When Faith Feels Offended
Today, Michael discusses how believers should respond when they feel something important has been disrespected. Today, Michael encourages some perspective.
Should we be shocked when lost people act like lost people? Yet we seem so surprised when folks who don’t understand God don’t respect the glory of God. We shouldn’t be, potentially, as they truly don’t understand God. It should shock us if believers disrespect God, but not so much when lost folks do.
So, what should we do if folks talk ill of God? It should bother us, but how do we respond? Jesus was mocked, beaten, spit upon, and could have called twelve legions of angels, but He did not.
Roman soldiers crowned Jesus in mockery and robed Him in humiliation, yet he wore the purple robe of a king. They bowed before him in pretense; someday, every knee will bow to Him. They intended it in mockery, yet they unintentionally showed the truth in Jesus and His ministry. You cannot devalue the truth in the Word of God.
No matter how much He is mocked, God is mocked; anything that suggests mockery, the misuse of it, is quietly a testament to the power of that name.
We get so torn up by outsiders not understanding or mocking our faith; but unbelievers act like unbelievers, only.
Today’s core statement is “Don’t be provoked by mockery; be motivated to pray.”
Mark 15:17-18 (CSB Bible Notes) The soldiers used makeshift substitutes for the robe . . . crown, and scepter of a king. Purple was a royal color. 15:18 Hail, King of the Jews was a mocking corruption of the greeting, “Hail, Caesar.”
Today’s verses can be found in Mark 15: 16.
Scripture quotations marked CSB have been taken from the Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible® and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.
Okay, hey, I want to do something special before we begin. If you're able to stand, will you stand just for a moment? I want to say a special prayer. School goes back this week, okay, for a lot of, it's not in there. Yeah, thank you for trying. School goes back this week. Okay, so we need to have a special prayer for the kids, for the teachers, for everybody involved. We're going to do that right now. Heavenly Father, in Jesus' name, we lift up to you. All of these amazing kids going back to school this week and in the coming weeks. Lord, that you would guide them, that you would help them. Lord, we pray that they would learn and grow and become people that really make a positive difference in this world. And especially, I want to pray for kids as they handle the pressures of being in school that is, that's often very negative. And there's a lot of dark things there. I pray that they will be beacons of light in their schools. And I want to pray for the teachers and the staff who are going back to that you would bless them and fill them and strengthen them. They have such a huge, huge job. And there's so many, there's so many teachers who are believers and who are trying so much to lead their kids in the right way. And so many teachers are not just battling the struggles of trying to teach kids who may have a rough home life, but are filling pressures from their administration and from other sources. Maybe that our unfair God, I pray you will be with our teachers. Lord, we pray that we pray for this generation that is coming along. We need them, Lord, to be good, Godly people. And I pray that you'll help us to facilitate that in every way we can. We pray this in Jesus name, amen. I mean, I think you can be seated. Thank you. We have some teachers who are part of our congregation. And they're the people who have been smiling for two months, who aren't smiling today because it's like time to go back and like teachers. I know they love to teach. We have some amazing teachers, amazing gifted people who are doing, who are carrying out what I call, what is, consider a calling. But it's like, whoo, man, we've had the summer. That's like the compensation for teachers not being paid well enough is, you know, June and July, June and July. And so you watching the Olympics, any the Olympics? I see a lot of yeah, I see some, I see some strong feelings across this room. You know, the Olympics are in full swing in Paris this week. I remember as a kid being excited for the track and field events, especially the ones where they throw things growing up as a semi feral child in rural Appalachia. Throwing things was one of my main forms of entertainment. See, city folks just don't get it. That you can throw a big rock in the creek and that's like entertainment. Okay, especially like throwing pointy sticks at things. Imagine my excitement as a child when I learned that there's an Olympic event that is entirely dedicated to throwing pointy sticks. The javelin, I don't think that I would be any good at the javelin, but I would like to be good at the javelin, but they're just kind of throwing it. They're not throwing it at anything. You know, you need something to throw at like a, like a can or a sibling, something to aim the pointy stick at. I bet you've got the Olympic events that you enjoy. Katie