Joshua Boyd
The call of discipleship is the call to suffer. The cost of discipleship is high. It will require your life. While those statements sink in, let me further explain that this suffering doesn’t mean sickness or anything under the curse that we’ve been delivered from with the work of Christ on the cross. It is the suffering of dying to self and the persecution that comes from others who haven’t paid the cost.
My goal as a pastor is for there to be no rocky ground found in this church.
The seed on the rocky soil represents those who hear the message and immediately receive it with joy. 17 But since they don’t have deep roots, they don’t last long. They fall away as soon as they have problems or are persecuted for believing God’s word.
The Lord wants, and so do I, plants that have deep roots and produce fruit.
We cannot prevent the opposition, as we learned last time, but we can be eady when it comes. And that is the first step, knowing it will come. Like the storm alert we get on our phones, there should be a persecution alert for the disciple. “Chance of suffering in the next 24 hours!”
Do you ignore the message or do you prepare?
1 Peter 3:13-14 NLT
13 Now, who will want to harm you if you are eager to do good? 14 But even if you suffer for doing what is right, God will reward you for it. So don’t worry or be afraid of their threats.
Think about the environment that the early church lived in, those who chose to follow Jesus went against the primary religion of the day: Judaism. Beginning with Jesus, the Jewish leaders sought to suppress at best, and kill at most, those who claimed to be a disciple of this Man who says He is One with God. It wasn’t the popular thing to do. It wasn’t the socially motivated thing to do.
