Lesson 28

Fans love to cheer for the underdog in sports and stories. People enjoy it when others struggle against adversity and insurmountable odds to eventually achieve their goals. By not calling the social elite, God is constructing his Kingdom with Christian underdogs. God has stated he will use lowly and weak people. That way, no one can boast that his Kingdom was only built because they were so great. His disciples all had low status in their communities. God drew fishermen, a despised tax collector, a thief, a Canaanite zealot (professional anarchist), and later, a tentmaker. These men were the ones who went on to become the first real disciples of Jesus. Many others thought they would follow Jesus when he started his public ministry but finding his teachings too hard to accept, they abandoned him. Do you find any of the teachings of Jesus or the Bible too hard to accept? What is at stake should you turn away? Do you search and follow the scriptures faithfully within context like the Bereans?

Luke 10:1 New King James Version
10 After these things the Lord appointed seventy others also, and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was about to go.

John 6:53-66 International Children’s Bible
53 Jesus said, “I tell you the truth. You must eat the flesh of the Son of Man. And you must drink his blood. If you don’t do this, then you won’t have real life in you. 54 He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life. I will raise him up on the last day. 55 My flesh is true food. My blood is true drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me, and I live in him. 57 The Father sent me. The Father lives, and I live because of the Father. So he who eats me will live because of me. 58 I am not like the bread our ancestors ate. They ate that bread, but still they died. I am the bread that came down from heaven. He who eats this bread will live forever.” 59 Jesus said all these things while he was teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. 60 The followers of Jesus heard this. Many of them said, “This teaching is hard. Who can accept it?” 61 Jesus knew that his followers were complaining about this. So he said, “Does this teaching bother you? 62 Then will it also bother you to see the Son of Man going back to the place where he came from? 63 It is not the flesh that gives a person life. It is the spirit that gives life. The words I told you are spirit, and so they give life. 64 But some of you don’t believe.” (Jesus knew who did not believe. He knew this from the beginning. And he knew who would turn against him.) 65 Jesus said, “That is the reason I said, ‘If the Father does not let a person come to me, then he cannot come.’” 66 After Jesus said this, many of his followers left him. They stopped following him.