Matthew 4:12 Mark 1:14 Luke 3:19-20 John 4:1-4

http://biblehub.com/parallelgospels/Jesus_Leaves_Judea.htm

Popularity is often one of the biggest motivating factors in our lives.  All of us like to be liked.  It is also one of the most dangerous influences in our lives.  God does not want us to be motivated by that which is comfortable or popular but by a desire to please Him and do what is right.  The will of God and the desire of the crowd are seldom similar.  That is not to say that large crowds are always synonymous of bad motives.  However, large crowds can be dangerous because they can become addicting and before we realize it; the size of the crowd becomes our main motive.  Both Jesus and John the Baptist had large crowds that came out to hear them but the number of people was not what motivated them.  They were both motivated by the will of God.  God’s will is that we fear Him and not men.  God’s will is that we be holy no matter what holiness might cost us in a perverse world.  God’s will is to be worshiped in all nations in every language.  The fear of God, holiness and the kingdom of God must be the driving force behind the decisions that we make in life.  Those decisions may not always make us popular or comfortable but they will be pleasing to God and richly rewarded by God for all of eternity.  In today’s passages we can see that these were the main motivating factors that determined what John and Jesus did as well as where they went.

JOHN ACCUSES HEROD AND GOES TO PRISON: John’s popularity is on the decline as more and more people begin to follow Jesus. We have already seen that John does not have a problem with this and is actually encouraged by this.  However, he did not use this as an excuse to lay low, ride off into the sunset and enjoy his retirement years.  Instead he confronts Herod, the Roman government’s representative in Israel, about having married his brother’s wife.  It seems that the popular thing to do at this stage in the Jew’s history was to keep a low profile and not stir things up with the Romans.  Herod had supposedly converted to Judaism, more than likely as a political ploy for power and peace.  The Jewish establishment was fine with this because power and peace was what they wanted as well.  John sees this powerful man making a mockery of God’s Law and everyone else just seems to be turning a blind eye to the situation.  John refuses to take the comfortable path of least resistance and stands up to Herod, publicly accusing him and his new wife of adultery.  Needless to say, this was not a popular stance to take; but it was the right stance to take.  The Jewish establishment did not like John making waves and Herod didn’t like being confronted by his underling.  The Jewish leaders and the crowd could have supported John and called for Herod to repent or be removed from office but it seems that they just backed away and left John standing alone.  Herod resolves the problem by arresting John and putting him into a prison from which he would never leave.  More often than not, prison is a better indicator that we are following God’s will than popularity.  John could have just kept quiet like everyone else and continued to carry on his ministry in peace but purity was more important to him than peacefulness.  We must be careful that the approval of others and our own personal comfort do not become our priorities in life.  Suffering is something that we must be willing to endure as we seek to follow the will of God in our lives. 

JESUS AVOIDS THE CROWDS AND GOES TO GALILEE THROUGH SAMARIA: The Pharisees apparently come to Jesus and make the observation that He has more followers than John the Baptist.  We don’t know for sure what motivated the Pharisees to do this but it seems pretty clear from the context that they were trying to do all that they could to stir up jealousy and dissention between Jesus and John or at least between their followers.  Jesus is not interested in getting into the comparison or competition game.  People are often impressed by numbers but Jesus does not seem to care about these statistics.  His disciples were baptizing more people than John was baptizing but that was not what motivated Jesus.  When he gets the news that John has been put into prison it would have been a prime opportunity to take over the entire region and increase His crowds even more.  The size of the crowd was not His motive.  It was becoming more and more obvious that the religious establishment in Judea was rejecting His message and with Herod’s action against John things in this region were about to explode.  If Jesus had been interested in becoming a popular political figure he had the ideal situation.  John was a popular figure, He was a popular figure and He could have used these circumstances to move the people to rush to John’s defense and bring about a very public confrontation that may have led to the equivalent of a riot.  This was not what motivated Jesus as it was not God’s will.  He had a mission to accomplish and a political confrontation would not have contributed to that mission.  Instead Jesus withdraws from the region and goes to Galilee through Samaria.  The mention of these geographical locations is significant.  Samaria was a very unpopular place and Galilee was a region that had quite a large Gentile influence.  These were not popular destinations for the Jewish elite.  God’s mission in this world is to be worshiped by every nation in every language.  The decisions that Jesus made were motivated by His desire to accomplish this mission.  These were not popular decisions or comfortable decisions but they were in line with God’s mission and God’s will.  We must be very careful to not allow the growth of our ministries become our goal if that keeps us from God’s mission.  We have a tendency to want to gather and grow in one place but God’s mission is to scatter and go to everyplace. 


APPLICATION: Boldly do what we know is right no matter how unpopular or dangerous this might be.  Don’t allow the fear of man to dictate the way that we make our decisions.  Be prepared to suffer for doing what is right.  Don’t allow popularity or political power become distractions from the mission to which God has called us.  Be willing and proactively seeking to take the Gospel to difficult destinations where the name of Jesus is not yet known.

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