THE
SUPREME OUTSIDER
Yes, crowds
followed Jesus on the hillsides of
But in the end, they crucified him.
Yes, they all
marveled at his gracious words.
But changed their minds and tried to push him off a cliff.
Jesus was an
outsider.
He
was despised and rejected by men,
A
man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,
And
as one from whom men hide their faces.
Isaiah 53
Jesus is still
an outsider.
For all the
pious talk by religious dignitaries, Jesus is despised and rejected, not only
by “the world,” but by Christendom. While
everybody pays lip service to Jesus, very few take up their cross and actually follow him.
Why?
Because the
minute you begin to follow Jesus, you become an outsider.
And who wants
to be an outsider?
Do I really have to be
an outsider?
Well, there are
highly successful programs which make it attractive, comfortable, even exciting
to be a “born again Christian.” These
programs show you how to practice your faith in Jesus with smiling approval from
the world around you.
No
one thinks you’re crazy.
No
one calls you stupid.
No
one accuses you of being a fanatic.
You
have found the Beautiful Life.
You
won’t be an outsider if you join one of those programs. But are they actually
showing you what it means to follow Jesus? What it means to be born again?
“Follow me!”
Jesus tells us
that following him will never win us approval from the world. When we follow Jesus
we become “speckled birds” that make the other birds uncomfortable, and often
angry.
Get used to
it. If you actually
deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Jesus, you will be an outsider.
“If
the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.
If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not
of the world, but I chose you out of the world,
therefore the world hates you.
Remember the word that I said to you, `A servant is not greater than his
master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute
you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also.
But all this they will do to you on my account,
because they do not know him who sent me.”
John
15
Is it worth it?
Is it worth it
to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Jesus? Each of us has to
decide. For Mary Magdalene it was pure
joy. For Peter and John, it was the only
way to go. For the Rich Young Ruler, it
was just too much; so he walked sadly away.
Jesus never
softens his call in order to make it more
attractive. Jesus lays out the stark
facts.
Now
great multitudes accompanied him; and he turned and said to them,
"If any one comes to me and does not hate his own
father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even
his own life, he cannot be my disciple.
Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me,
cannot be my disciple.
For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count
the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?
Luke
14
If it’s worth
it to you to abandon your old life daily and follow Jesus, you will never
regret being an outsider for the
When you’re an
outsider following in the footsteps of the Supreme Outsider, his Spirit of
glory rests upon you.
You are
sustained by the very joy of heaven.
For
the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships,
persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong.
II
Corinthians 12