Well, good morning. If you would
open your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter 10 is where our lesson
will be from this morning. Matthew chapter 10. Before we
begin, let's go to our Lord in prayer. Our father, how thankful we are
that you've given us another opportunity to meet together
to worship your matchless name. Father, I pray this morning that
you would give us a time of true worship. We pray that you would
deliver us from just going through the motions of religion, but
Father, give us a heart of worship. Speak to the hearts of your people
through your word this morning. Cause us to see the Lord Jesus
Christ in his glory, in his sufficiency. Cause us to worship him, to give
us the faith to believe and love and adore Christ the Savior.
While I pray for our class this morning, I pray for our children's
classes that you'd bless them in a special way at this time.
Bless their teachers with a message and bless our children with a
perceptive heart and mind to learn the things of the scripture
that you've given us to teach them. Make us faithful, Father,
to teach our children Christ. And we thank you for all the
Many, many ways how you've blessed your people. You've given us
everything we need to stand accepted in thy sight. Father, we thank
you. We thank you for your blessing of the gospel here all these
many years. How you've so richly provided
for us. Father, we thank you. Pray your
hand of continued mercy, grace, and leadership be upon us. Father, again in this day, give
us a sight of Thy glory. Let the glory of Christ our Savior
be known in this place this morning. For it's in His name that we
pray and give thanks. Amen. All right, I've titled
the lesson this morning, A Fearless Servant. We left off last week
with the Lord telling us that His disciples will be hated and
will be persecuted for His namesake. He warns us that this is going
to hit close to home. He tells us even our family members
who do not believe Christ are going to hate us, could hate
us for believing on Christ. Look here at verse 21, Matthew
chapter 10. And brother shall deliver up
brother to death and the father, the child and children shall
rise up against their parents and cause them to be put to death. Now that's tough to take. I mean,
it's tough to take your family hating you or despising you for
any reason whatsoever. That is tough for the flesh to
take because how we naturally, we love our family. But to be
delivered up to death? I mean, phew. Pretty solemn warning,
isn't it? The Lord also warned us the world
will hate us for Christ's sake. Look at verse 17. But beware
of men. For they will deliver you up
to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues.
And you should be brought before governors and kings for my sake,
and for testimony against them and the Gentiles. In verse 22,
he says, and you should be hated of all men for my name's sake.
But he that endureth to the end shall be saved. Being hated by
the world in which we live, It's tough for us to take. I mean,
honestly, all things being equal, we'd a whole lot rather people
like us than hate us. And when people hate you, that's
tough to take. You know, I don't like, I don't want to be hated
or ridiculed or made fun of or persecuted. And I know you don't
either. Yet our text this morning in our text, the Lord tells his
disciples and he's telling all of his followers, us today, he
tells us, fear not. Three times in six verses, he
tells his disciples, to fear not. Now, how can a believer
face the hatred and ridicule and persecution of this world,
this life, without fear? How can we do that? I want to
give you four ways from our text this morning. Number one is this.
There is no fear or no shame in being identified with the
Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior. Verse 24. The disciple is not
above his master, nor the servant above his Lord. It's enough for
the disciple that he be as his master and the servant as his
Lord. If they have called the master
of the house Beelzebub, how much more should they call them of
his own household? And you think of all the names
that people called our Lord Jesus, they called him a glutton, a
wine bibber, a publican. Today, they would say, you're
an antinomian. You're somebody that doesn't
care about the moral law of God. They say, why, if I believed
what you believe, I'd sin as much as I want to, because it
doesn't matter how much you sin and how you live. As long as
you're saved by grace, it doesn't matter. They say, you're an antinomian.
You don't care about the law of God. They called our Lord
the same thing. They went as far as to call our
Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, they called Him
Beelzebub. Beelzebub, was the Lord of the
flies. And it was considered to be the
worst kind of idol, the most offensive kind of idol. And that's
what they called our Lord. Today, they would say, why your
God is my devil. How wicked is it to call God
evil, call God the devil, but that's what they do. And you
know, that should be a badge of honor for a believer. to be
identified with the Savior that closely, to be called the same
names he was called, that should be a badge of honor to us. It
should be a badge of honor as long as it's for Christ's sake,
as long as it's for the gospel's sake, not because we're being
a jerk. I mean, you notice the Lord always
says here, it's for my name's sake that you'll be persecuted.
