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