Before we get into that, I wanted to just briefly explain to you John’s concept of the world. Some of you may have been raised in church traditions that basically told you that worldliness is anything outside of the church. That all the good people and all the good things are in the church and that everything outside is all the bad people and all the bad things, and that’s worldliness. And if you’ve been in a church for more than 15 minutes, you know that there is worldliness in the church. And not everything and everyone in the church is necessarily exactly like the Lord Jesus. Just something you may want to take note of. And so, we can’t simply say that everything that is in this world is necessarily evil or bad, because not everything in this world is evil or bad. Everything was made by God and things are under a curse, and they’re not fully glorifying God as they are capable, but they still have the potential to be used for his glory in a positive and healthy way.

So, when we talk about worldliness, we’re not just talking about certain cultural dimensions. What we’re talking about is a whole system of belief and conduct that is opposed to God. So the ways in which this world thinks, and the ways in which this world acts in light of those presuppositions, that are contrary and opposed to God, that is worldliness. And so what Jesus basically says, is “You’re gonna love me. I’m gonna love you. You’re gonna love each other. It is gonna be beautiful. You’re gonna bear much fruit. Oh, and by the way, there’s this group of people called the world, and they are going to hate your guts, and they’re probably gonna cut your head off – by the way.” And that’s exactly where we find ourselves tonight, is looking at that third category of relationship with the world. And just read the text for you, beginning in Verse 18. He says, “If the world hates you,” Jesus says, “keep in mind that it hated me first.” So, we’re in good company. “If you belong to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, and that is why the world hates you. Remember the words that I spoke to you, ‘No servant is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me.”

“If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates me, hates my Father as well. If I had not done among them what no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But, now they have seen these miracles, and yet they hate both me and my Father. But, this is to fulfill what was written in their Law. They hated me without reason. When the counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, a Sprit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning. All this I have told you, so that you will not go astray. They will put you out of the synagogue, in fact the time is coming when anyone who kills you think he is offering a service to God. They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. I have told you this, so that when the time comes, you will remember that I warned you. Oh, and by the way, I did not tell you this at first, because I was with you.”

We’ve had a great journey together. I’m about to die, and oh, by the way, I didn’t tell you this at the very front-end, I wanted you to love me first, so you’d really be sticking around for more than 15 or 20 minutes. They’re gonna kill you. Just though I’d let you know. And where we find ourselves in John 15 is just hours before the Lord Jesus himself is to be murdered and betrayed. Judas Iscariot has already departed. He has already put the plan into action to have Jesus killed, and Jesus, looking at his disciples, gives them a few concluding words. And at this point, John’s Gospel has really slowed down. John, as you know – I’ve told you – Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the synoptic Gospels have a lot of information in common. John’s Gospel, 90 percent of that Gospel is particular and unique to John, so there’s a particular way that John lays out his Gospel, and that is that he moves very quickly through the life of Christ, and he will stop and sort of zoom in, like a great film maker looking at Jesus’ interaction with particular people; Nicodemus, the woman at the well, the man born blind, the healing at Bethesda.

And the story line is moving very quickly, and as soon as we hit the last week of Christ, things start to really slow down. As we hit the final hours of Christ, things slow down tremendously, and now we’re privy to a lot of conversation and dialog that John the beloved, whom is author of our book, was present to eye witness and to give to us faithfully. And so that’s where we find ourselves now, is this final conversation with Jesus. And one of the things he wants his servants to know – his students to know, is that you’re gonna be hated and you’re gonna be opposed and you’re gonna be killed, so don’t be surprised when it happens. You’re in good company. They’ve done the same to me. But in – their rejection of you is actually a rejection of me, and their rejection of me, Jesus says, is ultimately rejection of God, our Father.

And the question becomes, well why in the world are people going to hate us? If we love God and we love them, why in the world would they declare war on us? And I think Jesus has told us, very simply, that because he has come into this world, others have become cognizant of their sin. It’s very simple, that as people are living in darkness, light comes, and people run from the light. And if you love God to any degree, you will find that there are certain people that dislike you. Not because you have done anything to them, but just your existence is a condemnation on their conduct. Just the way you are is an assault upon their person. What I mean by that is this; if you are walking with God uprightly, you are pointing out all the crookedness in their life. And so every time they are around you, they want to get rid of you because they do not want to repent and change and be like you and be like Christ, instead they just want to get rid of you because you bother them. Some of you may have had this experience, where for example, let’s say someone is angry at you for some reason. Let’s say perhaps, it is unjustified, and you say, “I’m sorry. I love you. What can I do to make it right? I want to be nice about this and make this work.”

And the nicer you are, the more violent they become. They just become incensed. Because what they’re wanting you to do is to sin with them so you don’t make them look bad. And by you not sinning, you’re making them look really bad. And so, the more righteous you are, the more angry they become. You’ll find this with certain people, if for example, you have a marriage in which you love your spouse, and there are other friends that you have and they’re always nagging, and nitpicking, and gossiping about each other. Just the fact that you love each other and nice things to each other, everyone else considers you offensive and they don’t want to be around you. Jesus says that’s what’s going to happen. Because when you come and you believe in Christ and you bring a measure of his grace to this world, some people just don’t even want to taste it. They don’t even want to be around it. And so, Jesus says the violent reaction is to be expected.

