Religious Persecution Revisited

SERMON: 2015-08-23--jn1515--religious-persecution-revisited SOURCE DURATION: 00:39:35.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.95 APPROVED: false REASON: The opening segment [0] begins the main discussion on religious persecution, establishing the core topic of the sermon. The closing segment [421] concludes a major point of theological exposition and pastoral application regarding shining light for Jesus. Both segments are integral parts of the continuous sermon narrative. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: none ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: no ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: none Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- As I said a moment ago, it is no secret that religious persecution, particularly directed against Christians, is on the increase around the world. The very prestigious center for the study of global Christianity at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts estimates that approximately 100,000 Christians are being killed for their faith around the world yearly. Other organizations challenge that figure. They think it's much lower. The discrepancy comes from how you define the term martyr. Is a martyr a person who is preaching the gospel and gets killed for preaching the gospel? Or is a martyr anybody who is a Christian and gets martyred for the sake of being a Christian due to political or ethnic struggles around the world? That changes the figure that is included regardless of how it is calculated. Millions upon thousands of Christians around the world are being persecuted and in many instances brutally murdered for their faith. The nation of North Korea is the foremost nation on the list of nations that persecute the church. The Middle East, of course, is a close second and so are various parts of Africa if you have been following the news, Boko Haram, the radical Islam group in Nigeria, has just brutally murdered 150 men, women, and children when they overran the village. They shot many of them and those that got away fled into the river and many of them drowned there. And while that is far removed from where you or I live, as we have seen in the past, we live in changing times and persecution in the Western world is increasingly coming to the fore as the value system that was rooted in scripture is being rejected and it is being replaced by a very worldly, a very anti-God philosophy. Chances are the name Bishop Vitus Hunder doesn't mean much to you, but he's been in the news in the last month. He is a conservative Roman Catholic bishop in the nation of Switzerland. And he made the "mistake" about a month or so ago speaking on family and marriage issues and quoting from the book of Leviticus about a man lying with another man and God's punishment upon that. And his comments were interpreted by a very active gay organization as calling Christians to violence and so they have now charged him with a criminal offense of inciting people to violence. If he gets convicted, he's going to face a three-year term. That's where we're finding ourselves increasingly today. To bring matters even closer to home, maybe you heard the news story, maybe you didn't, a 26-year-old Mennonite street evangelist in our nation's capital in the last two weeks was in the news because he was stabbed by a woman on the street who took issue with his views on homosexuality. And so it goes on and on. And these incidents in and of themselves aren't major because these kind of things happen all around the world all the time, but they're significant because they are the tip of the iceberg of changing values in our world. As you know, we used to live in a world where even non-Christians at least had a pretty biblical understanding of who God is and what God stands for. Those notions are being rejected increasingly, and as God is being rejected, guess who steps into the void? People are inherently religious if they refuse to bow their knee before the true and the living God, guess who they bowed their knee before? It is Satan and his evil cohorts. And so maybe you know this story too. It's been the news just the last couple of weeks. In the city of Detroit, remember now, Detroit is a city that has just come through bankruptcy. It's one of the worst cities in North America. It's a place where economic prosperity has gone down the tubes, where violence has been on the rise. They're trying to rebound from the very severe economic depression. And so here is a Satanic temple group in the city of Detroit, and they have just spent $100,000 on this statue. Now look at that carefully, because that statue is nine feet tall. It weighs a ton, and it is a representation of Baphomet, which is an image of Satan, and all the members of that group have had to swear loyalty to this image. And their idea is that if in Arkansas or in Oklahoma there are these ongoing controversies about whether or not the Ten Commandments can be pictured on state property, they want equal rights to place this statue on state property in either Arkansas or Oklahoma. Now put that in your pipe and smoke it. Who in the world would want to be photographed or have his child photographed with that kind of representation of Satan? And that isn't the worst yet. I don't know if you've seen this image in the news. Anybody know what building this is? That's the Empire State Building in New York City, and what you see represented there is a light show picturing the Hindu goddess Kali. Now she is the god of death and destruction. Historically, over two