When you sense difficulties how do you react?
When you sense problems what is your response?
Maybe you are like this bloke
Jeff was happily carrying a box of photocopier paper through the office,
when out of no where jumped his friend Fred
scaring him
Instantly Jeff jumped
The box of paper went flying
And Jeff runs away with his hands in the air, surrendering..
He just gives up…
Or perhaps you are like Jenny
Jenny is at a party carrying a glass of champagne
Someone throws a real looking toy spider in the air and it lands right on her glass
She automatically panics
Throws the glass in the area
Then standing in the boxing position she looks to take on the evil person who has just scared her witless.
So when trouble happens how do you respond to trouble?
Are you a person who surrenders?
or are you a person who fights?
These are the two most common responses to trouble for many people
They are also common responses for Christians who experience trouble
They either give up
Or they become very attacking.
Yet when we open the scriptures we see Jesus encourages to have a better, more healthier response to trouble.
Now before we go into this healthy response to trouble, we need to address something that some Christians
even some of us, don’t always recognise.
In today’s reading from Luke
Jesus highlights that as Christians it is guaranteed that we will face troubles.
That is right, if you are a Christian you will encounter trouble, because of your faith.
It is important to recognise this.
It is important to tell people exploring the faith, preparing for baptism and even those being renewed in the faith to know this important fact.
That if you are a follower of Jesus, you will encounter trouble because of your faith.
Some years ago, I was preparing an adult for baptism
Everything was going well
They were enjoying discovering more about Jesus
The more they discovered, their relationships with their children and husband was improving,
But in the week leading up to the baptism
they came under severe attack
a good friend started saying they were nuts and started attacking Christianity
their mother said she was not coming to any church to see her daughter be baptised
her husband felt threatened that he would have to give up his Sunday mornings and became quite grumpy with her
then little thing went wrong,
she injured her ankle.
Two days before the baptism she rang me.
I could sense that almost immediately she wasn’t her happy bubbly self.
She wasn’t completely down, just frustrated.
And she pastor you know when you told me to expect attacks leading up to my baptism, I thought ahh sure, you are a little weird..
Well they’ve happened!
But I am so thankful that you explained that being a Christian does not mean your life is going to comfortable and peaceful all the time
And that you will encounter difficulties because of your faith.
But even more importantly I am thankful that you have encouraged me to trust Jesus during this time, because as Psalm 23 reminds us he walks with us even through our most difficult times.
The reality is fellow disciples of Jesus
Jesus is very upfront with us.
He stresses on a number of occasions that the Christian life is not an easy life.
We therefore should expect difficulties.
We therefore should expect troubles.
We should even expect persecution because of our faith.
Now imagine that as a slogan,
come join our church, be baptised
and you will be opposed, persecuted, betrayed and experience trouble.
The book, The heavenly man, is the story of Brother Yun
An active Christian who lives in China
For much of his life he has been tortured and imprisoned for sharing the Christian faith.
But these attacks have not deterred him.
In fact he saw the imprisonment as an opportunity to help both prisoners and prison officers get to know Jesus.
As a result Brother Yun is one of the leaders of a Christian house movement, which is a rapidly growing movement, seeing thousands of Chinese people being prepared to follow Jesus, even though they risk losing their incomes, families and freedom.
But not only this Brother Yun is the leader of an organisation called back to Jerusalem, who gets involved in dangerous evangelistic projects, including putting Christian bibles into the hands of members of ISIS and developing disciples in the strict country of North Korea.
For Brother Yun and many like him, trouble is not a sign that they are doing the wrong thing, but they expect trouble to arise when they are doing God’s work.
What about you?
Does trouble stop you in publicly being a Christian?
Do you worry what might happen if you share your faith with others?
Or are you encouraged, that if trouble happens because you are sharing your faith, that you are actually doing what God asks?
Probably the most challenging thing for us and many Christians is that whilst we expect trouble to come from those some distance from us.
We expect trouble for Christians to come from ISIS
We expect trouble and attacks from aggressive atheists
But the truth is some of our troubles for being a Christian, actually come from people who are close to us.
Listen again to what Jesus says in Luke 21:16 and 17
You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. Everyone will hate you because of me.
You will be betrayed by parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends.
You can’t get much closer, than this can you?
Have you ever experienced this?
Max had been a good father to his children.
He worked hard, so they could get the best education and live even a better life than Max had.
However now Max was disheartened.
All three of his children had good jobs, fairly good relationships, they had travelled to places Max only dreamed of travelling.
Their homes were larger than Max had ever owned.
However every time Max talked to his adult children something was missing.
He sometimes questions whether he emphasised having a good education, working hard and having a good job above having a good faith life.
You see Max was a strong person of faith.
He went to church regularly.
He thanked God often for everything he had.
He loved God and attempted to love others in a good way.
But none of his children seemed interested in the Christian faith.
In fact one of them often became hostile whenever there was talk of church, Jesus or Christianity.
Max continues to pray not only that his children may reconnect to the faith, but also that God may help him to discuss his faith effectively with his children.
Despite his children’s situation, every year at Christmas Max continues to invite his children and grandchildren to church with him.
Sometimes these invites cause a little conflict, with questions like, dad why can’t we just do the family thing and have lunch together?
However Max has remained firm.
He says the reason we have Christmas, is not just because it is good opportunity to be a family.
We have Christmas to remember that God actually loves us a lot…so it is important to go to church on Christmas Day and thank him for His love.
