Leaving a City to Gain The City (Hebrews 13:13-14) | Worship Service

Well, this is a first. My iPad's locked. Hang on a second. Hey, welcome to Kootenai Church. Would you please stand? And we're going to begin our service this morning with a call to worship out of 2 Corinthians 4, verses 16 to 18.

And it says, Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For our momentary light affliction is working out for us an internal weight of glory far beyond all comparison.

While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. So this morning, let's sing and give praise to Christ, our hope, our king, our eternal rest, and sing together, Christ, our glory.

Triumphs drawn near, be still. The curse that can come, but shortens our journey and hastens us home. Hastens we solve the glory, come joy, or come sorrow. We follow the Savior, the saints, thanks I bring before the praise I sing.

I worship your truth and grace together shine. Think on me, O Lord, my mate. You may be seated.

Two quick announcements. First, if you are registered for the women's retreat coming up this next week or weekend, I think it's next weekend, is it? There are some final pieces of information that you will need.

So if you're registered for that, please stop at the foyer that is out in the sanctuary there and visit that table so that you can get the information that you need for the women's retreat coming up. And then second, and this is something I mentioned at our annual meeting back in February, but I just want to remind you that this is coming up for those of you who may not know.

Tomorrow I'm leaving for the Philippines. I'll be there for two weeks and then stopping by Japan since I'm in the neighborhood on the way back before I come back. So I'll be gone for three consecutive Sundays.

And I would, if you think about me and Justin Peters and Andrew Rappaport, we were over there doing a series of conferences and churches and some church camp meetings, preaching I think 12 times in 11 days or something like that.

I wish it was all the same message, but it's not. It's 12 or nine, eight, nine different messages. And so I would appreciate your prayer just for stamina and safety and that the world doesn't fall apart while we're gone.

It would be nice. And then after that, I also mentioned back in February that I'm going to be taking a little bit of time off at the end of that. Basically the rest of the month of May, I will be out of the pulpit though.

I'll be here with you fellowshipping and worshiping on the weekends. So we have some guest speakers lined up. David Forsythe is going to preach for us or for me, Jeff Miller, Gordy Hunt. And then at the end of May, we got Justin Peters.

He's going to be here for a Sunday in May. And then after that, an author whose book is sold in the United Kingdom and Germany and Australia, the United States and Canada, three continents, which is almost half the continents on the globe.

You may have heard of him, Dave Rich, he's going to be with us. By the way, if you have any of his books, that will be your chance to bring that and have the author autographed by Dave. And then after that, our conference, our equipping conference in June, Owen Strand will be preaching on a Sunday morning.

And then after that, I will be back in the pulpit. Turn now, if you will please, to Psalm 111. Psalm 111 is our scripture reading. Not necessarily directly tied into the passage that I'm going to be preaching on this morning, but just a psalm reminding us of God's goodness and grace and compassion, the works of God.

Psalm 111. All right, we'll read together the entire psalm. Praise the Lord. I will give thanks to the Lord with all my heart, and the company of the upright and in the assembly. Great are the works of the Lord.

They are studied by all who delight in them. Splendid and majestic is His work, and His righteousness endures forever. He has made His wonders to be remembered. The Lord is gracious and compassionate.

He has given food to those who fear Him. He will remember His covenant forever. He has made known to His people the power of His works in giving them the heritage of the nations. The works of His hands are truth and justice.

All His precepts are sure. They are upheld forever and ever. They are performed in truth and uprightness. He has sent redemption to His people. He has ordained His covenant forever. Holy and awesome is His name.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. A good understanding have all those who do His commandments. His praise endures forever. Will you stand with me as we pray? Let's bow our heads. Our Father, it would take us a thousand tongues and all of eternity to praise and adore You and to recite Your good, compassionate, and gracious works.

You have worked in creation. You have created all things. You uphold all things by the word of Your power. You direct and cause all of events that unfold in this world. You are behind everything, upholding everything, and Your sovereignty rules over all.

You do according to Your will and the hosts of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. There is no one who can ward off Your hand or hold You to account and say to You, what have You done? But instead, You rule all things with and by Your majesty and for Your glory and for the good of Your people.

And we thank You that You have brought us together, called us to trust in You, and made our eyes to see Your beauty and Your glory and Your majesty, and caused our hearts to rejoice in Your goodness and in Your salvation.

