Luke 22:28

“But you are they who have continued with me in my temptations (distresses, afflictions),”

Then He pointed out to them that up to this point they had indeed walked in this way. They had continued with Him in the lowly life that He had chosen. They too had faced insults, as He had. They too had had nowhere to lay their head. They too had had to take a lowly position. They had chosen to share with Him the way of service. From the commencement of His ministry up to this point He had faced continual temptation and testing. And included in that temptation had been the temptation to take the easy way and to use His powers to smooth His way. Even the temptation to take for Himself authority and power and be exalted. The temptations in the wilderness (Luke 4:1) in which He had faced these questions, had been but a prelude to the continual temptations that had faced Him since. He had been challenged and tested in every way, on the one hand by insults, byperverse questioners, by a family who thought that He was going in the wrong direction, and by those who hated Him. And on the other by voluntarily going without what all men sought, by choosing poverty, by being faced with those who sought to drive Him to take honour for Himself by announcing Himself as a king, and by His own knowledge of how He could make all different simply by the wrong and selfish use of His powers. He could have wrought mighty wonders and forced Himself on their attention. He could have smitten His enemies where they stood. He could have compromised with the Scribes or the Chief Priests. They would certainly have welcomed Him if only He had been ‘reasonable' (had generally backed up their ideas) and had compromised. But that was not why He was here. He was here to truly serve God and men. He was here to reveal truth. And thus He had only called on His powers for these purposes, and in order to turn men's thoughts towards God. He had chosen the way that led to affliction, and never the way that led to His own glory.

And the disciples had continued with Him in this. They too had learned to use the gifts that He had given them in order to preach and serve, and not in order to obtain honour for themselves. They had done well. But it was important that they continued in this way. It was important that they continued to walk as He walked, and thus continued to face and overcome the temptations that He had faced and overcome. And once He had left them they would have to fight those temptations again, but now alone, especially in the days when, instead of obviously being assistants, they would be seen as important in their own right. They would be seen as supreme over the church. Then would come the great danger that they would think of themselves more highly than they ought to think. They would begin to think of themselves as ‘Somebodies'. But this they must for ever eschew. They must rather have their hearts set on the lowest place.