We're going to continue with our series, Identity Check. We're in part 11. We have another message or two and we'll be done with that series. This morning, if you have your Bible, I would like for you to turn to the book of 2 Timothy. I want you to go to chapter 3 of 2 Timothy, and I want you to go down to verse 12 to begin with. It reads, "Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted…"
In other words, anyone who sits here today, if you are a Christ follower and you desire to live for God, you desire to live for Christ, you will be persecuted if you're living for him in a world that still does not love him. It wants to reject him. I want to stand this morning and make us aware… I believe with all of my heart that in Western Christianity, for the most part, we avoid the subject of suffering like it's the plague a lot of times. The reason why is…let's face it…we like comfort. We like things to be kind of even keel.
But there's a problem. When I look back into the Old Testament, when I look back especially into the New Testament to the first-century saints, what I see is a church that is persecuted, a church that is full of suffering, but I also see a church that's full of power. I see a church that has power because suffering doesn't make them afraid. Suffering doesn't make them ashamed. In other words, they rejoice over the fact that they are counted worthy to suffer for the name of Christ.
When we look around the world, we see a lot of suffering, especially in the third world. If you travel and you're in world missions, you're going to find out very quickly that everywhere you go around the world Christians and Christ followers abroad pay a higher price for Christianity than we do. I believe with all of my heart there will come a day… It's already coming. We may not see it in our generation, it may be the next generation, but we're going to see more and more persecution and more and more suffering toward those who name the name of Christ.
If you remember last week I gave you a phrase. It went something like this: Suffering becomes beautiful when you look up, you look around, you look down, and you realize you are following Christ. That's how you deal with suffering. That's what we talked about last week.
What I want to talk about this morning, what I want to put deep in your heart this morning, is suffering for Christ is most beautiful when it leads to serving others. Do you hear me? I want to say it again. I want to slow down in this message this morning, because I really want you to get this. Suffering for Christ becomes most beautiful when it leads to serving others.
The founder of the Voice of the Martyrs had a video. He's dead and gone now. He was an incredible man of God. If you ever want to read about the Voice of the Martyrs you can look it up. He's Pastor Richard Wurmbrand. Look that up and read about his life. You can go online and find all kinds of videos about his life.
I remember a long time ago I came across a video. He was talking about a lady by the name of Anne Marie. It fascinated me, and I watched it several times, I remember. On about the third time watching it I began to weep, because I was under such heavy conviction about my life and just how easy I think we have it in Western Christianity sometimes. On one level I'm thanking God I don't have to go there, but on the other level I'm going, "But man, oh man. What a testimony of God."
He tells this story about Anne Marie. Anne Marie was this lady who, under the Communist reign, was responsible for one of the underground churches. She actually had a testimony about her life that went like this. She said, "I rejoice when I find myself at the hand of the abusers and the persecutors because it is the only time they get to hear the gospel." Whoa. Pastor Richard goes on to tell her story.
It said she was being beaten at the hand of a soldier who had caught her because of the underground church she was helping to run. He comes in and begins to beat her and slap her. He begins to abuse her. He's hitting her on the head. He's hitting her in the mouth. She falls to the floor. Blood is coming out of her nose. Blood is coming out of her mouth. She just keeps taking it, and she keeps looking at him and asking him…
She knows he can only beat her for so long, because he gets tired. Then he has to rest. When he rests, she just kind of eases in a little bit of the gospel. I don't know about you, but we get upset when people start talking about "The color of the carpet in church ought to be this" and "I think it ought be that." We actually divide sometimes over the color of the carpet, do we not? We really do.
Here's the thing. I think only in Western Christianity do we over-emphasize what happens inside the four walls of the church when really, globally, the church is outside the four walls, and it is really doing a good job. They feel strength and power, and people flock to it. It's kind of crazy, because the more persecution that takes place, the more they flock to it. The same thing happened in the first century with the new church.
In between the beatings he would get tired and she would fall down. Finally, he starts hitting her again. He beats her again. He finally stops because he's tired. Finally, when he stops the second time, she says to him, "You have beautiful hands." He looks at her, and he's like, "What are you talking about?"
"You have beautiful hands. I imagine your wife must really enjoy when you take your beautiful hands and caress her hair and squeeze her shoulder with love. It amazes me that such beautiful hands would do something so cruel as you're doing now. I bet she enjoys when you kiss her with your lips, because they're lips of love, but what I'm experiencing are lips of cursing. They weren't designed for that."
