Reflective Bible Study

For the last several podcast episodes, we’ve been focusing in on Jesus’ arrest, on Judas Iscariot the betrayer, and on Jesus’ arrest scattering Jesus’ disciples. However, before going any further into Jesus’ trial and condemnation, there is one additional prophecy or Old Testament connection that is worth looking at which ties Jesus’ earlier ministry together with His condemnation and crucifixion.

To set the stage for continuing Jesus’ path towards the cross, let’s take a look at not just one, but two psalms that both share a detail with Jesus’ life and ministry.

The first psalm we will look at was included in the introduction, and this is psalm 69. Reading from the New American Standard Bible translation and starting in verse 1, the psalmist writes:

¹ Save me, O God,
For the waters have threatened my life.
² I have sunk in deep mire, and there is no foothold;
I have come into deep waters, and a flood overflows me.
³ I am weary with my crying; my throat is parched;
My eyes fail while I wait for my God.
⁴ Those who hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head;
Those who would destroy me are powerful, being wrongfully my enemies;
What I did not steal, I then have to restore.

In this psalm, we find a powerful idea that connects with Jesus’ life and ministry. When the psalmist writes that he has enemies who hate him without a cause, and that these enemies are wrongfully his enemies, this not only would likely include the psalmist himself, but these descriptions are also equally applicable to Jesus. While Jesus did share some harsh words to many groups of religious leaders, the only people who were truly against Him were those who were more interested in gaining or keeping status and influence among their peers.

It is also interesting in my mind that this psalm includes the challenge that the one writing is expected to restore something that they did not steal. In an interesting parallel, Jesus came to pay a penalty for something He did not do, and to ultimately restore something He did not break.

Moving to the other psalm that we will draw our attention to, this one is included earlier in the psalms. Reading from Psalm 35, starting in verse 17, the psalmist asks:

¹⁷ Lord, how long will You look on?
Rescue my soul from their ravages,
My only life from the lions.
¹⁸ I will give You thanks in the great congregation;
I will praise You among a mighty throng.
¹⁹ Do not let those who are wrongfully my enemies rejoice over me;
Nor let those who hate me without cause wink maliciously.
²⁰ For they do not speak peace,
But they devise deceitful words against those who are quiet in the land.
²¹ They opened their mouth wide against me;
They said, “Aha, aha, our eyes have seen it!”

In both this second psalm and in the earlier psalm, we have the set of ideas shared which include a group of people being wrongfully enemies, and people who hate others without having a cause or a reason.

Jumping forward into the New Testament, earlier on during the night Jesus was betrayed, while Judas Iscariot was assembling the soldiers and mob to come arrest Jesus, Jesus was sharing a powerful message with His disciples as they were finishing up their meal and heading towards the garden.

In John, chapter 15, starting in verse 18, Jesus tells the remaining eleven disciples:

¹⁸ “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. ¹⁹ If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. ²⁰ Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also. ²¹ But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me. ²² If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. ²³ He who hates Me hates My Father also. ²⁴ If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated Me and My Father as well. ²⁵ But they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in their Law, ‘They hated Me without a cause.’”

In this message to His disciples, Jesus draws their attention, as well as our attention, onto the truth that when people hate Jesus’ followers, they actually, perhaps unknowingly, hate Jesus as well. When people hate Jesus, they also, regardless of whether they would admit to it or not, hate God.

I will be the first to say that this is a very strong message. This might even be too strong of a message. The reason for this thought is that as I look out at the broad Christian culture, there are plenty of “representatives for Jesus” that do, say, and act in ways that would be easy to hate. Christianity is made up of sinners, and included under the banner of redeemed are many who have less than reputable backgrounds.

However, while it would be easy to discount Jesus’ strong message because of the technical nature of those He invited to follow Him, it is worth pointing out two details that are not often focused on.

The first detail is that there is a difference between those who actually follow Jesus verses other people who claim that they are followers while not actually following. A different way to frame this is by asking a question that might sound a little uncomfortable: If one of God’s angels were to ask Him to point out who was reflecting His love and Jesus’ character in the world today, would you be included in the list of those doing His will and reflecting Jesus to others?

This question is challenging because it pushes past simply praying a prayer or making a one-time declaration. While prayers and declarations for Jesus are important, Jesus’ disciples didn’t say they would follow Jesus while doing their own thing. Instead, Jesus’ disciples left everything they would otherwise be doing in order to follow Jesus and learn what He wanted them to do. Becoming a disciple changed the disciples’ lives in a very clear and distinct way. If following Jesus hasn’t changed our lives, it begs the question: Are we really following Jesus?

However, there is another detail worth drawing our attention to, regardless of where we fall on the uncomfortable question about following Jesus. This second detail is looking at who Jesus was talking to when He makes this uncomfortable statement about those hating His followers really hating Him. Jesus did not make this statement to crowds of average people; Jesus made this statement to His most devoted disciples.

This tells us that when we are dedicated to Jesus, and seeking to do His will while also sharing the great news of what He accomplished with others, if other people reject us, we can understand and frame their rejection as them really rejecting Jesus. A different way to say this idea is that we should not take their rejection personally. Instead, we can write off the rejection that comes our way as others not rejecting us, but that they rejected the person we represent.

In a similar way to an ambassador representing the country they came from, and if that ambassador was rejected, it would be understood to be one country’s rejection of another. When we live our lives as ambassadors or representatives of God, when we are rejected, we can frame the rejection we receive as others simply rejecting a messenger God tried to send their way.

