3 Ways to Stay Clear Minded & Wide Awake
In Mark 13 Jesus tells his disciples that persecution, tribulation, & deception are “birth pains” that every generation of Christians will endure until He comes again. In other words, these things are not exceptional or exclusive to the 21st century, but they are normative experiences in every century and culture for every Christian. Jesus warns us about each of these dangers and commands us to “be on our guard” and “stay awake”.
So how do we do this? I addressed two ways in a recent message: Trust the Father with the Future & Rehearse the Fullness of the Gospel. However, there are three others I want to draw your attention to as well.
1. Face Tribulation with a Tribe
Jesus tells us in Mark 13 that tribulations such as political unrest and natural disasters are not exceptional but to be expected. The last twelve months have been the most tumultuous time in many of our lifetimes. We have experienced a global pandemic, massive widespread destruction from hurricanes along the Gulf Coast, personal heartache with the loss of those we love, a failed insurrection at the US capital, and now the failure of the power grid across the state of Texas in the midst of a historic winter storm. According to Jesus these things, and many others like them throughout human history, are like contractions slowly moving us toward the end of this age.
When it comes to facing tribulation, the best way to navigate hard times and heartache is with a tribe. A tribe can be defined is as a group of people bound together by virtue of their common identity and common geography. In other words, they have a common ancestry and live in the same community. Understood this way, a local church can be seen as a tribe. A local church is a group of people, bound together by their common identity “in Christ” and their common geography in the same community. A local church is a tribe that can help us face tribulation.
In a local church you can find others who are able to encourage, exhort, care for, pray for, and serve you in the midst of hard times and heartache. In a local church, your life can be knit together with the lives of others so that you are more resilient, merciful, and strong than you could ever be alone. In a local church you are able to receive ministry from others in the midst of your hard times and minister to others in the midst of their heartache. In a local church you find other men & women who invest in your kids when your hands are full and your heart is heavy. In a local church you are reminded of ultimate reality each week and are admonished to hold on to hope, look up in faith, and reach out in love. In a local church you are encouraged Sunday after Sunday by gathering with familiar faces, hearing their voices praising God from all kinds of personal places, considering the Word as it is preached, and responding to what God has said to you both individually and corporately…TOGETHER. In the life of a Christian, when tribulation comes you face it with a tribe and your primary tribe as a Christian is your local church!
· Who is your tribe?
· Who are you bound together with based on common identity & common geography?
· Where is your local church?
If you are in the middle of a hard time or heartache and without a tribe, the people of Redeemer would be happy to welcome you into our local church.
Fight Deception with the Word
Jesus tells us in Mark 13 that there would be those who come after Him who would claim to be Him or speak for Him and seek to lead many astray. There is no shortage of men and women in our lifetime who have deceived some with their words and devoured others with their actions. Deceivers come in all shapes and forms. Some use outright lies to deceive and lead astray while others use the truth with cruel intentions to manipulate and abuse.
In our day prosperity theology is being peddled in the name of Jesus in many churches and on many television networks. Prosperity teachers have led many people to bow at the altar of materialism, treasure the gift above the Giver, and exchange the truth about God for a lie and worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator [Romans 1:24-25]. Prosperity teachers are deceiving many into believing that God is their personal valet who will and should bring them whatever their hearts desire without ever changing what their hearts want most in the first place [Psalm 34:7]. Prosperity teachers anchor our hope in this world not in the one that is to come [1 Peter 1:13] and promote a faith in God that comes to Him as a vendor rather than worshipping Him as our treasure [Psalm 19:7-11]. Prosperity teachers call us not to repentance from sin and transformation into the image of Christ through sacrifice, suffering, & selflessness [Mark 8:34-35] but to the excessive and unhealthy focus on self and actually fill our hearts with the sin of greed which fills their own hearts as well [2 Peter 2:1-3].