It makes him angry. He beats her harder. He keeps hitting her. She falls to the floor. Finally he beats her and she almost collapses again. He gets tired. He stops for a moment. She finally comes to herself again, and she looks up at him and says, "Would you mind me allowing you the pleasure of hearing about my boyfriend?"
She goes, "My boyfriend is beauty. He's beauty himself. He is love embodied. I'm sorry; when you beat me, the only thing I know is to respond with love. The only thing I know is to respond with kindness, because my boyfriend has taught me nothing but pure, unconditional love, that love is the response to everything that happens in life. That's what my boyfriend does."
He gets out of the chair he's sitting in and beats her again until she's unconscious. Finally she comes to. He's sitting in a chair, and when she comes to and looks at him he says, "Who's this boyfriend of yours who says cruel hands are not the right thing but soft hands are? Who is this boyfriend of yours who said kisses are better than cuss words? Who is this who says love is better than hate?" She's able to tell him about her Jesus. She's able to share her Jesus with him.
That's why I say to you this morning… I want you to get it into your heart. If you miss everything I say today, I want you to catch this phrase, and I want you to go out and experience it in your heart. You and I may not suffer to the level that third-world countries do, but I'm telling you there will come a day… I hope it doesn't happen, but there will come a day when we too could experience that kind of suffering, and what are we going to do?
Here's the thing. Suffering for Christ becomes most beautiful when it leads to serving others. She served him. Let's take a New Testament reference. Let's take the first-century church for just a moment. Around Acts, chapter 7, there's a guy by the name of Stephen. Anybody remember him? Stephen comes on the scene, and the Bible says he is a man who is full of the Holy Spirit.
Being full of the Holy Spirit, he is led to the leaders of that day who stand in opposition to this gospel, this new Christianity, this new work that is going forward, and he begins to preach. When he begins to preach, he begins to name the name of Jesus. Do you know what it does? It makes them mad. It cuts them the wrong way. It does something to their spirits. When we live for God, when we truly witness for God with our lives, our mouths, our spirits, our very souls, most of the time the first thing it will draw is opposition. It will draw violence. It will draw hatred.
Here's the thing. If we do not respond in kind with hatred and violence but we respond in love, we have now responded with the only weapon that cannot be destroyed, and that is the weapon and the power of God's love. Stephen preaches, and the Bible says very plainly they began to get so angry. Saul (who later became Paul, who wrote 13 books of this New Testament) gives consent to them. "Go ahead and stone him. Go ahead and kill him."
The Bible says they laid their coats at his feet, and they stoned Stephen. We all know the story. I think it's a beautiful story, because here's the thing. It says as he's being stoned he says something like, "Behold, I see heaven opened, and I see Jesus standing at the right hand of the Father." You've heard me preach this before, and I believe it's true.
With every rock that was hitting his body, every stone that was bringing bruises and blood to the top, every stone that hit him in the head, his spirit was not crying out hate for hate; it was crying out love for hate. It was crying out, "I am not for sale because I've already been bought and I am owned by another." That's what it was doing. Jesus, giving him a standing ovation. Don't you want to live that kind of life? That amazes me. It convicts me. It guilts me, because I'm like, "Have I ever done anything to make Jesus stand up off the throne and go, 'Well done'?"
I hold grudges way too long. You don't, though, do you? I kind of want to make people pay for what they've done to me, right, wrong, or indifferent. I've learned how to say with my mouth all of the right things. "Oh, I forgive them. I love them, man. I don't wish any harm," when deep down I'm going, "If a rock kind of hit them on the head I'd be all right with that." Right? It's because that's in us.
But there is another One in us who goes, "But what did I do for you? I stretched out my hands for you. I took punishment for you." He took punishment for me, and his last words were, "It is finished." Then he came out of a grave for our victory. That's what Stephen was dying for. He knew he was dying for a resurrected Lord. He knew suffering was only temporary, that the kingdom advances through the power of suffering. That's what he was doing.
Do you know the beauty of the moment…? You know, I've been around a lot of deathbeds. As a pastor, I've sat at the edge of beds when people were drawing their last breath. I could share so many stories over 20-odd years or so of pastoring. It's kind of wild, because you sit there, and when somebody begins to die, all of the memories in their spirit and their mind… Their eyes begin to dart. It's weird. You look at them, and their eyes begin to move. They're seeing things and reaching for stuff and smiling.
