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Mar 10, 2013

The Path to Victory…Runs Through Rugged Reality

Passage: John 15:18-16:16

Preacher: John Repsold

Series: Path to Victory

Keywords: persecution, trials, holy spirit, difficulties, hatred, witness

Summary:

Being identified with Jesus Christ will mean we will have to face the same treatment from people that he did. Living in a culture not used to suffering for Christ brings unique challenges to our faith. This message prepares God's people for reality and embraces the resource of the Holy Spirit operating through us into a sinful world.

Detail:

The Path to Victory…Runs Through Rugged Reality

John 15:18-16:16

March 10, 2013

People have asked me how the trip was to India and I’ve found it difficult to really explain its impact.  Paul and Annie Pallai’s ministry in north India has been going on for some 40 years.  Paul was an upper-cast Communist attorney in India some 50 years ago when God got a hold of his life.  He came to the U.S. to study at Talbot Seminary in LA, married his wife, Annie, who was studying Bible at a little Christian College in, of all places, Selah, WA.  The day after they were married here in the U.S., they returned to India to begin ministry in north India.  They flew to New Delhi, a city of about 3 million people then.  (Today it is 20 million!)  They started preaching the gospel and planting churches.

            North India is one of the most resistant areas of India when it comes to the gospel of Christ.  Southern India has had the Gospel much longer and has a larger Christian presence.  But north India is notorious for its rejection of the Gospel and persecution of Christians.  The same could be said for many of the nations surrounding India such as Nepal, Tibet, Burma (or Myanmar) and Pakistan. 

            In 2011 alone, 372 pastors were martyred for their faith in India.  A little over a week ago, I sat on the chapel platform in front of 1,500 delegates to the annual pastors’ conference as a group of about 18 students, all from Burma (now Myanmar), sang a Christian song from their nation.  In that group was a young man who had already spent 3 years in prison for his faith.  Surprisingly, he had been released after 3 years and is now training at Grace Bible College to return to his nation to lead God’s church in any way possible in Myanmar. 

 

This is the kind of zeal that possesses the people of God in much of the world where followers of Jesus Christ are persecuted.  These are the kind of Bible College graduates being turned out in colleges from China to India, Iraq to Indonesia.  Suffering for the sake of Christ is not a theory; it is their practice.  Being beat up by a crowd for preaching Christ in the street is not hypothetical; it is reality. 

 

So when Jesus sits down with his disciples that last night before his crucifixion and begins to talk with them about how life is very quickly going to change for them, what did He say to prepare them for life without Him?  What did he think was vitally important for them to know in order not to fail at the most important mission ever given to people by God? 

 

For the answer to that, turn to John 15:18-6:4 (read).

 

This final series in the Gospel of John that will take us through Easter we’ve entitled “The Path to Victory.”  We’re mostly walking with Jesus on this very narrow path that will lead Him to victory over sin and death.  But I trust that it will be a path that leads us to victory in fresh ways with God as well. 

 

From talking about keys to fruitfulness in the first half of John 15, Jesus now turns his attention to something that has either the potential to destroy our faith or the potential to make it more powerful and vibrant than ever.  In John 16:1, Jesus tells us the reason he is talking with us about this is “so that you will not go astray.”  Persecution has a way of doing that.  The history of the church is full of Christ-followers who, when the heat got to great, stopped professing His name. 

 

We have such a long history of religious tolerance here in America that it sometimes seems worlds away to talk about the persecution and suffering Jesus warned his followers of.  But warning his Apostles then and his disciples now seemed to be one of Jesus’ primary messages towards the end of his life on earth. 

And while we sit here, freely visible to the public passing by, able to sing our hearts out and walk out this door to share Christ with anyone we might meet on the street, all without fear of being arrested or beaten or tortured or even killed for doing any of that, the normative history of Christians has been one of rejection, ridicule and persecution. 

 

But I think that may be changing in our lifetime even here in America.  If you take World Magazine, something I would highly recommend you do, you know that every month there are new stories of Christians in America losing their jobs for sharing Christ at work or being fined for not doing something they consider against their Christian beliefs (such as Hobby Lobby facing $1.5 million in fines each day which they fail to provide contraception and abortion services to their employees).  Times are a chang’en…and so is persecution in America.

