Throughout our lives, we face a variety of situations when we will potentially suffer reproach for Christ. I want to show you today that these moments are opportunities in our pursuit of God.
The aim of our pursuit of God is not just to know God but to love Him. Really, these two things can’t be separated. In order to know Him, we must love Him. There’s something about love that unites hearts. Every time we obey, or give, or serve Christ, or care for the poor, or sacrifice time and energy—the Lord sees. And our relationship with Him is deepened. When you reflect on this, it’s hard not to get excited realizing that we can initiate things in our relationship with God that can deepen our intimacy with Him.
But what I want to talk about today is the way that suffering—for His name's sake—can become something that God sees as a precious gift to Him.
History of persecution
Especially as Americans, we don’t really see being reviled or persecuted as a good thing, right? We don’t like to feel embarrassed in social settings. We don’t like to be made fun of. We repel the idea of being imprisoned or beaten or killed. If any of these kinds of things were to come our way we would tend to view them as purely negative. I want to show that these things are, in fact, our greatest opportunities to show love to our God.
The blood trail of thousands of martyrs takes us all the way back to the first century. To Jesus and James, Stephen and Peter. Almost all the original Twelve apostles were martyred and thousands in the first century were imprisoned, beaten or killed. Many were devoured by lions in the arena or torched alive by the Emperor Nero. Christians have been hated for 2000 years. Jesus said,
If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. — John 15:18-20
In our day
Now, in America—at least for now—Christians do not face serious physical persecution for the faith. But we do suffer reproach and reviling for identifying with Christ and the truth. You know what I’m talking about. It’s when we are with a group of people who suddenly make us feel like idiots for believing in Jesus. Or when people treat us like we are terrible humans because we do not celebrate the practice of homosexuality.
It makes me think of when my wife was a new Christian attending school at Clark University. Some of the bullies in her dorm who didn’t like that she loved Jesus pinned her down and tried to make her say, “Jesus is a homosexual.” She stubbornly did not cooperate with them because she refused to dishonor the God she loved. I believe her suffering went up to God like a sweet smelling fragrance.
I think the worst I was ever reviled was in my Bible school days working at a local pizza place. I’m not boasting but I was a very hard worker and treated everyone with respect. The owner, however, absolutely hated me because I was a Christian attending Bible school and did everything he possibly could to humiliate, provoke and insult me. He would ask me very specific questions about Christianity and the Bible that I had to answer in front of everyone. I believe these unpleasant verbal attacks became some of my finest moments of worship.
As a pastor I find myself at times needing to speak something that I know isn’t going to go over well with everyone. As a messenger of the Lord I can’t pick and choose the messages I give. I’m responsible to preach the whole Word of God. Of course, much in the Word is good news and makes people just feel good. But there are also many aspects of the message, like sin, judgment, eternal hell, sexual purity, Jesus being the One True God, and many more things, that are sure to infuriate some people. And I have definitely said things—nothing more than the things in the Bible—that have provoked people to rage. One guy came up after one of my sermons and was seething. I thought he was going to try to kill me. He didn’t :)
The Lord sees
In most cases, Christians aren’t persecuted for loving their neighbor or attending church. They are persecuted for things they believe and especially when they try to tell people what they believe. That’s when the reviling begins. But here’s the thing—the Lord sees when we are reviled and reproached for His namesake.
(It) is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. — 1 Peter 2:19-20
I love that phrase, “It is a gracious thing in the sight of God.” It means that when we stand firm in times of persecution, the Lord sees and receives our faithfulness as a gift to Him. It deepens our relationship with Him.
It will get worse
Some people think that the world is going to get better and better. They think America will become a “Christian nation.” But the Bible predicts things will get worse the closer to the end we get.
No one knows when Christ will return and end things; many believe it’s sooner than we realize. Some believe we are living in a time of history that is one minute before midnight strikes.
It is staggering to think about all that has happened in the last 100 years—environmental catastrophes, genocides and world wars, earthquakes, pandemics, population explosion, extreme poverty, terrorist attacks, mass shootings, epidemic mental illness. How much more can we take?
We are also seeing in recent years a gradual global Antichrist mindset. What I mean by that is all around the world nations are thinking more and more like each other in beliefs that are not just unChristian but anti-Christian. There is a mounting pressure in society to embrace all worldviews as good and to see all religions as true. There is incredible pressure to embrace the practice of homosexuality. Sometimes it feels like the whole world is ganging up against the Christian faith to oust it from the earth. It’s happening gradually, but it’s happening, and it seems to be accelerating.
Jesus predicted that in the last days people will kill Christians, thinking they are doing a service to God. Some say more Christians have been persecuted in the last 100 years than the entirety of the previous 1900 years. Again, not in America—yet—but in places like China, India, North Korea, Somalia, Afghanistan, Libya, and many others, persecution can be fierce. Jesus prepared us for all this—
They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. — John 16:2
"Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. — Matthew 24:9-13
I’m scared
Maybe all this is scaring you. I’m not trying to scare you. But the Bible promises that all who live godly in Christ will suffer persecution. And it’s been happening for 2000 years. You can read about martyrdom in the history of the Church in the classic book Foxe's Book of Martyrs. It’s not a light read. Or you can explore the ministry called “Voice of the Martyrs.”
Or consider the Bible characters—Joseph was thrown in a pit to die, David was hunted like an animal, Jeremiah was thrown into a cistern, Isaiah was sawn in two, John the Baptist was beheaded, James was beheaded, Stephen was stoned to death, Peter was crucified upside down. Paul lived a long life but consider his persecutions and sufferings—
Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one-I am talking like a madman-with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. — 2 Corinthians 11:23-27
Bearing our cross
It is not likely that any of us will suffer dramatic persecution in the ways that Paul or others in the Bible or Church history have. But we all must bear our cross to some extent. That term “bear our cross” has been quite diluted in our day and has come to mean little more than a general bearing of tough things in life. But what Jesus was getting at was the reproach we would bear in our identification with Him and His message. Jesus carried the cross through great crowds, practically naked. He was despised and viewed as a criminal. Even though He was sinless, He was looked upon by the masses as a rotten human being worthy of death. The Bible says Jesus “endured the cross, despised the shame.” His call to us is to follow in His footsteps, deny ourselves, and take up the cross. He calls us not to be ashamed of Him and His words.
There’s so much more to say about this topic but mainly I want to encourage you to make the most of the opportunities that persecution creates. It certainly isn’t pleasant to be ridiculed or marginalized but remember that these are opportunities to give a sweet smelling sacrifice to the Lord. If the time does come for us to deny Jesus or else face imprisonment or even death, let’s remember the prayer of Esther, “If I perish, I perish” and know that our sufferings are “a gracious thing in the sight of God.” Selah.