Certain Hope for Uncertain Times
11/04/2001 - Understanding the Pain in Our Lives
Today is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. And Valley View is pleased to join over 300,000 local churches from 130 countries around the world who today are remembering our suffering brothers and sisters in prayer. I hope you all write a note of encouragement to them and drop it in the basket before you leave this morning. They need to know that they're not forgotten and that they're prayed for.
I can remember the very first time I became of aware of Christian persecution. I was traveling in a Middle Eastern country and staying in a major metropolitan area four times the size of Philadelphia, a huge, sprawling city. I had arrived by bus and at busy, smelly terminal I called my contact that I would be staying with. He arrived to pick me up and later on that night we were walking through the narrow, dark city streets. And I said to him, "How long have you been a missionary in this country?" And he said, "Shhh. Don't say that word?" And I said, "What word? Missionary?" He said, "Yes." "Why?" I asked. He said, "Shhh. I'll tell you later, just keep walking." At that moment I didn't want to keep walking. I wanted to crawl into a hole. I felt so embarrassed. I don't think I said another word after that.
When we finally got back to his tiny apartment, after he checked the doors and the windows, he said, "Don't ever say the word missionary around here? If the authorities discover I'm a missionary I could be arrested or deported. It's illegal to be a missionary in this country. I have a visa that allows me to teach English as a second language. And that's what I do. I'm an English teacher who also tells people about Jesus."
And that was the first time in my life I came face to face with the risk of living in a country that does not permit Christians to openly share their faith. A few days later I was asked to teach a small Bible study to a group of college students in another person's apartment. This person was also a Christian from America who had a visa as a travel agent, but his real passion was to share Jesus Christ. He told each student to arrive separately that night at a different time to avoid suspicion. And when they finally all were there, I can remember how hungry they were to both interact in English and also to hear the story of Jesus. They were amazed to discover that Jesus claimed to be God, had risen from the dead, and had promised to come back again. They never knew that about Jesus.
The next day I was with another believer in that same city who wanted me to tell some of his friends about Jesus. And so we arranged to meet in a smoke filled, back room of a downtown café. And with minarets blaring their prayer chats in the background I whispered the gospel message, through an interpreter, to these two men he had brought to hear the truth. And every time the waiter approached our table, one of them would signal us to be quiet.
Thinking back on it now I was too naïve to realize I was putting myself in danger. I could have been turned into the authorities. Instead, what I remember is the adrenaline rush and the deep sense of joy in sharing the gospel message to those who were desperate to hear. A message, by the way, that is so powerful and life changing that countries, like the one I was in, are so afraid of it that they've outlawed it. They know how dangerous the gospel can be. Jesus frees people in ways that make authoritative governments very uncomfortable.
Persecution is real. Everyday believers in Islamic countries and Communist countries pay a high price for their faith in Jesus. But it doesn't stop them from following him. And it didn't stop the Thessalonians either. Today we continue we continue our series through the New Testament letter of 1 Thessalonians called Certain Hope for Uncertain Times. And as God's timing is so perfect the passage he has for us today is all about persecution.
If you have a Bible meet me at 1 Thessalonians 2:17. Look at verses 17-20, But, brothers and sisters, when we were torn away from you for a short time (in person, not in thought), out of our intense longing we made every effort to see you. 18 For we wanted to come to you-certainly I, Paul, did, again and again-but Satan stopped us. 19 For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you? 20 Indeed, you are our glory and joy.
Paul loved the Thessalonians, these brand new believers in Christ. Last week we saw how he cared for them like a mom cares for her little children and how he encouraged them like a dad cheers on his kids. But after only a month or so of being with them, persecution forced Paul to move on. He was torn away from them. The Greek word for "torn away" literally means "to be made an orphan." It's such a strong word it only appears once in the New Testament. These baby Christians were orphaned when Paul left town.
Imagine, parents, someone tearing your children away from you. I know on a bad day that might sound like a pretty good idea. "You want my kids? Here take them!" But seriously, I can't imagine being ripped away from Chelsea, Jordan and Avery. The thought of it alones fills me with tears. But that's what persecution can do. It can rip apart families. It can rip churches apart. We saw some of that in the video this morning, kids being taken from their parents, parents being taken from their children.
And who's behind that? The evil one is. Paul says in verse 18, "Ever since then, I've tried and tried to get back to see you. Again and again I made plans, but Satan blocked us." Satan is behind the persecution. Satan's very name means "adversary." He is the enemy of God and of all God's people. And he's relentless in his attempts to block the spread of the gospel. Paul believed in a literal Satan. Jesus believed in a literal Satan. He's real and he hates what's going right here, right now.
