Sermon Passage: Genesis 39
Matt Dirks
It makes me want to puke every time I hear it in some bad TV show or movie: “Spot may be dead, but he’s not gone, little Timmy! He’ll always be with you, right here in your heart.” Blecch! But that’s the kind of mentality a lot of people have when they think about Jesus’ promise, “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” A nice, sentimental thought ready to be cross-stitched onto a frilly pink wall hanging.
What does Jesus’ promise really mean? Sunday night we discovered that whenever God has promised to be with someone, it’s almost always been just before they faced an impossible challenge. So maybe Jesus’ pledge is a warning just as much as it is an encouragement.
After all, this is the same Jesus who invited us to a banquet, then immediately told us we may have to leave our parents behind when we go: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14).
He’s the one who told us in the same chapter to prepare for temptation like we’re preparing for war: “What king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.”
Which all adds up to the fact that life as a Christian is really, really hard! On one side, we have the Enemy pointing his crosshairs directly at our skulls as he tries to woo us back into his welcome arms. On the other side, we have the Lord disciplining us as he tries to make us more like Jesus. On top of that, we have the commission he’s given us to bring his truth to a world that doesn’t want to hear it.
Jesus isn’t with you to make your life more comfortable. He’s with you because he’s planning to make your life very UNcomfortable.