always loved the figure skating and the gymnastics and stuff and, you know, all those, all those things that I could never, ever do. And she probably could course this year. I mean, you've seen the news or been exposed to it somewhat. The Olympics got off to kind of a rocky start. The opening ceremony included a performance that that had a scene that reminded a lot of folks of this one. I think we have the picture up here that it kind of like visually looked similar to this. Da Vinci's pending the last supper. Now, if you were here back in June when we covered the last supper, you'll remember that it, the actual event looked virtually nothing like this at all. Almost nothing at all like this. The only kind of thing that is accurate about this picture is they were 13 people there. And that's about it. And everything else is very much an artist interpretation that, that didn't look much like the event. But there's such a famous painting and it's so linked to the event that when people think of the Lord's Supper, this is kind of the image that came into people's minds. And because the scene there at the opening ceremony looked kind of like this, a lot of people wondered, are they like picking on Christians? Are they mocking what we're doing? Now, the official response is that it wasn't anything like that, that it was supposed to be a depiction of the scene of the pagan gods on Mount Olympus. That's not exactly good either, but, you know, that no intentional mockery, you know, it's kind of hard to miss the similarity there. But look, I don't want to spend a whole lot of time talking about that specifically. I usually don't sort of follow the hot button stuff that whatever is going on the news. But, but here's, I do want to talk about the bigger principles that this is pointing to. So you might disagree with some of the things I'm about to say. But I'm going to encourage you that if you hear something you disagree with, don't pull back, lean in, hear me out to the end, kind of hold the judgment to the end and see maybe there's something to this. It's, we, how should believers respond when we feel that something has been disrespected that's important to us, whether it's intentional or not, because whether you are a religious person or a not religious person, everyone gets bothered when it seems someone is picking on something that you hold dear, even if it's unintentional. And a lot of folks, when you pick on them, they're going to fight fire with fire and in modern times that means going to social media and ranting about it. It's kind of funny. Like there seems to be a great big divide and a lot of the people on either side of the divide don't have a lot in common, but they have one thing very much in common that is the tendency toward outrage towards internet outrage. That's very much a thing in common. So today I'm going to encourage some perspective. If you consider yourself a Christian, if you consider yourself a follower of Jesus, this is very much for you. If you do not consider yourself a Christian or a believer or a follower of Jesus just yet, this is a good opportunity to eavesdrop on like a family conversation. Have you ever been in a restaurant or somewhere and you're trying not to hear the conversation in the next table because it's rude, but it's just too juicy. It's just too much. You know, as the younger generation would say, they're spilling the tea. You know what I have found about the slang of younger generations? Is if us adults use it enough, they abandon that slang. So if you find some youth slang that you think is annoying, overuse it, and they will abandon it quicker. No cap. Okay, so Jesus people, should we be surprised when people who do not believe what we believe act like they do not believe what we believe? Should we be shocked and thrown off kilter when lost people act like lost people? Suppose you put out a bird feeder, anybody like bird feeders now? I think it's kind of the indication that me and Katie, although she looks incredible young, we're not as young as we used to because we get excited about bird feeders, okay? I hate to break it to you. If you got a bird's feeder that you get excited about, you ain't as young as you think you are. Uh, did you see the chickadees out there today? Oh my gosh. Yeah, it was a northern flicker at the bird feeder today, honey. Beautiful, we don't see those often. Yeah, sorry, sorry y'all, don't mean to hurt your feelings. Just imagine you put out a bird feeder and you've got some sparrows coming to the bird feeder in the sparrows. They pick out a few seeds, they pick out the ones they like. Which one is it that the sparrows like? I can't remember, one of them picks out the sunflower seeds and leaves everything, kicks everything else on the ground. So imagine that they pick out the seeds they want and just fall off. They don't even bother to say thank you. How rude, how, oh gosh, how disrespectful. Would it bother you if a sparrow showed up your bird feeder and ate some seeds and flew off without the same thank you? Of course it would not because they don't have the