Satan was behind the riot in Thessalonica that forced Paul to run for his life. Satan was behind the mob that came to Berea and chased Paul from that city. Satan was behind the abuse and the harassment that these Christians were facing. Satan was behind the tragic events of September 11. And yet through it all Satan cannot and will not defeat God's work. Satan can defeat us. He can block us. But he can't defeat God.
In fact, God actually used his attacks to spread the gospel more rapidly. Satan drove Paul from city to city, from Philippi to Thessalonica to Berea to Athens to Corinth, all over the Roman Empire. Like someone trying to stamp out the embers of fire, Satan actually spread the flame of the gospel. He would have done much better just to leave Paul alone.
Satan is behind the persecution. He was then and he is now. But God uses the persecution to accomplish his will. Which is why suffering believers don't pray for God to stop the persecution. Instead, they pray that through it God would continue to expand his church. And history records that often when persecution is at its worst God's church is at its best. "The blood of the martyrs," it's been said, "is the seed of the church."
Think about your life for a minute. Do you know who's behind the trials and the pain in your life? The evil one is. He wants to stop us from following God. He wants to cause us to doubt God's goodness, to doubt God's very existence. He wants us to think, "How can God really be good, when life is so bad?" Satan wants to stop us from following God. But God wants to use that very same pain to accomplish his work in us. And he will if we let him.
Some of us are going through circumstances right now that are very painful, circumstances that seem to contradict God's goodness, health issues, financial struggles, job insecurity, marital and relational breakdown, wayward children, addictive behaviors, law suits, the loss of loved ones. That list came from people I talked to just this week. And just when we think it can't possibly get any worse, you know what? It does. And we can begin to think, "What's the use? Where's God in all this?" And like Job's wife, that great encourager, we want to just curse God and die.
Some of us have been hurt so deeply, because the people we thought would love us the most, our parents or our spouses or our children or our churches, have failed us miserably. And all these circumstances just give Satan tons of room to sow seeds of doubt and bitterness in our hearts.
Yet Jesus shot straight with us when he said, "In this world you will have tribulation. You'll have trials. You'll have tough times." The word tribulation comes from the Latin word "tribulum." The tribulum was the heavy part of the sled that was dragged over the grain on the threshing floor. It crushed the grain and separated the wheat from the chaff. And that's what the pressures of trials do in our lives. They crush us and expose what our gods really are.
And they always face us with two options, the curse God and die option or the trust God and live option. There's only two. Those are the times that God wants us to call out to him, relentlessly if we have to, and honestly say, "God, I don't get it. I don't understand what's going on. I can't take it anymore. I'm angry and I'm bitter and I just don't have the strength to continue. And if you don't throw me a lifeline soon, I'm going down for the third time. I'm not going to make it." Trials force us to be gut level honest to God because our problems are real and our pain is real and we can't pretend that we're not hurting. Don't give in to Satan's lies that God is not good, that God is not love, and that God doesn't care about you. He is love and he does care enough to allow suffer to come into our lives.
Satan uses trials to block our way. God uses trials to purify our faith. That's the effect they had on Paul and that's the effect they had on these believers whom Paul says in verse 19, "are our hope, our joy, our crown and our glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes."
Paul had that certain hope that Jesus was coming soon. And on that day he knew his trials and tribulations would finally be over and he'd be left standing with these men, women and children from Thessalonica whom he had led to Christ. And that thought gave him great joy. Someone has said, "The only thing we can take to heaven is a friend?"
Is anybody going to be in heaven because of your influence in their life? If they are, then you know the joy that Paul's describing here, because you've felt it too. There's no joy in this world greater than the joy of knowing that God has used you in some small way to impact a life for Jesus. It could be a very short influence. Paul knew these people less than a month. Don't minimize the impact that your life can have on another person in a very short time. It's that kind of joy that can get us through the toughest of times.
And these were tough times for Paul who says in 3:1, So when we could stand it no longer, we thought it best to be left by ourselves in Athens. 2 We sent Timothy, who is our brother and God's fellow worker in spreading the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you in your faith, 3 so that no one would be unsettled by these trials. You know quite well that we were destined for them. 4 In fact, when we were with you, we kept telling you that we would be persecuted. And it turned out that way, as you well know. 5 For this reason, when I could stand it no longer, I sent to find out about your faith. I was afraid that in some way the tempter might have tempted you and our efforts might have been useless.