Not because, you know, the way we act, but because for his name's
sake, for the gospel that we believe. If the world thinks
the same thing of us, that it thought of the Savior. That just
might mean we're preaching Christ clearly now. It just might, or
at least that we're preaching Him clearly. We're serving Him
right. If they're calling us the same thing, they think of
the same things of us that they thought of the Savior. And here's
a good warning for every believer. Do not seek popularity with this
world. Don't seek it. There's something
wrong with our message. There's something wrong with
our methods of religion. If we're popular with this flesh,
if we're popular with this world, now there's something wrong with
our message. And the Lord gives his people
some very blessed and encouraging instruction here. He says the
disciple can't be expected to be treated better than the master.
The servant can't be expected to be treated any better than
his Lord is treated. You see what he's saying there?
He's telling his people, you've been given the privilege of being
a disciple of Christ. You're his disciple and he is
your Lord. He's your master. You've been
given the privilege, the honor of being a follower, a learner
of Christ, and you're the servant and he is your Lord. You've been
given the great privilege of being the servant of the most
high God. to be able to serve him in the
kingdom of God. There can't be any higher honor
than that. And I know it is, undeniably, it is a high honor
to be called upon to be able to preach the gospel, to serve
the Lord in this manner, to be able to preach the gospel. But
Gene, you're just as much a servant of God down there at the refinery
than I am right now. He's saying this to every believer.
You've been given the high honor to be the servant of the Most
High God, to call Him your Lord. As servants, you know, it's not
real complicated to be a good servant, is it? To be a good
servant, all you've got to do is obey. Just obey the Master. And there's no fear for the believer
in obeying the Lord. If we just obey Him and follow
Christ, we won't fear what men are going to say about us. Look
at Psalm 27. You know, if I'm God's servant,
I mean, all I really care about is what the Lord thinks of me.
Not what men think about me, but what the Lord thinks of me.
Look here, Psalm 27. Beginning in verse three. Though
an host should encamp against me, though all the world that
hates me would encamp against me, my heart should not fear. The war should rise against me.
In this will I be confident. One thing have I desired of the
Lord, and that's what I'm going to seek after, that I may dwell
in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold
the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. I want
that. This is what David's saying.
This is the one thing I desire. I want to dwell in God's house
as one of his servants and God's servants in his house won't fear
because look at verse five. Here's why I won't fear for the
time of trouble. He shall hide me in his pavilion
and the secret of his tabernacle. Shall you hide me? He shall set
me up upon a rock. That's why I won't fear because
if I'm God's servant in his house, God's the ones can protect his
house. He'll take care of his servants. Look over at Psalm
118, Psalm 118 in verse six. The Lord is on my side. The Lord
is for me. I will not fear. What can man
do unto me? What can man possibly do unto
me if the Lord is for me? If the Lord is for me, he's going
to take care of it, that I don't have to fear in following and
obeying him. All right, number two, don't
fear. Don't fear men, don't fear the
hatred of this world and those who are close to you, because
God's going to vindicate his servants. Verse 26 of Matthew
chapter 10. Fear them not therefore, for
there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed and hid
that shall not be known. This is what the Lord's saying.
Sooner or later, God's going to reveal everything as it is.
You know, if a person is a deceiver and they hate God and And they
might, you know, have the popularity of this world, but they're persecuting
and hating God's children. God's going to make that manifest
sooner or later. One day or another, God's going
to make that manifest. And don't worry about that. You
just serve the Lord because the person who is a true servant
of God, sooner or later, God's going to make that manifest to
everybody's going to know it, that this was his servant. And
there are two ways that the Lord could do that. Number one is
this. The Lord could make it obvious.
that you're preaching the gospel, you believe the gospel that God
uses to save sinners. The Lord couldn't make it obvious
that you believe, that you love, that you serve, that you cling
to the true and living God. The Lord couldn't make that obvious
to folks by giving them faith in Christ. And if he does that,
then they'll see it. I know this from scripture, the
Lord's going to make a people from all nations and all languages
believe Christ when they hear the gospel. God's got a people
from everywhere in this world. That includes this tri-state
area. Could be God's going to use the gospel to save them.