Thank You for bringing us salvation in Your Son. The greatest work that You have done is the redemption of sinners for Your own glory and for their good. So we thank You for sending Your Son to suffer on behalf of unworthy sinners to pay the price for our sin, our lying, our blasphemy, our idolatry, our lust, our anger, our wrath, malice, greed, selfishness, gossip, envy, slander, all of our many iniquities and transgressions.

And we thank You that You have laid upon Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, the righteous One, all of the punishment for our transgressions. And then that You have by faith imputed His righteousness to us, that we may stand in Your presence, faultless on that final day, with exceeding joy, not because we have been right or righteous, but because the righteous One has suffered and died in our place, lived and risen again in our place as well.

So we thank You for Your great mercy. We rejoice in Your good works and pray that You would comfort and strengthen our hearts by Your grace today as we worship. We pray that You would grant us grace and strength to celebrate and to worship and to focus our hearts and our minds upon You.

We pray that You would direct our affections to Your heart and to You, to Your nature, and that we may be transformed by Your truth, by Your Word, and conformed to the image of Your Son in whose name we pray.

Amen.

The Suffering Servant and His Robes for Mine

And Isaiah chapter 53 and 10 and 11, it says,. But Yahweh was pleased to crush him, putting him to grief. If you would place his soul as a guilt offering, he will see his seed, he will prolong his days, and the good pleasure of Yahweh will succeed in his hand.

As a result of the anguish of his soul, he will see it and be satisfied. By his knowledge, the righteous one, my servant, will justify the many, as he will bear their iniquities. We're going to end our music service this morning and sing together a song we sang last week, His Robes for Mine.

I cling to Christ and marvel at the cost. He took my place to save one. Bought by such love, my life is not my own. He's my own, shall be his robes for mine. His robes for mine, God's justice is appeased.

Jesus is Christ, the Father's plea. His robes for mine, such anguish none can know. Christ, God's beloved, condemned as though his soul, as though I, accursed and left alone, as though he embraced and welcomed home.

Amen. You may be seated. Turn now, if you will please, to Hebrews chapter 13, the book of Hebrews chapter 13. I'm going to read together verses 7 through 14. Hebrews 13, beginning at verse 7. Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you, and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Do not be carried away by varied and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods through which those who were so occupied were not benefited.

We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin are burned outside the camp.

Therefore, Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people through his own blood, suffered outside the gate. So let us go out to him outside the camp bearing his reproach, for here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come.

Let's pray together before we begin our study. Our Father, we ask now that you would open our eyes and our hearts to your word, that we may see the beauty of it, that your Spirit would be our teacher to instruct us in the application of this word, that you would be glorified through the proclamation and preaching of your word, and that we, your people, as we submit our hearts and minds to the truth of Scripture, may render and give to you obedient hearts and obedient lives, that you may be glorified through your Son and his sacrifice and through our obedience and our bearing of that reproach of that sacrifice.

We ask this in his name and for his sake. Amen. Life is full of trade-offs. We constantly have to make decisions on the basis of what we desire most, and when we make those trade-offs, we are always in the moment of decision, trading or exchanging something that we value less for something that we value more.

And we do this every single day with the use of our time, our talents, and our treasure, always choosing that which we think is going to be most advantageous to us either in the short-term or in the long-term.

Most often, we are willing to forgo temporary pleasure or even enjoyment if we deem that the long-term benefit of that is worth the sacrifice. We are willing to trade dessert every night if it means that we will be able to fit into that outfit on the special day, we are willing to work the long hours and put in the overtime if we know that it will secure for us that family vacation at the end of the year or maybe even being first in line for a promotion or a raise.

And the decision to sin is the same kind of trade-off. We choose to commit iniquity in the moment when we regard the passing pleasure of sin as being of more value than saying no to that sin in the moment and the reward that would come for that in the future.

So every sin is a trade-off. We are taking something that we in this moment value more, that is the passing pleasure of sin, and we are willing to trade that, to take that in order to put up onto the altar and to destroy forever the reward that would come for being faithful and obedient in that moment.

We will satisfy and express our anger, our lust, our selfishness, pride, greed, whatever it is, rather than doing righteousness, if we will in the moment think that the payoff for that sin is greater than the reward for obedience.