And we should be living in such a way that we are a condemnation on this world. What that does not mean, is that we pick a fight with everyone. That we’re mean. That we declare a culture war. That we pick a political issue, and just go out and try and get ourselves persecuted. Not at all. As we love people, that in this world is our declaration of war. We love them and they hate that. And Jesus is telling his disciples this. And I want to do a bit of work – I usually don’t jump much from the text, but I want to jump into the history of the church, so that you’ll see that Jesus’ words are indeed true. Exactly what he is promising here, in the 15th chapter of John’s Gospel, has indeed come to pass. You got to listen to how the disciples died. The disciples really are carrying on the legacy, Biblically, of Abel. If you know the story of Cain and Abel from early in the Book of Genesis, it is that Cain was jealous of his brother and killed him, because Abel was worshiping the Lord, and apparently, Cain was upset about that. That is the legacy of martyrdom through the history of God’s people. Abel was not doing anything to provoke Cain, he was just worshiping God, and he was murdered for that fact.

And so, Jesus carries on this legacy. His disciples carry on this legacy of martyrdom. And in the early church, we’re told in the Book of Acts, that the first martyr in the early church was a gentleman named Stephen, who was a very gifted teacher. We can see that in Acts 6, 7, and 8. But in particular, he was a devout deacon. A man who served God faithfully and this incensed people because he was such a righteous and simple man, who served God so diligently that his life was a condemnation on theirs, so they were opposed to him. So what we find is that he is essentially arrested and drug in to give a testimony about why he has been conducting his life for the service of God. And he lays out the whole history of the Jewish nation, and he lays out the purposes of the Gospel. This incense the people that were opposed to him, and what we find, is that a gentleman named Saul, who later, his name would be changed to Paul, and he’s contributed to about a quarter of our New Testament, oversaw the murder of this man, Stephen. Paul says that he was a persecutor of the church and that he was a very violent man, and very zealous for his own nation and his own legacy.

And so they drag Stephen out and they all pick up stones and they throw rocks at him, and they murder him for loving Jesus Christ and telling the truth. And I love what Stephen does just as he is dying, his final breath, we see in the Book of Acts, he prays for the salvation of his persecutors, that God would indeed bring them to himself. That they would be saved, and that they would love and serve the Lord Jesus as well. And as you continue reading, it’s not very long later, in the Book of Acts, that God answers Stephen’s prayer, that he takes Saul, blinds him, knocks him off his horse, and very much confronts him and tells him that he has indeed, not just been persecuting Stephen and these other Christians, but he has in fact been persecuting himself. He has been persecuting the Lord Jesus. And so persecution, Jesus tells us, is not just a harming of his people, it’s a harming of himself.

Saul is converted, goes on to be a pastor, and a preacher, and a teacher. And I’ll read you some testimonies – not from the Bible, but from generally reliable tradition – of those in the early church, particularly, the disciples to whom Jesus spoke this word in the 15th chapter of John’s Gospel. Phillip, he was whipped, imprisoned, and crucified. It seemingly, was popular to crucify the disciples in the early church as a mockery of Jesus. I’ll say this, too, as Stephen was murdered, a persecution broke out against the church, and about 2,000 brothers and sisters in Christ died at that time. Matthew, the author of the Gospel bearing his name in your Bible, he was murdered with a long-handled axe, that included a sword. What this basically was, at least according to my studies, was an axe with about a five to six foot long handle with an enormous axe head, and basically, with a bayonet spear on the end. And so they’d bludgeon you with the axe, and if that didn’t work, they’d run you through with the sword. That’s what they did to Matthew.

Now to James, the author of the Epistle bearing his name, at the age of 94 – that guy is 94 years of age – he was beaten, stoned, and his brains were beaten out of his head with a club – 94-year old man. Matthias, the gentleman who replaced Judas as the twelfth disciple, he was stoned and beheaded. It was common in that day to chop the head off of your opponents, and then to put them on a post and set them out in a public area as basically a testimony to all who would walk by; do not mess with the government, and do not continue worshiping the same God and doing the same things, or participating in the same belief structure as these people. So it’s likely that some of these disciples had their head cut off, put on the end of a stick, that stick put in the ground, and then their head was sitting at some intersection or some road in the middle of town, reminding everyone else what would happen if they continued to worship Christ.

I love Andrew, Peter’s brother. He was one of the first disciples called in John’s Gospel, if you’ll recall. And Andrew I love – what they normally did, is they would beat and persecute someone before they would crucify them. We’re told, according to history, that for example, they would scourge someone 40 times, and usually that would bring about their death. With Jesus, and such, they scourged him 39 times. What they would do, they get a cat of nine tails. It was basically a handle with long pieces of leather that would protrude out of it, and on the end of each of those pieces of leather, would be a sharp hook either made out of metal or made out of bone. And they would take the prisoner and they would remove his clothes, and then they would whip him across the back with the cat of nine tails. The hooks would dig into his flesh, and then they would rip the flesh off of his back. And then, as they did with Jesus, they would put a very rough wooden crossbar across his back and make him carry that cross a few miles to his crucifixion.