You and I as believers know God is showing them something. He's revealing to them something. Here's the beauty. We sometimes think in our minds heaven is somewhere way out there behind Saturn, kind of tucked away, but I believe heaven and earth interlock. I believe there's a thin, thin little curtain God begins to draw back. That's where Stephen was. At the point of his greatest suffering was the point he was closest to heaven. Do you hear me? It was at that moment in the greatest suffering of his life, dying, God shows him what it's really all about.
That's why there's the beauty of the second coming of Christ. That's why the Bible says one day heaven and earth will come together. Those two spheres that are one, barely separated, will converge upon one another, and God will remake it into what it's supposed to be. He will set all things right, and your body and my body will be resurrected, and we'll be made like unto him. Now that's powerful.
The moment of greatest suffering is the closest you'll ever be to heaven, because suffering for Christ becomes most beautiful when it leads to serving others. See, we know that. We know that instinctively. This next verse I want you to look at, Romans, chapter 12, verse 21, reads like this: "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." Don't be overcome with evil. That's a command. Don't let evil overcome you; overcome evil by doing good.
I think it was Martin Luther King Jr. who once said something like, "Hate can't drive out hate; only love can do that. Darkness can't drive out darkness; only light can do that." We know that. That's the response. But from the time we are little bitty babies we are conditioned to grab the toy and say, "Mine!" Aren't we? So there's this unlearning. I believe only the power of God can help us to unlearn this hook of the now, the hook of the flesh, that says, "You deserve things."
First of all, we don't deserve anything. Christ is all in all. Here's the thing. I think we're ashamed of suffering. We don't want to suffer. We want to avoid it, when in fact, suffering sometimes, like I've already said, is the closest you'll ever come to Christ, because it's what we are called to do. It's where we are called to.
I'll get to it in a little bit again. I'll probably repeat myself, but I think it's over in the book of Acts around chapter 14. It says we enter into the kingdom through much tribulation. That's what the apostles told the church. They say, "We enter into the kingdom of God through much tribulation." What is the kingdom of God? The kingdom of God is God's rule and reign in the now.
God is already reigning in the now. He already has enough love to give the most violent hatred. He has enough, but you don't. If in your own power you try to give love to hatred, it'll eventually break down, because your own selfishness and hatred will eventually feed it. Oh, listen to me, saints. When you know God lives on the inside of you… Has anybody ever just thought about that, that the God of the universe who created everything lives inside of you and me?
That's kind of messed up, isn't it? I mean, seriously. If you were God, would you pick you to live in? I wouldn't me, right? But God loves us and pursues us. God always wants to love through us. We're the ones who don't want to love others. Do you know why? Because to love others means you have to suffer, because you have to give up your rights. You know what? You just might be right, but being right doesn't give you the right not to give up your rights.
I'm going to walk you through these Scriptures real quickly today. Go to 1 Peter, chapter 4, and go down to verse 12. I'm just going to read them and make a few comments. I want God to speak to you this morning. Look at verse 12: "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you." The first thing he says to us is, "Don't think it strange when this trial, this suffering, this persecution, comes upon you."
In other words, the opposite of that is it should be common. If suffering is not common and the Word of God says it should be common, that means we have to examine our lives. Are we really witnessing for him to the level we need to be witnessing for him? Are we really living to the level we need to be living? Because when we do, we will draw upon us something that is not strange but common, and what is common is suffering. In fact, the suffering is a test.
Does anybody in here like taking tests? We didn't like it in high school. We don't like it in the gospel. Western Christianity, for the most part, preaches… I'm not saying it's wrong preaching, but, by far, we are heavier in, "Here's what you do to have a successful life. Here's what you do to have a successful family." The Bible has answers for a lot of that. I'm not negating that, okay?
What I'm saying is maybe, just maybe, we don't preach on suffering enough. When I look through the Bible, there seems to be a lot more suffering popping up than, "This is how you have a perfect life in Christ." I tell you, man. I don't know that we can have a perfect life this side of glory, but we have One who is perfect living inside of us.
Do you know what suffering really does for you and me? It is a good indicator that we are on the right road. If there's not any suffering in there, if that's not going on, then maybe, just maybe, we're not on the perfect road of Christ, because he suffered. He was a man of suffering. Then when we go down to the next verse, verse 13… "But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed."