Life is full of trade-offs. Sometimes we give up something in the short term in order to gain in the long term. We sacrifice something now in order to have something in the future, and the believer with an eye to faith is willing to pay the price now for obedience and sanctification and pursuing holiness, if he is convinced that that which he has fixed his heart and his mind on, his affections on in the future, is worth the sacrifice in the now.

Jim Elliot once famously quipped, he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. And there is such a trade-off mentioned in this passage that is before us, verses 13 and 14, which we just read.

Let's read those verses together. So let us go out to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come. There is a trade that is being mentioned in that verse, verse 14.

We are willing to go outside of the earthly city, and this is a metaphor which you're going to see in a moment. We're willing to go outside of the earthly city and bear the reproach of Christ in the near term, if indeed we are able to gain and to keep that which we cannot lose, which is the eternal city or the lasting city which is to come.

We trade in time, we trade our embrace and acceptance with the world system for our acceptance in and our embrace with the city that is to come in the future. We can choose to be accepted and rewarded and applauded by the world and by all the worldlings that wish to applaud us, or we can choose fidelity to Christ and receive the applause and the embrace and the welcome in the city which is to come.

That is the choice laid before us, and so the author here is asking his readers to make a trade-off, to be willing to trade one thing for another. Go outside the city of man and bear the reproach of Christ, and you do this because there is nothing here that will reward you or give you anything of lasting value and significance, and instead we are waiting or we have fixed our hope and our eyes upon the glory of the city that is to come.

The point of this passage, and last week we looked at 11 and 12 more specifically, and we kind of saw the picture that is being drawn there in verses 11 and 12. 13 and 14 are the application of last week's study in verses 11 and 12.

In verse 11 and 12, the author there is describing that sacrifice or reminding his readers of the sacrifice in the day of atonement who was killed in the temple, but whose remains were taken outside the city, and there they were burned and then buried.

That place outside the city was the place where sin was dealt with, where blasphemers were executed, where Sabbath breakers were executed. Everything unholy and impure and defiling was taken outside the city gate, and so the taking of that sacrifice outside the city gate was a reminder to them that sin must be dealt with outside the city, where God dwelt with His people inside the city.

They must be taken outside the city, and there openly repudiated and burned because sin is that defiling thing that is taken outside the city gate. So the author says, likewise, Jesus suffered outside the gate.

The leaders of the nation of Israel exiled Christ and took Him outside the camp, outside the gate, where He suffered near the city, and there they crucified Him, and there He suffered in the place where sinners would go to be executed.

There they took Christ to be executed. That's the analogy. And so our Lord was taken outside the camp to suffer, and there He was cursed for us. There He suffered in our place. There He was repudiated and rejected and scorned, suffering the treatment that we deserve.

And this is what we just sang here moments ago, His robes for mine. He treated as though He were I, and I treated as though I am Him. We exchange robes. He gets my robe of sin upon Him and bears the wrath of God.

I take His robe of righteousness upon me by faith, and in that then I am accepted in the Beloved, and I stand in the presence of God, not just declared forgiven, but justified, that is righteous in His sight because of what Christ has done.

Because He was taken outside the city gate and suffered in the stead of sinners, and God poured out upon Him all His wrath for the sins of any and all who will believe, He is able thereby to give by faith to His people a righteousness and a forgiveness that they do not deserve.

So He was taken to the place of scorn and repudiation and contempt and unholiness and uncleanliness, and there He suffered as if a sinner, though He had a righteousness which was impeccable and a life that was unreproachable, and yet He was reproached in our stead outside the city gate.

So here now the author then draws the application to us, what are we to do in the light of that? When you come face to face with the reality that somebody else has borne the sin that you deserve to bear for all of eternity before a holy God, and you realize that that person with his eye on you because he loves you and loves you and chose you in Christ before the foundation of the world, that that person who loves you like that, has that kind of compassion and affection, would himself live his entire life in obedience to the law and then die a sinner's death unto the curse in an impure place, reproached in your stead, so that he could give you his righteousness by faith.

You don't have to work for it, you don't have to earn it, you can't merit it, you simply trust and believe, turn from your sin and trust and believe. When you realize that, that your righteousness is as unreproachable as his righteousness, because he was treated as a sinner in your place, and then you say what must I do, what can I do, what should I do in light of that?