That would expedite the death so that the man wouldn’t hang for very long. That he would die when he was crucified very quickly, at least within a couple hours. Apparently, they possibly did not do that with Andrew, because Andrew hung for two days. They crucified him and he hung there for two days. And Andrew, being the preacher that he was, determined that since a lot of people were showing up waiting for him to die, that it would be a good opportunity to have church, and so Andrew preached for two days; laying out the Gospel, taking the scripture he had undoubtedly memorized, and was proclaiming the Kingdom of God and the work of God and Christ, and calling people to repentance and salvation as they stood beneath his cross. And that was, in all likelihood, the most bizarre alter call in the history of the church, as Andrew was calling people forward to confess their sins and receive Christ, so that they could get crucified like him. And people actually did it.

A number of people, history tell us, did come to faith and repent of their sins, and get saved at the foot of Andrew’s cross as he hung there for two days, and he just considered it a great opportunity to do some open-air evangelism. You got to love that, don’t you? I just love that. Mark was torn to pieces by a mob. Jude was crucified. Poor Bartholomew, he was beaten, crucified, and then beheaded. Thomas was run through with a spear. Luke, the author of the Gospel bearing his name in the Book of Acts, was hanged. Simon was crucified. Peter is one of my favorites. They determined they were gonna murder Peter, so they chose to crucify him. And when they went to crucify Peter, Peter essentially said, “Well, I’m not worthy to die like Jesus.” They said, “We’re gonna crucify you either way.” He said, “Well then, crucify me upside down. I’m not good enough to die like Jesus, so hang me transversely. Stick my head toward the ground and crucify me that way. I don’t want to pretend like I’m worthy of dying like Jesus.”

And James, John’s brother – I love James. James is my favorite in the whole deal. James is brought before a Roman official, and he is given a death sentence, and he is going to be beheaded. And as he stands before the elected official who was pronouncing his death sentence, he basically says, “Well, do you have any final words? Anything left to say?” And James says, “Yeah, let me tell you the Gospel. Let me tell you about the Lord Jesus,” and he preaches the Gospel. Looks the guy right in the eye and just drops the hammer; “You’re a sinful man. You’re reprobate. You’re an enemy of God. You’re gonna die and you’re destined for Hell. You have one final opportunity to receive him now. And before you cut my head off, I want to know; what’s your answer?” And the King said, “Well, I’m a Christian I guess.” He received Christ, got off his throne, and had his own head cut off in addition to James. You got to love that. You have got to love that. You talk about courage. My goodness, James. “Well, I’m gonna die in a minute. There’s one reprobate in front of me. I’m gonna try and pick that one before I go. Somebody needs to tell this guy about the Lord Jesus.”

And John – John, the author of our Gospel, the three letters in the New Testament, the Book of Revelation, the beloved and youngest disciple, he was the only one who did not die a martyrs death. But it wasn’t for a lack of effort. They boiled him alive in oil, and God spared his life. He did not die. And so, they exiled him off to the island of Patmos, which is off of the modern day coast of Turkey, and there he was lonely, and exiled, and that is where the Lord Jesus, according to Revelation, Chapter 1, showed up, placed his hand on John’s should and told him not to worry. That everything would be fine. And so, Jesus came and visited John in his loneliness in exile on the island of Patmos. John was there for some time, and then he was taken back into the Roman society, and there he was essential to the training up of the pastors, and the leading of the early church, and the promulgation of the Gospel of Christ. He trained the early church pastors, and he has this greatly important place in the early church’s history, because he was one of the inner-circle of three disciples, Peter, James, and John, that were present at particular times in Jesus’ ministry to mount a transfiguration. For example, very special occasions that other men did not get to see.

He was with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane when he was sweating blood. Jesus had invited this young man John to see the totality of his life. And so John was an eyewitness, and his testimony was encouraging and strengthened the early church. And so John lived to be 100-years of age, but how complicated was it for John to see all of his friends die, all the disciples die, to see Jesus die, and to be the pastor in the early church who continually buried all of those who died for their faith in Christ. I can’t even imagine what that would be like, as a pastor, to every week hold a funeral and be burying the people that you led to Christ the week before. And get up and preach the gospel and call everyone else to come to faith in the Lord Jesus, knowing that in all likelihood, you’ll be doing their funeral very shortly as well. But that was John’s life. And John loved Christ. And John continued on the ministry of Christ. And Jesus had told him, “Don’t be surprised when this happens. This should not shock you. This is the way it’s going to go.

