Way back when I was in high school (I know, so long ago!) the Everly Brothers had a hit song called “Cathy’s Clown.”  It was a sad tale about some guy who’d been played for a fool by his girlfriend. She’d run around on him and he’d been unaware of what was going on. Once he found out he realized he was a laughingstock among their friends.  “Here he comes … that’s Cathy’s clown!”

It was such a humiliation. A terrible blow to the poor guy’s pride.

“I’ve gotta stand tall
You know a man can’t crawl
But when he knows you’re tellin’ lies
And he hears them passing by
He’s not a man at all.”

Most of us would do anything to avoid being put in such an awful position. So we work hard to be “nobody’s fool.” We try to keep abreast of everything that’s happening around us and we keep a little skepticism in reserve in case someone tries to pull something over on us.

But what if you’re in love? Is it okay to be seen as a fool if it’s because of love?

King David “danced before the Lord with all his might.” He wasn’t embarrassed by his joyful, undignified behavior, but his wife sure was. “When she saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she despised him in her heart” (1 Samuel 6:14, 16). She didn’t share David’s love for God so she couldn’t understand his willingness to be a fool.

But others throughout the ages have understood. St. Francis of Assisi, following his conversion, had a nickname he wore cheerfully – le jongleur de Dieu … God’s humble fool. According to his biographer, G. K. Chesterton, Francis made a conscious choice to be “the court fool of the King of Paradise.”

Most of us can recall the famous quote by missionary Jim Elliot, who was killed by some Auca Indians in Ecuador in 1956: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

Another who shared David’s delight in the Lord was the apostle Paul. He was willing to be mistreated and misunderstood if it meant pleasing Jesus and making Him known.

“It seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like men condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men. We are fools for Christ’s sake.” (1 Corinthians 4:9-10)

In the past few months we’ve been looking at the person of the Holy Spirit and the changes He brings into our lives as we yield to Him. One evidence of His work we may have never considered is an INCREASED LOVE FOR THE LORD JESUS.

“God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit” (Romans 5:5). Only through the revelation of the Holy Spirit can we grasp the enormity of God’s love towards us revealed in Christ. We love Him because He first loved us. And as Paul wrote in another letter, “If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God. For Christ’s love compels us” (2 Corinthians 5:13-14).

Love for Jesus can take many forms. It’s shown by our willingness to obey His commands and to serve and love others in His name. It’s shown in what we consider most important in our lives – our priorities and loyalties.

But here we want to focus on another way we demonstrate our love for Jesus that’s not often mentioned in Christian writing: Our willingness to appear foolish in the eyes of the world.

When Paul went out to share the Gospel in obedience to Christ’s call on his life he was mocked, rejected, despised, whipped, stoned, and thrown into prison. No one could have endured what Paul did without having the companionship and power of the Holy Spirit at his side. In one of the last letters he wrote before being beheaded he shares:

At my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. … But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength. (2 Timothy 4:16-17)

Paul wrote extensively about how foolish God’s wisdom appears to the world. “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things … so that no one may boast before him” (1 Corinthians 1:27-29). That was why Paul was willing to be a “fool” for Christ.

“I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power … so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.” (1 Corinthians 2:2-5)

Paul, a brilliant man by the world’s standards, was willing to become weak and powerless – God’s fool – so others could come to know Him. Are we also willing to lay down our pride? Or will we continue to insist we’re “nobody’s fool”?

When I was a young Christian I was asked to ride on a float with other Christians who wanted to declare the Gospel in a nearby town. The parade was part of a big summer festival held every year. Hundreds of people would line the street to watch the floats pass by. All the other floats in the parade promoted lighthearted and fun themes the crowd was sure to like. I knew ours, on the other hand, make people turn away. Few would welcome its message or be glad it was included in the parade. As I crawled up onto the flatbed I steeled myself for what lay ahead.

Unlike Paul, the early apostles, and missionaries like Jim Elliott, I wasn’t going to be in any physical danger. But that didn’t make it any easier. The passage from 1 Corinthians 4 about being made a spectacle arose in my mind as I stood there waiting for the float to advance down the street. I didn’t like to be the center of attention for any reason, and this was a whole new level of humiliation for me.

But the Holy Spirit gave me courage as our float slowly lumbered down the street. Yes, people looked askance, then turned away. They frowned and talked behind their hands, clearly uncomfortable and annoyed by us. But like Paul experienced, I could sense the Lord standing by my side. The Holy Spirit reassured me that I was in good company … The crowds had rejected Jesus too as He willingly went to the cross to die for them. If I wanted to identify with Him – and not deny that I knew Him – this was a tangible way I could declare my love for Him. It was an honor, He assured me, to get to be a fool for Jesus.

This kind of death to our old life that wants the acclaim and approval of men is one of the costs of being Jesus’ disciple. “We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body” (2 Corinthians 4:10).

This isn’t a scriptural truth we write on a plaque and proudly hang in our hallway. But it likely should be. For this is something Spirit-filled disciples will be expected to do when the opportunity arises. Like Moses, our faith should enable us to love God more than the world.

“Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. He chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time. He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt.” (Hebrews 11:24-26)

As Os Guinness points out in his book The Call: “All of us followers of Christ will flinch at times from the pain of wounds and the smart of slights, but that cost is in the contract of calling and the way of the cross.” When we need to step up and bear witness to Jesus, the Holy Spirit will supply the love and courage to do it.

Remember, Jesus came down from the glory of heaven to lie in a manger as a helpless babe. And He hung as a common criminal on a Roman cross. If He loved us enough to be that “foolish,” it’s a small thing for us to appear foolish to men who truly are fools because they have rejected Him.

“Do not deceive yourselves” Paul warns. “If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a fool so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight” (1 Corinthians 3:18-19).

Since I’m nobody’s fool, I’m gonna choose to be a fool for Christ! How about you?