 

Just a month ago tomorrow, February 11, two Egyptian Coptic Christians who were working in New Jersey and sending money back to their families in Egypt, were found dead at the hands of an Egyptian Muslim man, 28-year-old Yusuf Ibrahim.  Ibrahim had cut off their heads and hands. 

Of course, our willfully ignorant news media claim that the big mystery as to why they were murdered as well as mutilated.  Well, you would think that 13 years after being attacked by Muslim extremists, any educated person in America would have the answer to that in the blink of an eye. Decapitation is always the preferred way to treat any “infidel” who is killed in obedience to the Koran’s command to “smite above the necks, and smite every finger” of infidels?  (Qur'an 8:12)  But I digress.

 

What is it about Christ that causes people to hate him and hate his followers?  What evil had he done as a baby that prompted Herod to issue his murderous edict to kill all Jewish boys under 2 years of age in Bethlehem?  What great evil was Jesus engaged in that over and over again the Jewish leaders themselves wanted to kill him…and eventually did? 

Well, in this passage, Jesus warns anyone who would become His follower, “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.” (John 15:18)  Now he is going to tell us WHY the world will hate us IF we are truly following Jesus. 

 

NOTE:  By the way, as I mentioned a few months ago, Americans have developed this strange idea that if you just love people, they will love you back?  It has even begun to manifest itself rather prominently in contemporary American Christian theology.  Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins Out, is predicated upon the notion that if people are exposed to the love of God long enough, they will eventually, even in hell itself, start loving God back. 

            Let me ask you, “Where do you come up with that anywhere in the entire history of the Bible?” You either see people responding positively to the love of God in Christ OR you see them reacting negatively and often violently against the love of God in Christ.  Usually that hatred of God and his love seems to come because they simply will not submit their life, their mind, their heart and their soul to Jesus.  They would rather hate and kill the God of love than give up whatever sense of power or control over their life (and possibly others) that they think they have.  Sadly, even the love of God in the perfect and sinless person of Jesus Christ, will not ultimately win over rebellious souls.  As Jesus made clear in John 15:25, unrepentant sinners “hated [Him] without reason.”  Hatred against the God of love is always illogical, unreasonable and insane.  It is always “without reason.” 

 

So Jesus gives us 3 reasons why the world will hate us if we are loving Christ.

1.)     Vs. 19—“If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world…”  Christians will be hated because we don’t “belong to the world” anymore.  When we surrendered our lives to Jesus Christ and were adopted into God’s divine family, we renounced our citizenship to this world’s system, kingdom and way of life.  We chose God over sin, allegiance to Jesus Christ over membership in this world’s way of doing things.  And for that alone, people will be hated.

ILL:  We all know what it is like to feel the pressure of a peer group to engage in actions we know are wrong.  I was raised not to smoke.  My parents weren’t even Christ-followers at the time.  But they still didn’t want their kids smoking.  So when my 6th grade buddies started smoking…and I didn’t… guess what?  The one non-smoker is now the guy being called names or ridiculed or laughed at. 

The only thing that changes as you get older is that the stakes get higher:  instead of smoking it’s now sexual purity, instead of lying to your parents it’s now dishonest business practices where you lie to your clients or your shareholders or the whole country. 

It’s amazing how well-hated you will become when you stop loving the way the world does things and start loving Christ.

2.)    Vs. 18b—“…but I have chosen you out of the world.  That is why the world hates you.”   Here’s the second reason why people will hate you if you are a Christ-follower:  we didn’t just stop following the world’s way of doing life.  We’ve been chosen by God to join His family, His team.  It’s amazing how a change of allegiances can affect your relationship to people. 

ILL:  This is most evident during times of war.  (Maybe that is why the Bible tells us we are “at war” against the world, the flesh and the devil.)  During WWII, there were several million Russians who ended up in German occupied territories in Eastern Europe and western Russia.  Many of them, though native-born Russians, hated what Stalin and communism had done to their country.  Some of them were POWs, starving in Nazi POW camps.  Some had experienced the evils of communism in Russia and, while not wanting Nazi Germany to prevail, longed for the overthrow of the communists in Russia.  As a result, nearly a million native-born Russians volunteered to enlist in the German army during the war.  Many were assigned to fight on the western front against the U.S. and our Allies. Some fought on the eastern front against their own communist Russian army. 