The persecution against the early church was very intense. It became even more intense with a gentleman named Nero. Now you may have read something of Nero throughout the course of church history. Nero was basically a sociopath. History tells us that he killed his nanny, possibly killed his mother, killed his wife. The guy killed anybody who was around him, is what – really was his problem – violent, aggressive, sociopathic man. And Nero had this grand scheme that he wanted to rebuild Rome in his image, and he wanted to name it after himself. Up until this point, Christianity had grown fairly quickly, largely because it had adopted religious strategies from the overall Roman culture. In Rome, you could have any religion, any god, any belief structure that you wanted. They didn’t care, as long as you worshiped Caesar as Lord.

And so, once a year, you’d have to offer a sacrifice and burn some incense, and the governmental official would come by and check you off on the list, and say you’re a good Roman citizen. Worship anybody you like. Just worship Caesar as Lord. And Caesar as Lord was the embodiment of all of the goodness of Rome. All of Rome’s history and her legacy, and all of her conquests and her kings, and all of her glory was typified in the Emperor, and the Emperor was the summation of the glory of Rome. And so, to go against the Roman Emperor and refuse to recognize the Roman Emperor as Lord was, in fact, to commit treason against the entire nation, and the legacy of the greatness of Rome. It was a great offense to the people.

And the way people would meet in their religious structures, they didn’t have social service or a welfare net like we have in this country, and so they would get together in what they called trade guilds for civic religion. Some of you may be in a union. If you’re in a labor union, like my dad was a drywaller, that’s basically, what it was. People come together around a trade, and then they pay dues, and they help each other in times of need. They get together for a meal once a week. They take care of widows and orphans. They celebrate your wedding. When you die, they celebrate your life and commemorate it with a funeral. And they would pick a God that they would worship as sort of their God for their particular trade. And the Christians adopted this strategy. They met once a week. They had a meal together. They took a special offering. They took care of those who were widowed and poor. They held weddings and funerals. They basically took on the posture, in the early church, of a Roman civic, religious structure. And so, they got to grow very quickly through all of these smaller gatherings of God’s people.

But, the problem arose when it came time for them to declare Caesar as Lord, and none of them would do it. And all of the sudden, the governmental officials realized, they’re all worshiping the same God, this guy named Jesus. “And when we tell them that they also worship Caesar, they tell us to stuff it, and that Caesar is not Lord. That Jesus is Lord, and there’s only one Lord, and they could really care less about Caesar,” and that was an offense. It was a declaration of war on the Roman government. And the Roman Government was incensed, because who are these common, simple, petty people with their small, little, civic religious structures, to put their finger in the eye of the great nation of Rome? And so, persecution grew against the church. Christianity became outlawed, and Nero in particular, brought this to an apex, when – and there’s a little debate throughout the history of the church as to whether or not Nero actually had the fire set, or they were set and he just used that to his advantage.

Nonetheless, Rome caught on fire, and Nero didn’t send out the fire department. He let the thing burn for days. And he went up to a high point in his kingdom, and for him it was just a source of entertainment, and he watched the whole city burn to the ground. And his goal was to see it all burn, and then build it back up and name it after himself, and give himself a great name as the great hero who saved Rome. We could imagine those people whose homes and businesses burned to the ground. Those people who had friends and family members die. They wanted Nero killed, because he did not come to their rescue and their aide. And so, as they stormed the gates of his residence, he decides, you know, he has got to come up with some scapegoat and some plan. And he kicks it around in his feeble mind, and he says, “Oh, the Christians have something about a God who is a consuming fire, who will judge the earth in fire. Let’s blame it on those guys.

So he says, “Well you know,” to the angry mob, “it was the Christians who lit the fire and they’re the ones that burned down Rome. That sends the whole angst of the city of Rome against the Christians. The whole Roman Empire rises up against the children of God, wanting them dead. And that’s where, if you’ve ever seen like Gladiator, that is really what happened; large amphitheaters where the primary entertainment was the murdering of Christians, having them fed to animals, having them run through with swords, having them beheaded and being chased around by gladiators and murdered publically as sport. Nero, one of his – a couple of his favorite things that he liked to do with our brothers and sisters in Christ, is he would throw large political and civic events on the grounds of his home, and he would need light to illuminate the evening parties.

And so, he would take Christians and he would cover them in wax or he’d wrap them in pitch and resin and he would impale them on a pole, as they were still alive, and set them on fire so that they could be torches to illuminate his parties. In addition, one of his favorite things to do with young men was to draw and quarter them. He would have ropes tied to each of their four limbs, and he would tie those ropes to four horses, and then he would whip the horses and send them in four directions, so that the young men would be dismembered, but still very much alive. And that’s what happened if you wanted to be a Christian. They would read John 15, and say, “Well, that’s what we were to expect.” Jesus said this is the way it was going to go.

It wasn’t just men who suffered through the history of the early church and throughout the course of church history. There has been the persecution of many women as well. I think it’s very humorous when I hear a young woman say, “You know, it’s really hard for me to remain sexually chaste and pure. I just can’t help myself, even though I’m unmarried. It’s very hard for me to not be sexually active. You don’t understand how hard it is.” And I’ll tell you the story of a young woman named Agatha. She was apparently, according to history, a very beautiful and lovely woman. And one of the Roman rulers saw her beauty and wanted to have intimate relations with her. And so, he made advances at her, and she continually rejected him because she was a Christian and belonged to Jesus. And she was a virgin saving herself for marriage, and refused to be defiled by a man. And so, what he did then is he basically imprisoned her, and put her under the care of a woman who was a very well known and wicked prostitute, who ran basically a brothel, and serviced a great number of men.