capacity to understand that and they don't have the capacity to express it. Yet we seem to be so surprised when people who do not have the capacity to understand the glory of God don't act like they understand the glory of God. They just, you know, there's not an ability to be aware of that. Now, should everyone give glory to God? Absolutely, but if they don't even understand it in the least little bit, it's not surprising. It's not surprising. If those who don't believe in God do not show respect or at least in our perspective are disrespectful, it's not shocking. It's not right, it should bother us, but we should not be shocked and thrown off. It's just to be, it's normal. It's not shocking when lost people act lost. It's shocking when saved people act lost and we do that sometimes. And maybe that's one of something we should focus on a little better, that if we say we're saved, we ought to act like we know the Lord. Now, to be fair, it's difficult to put this, like, it's difficult to have perspective and to be objective on this. We're living at the kind of the tail end of a time period where there was a social cultural advantage to being perceived as a Christian. For a lot of years, it was advantageous to be perceived as a Christian. When you moved to a new town and say you were a professional, like a dentist or something or what have you, you not only needed to set up practice, you needed to have a religious affiliation as well because that was how you were thought of as a respectable member of the community. Now, that's still true to some degree in rural areas like ours, but in the larger culture, that's kind of gone. So, we're living a little bit behind the curve here in rural southwest Virginia and we always have, but understand, it'll come here fully too. Chances are because there's no longer this cultural advantage to being identified as a Christian or being perceived as a Christian. And it feels wrong that that's not the case anymore, but we need to understand that has not been normal for most of the history of Jesus followers. That has not been the normal. We've lived in living in the exception for so long. We think it's normal, but it is not normal. For most of human history, or most of history of Jesus followers, we've been the scrappy underdogs. That's us. We're the rebellion against the evil empire. We're not the empire. We're the kingdom of God that cannot be seen by those who do not understand it. That's real, that is true, that is there, but it's under the surface. There have been times where Christianity appears to have had political power, but you look into that and you compare it to the Word of God and you'll see that it doesn't line up. It's been a false version. See, that's who we are. We've never been meant to be the establishment. We've always been the underground. We've always been the counter-cultural movement. The powers that be have always mocked what we believe because they don't understand it. And we expect nothing less. That's our identity. That's always been our identity. Do you know how the word "Christian" came to be? Don't blur it out if you know. The word "Christian" started as a mockery that the enemies of the faith called the followers of Jesus Christians. So it means little Christ's. Who do they think they are? Little Christ's. It was an insult that our spiritual forefathers embraced, embraced it as an identity. So yup, we'll be little Christ. We want to be like Him. We want to be little imitations of Jesus. Look, when the unbelieving world does not understand our faith, it's not a surprise. It's normal. It's to be expected. We've been living in a blip. It's kind of going back to historical norms now. See, darkness can never love light because what is darkness? It's just a place the light hadn't got to yet. And as soon as the light appears, the darkness has gone. So we should expect nothing less. Jesus said if they hated Him, they would hate those who followed Him. So I think instead of demanding proper respect out of those who don't even believe in Jesus, we need to live with so much integrity that those who want to run down who we are and what we believe just look silly. What do we do though? What do we do when people disrespect our Lord and our beliefs? Well, certainly we should be bothered when people disrespect the Lord because man, they do not know what they're doing. To talk ill of God Almighty, that is, man, that's a bad idea. You don't want to do that. And these are people who do not understand the gravity and the severity of what they're doing. It should bother us. How do we respond to us or respond to it? Well, what the Lord do? You know, we actually have a story from the Word of God about what the Lord did. Jesus was mocked. He was beaten. He was spit upon. He could have gotten sweet revenge. He could have called twelve legions of angels. He could have called some fire and brimstone. He could have played whiny country music or whatever kind of music you don't like. He could have played that. He could have. What did Jesus do? We're in Mark 15. And before we get there, I try to always give