      So you can imagine what happened when they were captured by the Allied forces.  As members of the Axis military, when the German army in which they were serving was defeated, wanted to stay in Western Europe or seek asylum in the U.S. or South American countries.   Why? 

      Well can you guess what Lenin did to them if they were repatriated or extradited back to Communist Russia?  They were either sent to hard labor camps to be worked to death in Siberia or killed on the spot.

APP:  Sometimes we tend to forget that Satan and his world system is at war with God and His kingdom.  So being chosen by God to join his family and become his sons and daughters will automatically make us “enemy combatants” against the forces of evil.  This reality in times of war doesn’t surprise us.  So why should we be so surprised that we are treated as “traitors to this world’s cause” and “enemies” of this world’s system?  We are not merely soldiers of the Heavenly King serving behind enemy lines in the earthly theater of war; we are children…family members…of God’s eternal family.  It must not surprise us that those who hate our Commanding General would hate us, his family, spiritual offspring and soldiers in His army.    

 

So Christ-followers are hated because…

1.)    We don’t belong to this world system any more.

2.)    We do belong to God’s divine family, the arch enemy of the prince of this world, Satan.

Now we come to Jesus’ third reason why the world will hate followers of Jesus:

3.) Vss. 20-21

People will hate Christ-followers because they hate Christ.

Makes sense, doesn’t it?  If you hate Hitler, it makes sense that you would hate his SS elite.  If you hate Stalin, it makes sense that you would hate those who carried out his edicts to murder, starve and torture several million people. 

            But the thing that our brains have a hard time getting a handle on is, why would people hate the followers of someone who never hated anything but evil, never hurt anyone but with truthful words, and never beat, assaulted, struck, wounded, injured or killed anyone, period?  Does not the more noble side of human nature recognize the simple truth that a person like that is truly “good” and any genuine followers of such a person would be good for the whole world?  You would think…but don’t expect it

            Jesus himself said in John 3:19-21, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.”  

            So, to the degree that someone’s deeds and lifestyle is evil, that is the degree to which they will hate the light of Christ, and thus the light of Christ that Christ-followers may reflect.  And since we all are sinners and do evil, we all “hate the light” at some point/points in life. 

            This, of course, does not excuse people who claim to be Christ-followers but who are just plain obnoxious…like the Westborough Baptist nuts that go around picketing military funerals and delighting in telling gays they will burn in hell.   Mahatma Gandhi once observed, “I might be persuaded to become a Christian … if I ever met one.” Gandhi was impressed with Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, and he wanted to see evidence of a Christian living out Jesus’ teachings. But he apparently did not find the lives of Christians he encountered as compelling as the message and life of Christ. 

            That is one of the interesting distinctions I learned about even this past week in India.  Our brothers and sisters there don’t call themselves “Christians” because of the connections that term has to the period of British rule and colonialism in India.  Instead they will say, “I am a Christ-follower.”

 

Well Jesus goes on to tell us that just as people will hate us when we truly mirror Christ, they hated Christ because he truly mirrored the Father.  Vs. 21-25.

 

So what is a Christ-follower to do given this rather sobering assessment of the state of war that exists between God and evil, between Jesus and this world’s evil bent?

Vs. 26-27.

Here Jesus again points to the Holy Spirit whom he talked about back in John 14, actually the first part of this same teaching.  THE answer to hatred this world will have for true Christ-followers is the Holy Spirit.  Just as the presence of Jesus himself protected and guarded His followers while he walked the earth, so the presence of the Holy Spirit sent by Jesus to his followers IS what we will need to face the hostile and hate-filled attacks of God-haters.

 

So just HOW does the Holy Spirit help us to live day by day, behind enemy lines, in a world at war with our King?  According to the last two verses of chapter 15, the Holy Spirit’s first and primary ministry to us is “to testify about [Jesus],” (vs. 26b).