Agatha refused to have sex with any man, and she maintained her purity and her chastity. The official gave her one more chance to sleep with him, and when she told him that she was a Christian and shared the Gospel with him, what he did is scourged her, he burned her with irons, he put hooks in her flesh, he laid her naked upon a bed of coals and glass. She did not quite die, she was near death, so they imprisoned her and let her deteriorate very slowly and die a very painful death, because she refused to give up her virginity. One of the things they like to do as well to really strike terror in the hearts of the Christian families, is what they did to a woman named Perpetua.

She was a Godly woman who loved the Lord, and church history tells us that she was very pregnant, “She was great with child,” that you could see that she was very near her due date. They put her in the coliseum and they let wild boars go, and they had the wild boars impale her in the stomach and run her through with their horns, killing her and her child. They used to do that to the women to discourage any other woman from being a Christian, and from discouraging the Christians from having any children – brutal, brutal, brutal living. And it didn’t just happen in the early church. In fact, in the last hundred years, more Christians have died through martyrdom and murder than in the first 1,900 years of the church combined.

I’ll give you some present-day, modern examples, some simple ones. The final two months of last year, in China, they basically took bulldozers to 400 house churches. The church there has to meet in homes. They don’t have large church buildings. Christianity is still basically outlawed. I’m actually very upset by the fact that the Olympics are going to be held there in 2008; it was just given to that nation this week. With their human rights record, I think it’s a travesty that we would dump any money, and any attention, and any support toward that nation. Nonetheless, in China, at the conclusion of last year, they took bulldozers and bulldozed 400 Christian house churches, arrested 35 Christians, many of whom were pastors, and they’re sending them through two-year, Communist reeducation, which I’m sure is quite less than pleasant.

In addition, a few months ago – just very recently, in Pakistan, a Muslim country, there were a number of women working at a garment factory. They got off work late one night and they were walking home together, Christian and Muslim women, and a van drove up with four armed thugs – men in it. They accosted – kidnapped the women, took them out to a remote field. They let the Muslim women go and the eight Christian women were repeatedly gang raped and beaten. They told them not to report it to the police, otherwise, something worse would happen, and then they let them go. Seven of these women were teenagers between 16 and 18-years of age, unmarried virgins. One was a 35-year old married woman. Upon their release, these women decided they were going to tell the police, and their boss caught wind of this and he told them that if they did report it to the police, that they would be fired and there would be retribution against them.

They did tell the police. All of these women were fired for being raped. And 60 other Christian employees at that company were all fired, in retribution for what was done to these Christian women. So, eight women get raped, and 68 people get fired because they were raped. And they keep trying to bring the court into this equation and to bring justice before the judge, but the judge has not had a full hearing yet, because the men refuse to show up to court, and the government isn’t doing anything about it. And even if it goes to trial, there is a high percentage of chance that nothing will come of it, because in that society a Christian woman’s testimony is one-quarter of a Muslim man’s testimony. And since you have only got eight women who were gang raped, their testimony is equal to two Muslim men. But since four Muslim men raped them – you can do the math.

In Sudan right now, there has been continuing bloodshed and civil war between Christians and Muslim Militia groups. What they are doing is they are killing the men, they are raping the women, they’re taking the teen-age girls and telling them to either deny Christ, or be gang raped and sold into prostitution. If we had the money right now, we – and we were in Sudan, it may be possible for us to go buy a 12, 13, 14-year old sister in Christ, who has been beaten and gang raped for her faith. For about 50 bucks, she could become our property. We could take her home and do whatever we wanted. And that’s what goes on in this world.

I’ve only seen a few things, personally, with my own eyes. One of them was our – one of our church planting pastors in Mexico, a Godly man who loves the Lord. He was at our conference in Florida about a year ago, and we were sitting – he was sitting at the table next to me, and a call came into the church where we were meeting, and he went and he took – and he came back in and he broke up our meeting. And he said, “We have to pause. I need you to pray for me right now.” We said, “Why?” He said, “Well, they’ve just kidnapped my son.” We said, “They’ve what? They’ve kidnapped your son?” “They have taken my son, and they’ve put a deadline, and if I don’t pay a large ransom by a particular time, they’re going to murder him.” I said, “Will they really do that?” He says, “No, they’ll do it. They do it all the time. They’ll kill my son.”

I said, “Why would they steal your son?” He said, “Well, sometimes they will steal the – and kidnap the children of wealthy people, but sometimes they like to take the children of pastors in our area, because they know that then the whole church will kick in for the ransom and they can get a lot more money. And they know that some people will get retribution and go and declare war and kill all the kidnappers, but they know that since I’m a pastor and we’re Christians, I’m not gonna go kill anybody. And so, they take our children and they kill them if we don’t give them a lot of money.” And foolishly, I told him, I said, “Why don’t you tell the police?” He said, “It was probably the police who stole my child.” He said, “There’s no one to call.”