you a core statement and here it is kind of a short way to encapsulate this message. Don't be provoked by mockery. Be motivated to pray. Don't be provoked by mockery. Be motivated to pray. If you feel like someone is being disrespectful, don't join them in their disrespect. Be motivated to pray. Here we go. Mark 15, 16. Then the soldiers led him away into a hall called the Praetorium and they called to go to the whole garrison and they clothed them with purple. They twisted a crown of thorns, put it on his head and began to salute him, hail king of the Jews. Then they struck him on the head with a reed and spat on him and bowing the knee, they worshipped him and when they had mocked him, they took the purple off him and put his own clothes on him and they led him out to crucify him. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we really need perspective on this. We live in a world that feels often so antagonistic to what we believe. We need to respond the right way. So I pray that we'll take our cues from Jesus. Please open our hearts to your word. In His name, we pray. Amen. So to recap how we got to this point, Jesus was betrayed by Judas Iscariot. He was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane and that was sort of on the east side of this mountain. And he was drug up back over the mountain to Jerusalem and they drug him to the high priest courtyard and there he was beaten and interrogated and mocked. And they were treated him horribly and they put him on trial as a mockery of a trial because they brought all these false witnesses who were supposed to bring charges against Jesus, but their lies didn't add up. And finally someone made an accusation they thought could stick. It didn't really matter that it wasn't true because they were going to, they had already set their minds to convict him. So it didn't matter. And they convicted him and they said, "Yes, this guy's a blasphemer. We need to give him the death penalty." But they've got one little hurdle they got overcome that the Roman Empire rules everything at this point in time. And the Romans are the only ones who can enforce the death penalty. So they drag him from the high priest. They drag him over to the governor Pontius Pilate and they end up dragging him to Harid and then dragging him back to Pontius Pilate and they're trying to get him crucified. That's their demanding crucifixion. Pilate is trying to talk him out of it and said, "Wait a minute. How about this? Here's an out for you. How about I release him as a part of this festival?" And they're like, "No, we don't want him. We want this other guy, Barabbas. We want crucifixion for him. And Pilate does not stand his ground. He says, "Fine, whatever. I'm washing my hands of it. You do what you think is best." He really checked out there. And that's where we come into this story. He's dragged out from the area where Pilate did the judgment and he is hauled to the Praetorium, which is the palace of the governor, which is where the garrison is, where the military is headquartered in the city. It wasn't enough that he was condemned to die. They would let the soldiers mock and humiliate him. And they did this sometimes with people who were being crucified. They would mock and humiliate him. And for a common criminal, it might just be like a handful of soldiers who go out there and beat him up and treat him very poorly. I mean, already going to the death penalty. No need for all of that, but that's what they did. But with Jesus, they called out the whole garrison, which could be 600 people. 600 men came out to mock and beat on and mistreat Jesus. And what happens next is awful. There's so much more awful than any perceived disrespect during a sporting event. They stripped him down. They threw a purple robe over him. That was the color of royalty, a very rare color of fabric. The other gospels tell us they put a reed stick in his hand in mockery of a royal scepter. They twisted this horrible crown of thorns and they pressed it into his head and it was slicing into his scalp and into his face. But as pouring down his face, he is dressed in the get up of a king, an amokery of a king, and they bow before him in mock worship. They treated him as a king, but it was in a spirit of sarcasm. Then after this, they snatched the reed out of his hand, smashed it over his head. They tore these royal robes off him. They spit on him. They cursed him. They laid a heavy beam of wood across his back and forced him to march out of the city and up a hill called Golgotha, which means the place of a skull. And there, as a final humiliation, they nailed him to the cross as a spectacle and as a warning to all who defy the powers that be. That's heavy stuff. We're going to get to some more of that in the coming weeks. It hurts. It hurts to think about what our Lord went through and how he was so mistreated, disrespected. And that is upsetting, right? That's far more upsetting than anything that we see your experience today. There is no question that these people sought to belittle and humiliate Jesus, but now here is the question