The answer to that is in verse 13. Let us go out to him outside the camp and there bear his reproach. Verse 13, why do we do this, the motivation? Verse 14, here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come.

We are called to leave one city, that is the city of man, with all of its earthly treasures and promises and applause and accolades. We are to turn our back upon that and go outside of that city to the place of reproach.

And there we are to bear the reproach of Christ, the insult that it is to be called by his name. And having been there, then we are to stay there outside of the city of man, because our hope is not in this world, our hope is not in these earthly cities or any rewards that are even part of this world.

All of our reward, all of our inheritance is coming with the city which is to come. And therefore we are to go outside the camp to leave a city so that we may gain the city, the city, which is the fulfillment of all cities.

So let's look at verse 13, what it means to bear his reproach. And then also today, before we were done, we'll look at verse 14, the motivation for doing so. The background of this statement in verse 13, going outside the camp to bear his reproach, we saw that there is a historical event, Exodus 32 and Exodus 33, which are the historical background for this whole imagery that the author is using here.

It is Moses after leading the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt and through the Dead Sea out at Mount Sinai, the children of Israel get the law and Moses went up on the mountain, there received the law of God, thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not, all 10 of the 10 commandments and the rest of the law with the instructions for the tabernacle and proper worship of God.

And meanwhile, at the bottom of the mountain, the entire nation was there rejoicing and frolicking, and they had created an idol and say, this is Yahweh who brought you up from the land of Egypt, which was a direct and overt and not even implicit or secret repudiation of that God who had led them out of Egypt.

And then Moses came down from the mountain and broke the tablets and some people there were judged. But then it says in Exodus 33 that Moses took the tent of the Lord and went outside the camp a good way off.

And there he pitched the tent. And then when Moses would go out to the children of Israel, all the children of Israel could do is stand at the gate of their tent and watch Moses go out to meet with God.

So the entire nation had so defiled themselves that they had actually rejected God and Moses taking the tent of the Lord, the meeting place and setting it up outside the camp a good way out. That was an indication that not that God himself was out in a place of uncleanliness and repute, but the entire nation had so repudiated him that he now could no longer and would no longer dwell within their midst.

And instead, God is outside the camp where he has been rejected now by the entire nation. That's the imagery behind this statement that Christ was taken outside the gate. This is exactly what the leadership of the nation of Israel did.

They had so repudiated God in Christ, reconciling the world to himself that they had taken him outside of the camp and put him out of the unclean place. And there they repudiated him. There they cast him off and wanted nothing to do with him.

There they put him in the reproachful place, the reproached place. And now the author is saying, if you want fellowship with that God, guess what? You have to go outside the camp. God is no longer inside the city.

You go outside the gate. You must turn your back on those who have turned their back on him so that you may have fellowship with him in his sufferings. That is the imagery behind this. Their high-handed act of idolatry and blasphemy had cut God off, cut themselves off from God.

And so God was now outside the camp. And now in Christ, God is outside the nation of Israel and he is calling all men, all nations to himself. They would not have Christ. They would not have the fulfillment of their sacrifices, but instead they wanted their animal sacrifices.

They would not have the perfect high priest, but instead they wanted their imperfect priesthood filled with priests who die constantly. They would reject the substance for the shadow and the fulfillment for the type.

And so the king, who was the descendant of David's throne, who now had come to fulfill everything and all the promises, they had rejected him and put him outside the camp. And the author is saying, guess what?

Now, if you want a part in the promises of God, you must go outside the gate and there bear his reproach. Notice that the author is speaking in a metaphorical sense. He is speaking as if Christ were at that moment outside the gate.

Let us go out to him outside the camp as if he were actually there. He wasn't. He had long ago, by the writing of this, ascended to heaven and taken a seat at the father's right hand. The author knows that, but he is describing this activity in a metaphorical language to go out to the place of reproach.

You go outside the camp to Christ. In other words, the national Israel, remember he is writing to Hebrews, to Jews who had long grown up into that old covenant system. He is writing to national Israel and saying, God is no longer inside this camp.

Now, just as Moses of old, you must go outside the gate if you are to meet with your God, and that is in the person of Christ. Therefore, you must be willing metaphorically to go outside of the city of man or the camp.