I’d love it if you came, but what God has done is too important for me to stay him and anyway, going to church will put the rest of the Christmas Day into perspective.
The one who was hostile to the faith bluntly refused, but often the others go.
And over the years Max has started to notice that his grandchildren are asking him a lot of questions about Jesus and God…
If you are in a family where some people are hostile to being a Christian, yes you need to handle these situations carefully,
But it is important you keep putting forward the Good News of Jesus
That you don’t let your faith be suppressed because someone might get upset.
In fact I wonder what would happen if Max asked his hostile son,
why he had such problems with Christianity.
Maybe he might discover that his son has a misunderstanding of Christianity or God.
Maybe he might be able to help his son?
God reveals through scripture at least two reasons for us to remain strong in the faith and not be quiet about our faith that Jesus has given us.
Jesus says to us in Luke 21:19 but stand firm and you will win life….
When we have a good understanding of the life of a Christian disciple, that we will encounter problems, we have a less chance of giving up on God and giving up on being part of His community.
And as a result we will get to enjoy the gift and inheritance of eternal life with God.
And the second reason
Jesus says to us in Matthew 5:14-16
“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”
When trouble exists many people think that God has deserted them.
That they aren’t loved.
The bible says differently though.
Psalm 23 reminds us, that even though I walk through the darkest valley God is with me, his rod and staff protect me.
But when people are in the midst of trouble what can be very helpful for them in their relationship with God,
is when Christians, when people like you and people are actively there for them, helping them, caring for them.
John had been a member of the local church for some years, but he hadn’t always been a Christian.
The new pastor asked him how did you become part of this church?
He said well it was at a bad time.
My dad had just walked out on mum.
He left us with not much at all.
Mum had a friend at this church and asked her if she could help her out.
Mum’s friend called some people at this church
And the next thing I remember
Food arrived at the house
Some furniture arrived at the house
And some new clothes came just for us.
No one had ever done anything like this for us.
And so I asked the man who was dropping off the furniture, why do you do this?
All he said was something like, I am doing this on behalf of Jesus, because Jesus really cares for you…
This started not only me but also my mum, wanting to find out little more about Jesus, because he sounded somewhat different to what I thought church was about.
When trouble occurs
and when we fixed on asking questions like,
How would Jesus respond in such a situations
And when we help people see how God is getting involved in helping them through their troubles
It is not just our light shining…it is God’s light shining through us,
and remember what the bible verse says…
From Matthew 5:16 again….In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
And we also need to touch on one more area in our lives where trouble exists because of our faith in God
and when it does
we sometimes are surprised and even get frustrated.
But since the beginning of Christianity it has been happening.
Do you know where the trouble is I am talking about?
It is in the church, between Christians?
Jesus experienced this with the disciples, when James and John were lobbying to be in better places than the others
St Paul on numerous times had to point out to some of the churches that how they were treating each other was not good…
Listen to Galatians 5:13-15
You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
And why do such conflicts occur?
It is not because we don’t love God
It is not even because we don’t love others both in and outside the church.
It is because we love ourselves more than we love God and more than we love others.
The bible has a number of terms for this…we are idolising ourselves and even things that were meant for good rather than idolising God, and in other places it refers to this simply as sin.
The reality is loving yourself more than God or others is what causes trouble in church communities.
When we do this we only come to church when it suits us.
When we do this we want things to happen our way, rather than what is best for God’s mission and ministry.
For instance in our own church community we have agreed that how we go about life is to connect people to Jesus….
This should shape everything we do.
Our decisions about church life, worship, about how we spend our time, what we do after worship, and anything we do should be influenced firstly by will this help us connect people to Jesus!!
But the reality is often individual Christians want to focus on what they prefer when it comes to worship,
They worry about what they will be doing after church and often wont spend too much time in fellowship with other Christians
They are concerned that we do not spend money on the things they feel are irrelevant and spend money and lots of it on the things they love.
they will often say things like we all like or we all dislike,
when the reality is some people and often only a small portion like or dislike things as much as them.
So I encourage you to think about our congregation and church from this perspective…..how can I support us in connecting people to Jesus through us, even the people I least relate to?
There are three things I pray you walk away with from today’s message.
1/ As a Christian be prepared and expect trouble to occur as a result of you having faith in Jesus.
But remember the trouble we experience is only small portion of our life with God…
The reality is for those who trust in Jesus as their Lord and saviour most of eternal life will be trouble free.
Listen to how heaven is described by John in the book of Revelation reading from chapter 21
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ u or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
As followers of Jesus this is what have to look forward to.
Secondly view the issues and problems that either we encounter or we see others encounter as an opportunity for God’s light to shine through us.
Listen again to verse 13.
When trouble and persecution occur this is a time for you to be a witness.
Thirdly when problems and troubles occur keep focused on God and his ways.
By constantly reading and studying his word, worship regularly, pray daily, spend regular time with other Christians, and make sure you are in places to receive his forgiveness.
When we do these things, we are better prepared for the living as Christian disciples.
Not because in themselves these activities save us,
not because we gain a heap of rules
but because they help us see God in action and understand God’s approach to life better.
They help us see that our life is about what Jesus has done, is doing and will do for us and through us.
They will help us see that God hasn’t deserted us when trouble happens, but he is with us.
And most importantly we will get a greater appreciation that our eternal life is totally because of the forgiveness Jesus makes possible.
AMEN