for you. Did it work? Did it work? Were they successful? Through all of their mockery and abuse and disrespect, did they manage to devalue Jesus? Did they make him unimportant? Did they manage to make Jesus feel ashamed or foolish of his purpose in calling? Or did all of their mockery and abuse and disrespect only serve as another proof that there was something special about Jesus? Why bother going through all that trouble if there wasn't something special about him? I want you to think about this for a moment. They crowned him in mockery, yet they crowned him and that crown of thorns was the only crown he ever wore on earth. They robed him in humiliation, yet he still wore the purple of kings. It was the only royal garment that he ever wore on earth. They gave him a reed stick as a joke, but in his hand it was as good as a royal scepter because he was a king and is a king. They bowed before him in pretense, yet they did bow, and someday every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. They intended it for mockery, but it pointed to reality even though they didn't mean it to. In trying to belittle and humiliate and disrespect him, they unintentionally highlighted the truth. They pretended that he's a king in their mind pretending, but truth is, Jesus is king. And this, as strange as it sounds, was the only time he ever wore a crown, something to think about. You see, you cannot devalue Jesus. You can't. You cannot devalue the truth of the Word of God. No matter how the world tries to mock what we believe, they cannot belittle it. It cannot be done because it's still true. And why bother to go through all the trouble if it's not? I hate so much to hear the Lord's name used in vain, and the name of Jesus used like a curse word, but I'm going to tell you this, even the people who use it so wrongly, even the misuse of the Lord's name is quietly a testimony of the power of that name. They don't say my name when they hit their finger with a hammer. They don't. There's power in the name of Jesus. You cannot devalue his name. You cannot devalue his actions. They can try, but it cannot be done. We get so torn up about outsiders when they don't give due respect to our beliefs and our saviors, and it should bother us certainly. It should be upsetting, but it should not be surprising. We should not be surprised when unbelievers act like unbelievers. What a mistake that Christians have made through the years is we expect lost people to act saved without getting them saved. I mean, that's crazy. How you going to fly if you ain't a bird? You going to turn into a bird first? We should be a lot more bothered when saved people act like unbelievers. That should bother us because sometimes that's us. Sometimes that's us. Sometimes we disrespect the Lord by our actions and our behaviors, and that is surprising. If we feel that our beliefs are being disrespected and they will be sometimes, what is the most effective way to deal with it? It's probably not going to Facebook. Probably not. Just put that out there. It's probably not. Here is a perspective. I'm going to challenge you with this. We should be upset, but let's be not just upset at what was done. Let's be upset because the heart of the person who did it does not get it. Be upset not just at people but for people because nobody who truly understood the greatness of God would ever dare to mock him ever. Let me put it like this. How should we put this in perspective? If a blind man told you your haircut did not look good on you, how would you respond? Would you be like, "But my wife says it looks good." He's like, "Dude, I love you, man, but you can't even see my haircut. I'm looking fine." Or, maybe. Maybe you do need an update. I don't know. Ask someone who can see, though, right? It doesn't matter. A person who cannot see is not in a position to tell you whether it looks good or not. It's not there. If a spiritually blind person mock spiritual truth, they can't even see it. It doesn't make any sense. Look, if you are two years old, let's make it three. If you're a three-year-old, now that's actually making them pre-k, okay? Some of y'all teachers will maybe relate to this. If a pre-k kid says to another pre-k kid, you're a duty head. The other pre-k kid gets pretty upset because the level of maturity is about the same. If a pre-k kid says to you, a grown adult, that you're a duty head, you're not going to be upset in the same way. Now, you're like, "Hey, that's not respect. Well, you don't need to do that." But you're not going to get ready to fight them. Or you shouldn't. If you do, you should talk to somebody about that. You should really see somebody about that. There are plenty of people in this world who do not get it, who will say things that will make you want to fight, and I understand that. But understand, our weapons are warfare are not carnal, but spiritual. We don't have to fight like the world fights. We fight on our knees. We fight with our prayers. We fight by calling on the name of God. We fight by living the life we're supposed to live. It's different. If someone who doesn't