Mike and I, when we were in India a little over a year ago, had this situation as well, where young men are going out to plant churches in unreached areas, and they are very much at risk. They’re walking out into rural villages where people have never heard the name of Christ, and if those people turn against them, then their lives are very much in danger. Some of them are afraid to take their wives and their children with them for fear of death. One man, in particular, he had an amazing story. I guess, in his region they would gather yearly for an annual festival, a Hindu festival, and it was customary to bring sacrifices to the gods – basically demons – and that one woman each year would become demon possessed. They never knew which woman it might be, and she would go into a catatonic state and she would dance as a snake for an entire week, unending. Lose a lot of weight, and she sometimes would prophesy or go into this demonic, catatonic state. And everyone then would dance and have celebration around her, and she was sort of the focal point of this regional festival.

And this pastor was moved, and so he prayed over her and he shared the Gospel with her and he led her Christ in the middle of the celebration. And then he stood up and preached the Gospel, and upwards of two-dozen people came to saving faith in the Lord Jesus, realizing that Jesus was more powerful than these demons that they were worshiping. But, as he requested prayer from us, his big issue was, as he goes back into that area to take those new Christians and call them to church and build that church, that there is going to be a great amount of opposition to him, as he has now just canceled the yearly festival. He is now just overwhelmed an entire religious and social order. And people who were making their living as priests for this kind of activity, and taking money, and taking food from people, are now going to be very, very upset with him, as they were with the soothsaying girl early in the book of Acts when she came to faith.

And you start thinking about it – at least I’ve started thinking about it. There’s only been a few occasions in my own life where I’ve had anything that even looked like anybody cared that I was a Christian. In college, I wrote for the campus newspaper, and on a few occasions, we had to empty the building because of bomb threats. But there was no bombs, so that doesn’t really count. My wife had to use her maiden name credit card. Couldn’t use her married name because she’d get swore at buying gas, or she’d get accosted in the store. Some of that was because I love the Lord, some of that was because of the tone that I used. I know that would shock some of you, but some of that, I brought on myself. So, just because you’re persecuted, you can’t say, “Oh, well. It’s because I love the Lord.” Sometimes, it’s just because we’re really sort of obstinate and mean people. At least, I am. That’ll be our secret.

And I have seen, too, I have seen people in this church who come to faith in Christ and love Jesus, and their family disowns them. For example, I remember having a conversation with a Jewish woman, and she said, “I do believe in Jesus, but the frightening thing for me, is if I tell my family – they are very devout Jews – and they will hold a funeral and I will be dead in their eyes.” That’s a tough call. I have seen marriages fall apart, where one spouse comes to faith in Christ, the other does not want to married to a believer, and so they leave, because they don’t want to be around a Christian. There are some instances, I would say, where because of your love for the Lord Jesus, your life does undergo some resistance, some persecution, but nothing, nothing like that.

And I started thinking about it, and the question is well, why? Why aren’t we being persecuted? I don’t know. I’ve only got two potential answers, but there’s likely more. I think one may be, Jesus says, basically, if you love me, if you do what I say, if you live as I live they’ll hate you, which may indicate – because no one hates us – we’re not doing what he says, and we don’t live like he says, and we’re not like him. We – and Jesus says that the world will love you if you’re like them; it loves its own. Maybe we are just worldly. Maybe we believe in Jesus, but as the rest of our lives are lived, no one feels any condemnation in our presence, because we’re exactly like them, and so we don’t trouble them whatsoever. “Well they’re just like us; except for they’re hypocrites. That’s the only difference. We’re the children of God.” Or perhaps, we’re just living in an age of God’s tremendous grace. He’s just been kind and nice to us, we’ve got a hedge of protection around us, and God has spared us from this sort of atrocity.

Interestingly enough, through the history of the church, though, God has always used persecution to grow his church and to purify it. That’s what Peter basically says, as you read Peter’s first Epistle, he says, you know; consider it pure joy when you face trials of many kind. It’ll grow your faith. You’ll persevere. You’ll be better. You’ll be more like Christ. The cause of the Gospel will go forward. He’s writing during the time of Nero. And I’ve heard some foolish Christians say, “Well, maybe we should pray for persecution, so that we would be more holy and purified, and we could grow and,” I don’t pray for persecution – do pray that. You don’t’ ask for – you don’t – dear, Lord Jesus, let somebody club me over the head, please.” You know if you – don’t pray for that. Just club yourself over the head, but don’t pray that for the rest of us.

I’m not asking for – if persecution comes, fine. We’ll take it. We’ll walk as Christ walked. I don’t want us – you know, I found out this week my wife’s pregnant with our third kid. I don’t want to see her thrown in Safeco Field and gored by a bull. I don’t want that. I don’t want to see my little four-year-old daughter grow up to be either denying Christ or gang raped, and sold into prostitution. I don’t want to have funerals every Wednesday for all the men who had their heads chopped off and were crucified, and a prayer meeting on Thursday for all the women who were raped that week. I don’t want that. I don’t want that at all.

