Tough Saints

Most of us may not want to admit this, but in the back of our minds, many of us still have the idea that it's only the somewhat abnormal Christians, the Christians who have a touch of masochism in their nature, who are ever going to see hard times. You know what I mean. These people who can't just settle down and be normal.

They have to go off to some jungle somewhere and get killed. They have to go down on 3rd Street and make a scene and get their head bashed in. That's their thing, fine, let them go and do it.

But don't come around telling me that if I follow Jesus, that I'm going to have rough times. And don't be trying to make me feel guilty, because my shepherd happens to be making me lie down in green pastures and leading me beside the still waters, because I'm going to travel first class. And I'm going to prosper and be in hell.

And I'm going to let the hard times to those twisted saints, those morbid saints. They can have their hard times if they want to. The only problem with that, of course, is that in order to convince yourself that it's green pastures and still waters all the way, you've got to chop out half the Bible.

What are you going to do with that part of the 23rd Psalm that talks about the valley of the shadow of death? What are you going to do with a passage like this? Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations, for my name's sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray.

And because wickedness is multiplied, most men's love will grow cold. But he who endures to the end will be saved. Hey, man, I'm going to be raptured before that happens.

Well, okay, you're going to be raptured before that happens. How about this? I came to cast fire upon the earth. And would that it were already kindled.

I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how I am constrained until it is accomplished. Do you think that I have come to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you but rather division. For henceforth in one house there will be five divided, three against two, and two against three.

Well, now, suppose you're able to edit your Bible, you know, and bring it to the place where you have nothing but a lovely string of half-truths that ooze sweetness all the way down the line. You still have to contend with the world of everyday living. And you're going to have to do some running to get away from hard work, gossip, monotony, broken bottles, flat tires, hatred, and corruption.

Now, Jesus indeed came down into this world and died that we might be saved. And this salvation which Jesus gives us does not begin after we die when we go to heaven someplace. It begins down here in this world, that's for sure.

And he gives us the Holy Spirit who is to be our comforter and our joy and our source of unspeakable power here in this world. But Jesus never promised us that in this world we would have smooth sailing. Never.

Very clearly. Again and again he shows us that in this world it's going to be war. The atmosphere is battle.

And the delicate saints are going to be destroyed along the way. They're either going to be scared out of the battle or they're going to be lulled to sleep with false assurances or they're going to be driven into some form of spiritual madness. Simon, Simon.

Satan has desired to have you all that he might sift you like wheat. But I pray for you, Simon, that your faith fail not. And when you are turned again, strengthen your brothers.

Search the New Testament. Search the whole Scripture. See if you can find any place where Jesus allows people to follow him without also making clear to them what's going to be involved for them.

They're going to have to be tough. As they were going along the road, a man said to him, I will follow you wherever you go. And Jesus said to him, Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.

To another he said, follow me. But he said, Lord, let me first go and bury my father. But he said to him, leave the dead to bury their own dead.

But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God. Another said, I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home. Jesus said to him, no one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.

Clearly, the call is for tough saints. Now, not tough like the super executive who runs three miles every morning and then does 50 push-ups and knows karate and can put a hole right through the middle of a bottle cap at 1,000 yards. But not tough mouth either or tough front end, but tough inside.

And it doesn't matter whether you're a child or a man or a woman, whether your health is delicate or robust, you gotta be tough inside to weather the war in which God has put us. Tough to take long seasons of monotony. Tough to go through all kinds of strain.

Tough to keep going when there's nobody to encourage you when your life is spent in oblivion. Nobody's standing there clapping or saying what a heavy brother or sister you are. So that no wind of any kind can blow us off the track.

So that our hearts are fixed on the cross of our Lord as our goal. And neither success nor failure nor fear nor threats can drive us away from that goal. Now, our Lord went out to all Israel, faithfully covered the land of Israel with good news.

It was a good news. He didn't say to people who came to be healed, well, let me see if you're gonna be a Christian. Sign on the dotted line and join my church.

He healed them. Free of charge, no strings, good news. Everywhere he went, good news.

But as soon as people indicated their desire to really follow him, then it's a different story. Then he begins to make clear the requirements. The end of Luke 14.