million people have been sacrificed to this demon god, and it's being portrayed on the Empire State Building by an organization called Projecting Change, because they are trying to warn the world. It's an extreme environmental group, and this is one of many images that they're projecting onto the building. They've had to have permission to do this, but the argument is that if we don't start cleaning up our act, this goddess is going to destroy the earth. So here again we are in a public fashion. We can't have religious icons on public property. You understand that, right? I mean, this battle has been raging ever since we've talked about getting rid of Christmas displays and you can't say Merry Christmas and God knows whatever else, but now we're turning to this. And I'm showing you this because this is a reflection of the changes that are taking place in our culture. The more we get God out of the picture, the more Satan enters into the picture and the more people begin to worship the evil one. And the more they worship the evil one, the more they hate not only the God of scripture, but the more they start hating those of us who represent the God of scripture. And what I want to do this week and perhaps next week as well is reflect with you a little bit as to why that is, not to scare us, not to cry wolf needlessly, but to recognize that Jesus tells us in the gospels that before the end comes, God's people will be hated by all people for his name's sake. And if history is any indication, most Christians, historically, when they have found themselves in that spot, have ended up denying the Lord because the cost of following Jesus became too great. And you and I, the decision to follow Jesus is not made when you're feeling good and everybody is happy with you and you're at the top of your game. The decision to follow Jesus needs to be made in the midst of persecution, recognizing that it's the thousand and one little choices that you and I make that enable us to stand firm when our friends, our coworkers, or people around us are demanding things that we cannot deliver. I don't know how many of you know this, but some months back when we had the gay parade here in Belleville, three of our men in this community were invited by their employers to participate in the parade. Now thank God, all three of them said no, but how hard does this become if it means you don't get promoted or if you lose your job? I mean, we're a long ways from losing our lives, but one thing leads to another. And so those decisions need to be made now. And for that to be made now, we need to understand what Scripture has to say about it. So in the time that remains this morning, I want to give you three reasons from Scripture why Christians can expect persecution as they follow Jesus. Let me walk you through it as quickly as I can. Number one, simply because the Bible tells us so. The Bible says so. All through Scripture, from one end to the other, we are told that the children of the world will be at odds against the children of God. Psalm two, the verses one, two, and three is a good example. Why do the nations conspire in the people's plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his anointed one. Let us break their chains, they say, and throw off their fetters. That is a passage quoted in Acts chapter four as the church begins to experience its first persecution, and as they reflect on the fact that Herod and Pilate ganged together with a religious system to put Jesus to death, and by extension, that hatred flows to those who share his anointing. Jesus in the words of our text puts it just as clearly when he says, "If the world hates you," and remember the world is that whole world system that is in rebellion against God that will not bend the knee, "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belong to the world, it would love you as it's old. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember the words I spoke to you. No servant is greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also." And what he is saying here, and we've talked about this before, but it is so important to own this, that in this creation there are two different and opposing world systems. We can get that up. There is of course, and you've seen this so many times, there is the kingdom of the world which is ruled by the values of the world. It's anti-God. It is submitted to Satan. It is selfish to the core, results in conflict and confusion. It is characterized by the pride of life, the lust of the eyes, and the lust of the flesh over against heaven's values where God is centered. Everything is in relationship and harmony with God and therefore in relationship and harmony with each other. And Jesus says, "To the degree to which you and I, by faith in Jesus, become part of this kingdom, to that degree, this kingdom will be at odds." Because in this kingdom, you want to submit to God, you want to believe God, you want to know that he is good and that you can trust him even when you don't understand him. Over here, God is an alien entity. It is all about freedom apart from, you know, Psalm 2, "Get rid of his fetters, get rid of his bondage." Everybody wants to live without a law and then ultimately it leads to utter and total destruction. And so again, let me say it one more time, to the degree to which we are enamored by this value system, to that degree, we will always be irritated by God's value system. To the degree to which it is about me, to that degree, I get resentful about the fact that in God's kingdom, it's not about me. To the extent that