What are we supposed to do when suffering comes? Rejoice? Does that sound strange to anybody besides me? I mean, think about it. If you were writing an epistle, would you write about suffering in the context of, "When this happens, rejoice"? Do you see how upside down the kingdom is? Here's the thing. The kingdom isn't really upside down; it's the world that is upside down.
It was the men of God in Acts when they were under the anointing of God, helping God set all things right again… They finally come into one city, and you know what the elite cried out? "Those who have turned the world upside down have come to our town also." They didn't turn anything upside down; they were just setting things back the way God had originally intended.
It was the Enemy in the garden who took Adam and Eve and took the fruit, so to speak, and turned it upside down. "Didn't God say this? Did he not say that?" He appealed to the very low nature. Do you ever wonder where evil came from? God called everything good in the garden, didn't he? Where did evil come from? Have you ever thought about that? Did God create evil? Well, no. He couldn't have done that. Yet he's sovereign, so did he…? You have all of these theological questions. Maybe I'm the only one because I just think this all the time as a pastor.
In the writings of one theologian I like (not N.T. Wright but another Wright, Christopher Wright) he says things like, "God didn't want us to understand evil, because we're not supposed to understand evil. We're not supposed to figure it out. There is a pure evil, but God is purely sovereign and purely good, and in the end he's going to work it all out." That's why evil doesn't make sense to us. That's why suffering doesn't make sense.
It's through suffering, not violence, that we take anything back. Violence always begets violence. Jesus was different in that. He talks about that. He goes, "But rejoice so that you share in the sufferings of Christ. Rejoice because you're sharing in his suffering." Then the Scripture right there kind of references when he comes; in other words, the second coming. "You are suffering now because you will experience great joy then."
Do you ever wonder when Jesus says things in the Bible, when we read things like, "The last shall be first and the first shall be last"… It's going to be amazing to watch the rewards given out in the kingdom of God when it comes. I'm going to tell you it's probably going to take a long, long time before they get to you and me.
They're going to start with some village somewhere we didn't know anything about who had fingers cut off every time they named the name of Jesus, and they kept cutting them off until there were no more fingers. Then they kept cutting their toes off, and then cut limb by limb, and finally cut their tongue out, and with their eyes they would praise the Lord by darting them back, and they counted themselves worthy to suffer.
Yet in America we still are in the phase of what? "Preach to me something that makes me feel good, and if it doesn't make me feel good, I'll eventually find a place that does make me feel good. And sometimes I don't even feel like coming to church because it's just too high of a cost." I'm not going to bring it, because it gets them mad. Do you know why I preach this? When I preach like that and I say those things, I want you to understand something. (This is not in the message. So we'll pause, and let me just say this. This is educational.)
The moment I start looking at a congregation going, "Faithfulness to attend. Be in here as much as you can, unless you're out on vacation or something. Be here, and be involved," and all of those things… The reason I say that is because I'm with you. It's easy for me, because I'm always here. Do you know why? Because I have to be. But do you not know there are days I stand and I'm really not here? I'm just as guilty as maybe you laying out when you really know you shouldn't have laid out.
I heard a pastor friend of mine, Loran Livingston… I listened to Loran's message a week or so ago. He was talking about service. He says basically everybody who comes to church should come to serve. You should come to give to God because he has given so much to you. That was the thrust of his message.
When I was listening to it, I was kind of like your typical preacher. I was like, "Yeah! Give it to them!" Then I was like, "I kind of do that. Man." It's a heart issue, guys. It's not a number issue. We're together, and we have to have each other. That's part of the suffering, and that's what he's talking about.
Look at verse 14: "If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you." If you're insulted for his name you are blessed because the Spirit of God rests upon you. Have you ever thought about that? Suffering brings the rest of God upon you. Then look at what it says next in verse 15: "But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler."
Do you know what he's talking about right there? There are some people who suffer for the name of Jesus because they're doing the right thing, and then there are some people who are just jerks, and they suffer because they're a jerk. "I'm suffering for Jesus," and you just want to go, "You're suffering because you're a jerk." You know it's true. I'm right there with you, man. Preachers can be the biggest jerks. Amen? You'd better amen me right there. "Right, Preacher, you jerk."