Could be. Well, if somebody believes Christ and then they're going
to, you know what they're going to, if somebody believes Christ,
you know what they're going to know? They're going to know you're preaching
the truth. If they preach Christ, that's what they're going to
know because they're going to know and love Christ. And they're
going to know that you do too. If the Lord makes that happen,
they're not going to be your enemy anymore. They're not going
to be persecuting you anymore because the Lord made this manifest
to them. And they're going to, in that
day, if the Lord finally ever makes that happen, they're going
to be glad that you were bold enough to not back down and to
tell them the truth. They'll be glad about it. The
second way the Lord is going to make this manifest to all
of creation is in the Day of Judgment. In the day of judgment,
the Lord is going to vindicate his servants. He's going to put
the goats on his left hand and sheep on his right hand. And
he's going to make this manifest who is his servants. And the
whole world's going to know who God's true servants have always
been. And then they're going to realize,
I persecuted God's children. I persecuted and hated his servants. So if somebody's persecuting
you and lying about you, they're mocking you, they're mocking
your gospel, as much as lieth in you, as much as it is possible,
as much as God will give you the grace to do it, pray for
them. Pray for them. You know, when
we talk about one day the Lord's gonna vindicate his servants,
let's not look at that like, oh, I can't wait till God vindicates
me and sends into hell. We'll be glad in that day. We'll
be able to rejoice in that in that day. But we ought not be
doing that right now. Now, we ought to pray for him
because it could be that the Lord will grant them faith in
Christ just like he did to you. It could be that the Lord will
finally vindicate you, but not till that last day. And if that's
the case, That's heartbreakingly sad for
the person who spent this life persecuting and hating God's
children. That's sad. And I don't wish that on anybody.
And we should pray for them as much as God gives us the grace
to do it. Pray for them, which despitefully
use you. And the servant of God, the Lord's
going to make it manifest one of those two ways. And the servant
of God is willing to let the master, the Lord, determine the
due time for him to vindicate his servant. We'll let the master
decide that. Because you know what? God right
now knows who his two servants are. God knows. And really, that's
all that matters. That's all that matters. All
things are naked and opened under the eyes of him with whom we
have to do. He knows. And the main concern
of God's servant is obeying and serving the Lord. It's pleasing
the Lord and not pleasing men who are outside of His kingdom. So don't fear. Don't fear this
world. Don't fear men. Don't fear their
hatred. The Lord's going to vindicate His servants. All right, third
is this. There's no fear in preaching
the message that God's given us to preach. Verse 27. What
I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light. And what you
hear in the ear that preachy upon the housetops and fear not
them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul,
but rather fear him, which is able to destroy both body and
soul in hell. Now, I love how the Lord describes
here how he gives his servants the message that God would have
us to preach to God's people. The Lord says he whispers it.
He tells it in the ear. He tells it in the ear of his
servants. He tells it. in darkness so they
can come and preach it in light. He tells it to them when they're
all alone. It's through prayer and through studying, through
seeking God's word, God's message. That's how God gives his servants
the message to preach. God the Holy Spirit tells it
in the ear. He puts it in the hearts of God's
servants to preach. Now I want you to think about
that for a minute. God himself has given us the message to preach
in this hour to his people. I want you to think about that. I was going over my notes this
morning. I thought about this morning,
I could have a treat. I get to sit down and listen
to God's servant preach the gospel. And I don't mind telling you,
I'm looking forward to it. And this is what I thought. In
this next hour, Almighty God has given John Chapman, his servant,
a message for you and me. I mean, you think about that.
In John, let's preach it without fear. This is God's message. This is the doctrine of God.
I believe then we can preach it without fear, knowing this
is the message of God. This is the message that God
would have his people here right now. That should give us the
fear, the boldness and the courage to preach it. And that should
give us the boldness and the courage to believe. to believe
it, to believe the Christ that we hear preached, because this
is God's message for us right now in this hour. Then let's
preach it from the housetops. I mean, let's get up on the housetops
where it can be heard by the most people possible and preach
it loudly, preach it boldly, preach it publicly, and preach
it completely. Preach the gospel completely,
the whole counsel of God, thus saith the Lord. You want to know
how God saves sinners? Here's how God saves sinners.
