Other Pilgrims
Proverbs about honour
God is on a campaign to turn his team members into honourable people. The centre of his campaign strategy is Jesus carrying his cross. He inspires us to carry our cross, to honourably endure the world’s shame for the sake of his campaign.
The Bible is one long coherent story. The sad pattern repeated through most of this story is that we humans keep disgracing ourselves. Adam and Eve did it, Moses did it, David did it, Israel did it as a nation, even Jesus’ followers did it when he was arrested.
Jesus broke that pattern. He was an honourable finisher, faithful to death. He showed us how it is done by following his God-given mission and refusing to let human shame and violence influence him.
By itself, his courageous example does not guarantee we will have what it takes to copy him. But he gives us more. He promises to be with us continuously as we go about our risky, painful mission (Matthew 28:20). He moves into our lives by putting his Spirit into us, connecting us to him constantly.
After he sent the Spirit his followers acted honourably, enduring beatings, mobs, court room trials and even execution. His presence gave them courage and it does the same for us.
God’s campaign strategy for our era is to impress the world with the courage that Jesus puts into his pilgrims. He empowers them to rise above ridicule and opposition from the campaign’s enemies. It is impressive that Jesus could do that himself, but if he can empower other people to do it too, that takes amazing to a whole new level.
It is easy to think that Jesus had the courage and faith to carry his cross because he was the Son of God, but that we don’t have that courage because we are not God. So we point people to Jesus carrying his cross and deflect attention from ourselves. His courage is admirable whether ours is or not.
But if we think this way, we are out of sync with God’s strategy. He already showed the world how much loyalty and courage Jesus had. Now he wants to show the world what ordinary people can do when they hit opposition as his campaign team members. Their loyalty and
courage show that Jesus is still alive, still empowering people to do things they could not do on their own. It’s not just his ancient example but his spiritual power today.
This reassures us, but it also puts an uncomfortable responsibility on us. We have to endure opposition honourably. If we fearfully shirk our assignments in God’s campaign, we bring disgrace on ourselves and the Messiah. He said he would give people courage. Our failure makes him look like a liar or a weakling. That is a much greater shame than anything other humans may throw at us.
We see ourselves in Christ as honourable finishers, showing the world that no shame or violence will break our loyalty to the campaign that Christ died for. He was raised to keep leading the campaign team and we live in sync with the personal instructions that he still gives us one day at a time.
Our campaign message is that Jesus the Messiah deserves more honour than anyone else who ever lived. He connects humanity to God. He is the key to global unity, healing and blessing. He is seated on the throne of the universe! (Hebrews 12:2)
But on his way to the throne, he out-suffered us all. He took more physical, legal and personal abuse than we will ever know. And through it all, he never wavered in his commitment to his excruciating assignment as the campaign spearhead. That is heroic and God honoured it.
Jesus defended his honour by not defending it. That is, he showed true honour not by using violence against those who shamed him, but by disregarding the shame, not reacting to it at all. He was focused on God the Father’s assignment for him–announcing the beginning of the reign of God on earth through him as the Messiah. He was sentenced to death for this, but even that didn’t stop him.
People around us may say we are a disgrace for going on the Messianic Pilgrimage, but we don’t have to defend our honour by force. The Messiah showed us that the true defence of honour is not violence. It is submission to the will of God, continuing the pilgrimage no matter what, because God wants us on this pilgrimage.
We accept it as our cross, carry it quietly and let worldly people call us losers, if they do. Jesus did, and he is with us by his Spirit, giving us whatever it takes to keep going despite whatever shame we have to get through.
And that is why we stay focused on Jesus, ‘the champion who initiates and perfects our faith’. (Hebrews 12:2) Our faith or trust comes from him and leads us to him. This is the trust that ‘defeats this evil world’. (1 John 5:4) When we look at Jesus carrying the cross, we see God’s great paradox. The Messiah looked like a hopeless loser but actually he was on his God-appointed way to his destiny as the ultimate winner.