But you start to think about it – and I’ll tell you something very simple. You are fine. You are absolutely fine. The fact that we have time to create drama and morbidly introspect and investigate our lives, and come up with all the reasons that we can have excuses why we’re not doing what we’re supposed to be doing, that just proves that we’re fine. That proves that we have lots of time to kill. And so, we spend it all naval-gazing, trying to come up with reasons why we have it so hard. We are a soft people. We are fine. We didn’t lock the doors. On Wednesday, I’m gonna teach a bar-b-cue outdoors at Gasworks Park. I’m not gonna be Andrew hung on a cross, and you all got to come and gather beneath my cross and hear my final words. We’re fine. We are totally fine.

But, some of us like to create justifying reasons why we don’t look like Christ. Why we don’t do the things he’s told us to do. “Oh, you don’t understand. I had a – it’s so hard to be – you don’t understand. It’s so hard. It’s so hard.” And you think about it. Jesus even says the craziest things in the Bible, that we know nothing about. Very simple things like teaching us to pray, give us our what – daily bread. Any of you ever pray for daily bread. We don’t pray for daily bread. Do you know why? We already have today’s bread, and we have tomorrows bread, and we have the day after that. And if we needed to, we could raid the pantry and the fridge, and we’ve got food until Jesus comes back. We’re fine. Daily bread? “Dear, Lord Jesus, please give me enough for one meal today.” We don’t even know what he’s talking about. We have no concept of what that world would even be like.

I can still remember, a few years ago I met one of our church planters from India. He said, “Yeah, a bunch of extremists came into our village and they burned my church to the ground, and they started shooting at all the members of my church. And it was the middle of the night and I had to cross the river with my wife and children and my mother, who is elderly and infirmed. And so, I put my wife and my mother and my children on my back, and I carried them across the river. And then we were detained in a refugee camp for a few months, and we were out of doors, and we each had one blanket, and it rained the whole time.” And for us, it’s like, “You know, I was gonna read the Bible, but I got cable, and there’s so much on.” And in China, our brothers and sisters have one Bible for every house church, and they spread the pages among all the members, because if the government finds that Bible, they’ll confiscate it. And they share pages so they can have something to read.

We’re absolutely fine. We’re more than fine. And I was thinking about it, when I was out working on my lawn. I told the early service God always speaks to me when I weed-whack. And I was weed-whacking, and I just got this picture. I always think in images. I though how funny it’s gonna be when we get to the Kingdom of God and the wedding supper of the Lamb has come, and Revelation 19 is coming to fulfillment, and all of God’s children from all nations, tribes, and tongues, and peoples are sitting down having a meal with Jesus at the head, and all of our Sudanese brothers and all of our East Indian brothers, all of our persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ are talking about John 15. And the 21st century American Christians show up late to dinner because we were all out in therapy or something, and so, we all show up late to dinner talking about our childhood and how our fathers really screwed us up.

And so we show up late for dinner, and they’re talking about John 15, and one of us busts in with his persecution story. “Oh, yeah. John 15. I really clung to that, man. It was, you know, I was in America, and it was so hard to be a Christian. You guys have no idea how hard it was. But, you know, fortunately, they came out with this new book that really – I mean, it was The Prayer of Jabez, and I really loved this book. It became the hottest seller in the history of Christianity, because – and we really like it because it was cheap and it was short, and if you did four things, the piñata in Heaven opened up and you got all the stuff you wanted. Just whack it. It was beautiful. And so, I decided I’m gonna start praying the prayer of Jabez, because it took 2,000 years, but us American Christians finally figured it out. The whole point of the Christian life is to be blessed. Isn’t that a great idea? I thought that was such a great idea. I don’t know why people didn’t think of that beforehand.

So, anyways, I started praying the prayer of Jabez on the bus. And I looked over, and this guy was looking at me kind of weird, and I thought, that’s John 15. He’s persecuting me. And I thought you know I cannot handle that kind of persecution. So I thought I need to go buy a car so I could drive myself to work, so I could pray the prayer of Jabez in the car instead of on the bus. I was going to pray at night, but you know, that’s prime time. And you just – you can’t give up that kind of thing. So, I decided that I’d not tithe to the church anymore, but I’d take the money to buy a car so I could pray the prayer of Jabez, and then when the Lord blessed me, I would tithe off of my prayer of Jabez blessing. That’s what I would do. So, I decided that I would go get a car. And at first I thought I was gonna get a used car, but then I thought, what kind of witness is that? You know, that God’s children drive around in American cars that are used.