Paul couldn't stand the not knowing any longer. He had to know how these people were doing. So even though his way had been blocked, perhaps by health problems, we don't know, he sent Timothy to find out if these believers had caved in or had survived the persecution. When had he left Thessalonica remember there had been a riot, arrests had been made, at least one believer named Jason had been beaten. Things were not good. Had the tempter won the battle? Had he convinced these new believers that God is not love and that God does not care? Paul needed to find out.
Fortunately he had warned them that trouble was coming. In fact, he says in verse 3, we were destined for trials. I don't know about you, but I don't like that. There's something in me that wants to scratch that verse right out of my Bible. Destined for trials! It sounds fatalistic to me. But you know what? It really isn't fatalistic. It's just realistic.
Why are we destined for trials? Specifically, in the context of today's emphasis on the persecuted church, why are Christians destined for trials? Why are Christians persecuted? If Jesus was such a kind, gentle, loving person, why is following him so risky? What is it that people don't like about Jesus? What causes such intense hatred? Did you ever think about that? I did this week.
I thought about it when I saw the cover of a recent edition of Newsweek that had the picture of an Islamic boy, no older than my ten year-old son, holding up an automatic weapon with the words "Why They Hates Us" on the cover. That issue was devoted to question of why some Muslims hate Americans. But my question is, "Why does the world hate Christians enough to persecute them?"
Do you know that more people were tortured for their faith in Jesus Christ in the 20th century, than in all the previous 19 centuries combined? Do you know that 100 million people were martyred for their faith in the 20th century? That's more than all the people who've died in all the combined wars of the 20th century. Do you know that since the fall of communism in the late 1980's persecution has actually increased worldwide with an estimated 400 million Christians facing it today? Why?
Let me close today by giving you three reasons why Christ followers are persecuted. First, Christ followers are different. At least they should be.
Jesus said in John 15:18-19, If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. 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.
Christ followers are to be different from the world. We have different values and we believe different things and we live our lives in a different ways. And because of that we're going to take heat. In some countries that means being beaten and even killed. In our culture, that can mean being left out and ridiculed and rejected by neighbors and friends and co-workers and sometimes family.
Friday night a bunch of us from Valley View attended the Young Life banquet. And we were there because we all have a real concern for our kids, high school and middle school students. One of the toughest places to live for Jesus today is in our public schools where the pressure is so strong to fit in. And teenagers will often do anything, say anything, wear anything, take anything, smoke anything, and drink anything just to fit in. And that puts tremendous pressure on those who want to follow Christ. 80% of high school students in America don't attend any church. Which is why Young Life and other Christian groups and ministries for teens are not an option. They are a necessity.
Whenever believers in the New Testament were persecuted, you know what they did? Right away they ran, I mean ran, to their small group, to the place where they knew they were loved and cared for and prayed for and supported and understood. No one can face the pressure of persecution alone. We weren't meant to. We need each other. Are you in any kind of group where you get the support you need to live your Christian life?
Second, Christ's claims are exclusive. Jesus said in John 14:6, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Jesus didn't claim to be a way to God. He claimed to be the way to God, the only way to God. And in a pluralistic, relativistic culture like ours, where tolerance is the highest virtue, that's not a popular statement. Nobody wants to be told there's only one way to do anything. But that's what Jesus said. And then he backed it up with a resurrection, something nobody else has ever pulled off.
Ask some of our college students how popular the one way message is on the campus today. You can be the most kind, loving, gentle person, but if you believe that Jesus is the only way to God you're seen as the enemy. Sometime, somewhere you're going to take some heat.
Why are Christ followers persecuted? Because we're different. Because Christ's claims are exclusive. And third, because Satan is real. There is an evil one. And he's the one behind all the persecution.
Jesus said in John 17:15, My prayer is not that you take them (believers) out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.
Sometimes when I talk to people who are wrestling with the problem of evil in the world, they're quick to blame God because they believe in God, but they're not so sure about Satan. And so God takes the blame for the things that the evil one does. But we'll never evil in the world, if we don't believe in an evil one. He's the source of opposition to those who follow Christ.
But the wonderful thing is that the power of the Holy Spirit who lives inside us as believers is greater than the power of the evil one. Greater is the one who is in us, than the one who is in the world. 1 John 4:4
Paul encouraged these suffering Christians in Thessalonica, by praying for them continually, he said in chapter 1, and by writing them a note to let them know that they weren't forgotten. His note is called 1 Thessalonians. Let's do the same today for our brothers and sisters who are suffering around the world. Let's keep them in our prayers and let's shower them with notes of hope and encouragement.