it's all about meeting my demands and my glory and my selfishness, to that degree, I get irritated by being told by God what I cannot do. And so this isn't just between black and white. These kingdoms run through our lives too and to the degree then to which we embrace these values to that degree, we will always be uncomfortable with the values of God's kingdom. James puts it this way, he says, "You adulterous people," that is to say people who instead of looking to God, look to other things than God, "You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred towards God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God." Why historically do Christians experience persecution? Because the Bible says we will, and the more we are like Jesus, the more we will experience persecution. Now, it's very important to understand that because the temptation is to say if only Christians would modify their positions a little bit, if only Christians were, because the stories that make the news are the radical ones, right? The people that embarrass you even as a Christian, the people that take extreme positions and even Christians want nothing to do with that kind of a person. And so the temptation is to say, "Well, if only we were nicer, if only we were more friendly, if only we were more seeker sensitive, if we only went more out of our way to not cause offense, we would not cause so much offense." And there's an element of truth to that, you don't have to be a jerk to be a follower of Jesus. But here's the reality, and I've said this before, I'll say it again, there was nobody nicer than Jesus. There was nobody who cared more for people than Jesus. There was nobody who went more out of his way to bless people than Jesus. And what did they do to Jesus? The religious and the political system ganged up on him and they hung him on a cross, why? Because he represented heaven's values and heaven's values do not fit in the world. Very important to understand, and for that reason, the more you and I are like Jesus, the more we can expect some form of persecution, and that may be as simple as, "My spouse doesn't want me to go to church," or, "My kids ridicule my faith," or, "My friends make fun of me because I'm a Bible thumper." It may be any number of things, but I can promise you that if you're really serious about following Jesus, even if you're the nicest person in the world, there will be those around you who take issue with who you are. The apostle Paul put it this way, he says, "In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted." I remember reading that verse many years ago and saying, "Lord, I'm not being persecuted." That was before I learned what persecution was, just for the record. And it dawned on me that if all those who live godly lives in Christ Jesus get persecuted and I wasn't being persecuted, it probably meant that I wasn't living a godly life. And that was a sobering reminder of what it means to follow Jesus. Two reasons, then, why we don't experience more persecution in this day and age. One is because historically our culture has been shaped by Christian values, and so they understand us. That is rapidly diminishing, and the other reason is we're too much like the world. The less like the world we are, the more we will experience the world's disapproval. Second reason, Christians live by grace, not by works. You know Ephesians 2, 8-9, it's a very familiar verse, "By grace you have been saved through faith and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast." The two terms there, of course, grace versus works. To be saved by works is to seek God's approval on the basis of who you are and what you can do. Very difficult. God's standards are very high. There is nobody that can meet up with it, and when you live under works, you live under condemnation because you're never quite good enough and there is a lot of insecurity associated with that. Grace, a good way to remember the definition of grace is to make an acrostic out of it. God's riches at Christ's expense and to be saved by grace means that we seek God's approval and His blessing, not by what we bring to the table or by what we have accomplished, but rather by the completed and the finished work of Jesus Christ. And the practical implications of living by grace as opposed to living by works, the implications are enormous. Let me just really quickly walk you through three places where living by grace will impact you and why that will get other people's dander up if they live by works as opposed to grace. First of all, living by grace means we have a sense of belonging. One of the most fundamental questions every human being faces is the question, "To whom do I belong?" Because to belong to somebody means they're in my corner, they provide for me, they look after me. The tragedy of sin, as you and I both know, is that by nature we belong to Satan. He takes advantage, he promises the whole world, but he delivers hell. But when I'm in Christ and I belong to Him, I belong to the Father who is in heaven. And to belong to the Father who is in heaven means all the resources of heaven are committed to my well-being both for time and for eternity. You cannot find a more secure place than belonging to the Father who is in heaven, Jesus. In John chapter 10 puts it this way, he says, "My sheep hear my voice or listen to my voice. I know them, they follow me, I give them eternal life. They shall never perish," and then he says, "No one, no one can snatch them out of my hand." Then he says, "My Father who has given them to me is greater than all." And he