on the mission of proclaiming the message of God on our rooftops. We love You. We praise You in Jesus’ name. Amen.