            Our greatest need as Christ-followers is honestly to know about the Christ we are following, isn’t it?  How wonderful, then, that the Third member of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit who has taken up residence in our lives, is all about teaching us about Jesus.  He’s like someone who just can’t stop talking about their favorite sport…or lover…or subject. When our hearts are being drawn to the life and person of Jesus, it’s the Holy Spirit that is drawing us. 

            Which should be a good clue whether or not it is really the Holy Spirit at work in us or anyone. A life filled with the Spirit of God will be someone who is always pointing to, talking about and caught up with Jesus.  Just like Jesus couldn’t stop talking about his Father, so people listening to the Holy Spirit residing in them will be talking about Jesus an awful lot. 

 

            Now look at that phrase “he will testify” in vs. 26 and “you also must testify” in vs. 27.  They are just different forms of the same Greek verb, martureo, which means “to testify” or “to bear witness.”  Sound like an English word you know, right?  Sure…martyr.  How interesting that this simple act of “testifying” or “being a witness of” someone quickly became aligned, at least in the English language, with “suffering death because of one’s witness for Christ.” 

            APP:  I wonder if making that connection in our own minds might not help us with the simple call of Christ upon us to “testify” or tell of Him to those around us?  If we understood that witnessing of Christ was something that might lead to our death for him, then probably talking about Him in far less threatening situations than death might seem like a real relief, a much less demanding experience than we normally view it. 

 

In fact, the very next thing that Jesus says the Holy Spirit does has to do with what the Holy Spirit is doing in the hearts of those we witness to anywhere in the world.  Read 16:5-11.

            It’s a clear, 3-fold work that the Holy Spirit is doing in the world today…and I think He is often doing it through the witness of those He indwells, those he is living in…us…Christ-followers. 

Interestingly, this is the only place in Scripture where the Spirit is said to perform a work in “the world.” The word “convict” (elegcho) comes from the drama of a courtroom trial. It refers to what the prosecuting attorney does when he argues his case. He puts the defendant on the witness stand and begins to pile up the evidence. Fact upon fact, witness upon witness, truth upon truth, slowly, inexorably, irresistibly building his case until finally the enormity of the evidence is so overwhelming that the judge is forced to say to the defendant, “I find you guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.”  I confess. I am guilty.”  [Keith Krell, a sermon found at http://bible.org/seriespage/advantage-plan-john-165-15.]

            The first thing the Holy Spirit will convict people about is this:  “When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin…because they do not believe in me.”  Notice this is not about “sins.”  It’s about “sin”…and a particular one at that:  the sin of not believing in Christ.  The worst sin in the world is not murder…or adultery…or homosexuality…or theft…or slander…or a million other things. All those are pardonable and forgivable.  But there is one sin that cannot be pardoned or forgiven or placed under the blood of Christ.  It is a rejection of the only Sacrifice that can save anyone—Jesus Christ himself.  The focus here is, again, upon Jesus.  It’s not about how bad some feels as a sinner or how dirty they feel.  It’s about recognizing that rejection of Jesus Christ IS rejection of God himself.  And if people do not want God, they will not want Jesus.  It is nonsense to say, “I like Jesus but I won’t bow to God.” 

            The second thing the Holy Spirit convicts the world of is in vs. 10—righteousness…because I am going to the father, where you can see me no longer….”  The Holy Spirit convicts the world of its lack of righteousness by speaking through the righteous lives of Christ-followers.  When Jesus walked the earth, His life convicted even upright religious people of the emptiness of their “righteousness” before God.  Now, in His absence, the Holy Spirit will do that convicting work through Christ-followers whose lives are ever more conformed to Christ himself. 

            Now are you starting to see why the world’s hatred of Christ-followers is so inexorably linked with their hatred of Jesus himself?  The genuinely self-sacrificing and Christ-glorifying lives of genuinely Spirit-directed believers will show even the most religious of people, regardless of the religion, that their righteousness is “as filthy rags” (or “menstruation cloths” of Is. 64:5). 