says it again, "No one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. There is no greater security than knowing that I belong, body and soul and life and in death to Jesus Christ my faithful Savior." Then he also gives me a sense of value, a sense of value apart from who I am or what I can do. Doesn't take most of his very long living to discover that in the world my value is pretty much determined by who I am and what I can bring to the table. And that's a wonderful thing if I'm cute and cuddly and talented and everybody wants me. But it's not so fun if I'm not cute, have nothing to offer because that is the recipe for discouragement and depression. And one of the outcomes of embracing an evolutionistic world and life view where there is no God and where all the product of accident means people have no plan and they have no purpose in life and their value is determined by what they have to offer. And the problem with what you have to offer is there's always somebody who's got more to offer than you have. And so the result is that what am I here for and how good is my life? And to know that in Christ God loves me despite of who I am, not because of who I am, is incredibly liberating because it means that I can live my life fully without having to prove that I'm worthy of love all the time. I was powerfully struck as the Pan Am games were taking place, I read one interview with one of the Canadian female athletes and she was at the top of her game but you can imagine the pressure on these athletes. Your name is portrayed in front of the whole country, your family has sacrificed tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars for you to do well, who wouldn't buckle under that kind of pressure, right? I mean I can't even begin to imagine what it's like living under that kind of pressure. And so this girl was really beginning to crack up because the more pressure you're under the less your performance tends to be and I was very struck by the wisdom of her father. Now this is a father who laid out a lot of shekels to get this girl to where she was, had a vested interest in her doing well, but you know what he told her? He says it doesn't matter how well you do, we will love you just the way you are. And that gave her the freedom to give it all and to in fact do very well because her place was not determined by what she was able to accomplish. Thirdly then in the kingdom when we live by grace we have a sense of achievement. Now listen very carefully to this because this is really, really important. Ephesians 2 10, you know the verse, it's Valerie's favorite life verse, we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do. To be God's workmanship means that we are his masterpiece. In Christ he is committed to making us the best that he can make us. And he is making us for good works that he has prepared ahead of time for us to do. And what that means practically speaking is that when you and I are in Christ there is a place in the world for us. There is an inheritance. There are things he calls us to do. Things that only you and I can do through union with Christ. And for those things that he calls us to do in Christ he gives us all the resources that we need to be able to accomplish it. And all the negative things that have happened to us in the course of life and the situations and the circumstances that want to tear us down, God turns around for good so that by his strength we can experience his giftedness, the presence and the power of his Holy Spirit so that we can fulfill the task that we have been called to. And success in life is not necessarily being rich, wealthy, or accomplished in the eyes of the world. It is to stand before God at the end of time and it's to be able to say to him as Jesus did the work that you have given me to do I have finished it. Can you imagine anything greater than knowing that what you were created for and what you were redeemed for God by his power has accomplished in your life. That's what it means to live by grace. There is a power available to us to fly into realms that we could never ever reach on our own. Now compare that to a person who lives by works. Because you see if it all depends on who you are and what you bring to the table then it's only a matter of time before you discover you don't have what it takes. And even if you have what it takes there's always people around you who are better than what you are. And if you're at the top of the pile then you look down in disgust and criticism at those poor souls down there who aren't pulling their weight and you can feel superior and important about yourself because you're better than everybody else. And if you're at the bottom of the pile then you look around you and you say life is miserable because I'm not getting the kind of breaks that I want and everybody else has more favor than what I have and the result in either case is that you become angry. Because you see when you live under the law you're always irritated by those who live under grace because those who live under grace seem to have a life in them and a relationship with God that you can measure up to and so you find life unfair. And while there are many examples of that in scripture one of the clearest examples of that of course is the parable of the prodigal son and his older brother. And you know the story. The younger brother doesn't want to wait for his father to die. Wants his inheritance now, gets his wealth, goes off to a distant land, utterly wastes it. That's what the word prodigal means. It's wasteful. He's up slopping hogs, comes to himself, goes