How many of you have ever felt pressure to
keep quiet about your faith? How many of you have ever felt threatened because
you have decided to follow Jesus, or are connected to the church? What was your
reaction, how did you respond? I’ve often heard followers of Jesus say that
they wished the church today was more like the church in the New Testament,
especially like the church community in Acts 2, but then I wonder if they’ve
read past Acts 2.
The church described in the rest of the
New Testament is a church that faces persecution, is messed up in
all kinds of ways, and in many ways, looks a lot like the church today. Some
followers of Jesus wish there was more persecution of the church today because
they believe it would make the church stronger, and when you look at the
persecuted church around the world, you see Christians who are willing to die
for Jesus, who trust deeply in Jesus and are willing to lose everything just to
follow him, but recognize that peace and an opportunity to live our faith
openly is a gift. We can explore what a life shaped by Jesus is all about,
recognizing that Satan will use these times of peace and blessing to pull us
away from Jesus and create different gods.
While we’re not persecuted here
in Lacombe or Canada, there’s pressure from our culture to be quiet about what
we believe, to keep our faith to ourselves. In this way, the apostles faced the
same situation. Jesus has returned to heaven; the Holy Spirit has come and now
the apostles are busy teaching the people about the new life found in Jesus. They’re
healing people, casting out demons, performing many
signs and wonders, as Luke tells us. People are responding and believing
in Jesus, the church is growing! Jesus, who died on the cross for our sins, has
been raised from the dead and is now pouring out his Spirit into the people,
bringing new life, new hope, a new way of living based on who Jesus is, on his life
of obedience and dedication to God, and on Jesus’ teaching on what to following
God looks like. The people are drawn to this new life.
Some wonder why we don’t see as many
miracles today.
The early church father Origen wrote that, “If
they had not worked miracles and wonders, Jesus’ disciples could not have moved
their hearers to give up their traditional religion for new teachings and
truths and embrace, at the risk of their own lives, the teaching which was
being proclaimed to them.” Missionaries report many more miracles on the
mission field than we realize. In Uganda, when I was visiting there as a member
of the Board of World Missions, we visited a small rural church and we were
interrupted by a woman and her daughter who was yelling at us. The pastor told
us that she was possessed by a demon who forced her to drink and abuse church
leaders. He asked us to pray for the demon to leave. We laid our hands on her
head and prayed simply for the demon to leave in Jesus’ name. She immediately
grew quiet and peaceful. Months later I received an email from our mission
coordinator who had revisited that church and he wrote that the woman had been
re-baptized and had stopped drinking.
I do think Origen is missing something, the
evidence of changed lives and how powerful the evidence of a transformed life
is to someone who’s seeking to make sense of life, seeking hope in life. In
Thunder Bay, an exotic dancer was living with her young son in a RV with little
money, no propane, heat or food. Joyce and I invited them into our home and our
pastor to come see how the church could help. She met Jesus and the change in
her life was instantaneous. People noticed and marveled at how Jesus had
changed her so radically and quickly.
The push back starts. The
high priest and other religious leaders are jealous of the apostles, just like
they were with Jesus. The people are listening to the apostles more than to
them. I wonder if that is part of why culture keeps pushing back against the
church, because deep down they’re jealous of the impact following Jesus has on
people, on how Jesus commands our all. The apostles are arrested and thrown in
jail. During the night, an angel comes, frees them, and then tells them to go into the temple courts and tell people about this new
life. Did you just hear this? The apostles are in jail for exactly what
the angel is telling them to go do, so any guesses as to where they’re going to
end up again? The apostles have learnt trust and obedience, so once the sun
comes up, there they are in the temple courts, teaching about the new life
found in Jesus. Imagine how frustrated the Sanhedrin is when they find out
what’s happened. Yet they’re also afraid of the people, so they tread carefully
with the apostles. The guards don’t use any force because they’re afraid of
getting stoned, this is about getting stoned with real rocks.
The Sanhedrin’s frustrated because the
apostles are
making them look bad, accusing them of being responsible for Jesus’ death.
Their orders to the apostles are to stop it and be quiet. Peter and the
apostles’ respond, “We must obey God rather than human beings! The
God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead—whom you killed by hanging him
on a cross. God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might
bring Israel to repentance and forgive their sins. We are
witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to
those who obey him.”
Our
call is to obey God first,
there will be times when it will cost us. But the cost must not cause us to
forget who we follow and Jesus’ teachings and example on how to respond: with
grace and love for the other person. We cannot allow bitterness or anger or
fear shape our responses. We need to reply and speak up with words flavoured
with honey as Proverbs 16 reminds us, “Pleasant words are as an honeycomb,
sweet to the soul, and health to the bones.” Peter reminds us in his first letter, “Who is
going to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you
should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. “Do not fear their threats;
do not be frightened.” But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be
prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the
hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping
a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good
behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. For it is
better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. For
Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring
you to God.”
Our
words need to match our lives. Sometimes
we need to take risks to follow Jesus well. A friend is an executive
in a large company in the Mid-West. When his company decided to make changes in how they
were going to pay their employees, he had to speak up because the changes were
going to give higher bonuses for the executives but cut the average employee’s
benefits. It was not illegal, but it was immoral. He lost promotions because he
spoke up against his company’s greed. A student at Montreal’s McGill Law
School who had an opportunity to go into the highest levels in international criminal law changed from international law to family law and joined a small firm in
Toronto that did a lot of free work for woman who had been abused. She changed her focus in law after doing pro-bono work at a women's shelter because she believed the Lord can use her in that setting and she can be a more powerful witness for Jesus in defending those who had been abused. In Montreal,
a number of Christian high school students stood up for fellow students who
were being persecuted because of their Muslim faith by different teachers and
the school board. They arranged a protest and wore crosses and crucifixes to
stand up against new rules that would have prevented Muslim girls from wearing
the hijab. Standing up against bullying was their way of living out Jesus’ command
to love their neighbour. It cost many of the Christian students because a
couple of the teachers made school life hard for them afterwards. I asked them
to share why they were willing to take the risk of angry teachers or being
mocked by those who are against the church and they all told me a similar
story; that it helped them grow in their faith, that they want to be more like Jesus
and show who Jesus is.
Our
goal is to lead others to Jesus, to
invite them to join us in our life journey following Jesus. This happens
through our own transformed lives and our words as we share who Jesus is with
words and action: how he came so that we can have a new life, a new
relationship with our heavenly father, washed clean of all the stuff that
stains our souls, healed of the hurts and broken parts inside each of us, a
life filled with hope, meaning and purpose to offer this to everyone.
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