This calls for a decision. They had to leave behind those who had repudiated Christ. Religiously, here is what it would mean. And I want you to remember that before we get to what this looks like in our context, remember to put this back in their context.

These were Jewish Christians who had come out of Judaism with all of the sacrifices and the feasts and the festivals and all the ritual and the ceremony of old covenant Judaism, Old Testament Judaism.

And now they have come to faith in Christ. And there is the allure to go back to that because they had endured afflictions and reproaches and sufferings already. And now the promises, if you go back to that, things will get easier, be easier to be with your family.

If you could go back to your family religion, be easier to kind of fit in with the in crowd, if you're willing to go back to that old religious system that you had. And the author is not just saying, don't go back.

The author is saying, turn your back on all of that and be willing to go entirely outside of the gate and to reject all of that. So religiously, it would mean that they could continue with the temple and the sacrifices and the offerings and the bulls and the goats, or they can leave all of that and have the fulfillment of the Old Testament sacrifices in Christ, but they can't have both.

You leave one for the other, but you cannot put your foot in both of these worlds. They could participate in all of the empty ceremonialism of the old covenant, or they can have grace in Christ, but they cannot have both.

You can have a gospel without circumcision or a gospel with circumcision, book of Galatians, but you cannot have both. These things are antithetical to one another. Culturally, they can think that their Jewishness, that's the right word, no more necessary.

They can think that their Jewishness is their righteousness, or they can go out to the one whose unblemished righteousness can be theirs by faith, but they cannot have both. You cannot trust in your works and in Christ.

You cannot trust in yourself maintaining your own steadfastness and hold on to him by faith at the same time. You cannot have a righteousness that is yours on the basis of your merit and your history and your traditions and your religious activity and be trusting in Christ at the same time.

These things are antithetical. Politically, they could seek all of the approval of the leadership of that rebellious nation, or they could be accepted by God in Christ, but they cannot have both. And this is the difficulty that they faced.

It would cost them. And they knew this because they had already paid some of the cost back in chapter 10, verses 32 and 35. The author describes how they had endured a great conflict of sufferings, and they had suffered imprisonment, some of them.

They had become a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations. Their faith had already cost them. And this is why they were tempted to go back to it. And the author is saying, don't go back. You can have one or the other.

Don't go back to that. Instead, turn your back on that and go outside the city gate to have fellowship with Christ. It is not unusual for the heroes of the faith to suffer mocking and scourging and chains and imprisonment.

In fact, Hebrews chapter 11, that great list of heroes of the faith, says that some of the saints were imprisoned for righteousness sake and put to death. They were destitute, afflicted, ill-treated.

Remember how the author describes them? Men of whom this world is not worthy. That's what we have to expect. And so then in chapter 12, the author reminds us that those same afflictions that afflicted the heroes of the past will also afflict us as a wise and sovereign God uses all of those afflictions to sanctify his people and prepare us for the reward that we have to come.

That's the chastening of chapter 12. So in our context, it will mean that you can have Christ or you can leave your, sorry, you can have your false religion and your traditions and your man-made philosophies, or you can have Christ, but you cannot have both.

Culturally, you can have the applause of the world or you can have the applause of Christ, but you cannot have both. You cannot love Christ in this world. You cannot serve Christ in this world. You cannot set your affections on this world and the life in the world that is to come because these things are antithetical to one another.

You can have your sin and pleasure now and suffer loss later, or you can gladly count all things to be lost for the sake of Christ now and gain an entire world and the city that is to come later, but you cannot have both.

Culturally, you and I live in a time when we are living on the fumes of a nation whose political system, whose culture, whose entertainment is coasting on the fumes of a Judeo-Christian perspective that comes out of the Great Awakening and even the Puritans before that.

And we're just, we're a vehicle that has run out of gas, coasting down the freeway, the engine is off, it's in neutral, and we are slowly, even more rapidly, beginning to realize that we are slowing down and we are using up all of the common grace capital that once we enjoyed in this nation.

Things are different than they were when I was a kid. Now, I'm not that old. I'm not that old, but I remember a time when times were different, when it was culturally in to be part of some sort of a religious movement, and where everything around me was informed by a religious perspective.

Even atheists wanted good things and religious things for people. But we don't live in that world anymore. Christianity is increasingly becoming counter-cultural, and so Christian, you better be ready to be ostracized from the culture and from politics and from entertainment and even from the economy and the business if you are going to be faithful to Christ.