Multitudes followed him. And then he turned and said, if anyone would come after me, this is what he has to do. And again and again we see Jesus trimming down, trimming down these followers of his to harden disciples who will be able to make it through that storm.

Are you able to drink the cup that I drink? Are you able to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized? And we see the same thing with the apostle Paul. Paul went out into the Greco-Roman world with good news. A gospel.

Not, you know, not law, but gospel. Good news. All you need is faith to receive God's grace.

But notice, for all that, he made clear there was, if you're going to follow Jesus, you know, you're going to turn your life around. And he never watered down his message in order to increase the crowd. And I say that the apostle Paul would be absolutely sickened by these attempts at what we call mass evangelism that are going on in the world right now.

Paul's object was to develop saints who could really go through that storm. Who would be, you know, tough to survive the things that they would have to face. So that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men and by the deceitfulness and craftiness.

But that we may grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ. Likewise, now, we have a gospel. You know, that it's to be taken out free of charge to everybody.

We're to cover this city with a gospel and we're to lavish it generously on the city of Detroit and its suburbs. And join hands with brothers and sisters anywhere who are doing this. The way our Lord, you know, lavishes the seed to the earth to get one oak tree.

How many thousands of acorns are thrown out there? Likewise, we do this. We go out there with a good news, with a gospel, you know, make sure that everybody in this, this territory hears about Jesus and the warnings of the lateness of the hour. But, when we see somebody responding to this good news, immediately, it's up to us to make sure that we make this person into a disciple and not some kind of hothouse petunia.

And in order to make strong, enduring saints, we have to be enduring saints. Now, there are certain characteristics that will be found in every saint of God on earth at this time who's going to be of any earthly use to God and who's going to make it through the fire and the famine which lies shortly ahead of us. First of all, the enduring saint will hold Jesus in clear view all the time.

Not doctrines about Jesus, but Jesus himself. You can know all kinds of doctrines about Jesus, and by knowing these, you're going to be a heavy brother or sister in the minds of many people. But doctrines about Jesus will not give you life.

Life comes by knowing Jesus himself. He who believes on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And to believe on me, you don't just know things about me, you know me.

And so the question is, are we really, right now, walking with Jesus? Are we beholding him? Are we living in his light? Or are we sliding along on the fading memory of a vision that we once had? If, right now, Jesus is not in clear view in your mind's eye, then whatever you're doing, stop it and start seeking. Rise up and cry out to God for vision, for light, for power to behold. Lord, I need to see you.

Don't let me get out of this place today until I do see you. Somehow. Right now, the enduring saint lives by the power of the word, not by experiences and feelings.

His prayer is not, Lord, give me that feeling. Give me another experience. Give me a jolt like you gave me last month.

But his prayer is, Lord, speak to me. And he goes into the word like a humble child and listens, and God does speak. And he walks out in that world with his ear tuned to heaven, and again and again, God speaks to him.

The enduring saint accepts the warfare of Satan as par for the course, a fact of life. He doesn't try to push it out of his mind and pretend there's no devil, nor does he get paranoid about the devil and imagine he's hiding behind every tree to jump out on him when he walks down the street. Nor does he get panicky when things go wrong and everything just gets upside down and trouble hits his life.

He knows that the normal environment for the believer is trouble. A stormy sea. This is exactly what our Lord was trying to get across to the disciples when the storm came up on Galilee.

In the world, you're going to have tribulation. In the world, you're going to have trouble. In the world, you're going to have persecution, but be of good cheer.

I have overcome the world. I am Lord of the storm. The enduring saint works where he has been put instead of forever dreaming about another place or another time.

Oh, if only I were in Alabama. If only I were in Israel. If only I were in Nigeria.

But you're not. You're in Detroit. And until God sees fit to put you somewhere else, how about beginning to do the job that God has put right under your nose to do? Oh, but that's not dramatic enough.

I have to fit in with other people. I want to do it on my own. It's wonderful how we can dream up the most marvelous things we're going to do for the Lord someday.