One of my elders, Walt… Ask him. I can be a jerk. I can get mad at him sometimes, and he'll go, "You had a bad day, didn't you, Pastor." What I love about him and my other elders is they leave room for my "jerkness." They suffer through it for Jesus. They do. I love those guys. That's why I'm saying we learn to love one another in the context of this kind of suffering too. The thing is we are learning habits of the future. That's why church is so important, because we are learning the habits and virtues of a future kingdom right now in the now.
When there is perfect love, perfect peace, perfect justice, part of that is leaking in because of the resurrection of Jesus. It's leaking in upon us, and if we can't practice it with one another here, we can never export it out there. Right? If we're not learning it here, you'll be very quick to go out and go… You'll pray these kinds of prayers: "Pastor, pray that I get out of this workplace, because they cuss like crazy. They're a bunch of heathens, a bunch of vile people. I want to work with a bunch of Christians."
You want to take your seat out of the field? Sure, I'll pray that. "Lord, put this person out of the harvest field back into the people who already know God so they can hang out and feel good." Have you ever thought about that? We pray a lot of times to get out of hard situations we think are really tough, when somebody at the exact moment is having their arm broken or being beaten, and they get up and rejoice. Have you ever thought about that? Let's move on.
"Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And 'If the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?'"
This whole context here talks about that judgment begins right here. The ultimate wrath and judgment of God has been poured out on Christ, but the judgment about us is a judgment of conviction. Are you following this Jesus you claim to follow? If you do, suffering is part of the price. It will come.
Now granted, in an American, Western Christianity concept, we have yet to arrive at the place the third world lives most of the time. I pray we remain a blessed nation and most of the suffering we go through is just kind of arguing over taking the Ten Commandments out of school and things like that. I would hate for the day to come when we can't even name the name of Jesus and we have to go underground, and if we do they might come kill us.
I have to tell you. Sometimes I preach it, and I can preach it good, and I can extract it out of this Word, but I just wonder, "Could I do it?" I want to say, "Yeah." I look at you and go, "Yeah, I could." I don't know. The testing will come one day and we'll find out. So let's prepare our hearts and minds for it now, if that ever happens. That's kind of what it's saying.
Then look at this last verse right here: "Therefore let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good." Do you see that last phrase? Trust your soul to God while doing good. Trust your soul to God in the context of suffering while doing good. Why?
If you'll flip over to 1 Peter 2:15, it reads like this: "For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people." First Peter has already told us that, right? By doing good you put to silence those enemies who come against you. So then what would be the opposite? If you do bad to them and give bad back it doesn't put them to silence; it just simply throws more gas on the fire.
I heard somebody say one time (I wish I could remember who said it. I think it was John Maxwell or somebody. It was a pretty cool illustration)… He said when you're mad at somebody always act like you have two cups in your hand. He said when they're mad at you and you're mad at them and there's a fire burning, you're carrying a cup of gas and you're carrying some water. You decide which one.
I mean, none of us would run into this building if it was on fire and start spewing gas on it, would we? No. We'd come in, "Where's the water? Where's the water? Call the fire department!" If the fire department showed up to the fire and the truck was loaded down with gasoline, what would we think? "You're psycho." But don't we do that?
I want to share one last Scripture. It's a little lengthy. I'm going to step out of the way a minute and read it, and then I'll make a few comments on it, and then we'll close with some final thoughts. The reason I put this up there is this context of doing good. Now watch this Scripture. "For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp." Do you see that? These sacrifices of the old that kept coming over and over and over again…
Many of them, after it was said and done, had to go outside the camp, outside the church, and be burned. There's a sacrifice. Outside the church is the sacrifice. Are you picking it up? Remember Jesus, when we preached on Palm Sunday and we preached the Easter message? He goes to the temple, turns the tables over, and stops the sacrifice for 30 minutes to an hour, sending a message to the temple, "This is now irrelevant. It no longer exists. I am the temple. I will be destroyed, and in three days I'm going to rise up again."
So Jesus also suffered…where? Where did Jesus suffer? Outside the gate, in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Sanctify means to set apart. Jesus said, "I went outside the gate with my own blood, my sacrifice, my life" (That's what it is.) "to set people apart for the kingdom to come." That's what we should be doing.
Look at verse 13: "Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured." Do you see that? "For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come." Why? This city is vanishing, but the city to come is eternal. "Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God."
