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#10 -- Opposition Series
Contributed by Derek Melanson on Nov 28, 2017 (message contributor)
Summary: As followers of Jesus, we should expect to face opposition, but we can trust that God has "cut the cords of the wicked."
Introduction
Pastor Eugene Peterson tells a story from his childhoodâa story about having to deal with enemies. For him it came in the form a school bully who beat him up every day after school. It seemed no matter how young Eugene tried to avoid himâin the forms of alternate routes and detoursâthis bully always stalked him and found him. When he found out Eugene was a Christian, he starting calling Eugene a âJesus-sissy,â and poor Eugene kept trying to remember Jesusâ words, âBless those who persecute youâ and âturn the other cheek.â Then one day when this bully came at him, Eugene snapped. He grabbed this bully, threw him to the ground and began hitting him. And rather than telling this bully to say, âUncle,â Eugene forced this defeated bully to say, âI believe in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior.â And he did. He said it. As Peterson says of the bully, âGarrison Johns was my first Christian convert.â
Even very young Christians can have enemies. Now, I donât know that any Christian, young or not, should handle enemies this way. And I donât think Peterson would either. Jesus does tell us to love our enemies. But this story reminds us that we do have enemiesâwe as Christians are not without adversaries who will do their best to make our following Jesus as difficult and miserable as possible.
But thereâs more than one kind of enemy. The passage that was read from Ephesians warns against the âwiles of the devil.â It spoke of how âour struggle is not against flesh and blood.â An enemy of the Christian is any thing that makes them want to stop walking in the way of Jesus, anything that persecutes them for walking in this way and tries to tempt us away from our first and greatest Love: the Lord God Himself.
We should expect opposition
The first point we can get from Psalm 129 is that we should expect opposition because of our relationship with God. Peterson came to expect that bully to be just around the corner. There are always going to be those who do attack, abuse, insult, and otherwise persecute those who are followers of God. We shouldnât be surprised when it happens.
There are other psalms testify to the perennial threat of enemies. Psalm 3 says âO Lord, how many are my foes! Many are rising against me. Many are saying to me, âThere is no help for you in God.ââ Psalm 7 says âO Lord, in you I take refuge; save me from all my pursuers, and deliver me.â There are others, including the Psalm 56, which we heard today in our call to worship: âBe gracious to me, O God, for people trample on me; all day long foes oppress me; my enemies trample on me all day long, for many fight against me . . . All day long they seek to injure my cause.â Our Psalm says in verses 1, 2: âOften they have attacked me from my youth.â
In this psalm the opposition is directed at God through people of Israelââopposition to Godâs people was also opposition to God.â Zion, or Israel, is Godâs place, Godâs city. How often do Christians and the church come under fire by people who are angry with God? How often are Christians treated in the basis of what someone thinks about God? We become the lightning rod for the worldâs opposition to Godâs ways. The church is Zion insofar as it is also now the target. While opposition is not something we tend to experience much in our part of the world, overseas and in other countries persecution of Christians is almost commonplace.
Itâs interesting to think about how we often thank God for the freedom we have in our land to attend church, to read our Bibles, to come to youth group and Bible studies. When you look around the world, there are plenty of places around the world where Christians do not have this freedom. And in many of these places the church is growing. China is a great example of this. In places where there is no freedomâwhere opposition has actually made being a Christian a punishable offenceâthe church often grows and thrives. Beginning next week weâll be talking about the persecuted church around the world in preparation for IDOP, but let me just say now that sometimes I wonder if the church in North America might not benefit from more open opposition.
You might say, though I donât have any statistics to back me up, that Godâs people are opposed and attacked in proportion to their faithfulness. Godâs people will experience opposition in direct proportion to its faithfulness to Godâs purposes. And the opposition is specific: it is directed at God through His people.