How Did Jesus Handle People Who Came Against Him?

By Angela D. Thomas, DrPH, MPH, MBA

Perfectly. Jesus faced more opposition than any of us ever will, betrayal, false accusation, an angry mob calling for His death, and He never once let it pull Him off His assignment. He is the model we've been building toward all week, and He is also the proof that you can be surrounded by haters and still stay completely surrendered.

We have talked all week about opposition, why it comes, why it grows, why God waits, and how the Word says to answer it. So let's end where we always should, with the only person who ever handled it flawlessly from beginning to end.

Jesus was not spared the very thing you are walking through right now. He was despised and rejected. Isaiah 53:3 (NKJV) calls Him "despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." He got betrayed by somebody who ate at His own table and walked in His own circle. He got dragged in front of a council that was assembled for the express purpose of destroying Him. If anybody who ever lived had a right to defend Himself, to set the record straight, to clap back with the actual truth, it was Jesus. And watch what He did with all of it.

Why Was Jesus Silent When He Had Every Right to Clap Back?

Because His assignment mattered more to Him than His vindication. Isaiah 53:7 (NKJV) says, "He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth." He could have opened His mouth and ended every bit of it. He could have called down heaven and named every liar in the room. Instead He stayed silent, stayed on assignment, and walked the whole thing all the way to a cross. His silence was not weakness and it was not defeat. It was the strongest thing a human being has ever done.

Think about the betrayal for a second, because that's the kind of opposition that cuts the deepest. It wasn't a stranger who turned Jesus in. It was Judas, one of the twelve, somebody who had walked with Him, learned from Him, and broken bread at His own table. If you have been come against by somebody who was supposed to be in your corner, you are not walking a road Jesus never walked. He knows exactly what that particular wound feels like, and He still didn't let it turn Him bitter or knock Him off His course.

A Word About Those Tables

Now let me talk to whoever has been sitting there all week waiting to bring up the tables. I hear you. Jesus flipped the tables in the temple, so surely there is a lane for us to go all the way off on somebody in the holy name of righteous anger. Be very careful with that one. Scripture never actually tells us Jesus was out of control, or enraged, or that He lost it. We add that part in ourselves, because rage is what we would have been feeling in His shoes.

So let me ask you something. Have you ever hosted an event, and at the end of the night you had to break down the tables, and you simply flipped them over and cleared them out, calm as anything, because the work was done and it was time? We read the temple scene and assume fury, but the text does not actually hand us that. And even if He was angry in that moment, we already learned the rule yesterday. Be angry, and do not sin. So the tables are not your permission slip to go off. They are one more picture of a man who was fully in control of Himself the entire time.

Your Reaction Is Your Testimony

So imagine it with me for just a second. Imagine a whole world full of believers who actually knew how to do this. Focused on the assignment instead of the haters. Prepared, dressed head to toe in the armor of God instead of getting caught out there off guard. Surrendered to the Holy Spirit instead of being run around by their own feelings. Faithful enough at the current level that God could finally trust them with the next one. That is the woman this entire series has been trying to build, and I promise you she is available to you.

Because here's the truth we have circled all week long. Your reaction to your haters is a sermon, whether you ever meant it to be one or not. People are watching how you carry the opposition in your life. When you handle it the way Jesus handled His, that response becomes the loudest, clearest message you will ever preach, and you won't have to say a single word to preach it.

That's the invitation this week. Not to become hard, but to become anchored. Opposition is going to keep coming as long as you keep saying yes to God. So get dressed for it, stay surrendered under it, and let your steady, Spirit-led response do the preaching for you.

What This Means for You

If your reaction to the people coming against you is a sermon, what has yours been preaching lately, and what do you want it to say from this week forward?

This is the final post in the Why THEY Mad series. Here's the whole week if you want to walk back through it:

Monday: Why Are People So Mad at Me When I'm Just Doing What God Called Me to Do?

Tuesday: Why Does the Opposition Get Worse Right When Things Finally Go Right?

Wednesday: Why Won't God Move Me to the Next Level Yet?

Thursday: How Am I Supposed to Respond to People Who Come Against Me?

Friday: How Did Jesus Handle People Who Came Against Him?

I teach God's Word weekly inside the SheShed Community, and this is exactly the kind of teaching that hits different when you're in the room for it. The replay of this teaching, "Why THEY Mad," is available inside the community as well. Come sit with us.