Jesus spoke about leaving family and lands and houses and businesses for His sake. And in our nation, we have not yet been asked to do that. Barring some sort of a change, we are going to be not only asked to do that, but we are going to be forced to do that.

If the current trajectory continues, you will be forced outside of the gate. It will either be that or bow the knee to Caesar. And being welcomed inside the gate will mean that you compromise and that you capitulate and that you bow the knee to the spirit of the age and embrace everything that it demands.

There's coming a point where we are going to be forced outside the gate. And so I would suggest to you that you go ahead and embrace that with a smile, recognizing that when the world hates you, you're doing something right.

Embrace the reproach of faith. I said this over and over again when we were in chapter 11, those who embrace and suffer the reproach of faith receive the reward of faith. There's no reward of faith if you do not embrace the reproach of faith.

So embrace the reproach that you may receive later on the reward. You have need of endurance, the author says, so that when you have done everything that you should do, you will receive what is promised.

There is a reward that is to come, but not to those who are willing to stay inside the city of man and reproach Christ who is outside the gate. Notice that the author does not encourage them to adjust their message, to tone down their rhetoric, find a way to make the message of the cross palatable to people.

It is offensive, so find a way to take away the offense and make it something that people will willingly embrace. He doesn't encourage them to do that. He doesn't encourage them to make concessions for a seat at the political or social table.

He doesn't ask them to navigate the world's opposition and to somehow find a way to become acceptable in the eyes of worldlings and pagans who had cast off Christ. Instead, he says to them, turn your back on the false religions, on sin, on its lusts, and care nothing for academic applause.

Give no heed to cultural commands and don't be allured by the praises of pagans, but instead be willing to step and go outside the gate where Christ is, where He bore your reproach before a holy God, and there bear the reproach of Christ in the eyes of a sinful and rebellious world.

This is the exchange of the trade-off. Take the love of the world or take the love of Christ, but you can't have both. Receive the applause of pagans or receive the applause of one who says, well, good, well done, good and faithful servant, but you can't have both of those things.

You must stay inside the city that will be judged or go outside the city where one who was reproached for you is and there be willing to bear the reproach that the world will heap upon you for His sake.

The word reproach that's used in this passage is a word that means an insult or a disgrace, and this is what the unbelieving world heaps upon our Savior. They regard Him as worthy to suffer the fate of blasphemers and lawbreakers.

They impugned His reputations, His motives, His power, His lineage. They slandered His name. They blasphemed Him. They still do today. His is the only first name that is worthy of being used in the eyes of the world as a swear word or coupled with the most profanest of profanities.

It's only Jesus whose name is taken and used that way. Nobody else. This has become habitual in our world. And the Christian bears that name as a Christ one, one who follows Him and belongs to Him. And we want to bear that name well.

And bearing that name will mean that we end up suffering the reproaches of a sinful and rebellious world. But we are willing to publicly go out and identify Him, to go outside the gate where He is reproached and there gladly bear the reproach that the world heaps upon Him.

This is the choice we have to make. This is the choice we are faced with. They will call you a bigot, an unscientific fool, unenlightened, simple, naive. The world will say that your morals are repressive and regressive, that your faith is simple and blind, that your priorities are out of step with the world, that you are a hindrance to the progress of technology and civilization and politics, that you are sexist, homophobic, narrow-minded, intolerant, bigoted, self-righteous because you think you're right.

You're anti-intellectual, anti-science and anti-technology and anti progressive. That's just a sampling of the calumnies and slander that they will heap upon you if you will be faithful to Christ and regard God's truth as true.

Now, you can embrace that or you can try and seek to have their applause, but there will be no middle ground. Jesus said in Matthew 5 verse 11,. "'Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.'".

Like the evil that I just listed for you. Matthew 10,. "'A disciple is not above his teacher nor a slave above his master. It is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher and the slave like his master.

If they've called the head of the household Beelzebul, how much more will they malign the members of his household?'. In Acts 5 verse 41,. "'They went on their way from the presence of the council rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for his name's sake.'".

This is the apostles in Acts 5 willingly embracing the reproach of Christ, willing and glad that they could suffer for his name. 1 Peter chapter 4 verse 14,. "'If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed because the spirit of glory and of God rests on you.