know what they're talking about says something, we need to be as much upset at their ignorance or their inability to see as we are what they did. Look, if a blind man tells you your haircut, it don't look good. They don't. They can't see it. What you should be upset about is man. I'm upset that this person is blind, and they can't see how good my hair looks today. You understand what I'm saying. What did Jesus do when he was mocked? Did he call down 12 legions of angels to decimate his enemies he could have? Did he fling insults at them? He could have. I'm sure he could come up with some good ones because he knew every insecurity they have. You have that advantage when you are God. Did he strike them down with the word of his mouth he could have? What did he do? He endured, and he prayed. He prayed for the people who were murdering him. He said, "Father, forgive them because they do not know what they are doing, and they did not. If they really knew they wouldn't have done it." He laid down his life to reach those who rejected him. He prayed that God would be merciful. They mocked at things they didn't understand and set themselves up for a catastrophic end. Imagine standing before God Almighty someday to be held accountable for murdering his son. They did not know what they were doing. At least one of the soldiers heard him and seemed to respond, at least at some point there was one of them that said, "Surely this man was the Son of God." So maybe that's a guy who turned when he saw a bit of the truth after he had already bought into the lie. Then he saw the truth. One of the people who were hanged beside him initially mocked him too. Then the Scriptures say, "This guy turned," and said, "Lord, be merciful to me when you come into your kingdom." He recognized that Jesus was a king, and Jesus said, "Surely this day you will be with me in paradise." So even at the end, as Jesus prays for these people who don't know what they are doing, two of them maybe get saved. One for sure, maybe two. Everyone else continued to disrespect him, but at least one and maybe two of those people are with him now. That's pretty amazing. If we are supposed to be little Christ's, we need to follow His example. Look, disrespect and mockery of our beliefs, even if it's completely unintentional, is going to bother us. And it should. That makes sense. It's what you do next that matters most. Don't just be bothered. Don't just be offended. Don't be provoked to mockery. Be motivated to pray. It should break our hearts for those who misunderstand the truth. It should break our hearts that anybody would be so spiritually dull or spiritually dead to mock something that is amazing and eternal. It should bother us. If we look at the world and we find things that we just see as disrespectful towards what is sacred, then we follow the example of Jesus cry out to God that the Lord would open the eyes of these people and show them the light. We need to show an example of Christ-like behavior. Save people, all to act, save them. Lost people. Lost people going out, lost. And as the world becomes more and more, as our culture becomes more and more distant from what we have understood, your light is going to shine even more. If someone were to pull out like a little lighter in this room right now and flick it, you wouldn't notice it probably. But if the room was completely dark, even that little flickering light looks pretty bright. So understand what you do is more and more important as time goes by. If you see the world as not as good as it used to be, or if you see it seems like there's a decline and there's more disrespect, understand that what you do is becoming more and more and more essential. So let's just pray right now. Heavenly Father, we look around the world and we often see places where people who don't understand are saying and doing things that feel disrespectful. Lord, I don't know anything. The Olympic thing, I don't know whether that was intentional or not. But a lot of people got upset, help us Lord, not just to get upset. That's just such a small part of our response. Help us to be motivated to pray that the world who cannot see Jesus would see Him. And Lord, we pray that we would be people. If we claim to follow Jesus, we pray that we will follow Him in such a way that our lives are different and that we're consistent and that if we say we're saved, we act like we're saved. And Lord, help us to have a heart for lost people, not to be mad at them because they act lost, but to be heartbroken and to cry out for them to be saved. Lord, we love you so much. Thank you for your goodness. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Before you start the music, let me just throw one more reminder. We would love for you to come to our cookout, but we really need to get a head count. So on your way out the door, write your name on that list and how many's coming, okay? We're going to provide the hot dogs, hamburgers, paper goods, drinks, stuff like that. You just need to bring maybe a dessert, maybe a side, and you're smiling face, okay? We'll see you then.