This is what God says in his word. Now you come to Christ,
you believe on him and thou shalt be saved. Let's seek God's grace
that he would enable us to preach this message boldly and clearly
and don't hold anything back. You know, you think, oh, you
know, This is going to be offensive to the flesh or I know these
people, I know this is their pet doctrine and I'm just not
going to, you know, ruffle any feathers and cross them in this
pet doctrine. That's not preaching the gospel. No, don't hold anything
back because that would be unprofitable to those who hear. It'd be unprofitable. If you know something to save
their soul, you know something that will be beneficial to them
and you hold it back. That's unprofitable. Just preach
the gospel. Tell the truth. Preach the gospel
and don't care. Preach the gospel without any
care whatsoever about what men think about you. Now you'll notice
I didn't say preach the gospel and don't care whether or not
people believe it. I didn't say preach the gospel and don't care
what men think about the gospel. I said preach the gospel and
don't care what men think about you, what they think about you. You just tell people that God,
tell people about the Lord, and you care whether they believe
Christ or not. Now you care about that, but don't care what they
think about you. Just tell them the truth. You
know, if we really, if we really care about men, we'll tell them
the truth. But if we care about what men think about us, that's
the fear of men. And the fear of men, that's what
brings about a snare. If we're afraid of what they'll
think about us, Because if we're afraid of what somebody will
think about us, you know what we'll be tempted to do? We'll
be tempted to compromise the truth and tell them what the
flesh wants to hear. And that won't be beneficial to their
soul. I know they'll love you for it. I know they'll leave
with a warm, fuzzy, religious feeling. It'll be a false feeling,
but they'll leave with that. But we didn't tell them the truth.
If we would be a faithful servant, We've got to faithfully preach
the message that God gives us. And you know, it just would not
be kind and loving to men to withhold the truth of how God
saves sinners from them. And it would not be a faithful
servant, not to preach the message that God gives us. Really, it
would be disobedient. I mean, you know, you can call
it, you know, whatever you want, but it's disobedience, plain
and simple to not, not pre to hold something back. that you
know is true is disobedient to our Lord and to our master, who's
commanded us to preach this gospel boldly and clearly to all men
everywhere. You know, we need to remember
that. I think if we would remember
this, it would go a long way in delivering us from the fear
of men. We're in the soul business. I mean, we're in, we're in, when
we preach the gospel, we're contending for men's souls. I mean, eternity. has to do with the soul. Salvation
is a heart, a soul matter. So don't care about the flesh.
Don't fear what men will do to the flesh because all they can
do is touch the body. God's servant should care about
pleasing him who can damn both body and soul. And the Lord may
permit, I mean, you were talking about this, not fearing men,
Well, you know, the Lord might permit men to touch our bodies,
to hurt us, to kill us. He did a lot of the martyrs,
didn't he? How many martyrs? I mean, there's a great big old
thick book, Fox's Book of Martyrs. The Lord's allowed that to happen.
As I understand it, 11 of the 12 apostles were martyred. That
would be awful. I mean, I don't want somebody
to do that to me. That would be awful. The Lord may allow
the enemies of Christ to touch our bodies, but here's what you
don't fear. They can't do any real harm. They can't do any lasting harm
to you because they can't touch the soul. This flesh is going
to die sooner or later anyway. One way or another, this flesh
is going to die, but they can't harm the soul. Then don't fear
somebody that can't do any real lasting harm to you, but fear
him who saved you by His grace. Fear Him who saved you by His
grace, who takes care of you, both body and soul. Yes, He can
damn both body and soul. He can save both body and soul
too. Fear Him. All right, fourthly, don't fear. This is so precious, don't fear.
Because God's people are valuable. They're valuable to Him. Verse
29. Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them
shall not fall on the ground without your father, but the
very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore,
ye are of more value than many sparrows. Now I looked up this
farthing, two sparrows are sold for a farthing. I looked it up
and I found a couple meanings for it. One is a tenth part,
one tenth part of a Roman penny. or it is a quarter of an English
penny. I have no idea how much that
is worth in U.S. dollars, but I know this, it's
not much. I mean, you think of our penny.
People are saying, you know, the U.S. Mint should just quit
making pennies because they're worthless. Well, farthing is
worth less than a penny. A farthing was the least amount
of the least value of money that they had at this time. It's just,
you know, it's just worthless. When somebody doesn't care, they
just don't care anything about something, we say they don't
even give a farthing for that. It's the least thing. It's the
least, the least valuable piece of money they had. And you could
buy two sparrows for one farthing. Now, if one farthing is worthless,
one sparrow's got to be real worthless, doesn't it? Yet our
Lord tells us God cares for those creatures that we call worthless.