Believe me, those things that you dream up about what you're going to do for the Lord someday are nine times out of ten straight out of the pit. The issue is what are you doing now? Are you fitting in with brothers and sisters to accomplish the fantastic work that God has given us in this city right now? Never has the time been more opportune. Never has the power of God moved like it's moving now.

And here we are dreaming about some other time. The enduring saint expects the Lord to fulfill his promises. Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name.

Ask and you shall receive that your joy may be full. It is to your advantage that I go away. For if I don't go away, the Comforter will not come.

But if I go, I'll send him to you. If two of you agree on earth touching anything they shall ask, it will be done for them by my Father who is in heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven.

Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Now those promises are either nothing but a bunch of wind, in which case, let's forget the whole thing. Let's close up our churches and not play games.

Or they are the word of the living Son of God to us. And if they are the word of the Son of God to us, they become then our daily bread. We live by them.

We hold on to these promises and as we do, we begin to see them materialize, actualize, fulfill themselves before our very eyes. The enduring saint glories in the cross of Jesus more than in anything else. The cross is our supreme joy.

It's our rock and our fortress, our refuge and strength, the very present help in trouble, far be it from me to glory, save in the cross of Christ Jesus my Lord, by which the world was crucified to me and I to the world. My friend, if you at this moment are finding that the vision of the cross is getting vague, slipping from you, drop whatever you're doing and pursue that vision. Whatever you're doing, drop it and seek the vision of the cross.

Because when your spirit looses its vision of the cross, it looses its contact with God. And then it becomes open to all kinds of spiritual deception. Determined to know nothing like you know Jesus Christ and him crucified.

It's at the cross that you learn to pray. Because your only claim on God is the blood of the lamb. It's at the cross that you begin to experience peace of mind.

You don't get peace because you can look back on all the good things you did. No. It's a deceitful peace if that's the kind of peace you have.

The only peace there is is the peace of his death for you. It's at the cross that you get a vision of God's love. It's at the cross that you get a sense of God's holiness.

So awesome is this God that we're dealing with that he has to go to these terrible lengths to bring us back and atone for our sins. Lord, keep us near your cross. And finally, the enduring saint carries a cross of his own.

It's a cross with your name on it that you're going to pick up and you're going to carry every day. And as you walk under that cross, under the cross, you will begin to learn to deny yourself in favor of the will of God. And at every point where you deny yourself in favor of God's will, there will be a death that you die.

Like a little grave. And wonderful things happen. Out of that grave will proceed life from God.

And it is that life that will keep you going. Through storms, through deserts, through misunderstanding, through trouble of every kind, through apparent failure, you go right on. Now let me be frank.

If there should be anybody in here right now who feels that what I've said is too hard, you know, that it's too difficult, it's too negative, then let me assure you that there are many places that you can go where they will tell you the nice things only. Tell you all the lovely things and they'll leave the rest alone. You can find them.

But if you really mean to follow Jesus Christ, in all kinds of weather and in every circumstance that comes along, then surely you must know that the hard things Jesus does say to us, and there are many, and the hard things that he allows to come into our lives, and there are many, are only to make us strong to weather out the storm. Therefore, our good, and if we will walk through that narrow gate and stay on that narrow path, he will put songs of joy in our hearts even when midnight covers us and shouts of praise on our lips when the smoke of the battle is so thick we can't even see our hands in front of us. Yea, though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil for our Lord is with us and he'll stay with us until morning breaks and the shadows flee and we see him face to face.

Amen. Let's pray. And that's what we're longing for.

Oh God, Lord, just show us those things that stand in the way and we just long to just hear your voice and see your glory. We want to let go of the things that have been dragging us back. We want to walk in your will.

We want to be your disciples. We want to make it through these storms and through these periods of dryness and boredom. We want to keep going, Lord, and we ask for you at whatever cost and pain to us to just trim us down.

Trim us down as we abide in the vine. Prune the branches, oh Lord, with your word and with circumstances, whatever other needful thing has to come that we may not lose the prize and that we may not be ineffective at this hour of tremendous opportunity. And what we pray for ourselves, we ask for brothers and sisters across this city and across the earth.

In Jesus name. Amen.