back home, says I have sinned against heaven and you I'm not worthy to be called your son. You know this story. The father sees him coming, embraces him with joy, calls for a celebration and welcomes him back home. That's grace. And then of course you know the story of the older brother. And absolutely angry, refuses to come to the party, declines his father's invitation and chooses to remain in his anger. Why? I'll tell you why. Grace is a wonderful thing if you know that you have nothing to offer or to put on the table. It is a wonderful thing to know that God loves you the way that you are and that he forgives you and accepts you and will give you a second chance. But when you think relationship with the father is determined by what you bring to the table, by what you accomplish, when you feel bent out of shape because you're not getting the kind of recognition that you deserve because the sinners are just as important as you are, then grace is an incredibly offensive thing. Because it means that all the hard work that you have done isn't accomplishing anything. And so yes, living by grace is wonderful. But when you live by grace and you know God's favor, there will be people around you who live by law or who live by works, they don't understand you, they don't think life is fair. And for that reason, they will hate you and they will not embrace you because they cannot get into the reality of your life. Let me just quickly introduce my next point and then we'll leave it at that. The third thing, and I won't have time to talk about this in any detail, but here's one of the really important reasons the world hates believers. We expose the darkness. We expose what lives in people's hearts. One of the most telling verses in John's Gospel, and it's not one that we often pay attention to, occurs in John chapter three, the verses 19, 20 and 21. This is the verdict. Light has come into the world, but men love darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. One who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed, but whoever lives by the truth comes into the light so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God. You know, here's a really interesting thing. A lot of people say we like Jesus, we just don't like the church. You've heard that said many times over. I wonder if such people have ever met up with the Jesus scripture because how comfortable do you think you would be with Jesus following you around 24/7? How comfortable do you think you would be if every thought you thought and every action you participated in and every activity you engaged in were clearly visible? How comfortable do you think you would be around Jesus who sees right through you? You see? So what happens when Jesus shows up is that he exposes what is hidden in the dark. And when you and I embrace Jesus and become filled with his spirit, then we expose what lives in the dark. And when we expose what lives in the dark, one or two things are going to happen. Some people are going to be drawn to the light because they recognize by seeing in us the spirit of Jesus that their lives need to change. That's how people come to faith. But there will be other people who for reasons they don't even understand will be terribly irritated because your very presence feels like judgment and condemnation. And when you say no, I don't want to go with you in that drinking party, some people are going to feel bad, try to drag you into it because your refusal to engage outlines their agenda and their program. And again, the more you are like Jesus, the more that difference is going to show up. And it'll show up even when you don't preach, even when you don't actively proselytize or evangelize, you are, the Bible says, the aroma of Christ. Among those who are being saved and those who are perishing, to the one we are the smell of death, to the other the fragrance of life. And so every time the light begins to shine, the darkness gets exposed. And when the darkness gets exposed, there is an anger that rises up that ultimately becomes a spirit of murder. And we live in challenging times as you know, when the gates of hell have been opened up and when worldly values are now publicly embraced in ways that most of us have not seen before in our lifetime. And without being an alarmist, I think we need to understand and we need to see that as the darkness increases, God will also pour out light and life into the church and the contrast will become greater. Because ultimately when Jesus comes and he will separate the sheep from the goats, there's got to be a clear line of delineation. And you and I need to embrace the reality of the gospel and recognize that those are momentous opportunities that we have. Because even in the midst of the darkness, there will be some who will come to faith and who will turn to Jesus. Did you know that the only one that I know of, the positive outcome of the craziness of ISIS in the Middle East, missionaries to the Muslims are telling us there is an unprecedented rate of conversion among Muslims. They have never seen this many Muslims come to faith. You know why? Because the darker the darkness gets, anybody who has even a touch of God in his heart will start to recognize this is not the way to go. We need to go the way of Jesus. And so the darker it gets, the greater our opportunities are to let our light shine for [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:39:29.360; remove through 00:39:35.000] Jesus. [CUT] [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:39:35.000; resume after this marked segment]