He cares for them. A single sparrow doesn't fall
to the ground. A single sparrow does not fly
out of a tree and land on the ground looking for something
to eat that our heavenly father on purpose hasn't laid a piece
of grain there for that sparrow to eat. God does that. You think of the care our heavenly
father takes in feeding a worthless sparrow. And someone might wonder,
well, doesn't God have something better to do than that? Apparently
not. Apparently not. He takes the
time to set a piece of grain on the ground so a sparrow can
come down and eat it. And a sparrow doesn't fall to the ground dead
without our God noticing it. The death of a worthless sparrow
is taken note of in the throne room of God. Now, if God takes
care of and he takes note of the life and the death of a worthless
sparrow, how much more do you think he cares for his servants? He says, you're worth more than
many sparrows. Yet God, think of how God takes
care of the sparrows. Well, then God's going to take
care of his servants. There's no need to fear. God's going
to take care of his servants. They're valuable to him. Now
every believer is worthless in ourselves. There's nothing about
us that's worth anything, but not to God. God's people are
so valuable to him. He paid the life blood of his
only begotten son to redeem you. God's people are so valuable
to him. He paid a precious, unspeakable
price and you can't, count the value of it to redeem his people
from their sin, then they must be precious to him. They must
be. And if the father, he gave his
son, he gave the life of his son to redeem his people. Aren't
you just sure if he, if he, if he paid this, this price, you
cannot estimate to redeem the soul of his people. Don't you
think that he's going to take care of every minute detail of
their fleshly life too? Of course he will. They're precious
to him. The Lord uses the phrase here,
the very hairs of your head are numbered. And that was a proverbial
phrase that they used at that time, which meant, you know,
because you can't count the hairs on somebody's head. This was
just a proverbial phrase. which is meant to indicate that
you would give the greatest possible care for somebody that you love,
that you cared about. All the hairs of your head are
numbered. And I read that, this is the illustration that I thought
of. When both our girls were born,
Janet told me she could not wait to get that baby alone with her
in the hospital room. She wanted the nurses gone, she
just wanted her and that baby And she set that baby down there
on the bed, you know, by her and between her legs or whatever,
how the baby was laying there. And she just wanted to check
that baby all out. She wanted to touch and squeeze
and feel just a little part of that baby, you know. So that
baby would just feel her love for that baby, you know. And
she told me this. You know what she did? With both
those babies laying there in the hospital, you know what she
did? She counted their fingers and toes. I mean, individually. You mothers counted their fingers
and toes as babies, didn't you? She did that, such love, care
for that baby. Oh, she's going to do anything
for that baby. She counted that kid's fingers
and toes. This child is going to be loved
and taken care of by its mama. The thought never crossed your
mind to count their hair, did it? do it. That job is too big for us to
take care of. But not our God. But not our God. See, this is not a proverbial
expression to our God. Our Savior's not talking here
in proverbial expressions. God has counted the exact number
of hairs that's on your head. And you think how that number
changes all the time. Take a shower and then look down
there, you got to pick up the hairs. It changes all the time. Yet God always has an exact count.
An exact count. See, this is not a proverbial
phrase. And this is what the Savior is telling us. That God
in his providence is going to take care of every detail of
the lives of his children. If he takes note of a sparrow,
And God takes note of what a sparrow needs to eat. He takes note of
when a sparrow dies. There's nothing that's going
to happen in the lives of one of his children that's going
to pass by his notice, that's going to pass by his care. There's
nothing that happens in the lives of God's children, his servants,
that's inconsequential to our heavenly father. As a matter
of fact, everything that happens in the lives Well, I can't even
say in the lives of God's children, in the lives of every human being,
every event has happened by the direct will of Almighty God. But here we're talking about
God's servants. We're talking about God's children. And this
is the reason to fear not. Child of God, there's nothing
that will ever, ever happen to you, ever. that has not come
to you directly from the hand of your father, your heavenly
father, who's already proved his love for you by giving his
son to redeem you. Are you gonna fear something
that comes from his hand? No. That should give us the boldness
to live as God's servants without the fear of him. That's four
pretty good reasons not to fear him. Well, God bless that too.