            APP: ever been chided for being a “goody-two-shoes,” or “so ethical you are impractical”??? Ever been scorned because your business ethics were too high…or your personal standards “too conservative,” “too prudish,” “too unrealistic” for someone?  That’s the convicting work of the Holy Spirit through the righteous living of Christ-followers.  Our lives are to bring the same sense of conviction Christ’s presence brought when he walked the earth…because they are to mirror Him. 

 

The 3rd thing the Holy Spirit convicts the world of is its false judgment of Christ and His followers.  The world’s leader, Satan, already “stands condemned” by the very God his followers seek to judge.  While people still serving their own sinfulness and the world’s way of thinking may believe their judgments over the followers of Christ are justified and right, it is the Holy Spirit who will convict them of the emptiness of those judgments which serve the defeated foe, Satan.  They may convince themselves that they sit in the places of temporal power handing down judgments on righteous people.  But they know in their hearts by the convicting work and testimony of the Holy Spirit speaking through Christ-followers that their doom is as sure and certain as that of Satan who even now stands condemned by the cross. 

 

Remember Jesus’ words in 16:1?  “All this I have told you so that you will not go astray.  They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God.  They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me,” said Jesus. 

Do we see what is at stake with being God’s witnesses?

Do we grasp why the enemy of our souls and every human being wants to silence our witness, wants to neuter our zeal for Christ?

Do we believe Jesus’ words in 15:27 when He said to his disciples, “And you also must testify….”?

            One of the things I was confronted with in my own life and the life of the American church through what I observed in India was how bold, passionate and forthright Christ-followers are in a places of great hostility in the world…and how quiet, timid and silent I (and probably many of us Christ-followers in the Western church) have become.  Perhaps the sooner we come to believe what Jesus said about how the world treated Him and how the world will treat us if we are truly Christ-followers, perhaps the better it will be for both us and a lost world. 

            We have much to learn from the world-wide church that both expects and receives this world’s hatred of God.  And I sense that God is asking us, the non-persecuted segment of Christ-followers in this world, to step up our witness, our testifying about the person of Jesus Christ.  His Spirit is always speaking to us about Him.  Certainly we should be passing that truth, that preoccupation and that speech about Christ on to a perishing world. 

 

So where do we start…and where do we go with this call of God on us to “testify”? 

How about we ask God what he might want us to change about the opportunities He has given us already, right here, in Spokane?

  • Each of us lives in a neighborhood, whether an apartment building or a neighborhood block.  What is Christ’s heart for our neighbors?  What can we do to clearly bring the gospel to them?  What if every one of us turned our house or apartment into a mission point that God could use to bring the life and message of Jesus to that arena of our lives?  What do YOU need to do that?  What can Mosaic do to help you do that? 
    • Alpha?
    • Host a Bible study in your home?
    • Start a weekly or monthly “Family Night” where neighbors are invited to just share a meal?
  • The downtown core:  God has led us here.  There are blocks and blocks of residential unites where there is not a single Bible study or home group functioning where curious and non-Christian residents can meet genuine Christ-followers and Jesus Christ himself through them.  How many of us could find one evening a week in our schedule to offer to be a part of a team that would go into the Collins…or the Wall Street apartments…or the Pioneer Pathways Apartments and bring the fragrance of Christ to some pretty dark and lonely places? 

Maybe your forte isn’t teaching.  Maybe it’s cooking…or listening to people…or praying for those with needs.  To be all that Christ is to people, we need the diversity of people and gifts in the body of Christ present in this world called “the church.”  Maybe you need to take the next step into this community by just volunteering at Cup or City Gate or Shalom or First Covenant.

Whatever it is, I’m sure it will require change.  For the church to coast along like it is now in America will take nothing.  We’re already doing that.  But to see a new fervency of Spirit, a new wave of spiritual awakening, will mean we, the church, must change what we are doing or not doing.

            Something is stirring in downtown.  Before I left I told you that I sensed God telling us to just wait on Him for the next move.  This week I’ve received news of two new possibilities not more than 2 blocks from here…and we have a meeting scheduled with the owners of The Globe scheduled for this week. 

But we must be faithful with the “little” God has already entrusted to us before He will ask us to be faithful with anything more.  God isn’t interested in just making us more comfortable.  But he is sold out to making us more confident and more bold about speaking and living the life of Jesus Christ in this place.