Jesus has challenged His disciples and His followers to be representatives for Him in our world. While that means that some people will choose to hate us, while other people may simply write us off, we are called to remember that Jesus faced hostility and rejection too. When people reject us because of our faith, this rejection extends all the way to a rejection of God, and this rejection says more about the person doing the rejecting than it says about the One they rejected.

Jesus came to redeem sinners, and as we follow Him, grow closer to Him, and share Him in the world around us, remember that Jesus loves humanity, and that He came to redeem sinners and to extend grace to those who don’t deserve it.

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always open by challenging you, intentionally seek God first in your life. Understand that when following Jesus, rejection will likely come into your life at some point if it hasn’t come already. Resolve today, to frame the rejection you receive because of your faith in an impersonal way, specifically as the other person rejecting Jesus. Resolve to continue growing closer to Jesus and to better reflect His light and His love to those He brings into your life.

Also, continue to pray and study the Bible for yourself to grow your personal relationship with God. Through the Bible, God gives us a picture of Himself, and we are able to see His love through the grand story of Jesus and of history.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or walk away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

As we continue looking at the events in Jesus’ life, and the big truths Jesus taught through the eyes of Luke’s gospel, we come to a place where Jesus realizes that many of those following Him might be doing so simply because they wanted to be near someone famous, but that their hearts were not dedicated to God.

To challenge those present on whether they are truly ready to be followers, we discover a very strong message Jesus shares while large crowds were following Him.

Our passage for this podcast episode is found in Luke’s gospel, chapter 14, and we will read it from the New International Version of the Bible. Starting in verse 25, Luke tells us:

²⁵ Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: ²⁶ “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. ²⁷ And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

²⁸ “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? ²⁹ For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, ³⁰ saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’

³¹ “Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? ³² If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. ³³ In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.

³⁴ “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? ³⁵ It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out.

“Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”

In this passage, Jesus shares a very strong message to the large crowd following Him. I suspect that many people in this large crowd wanted to be near Jesus because they enjoyed seeing Him silence the Pharisees, because they enjoyed seeing the miracles, and because they could sense God’s love for them in Him.

However, I also suspect that this large crowd was primarily filled with people who liked Jesus for all the good He was doing, but they really weren’t committed to Him in any significant sense of the word. You could say these people were followers of Jesus, but they really weren’t committed to Him.

To those in the crowd who were simply following Jesus because the times were good, Jesus challenges them with some pretty harsh statements like: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.” “Whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” And “those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples” (verses 26-27, 33).

Everything in Jesus’ challenge to the crowd speaks to a level of commitment. In order to be true disciples of Jesus, He must be more than simply first in our lives. True disciples will filter their lives through Jesus, and not the other way around.

On the surface, this passage seems to have Jesus tell those present to hate their family, hate their life, and pick up a cross of suffering simply to follow Him. If someone wanted to turn Jesus’ message into a hostile message that ostracized, or excluded individuals, this might be a message one could use. On the surface, one might think following Jesus means turning into a hate-filled hermit.

However, when I read this message Jesus shares, I am challenged by His words because if following Jesus does not have much of a commitment, then following Jesus doesn’t have much value. A low commitment relationship has little value. The more committed a relationship is, the more valuable it is – especially when we are talking about a relationship with God!

While Jesus likely pushed many in the crowd away with this message, those who stayed demonstrated a willingness to commit to Jesus’ message. I don’t believe a surface reading of the hate statements in this passage are an accurate picture of the people God wants us to be. Instead, Jesus is looking for disciples who will follow Him even when their families, their friends, their coworkers, and anyone else in their lives think they are crazy.

Jesus challenges everyone throughout history to count the cost. Making the decision to follow Jesus has a high cost in this life because following Jesus runs counter to every direction culture wants to pull us. However, when we count the cost whether it is worth following Jesus, the only way the cost makes sense is when we look at what Jesus gives us in the future and what Jesus has already given to us in our past. Jesus gave His life for humanity; He promises eternal life for those who have decided to ally their lives with His!

Deciding to follow Jesus might mean that friends, family, or others might decide to distance themselves from us. When this happens, understand that this is just as much their decision as it is yours. However, remember that when we give up something in this life, God is ready to bless us in ways we can’t really begin to imagine or understand.

Many people living today call themselves Christians or followers of Jesus, but they aren’t really that committed to Him. They are followers of Jesus because things are going good in their lives at the moment. However, being committed means that we are dedicated to Jesus whether things in our lives go our way or whether our lives become hard. Being a disciple of Jesus means sticking with God even if our lives feel like the Old Testament man Job who lost everything.

Deciding to be a disciple of Jesus is not an easy decision, but it is a significant one. Deciding to be a disciple of Jesus might mean that we simply follow Him when times are good, but it also means that we stick with Him when times are not good, and following Jesus allows God to use us to teach the world about Himself.

True disciples will filter their lives through Jesus, and not the other way around. True disciples don’t hate people because Jesus didn’t hate people. Instead, true disciples love people like Jesus loved people and true disciples will see their lives as witnesses for God’s love and God’s truth in the big picture of history. True disciples look past the sin of this world and towards their future in a perfectly recreated world without sin!

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As always, intentionally seek God first in your life. If you struggle with your commitment to God, then take this struggle to God in prayer. While I never hope God brings huge challenges into our lives, some challenges our lives may face can only ever be endured with God by our side. It is fully possible that trouble in our lives is a way of teaching us how to walk with God through the challenges rather than God simply protecting us from them. True disciples stay committed and walk with God through the challenges that come our way instead of giving up at the first sign of struggle.

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself. Only through prayer and study can we build a solid spiritual foundation to stay connected with God through the storms of life. Choose to focus on growing closer to God regardless of what anyone in your life thinks or believes about your decision!

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or abandon where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!