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Muskegon SDA Church

Jason Sliger

Sheep Among Wolves

Father in heaven, we thank you for the opportunity to come into your presence as a church family this morning.

And Father, as always, we come to this point in our week not to check it off of our to-do list, but because we want to know you better.

So Father, we invite the sweet presence of your Holy Spirit to be here, that you would give us wisdom and that you would touch our hearts, and you would take the message from your word and send it home to our hearts.

We thank you, Father, in Jesus' name, amen.

We love that old hymn, ♪ There shall be showers of blessings.

And there's all kinds of blessings throughout the Bible that God invites us to be recipients of.

And perhaps 1 of the places that you will think of when you think of blessings is probably the Sermon on the Mount.

Why don't you turn there with me very quickly, Matthew chapter 5, this is not what we're going to study, but just as an introduction, Matthew chapter 5, Jesus starts off this greatest of sermons with blessing after blessing after blessing after blessing.

We love to revel in the blessings that we find in the Word of God, particularly here in thoughts from the Mount of Blessings, the Beatitudes.

Verse 3, the Bible says, "'Blessed are the poor in spirit, "'for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.'" Verse 5, "'Blessed are the meek, "'for they shall inherit the earth.'" Verse 6, "'Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.

And of course, we know that word blessed in the Greek originally actually means happy.

So when we look at these blessings, we think, Lord, you know, these are blessings that I wanna be a partaker in.

And as I read through the Beatitudes, as I read through these blessings, I'm tracking with Jesus all the way.

But then Jesus does something that makes me uncomfortable in the next few verses.

Matthew chapter 5, verse 10, he's continuing, he's like a preacher that's kind of just driving home a point here.

Verse 10, it says this, blessed are they which are, What?

We're tracking with Jesus all the way through this, you know, blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed.

And then it's like, hang on a second here.

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake, rejoice.

It's almost like, I don't understand this.

I mean, I can rejoice in all of these other blessings, but then he's like, rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they, the prophets, which were before you.

I have yet to go to a church service during the blessing time and hear a church member raise their hand and say, I'm thankful that I was persecuted this week, right?

I'm thankful that we live in a country where we are not persecuted, right?

Or maybe we put a prayer request in that God will help us as we go through our time of persecution and take it away.

Could we be praying that God would take away a blessing that He wants to give to us?

Listen to this from Desire of Ages, page 306.

It is fellowship with God that brings them, God's people, the world's enmity.

What is it that brings the world's enmity?

Is it a blessing to have fellowship with God?

They are treading the path that has been trodden by the noblest of earth, not with sorrow, but with rejoicing should they meet persecution." Listen to this.

Each trial, each fiery trial is God's agent for their refining.

Each is fitting them for their work as co-laborers with Him.

Each conflict has its place in the great battle for righteousness, and each will add to the joy of their final triumph.

Blessed are ye when you are persecuted for righteousness' sake.

Now listen, we don't go around looking for persecution just for the sake of persecution, right?

That's kind of sadistic and it's not something that God asks us to do.

But when God's people choose to be like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and stand for what's right, though the world around them may be compromising, if that brings persecution, Jesus says, you're blessed.

And that was kind of hard for us to get our minds around that because we live in a society today where we naturally shun anything that is uncomfortable.

We don't want to be in anybody's bad books.

We don't want to suffer any physical pain.

That's why pain medications are flying off of the shelf.

And if you take pain medication, I'm not saying that's a bad thing.

We don't like to be in people's bad books.

Then we live in a society where that is considered something of value.

But the Bible tells us that when we are followers of Christ, It is an uncomfortable life.

Go over with me a couple of chapters, Matthew chapter 10.

This Matthew Henry in his commentary on the book of Matthew, He refers to Matthew chapter 10 as Jesus's ordination message for the disciples as he's sending them out, ordained as ministers.

This is his sermon that he preaches to them.

And you can read the whole chapter another time.

I'm just going to cherry pick a few things here.

Matthew 10, verse 16, we read this in our scripture reading.

Jesus is talking to his disciples of which we are, and the Bible says, behold.

Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves.

Be ye therefore wise as serpents and what?

In that 1 little phrase there, Matthew 10 and verse 16, Jesus defines the identity of his followers.

Behold, I send you, the disciples, forth as sheep.

In that 1 little phrase, he also defines those for which the disciples will be working with.

And then he also tells them how those wolves are to be won.

We'll talk more about that here in just a few moments.

But when you send sheep in amongst wolves, is it a pretty sight, yes or no?

Right, I probably don't really need to elaborate on this very much.

I think it's just kind of, we know what happens when you send sheep in among wolves.

And it's interesting that Jesus says in Isaiah 53 in verse 7, he says that he was, or Isaiah talking about Jesus, that he was brought as a lamb to the, When you send in sheep among wolves, are you sending them to the slaughter, yes or no?

So basically, Jesus is telling us, you are going to go through the same thing that I have gone through.

Now, how many of you have heard this saying that the safest place to be is in the center of God's will?

How many of you have heard that saying before?

It was Corrie 10 Boom who coined that term, that the safest place to be is in the center of God's will.

That term or that little sentence came out of great suffering.

For Corrie and her family, the center of God's will was to harbor over 800 Jews.

For Corrie and her family, the safest place to be was to follow God's leading in their life, which led them straight into a concentration camp.

But unfortunately for many of us today, the concept of the safest place to be is in the center of God's will.

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Sheep Among Wolves

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