In addition, there is a heartbreaking and ever-growing list of pastors and spiritual leaders exhibiting predatory behavior and engaging in spiritual and sexual abuse. The latest high-profile leader, now deceased, to have their spiritual and sexual abuse uncovered is former apologist Ravi Zacharias. While his arguments for the existence of God & for the exclusivity of Christ are second to none, he leveraged his position to sexually abuse women across the world. Teachers like him, while sound in their arguments and doctrine, are deceptive in their character and abusive in their action which ends not in strengthening but devouring the faith of many.
The only way to navigate a world filled with deceivers and deception as a clear-minded and wide-awake disciple of Jesus is to feed on the truth of God’s word.
· The Bible functions for us as a lighthouse to protect us from shipwrecking our faith on false doctrine. When we feed on the Bible, we become like the Bereans in the book of Acts [Acts 17:10-11] and love to be taught from the Scriptures but test everything we are taught by the Scriptures to see if they are true.
· Furthermore, the Bible functions for us as a filter through which we can identify spiritual abuse. The virtues celebrated in the Bible and called for in the lives of spiritual leaders [1 Timothy 3:1-13], should, along with sound doctrine, be the framework for qualifying someone to lead and teach. While giftedness is one component of leadership, the Bible is clear that character matters more than giftedness when evaluating spiritual leadership. When character comes into question and the leader is dismissive of the accusations rather than transparent and encouraging a full investigation there is something wrong. That is the proverbial “smoke” and where there is smoke, there is always fire.
When we feed on the word, both personally and corporately, we develop a framework to sift through deception and identify abuse.
· Do you read & study the Bible?
· Do you memorize & discuss the Bible?
· Do you evaluate your leaders through the lens of the Bible?
· Does your pastor preach from the Bible with honesty & humility?
If your answers to these questions are no, you run the soul endangering risk of being deceived or spiritually abused.
Persevere through Persecution by Holy Spirit
Jesus tells us in Mark 13 that there would be both formal and informal types of persecution that would come against His disciples. Formal persecution would come from state sponsored [kings & governors] opposition to Christian commitment to truth and the Christian vision for human flourishing. Informal persecution would be personal opposition [siblings & parents] to us as individuals for our loyalty to and love for Jesus.
Jesus warns that His followers would be questioned, arrested, beaten, prosecuted, and delivered over to death by their own families. Despite the impending threats, Jesus says to not be anxious about how to defend themselves because the Holy Spirit would give them words to speak. When we face resistance, opposition, and persecution in life for our commitment to Jesus, we can attempt to look within for power, look around for power, or look up for power to face our opponents. Jesus says it is the last option that we must rely on when we face harassment or hardship for His name sake. It is the Spirit that will give us what we need when we need it, and He is always right on time.
The Holy Spirit not only convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment [John 16:8], bears His fruit in our lives [Galatians 5:22-24], equips us with gifts for serving in ministry [1 Corinthians 12], leads us into all truth [John 16:13], and magnifies the person and work of Jesus [John 16:14], but He also, according to Mark 13, empowers us to persevere in the face of persecution and opposition.
Our main problem when it comes to the issue of facing hardship and harassment on account of our commitment to Jesus is a lack of faith. We don’t really believe that the Spirit will give us words to speak when we don’t know what to say. We don’t really believe that the Spirit will embolden us to overcome our timidity. We don’t really believe that the Spirit will give us the discernment to know when we ought to speak and when to hold our tongues. We don’t really believe that even if they kill us, that the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the grave will one day raise us too.
We persevere through persecution by means of faith in God, namely the person of the Holy Spirit. We persevere by believing that the Spirit is able to fill us with words to speak, give us discernment to know when to speak, embolden us to speak when necessary, and raise us to new life if we are slain.
· Are you emboldened by the Spirit’s presence in your life?
· Are you sensitive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit? Do you yield to those promptings?
· Do you depend on yourself or on the Spirit to fill your mouth with the words you need?
The experiences of tribulation, deception, and persecution are commonplace in every era of history and God has given us these three means to handle them: His church to face tribulation, His word to fight deception, and His Spirit to persevere through persecution. May we be a people who are bound together in suffering, who set deep roots in the Scriptures, and who adopt a posture of dependence on the power of the Holy Spirit in our persecutions.