 

In 18th century Romania, King Constantin Brancoveanu and his entire household were arrested by the Turkish sultan’s men.  After being taken to Constantinople and thrown into a prison, the king and his four sons were sentenced to death.

“I will pardon you, if you tell me where the wealth of your country is and if you will deny the Christian faith and convert to Islam,” the sultan promised the king.  But the king stood   firm…  “””I will never abandon the Christian faith,” King Constantin replied.  “I was born in it, have lived in it and will die in it.  I have filled my country with churches, monasteries and hospitals.  I will not worship in your mosques, neither I nor my children.”  He then turned to his sons and said, “My beloved, be strong in faith.  We have lost all things.  Let us not lose our souls as well.” 

The sultan ordered the sons to be killed first.  After the first three were beheaded, the king’s fourth son, 16-year-old Matthew, wavered at the sight of the blood and hid near his mother. 

Seeing his fear, the king told him, “Follow your brothers.  Do not deny Christ.”  Gaining strength from his father’s words, Matthew put his head on the block and said, “Strike.” 

That story of King Constantin became a popular Romanian folk ballad, and more than 200 years later, Christians like Voice of the Martyr founder Richard Wurmbrand took courage from their former king’s faithfulness when Romania was invaded by the communists and pastors, priests and other Christ-followers were imprisoned when they refused to swear loyalty to the communist government. 

 

Imran Ghafur, who lived in a working-class neighborhood of Faisalabad, Pakistan, was just 24 years old when he was sentenced to life in prison for blasphemy.  On July 1, 2009, Imran swept out his shop as usual, gathered some papers lying on the floor and burned them with the rest of the trash.  Later, Imran’s brother heard a neighbor yelling, “Look at this paper!  Imran has burned the Quran!”

Within minutes, a crowd of Muslims had assembled to protest the “blasphemy.”  The mob burned tires and carried signs saying, “Give a death sentence to him who burned a Quran and disgraced it.”  They also hanged and burned an effigy of Imran made out of stuffed clothing.

After arresting Imran, police lashed him 40 times with a leather strap, leaving his back badly cut and bleeding.  He remained in jail six months before being sentenced to life in prison and fined 100,000 rupees (more than $1,000).

“The jail is an institution for me like Bible college, praise God,” Imran said.  He spends his time reading the Bible and other Chrsitian books as well as singing and sharing with other prisoners.

ADDRESS:  Imran Ghafur, Central Jail of Faisalabad, Faisalbad, Pakistan.

 

Alimujiang Yimiti is an ethnic Uyghur who converted from Islam to Christianity in Xinjiang province.  Alim and his wife Gulinuir let a house church in the predominantly Uyghur-Muslim area of Kashgar.  In September 2007, the Bureau for Ethnic and Religious Affairs accused Alim of using his business to preach Christianity to the Uyghur ethnic minority.  He was arrested on Jan., 12, 2008 for “revealing state secrets or intelligence to overseas organizations.”  He was held for more than a year before being secretly sentenced in Aug. 2009 to 15 years in prison.  All of his appeals were denied.

On Jan. 18, 2010, Gulinuer wrote, “Many times during that period I felt helpless, weak to the point  of not being able to lift myself off the floor.  I believe it is all through the Lord hearing the prayers of each brother and sister that He has given me a new strength and faith allowing me to continue to lean on Him and be made even more resolute and courageous. 

Alim’s faith also remains strong.  When his wife and 2 sons visit him once a month for about 15 minutes, he tells them they are all honored to have been chosen by the Lord to suffer among the millions of Uyghur people. ADDRESS:  Alimujiang Yimiti, Section 11, The Xinjiang No. 3 Prison, No. 1339 Dongzhan Rd., Urumqi City, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, 830013, People’s Republic of China.

[Reminds me of an Indian brother I was told about last week who, having been beaten for Christ in India said with as smile, “Now I’ve experienced something with Christ that not even Billy Graham has!”  J

Friends, the day IS coming in America when, because the world has treated Christ with rejection, they will treat us the same.  Let us be about our Lord’s business of proclaiming Him as King of kings and Lord of lords.  We have no idea for whom we are setting the standard for years to come.