I mean – so, I decided to go get a German car, because that’s what Jesus would do. So, I got a German car, and I decided to get a Jetta, because it, you know, it just reminded me so much of the Scriptures. And so, when I was praying about it, I was gonna – I decided that I would get a color that really spoke to me. And so, I thought, well white to show the forgiveness of my sins, or black to show the darkness of my heart. But, I just felt that was totally overrated, so what I decided I would go for, though it was a little bit more money was red, so that I could be evangelistic, because that’s really why the Lord left us in America, was to be evangelistic. And so then when people ask me, ‘Oh, why’d you buy a red car?’ I could say to remind me of Jesus’ bloodshed for my sin. So then, my Jetta could be an evangelistic outreach tool. So I got the red Jetta.

And I got the red Jetta with the CD player, so I could listen to praise and worship music, because you know, it is really hard to praise the Lord if you don’t have surround sound and a remote control. So, I got one of those so I could worship the Lord. And I decided that the first thing I should do is go right to the Christian bookstore and get one of those fish to but on the back of the car. I don’t know if you guys have those in Rwanda, but we had those in America – don’t you guys put those on your camel? No? Okay. We put them on our car, and what we would do then – it was an evangelistic tool, so that people would get saved, and I’m sure that probably half the people here now, saw some fish and pulled over and received Christ, and I can’t wait to meet all the people that got saved because of me and my Jetta.

So, I put the fish – and for $1.95, I thought, you know, I’m witnessing to tens-of-thousands of people. I don’t have the inconvenience of actually meeting them. And so, I put that on my car, and I decided that then I was gonna go see this brand new movie by Carman, and it was great, because they made this – I don’t know if you know Carman. Went to go see this movie by Carman – it was good because they put a Christian movie in the worldly movie theaters, which was great, because you know, us not being worldly people, it’s important for us to go out into the world. And Jesus says to be salt and light, and so Carman did this great movie and I really liked the movie because he worked out and he was really buff and tough, and it just made a great statement to people that Christians are not weak, and we are not cowards. That we are mighty, and we are strong, and we are tough. And I felt like it was so important for me to support that as a Christian.

So, I got in my Jetta and I put in my Christian, you know, News Boys praise CD, and then I was praying the prayer of Jabez, driving to see the Carman movie, and I was in a hurry, running late, and I went to get off the off-ramp, and this woman saw the fish on my car and she cut me off. And I thought, man, that is exactly what John 15 is talking about. That kind of opposition to the children of God is – I mean, I almost just bagged my whole faith right there. I though, you know, if it’s gonna be this hard, then I give up, man. I just can’t handle this. It’s just too much.” And I could see one of the Sudanese brothers leaning over and saying, “You know, you made it all the way here without being persecuted. But, if you don’t shut up, I’m gonna persecute you right here, in the Kingdom.”

We are fine. You are fine. You’re fine. You drove here in your car; you’re gonna drive home in your car. You’re gonna sit on your couch, you’re gonna watch your TV in your house. Okay. So what? You wish your husband was smaller and your car was bigger. It’s not that big of a deal. You’re fine. You’re totally – we’re fine. And I love the fact that we are not blessed so that we can be fat and happy – as God told Abraham in Genesis 12 and 15, “That we are blessed to be a blessing to all nations of the earth.” That’s what God wants from his people. And it’s amazing to me that Christians would even pray that they could have more stuff. I don’t know if you know this, but most of the stuff in the world already belongs to us. You’re gonna go home and you’re gonna hot water and cold water. That’s a miracle. You’re gonna go home. That’s a miracle. You’re gonna drive yourself. That is a miracle.

Lord bless me. The Lord’s up in Heaven like, “What do you think I’ve been doing? Like, you’re sitting at home on your couch, in your house, eating a bag of chips, yelling at me because I don’t do anything for you. You’re fine. Get off the couch.” That we are blessed to be a blessing to all nations of the earth, that God has been good to us. God has been nice to us. The worst story in this room is better than the average story in the history of the church. We are fine. You are fine. God does love you. He is present. He has taken care of you. You and I are absolutely fine. And so, what I want to do tonight is I want us to get out eyes off of ourselves, because we live in this narcissistic, naval-gazing, self-absorbed, psychological culture that’s like, “How am I doing? How am I feeling? Where are my hurts? Where are my wounds? Who spanked my inner-child? How am I?” Good Lord. We’re fine.

It’s time to think about somebody else now. And so, what I have done, I’ve put on the back of your notes some books, if you want to keep yourself aware of the persecuted church and the global church, and the history of persecution through the church; read the book. There’s some Websites. You can track what is going on globally among God’s children. And you know what? There is only one church. These are our brothers and sisters. We’re a family – one big family. I would encourage you to make yourself aware, and participate in prayerfully giving, with the needs of true brothers and sisters with real opposition. One of the things I would encourage you in, is something that’s close to Mike’s heart and my own.

We have a dear brother named Arjuna. He is one of our church planters in East India. And he takes a lot of throwaway kids that are – basically, it was unbelievable. They’re half-naked, playing out in the freeway. People have just set them out to live on their own. And they take these children in to a children’s home, and they feed them, and love them, and share the Gospel of Christ with them, and give them a good education and raise them to love the Lord. And they are some of the most beautiful children I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Just the biggest, cutest eyes I’ve ever seen. And you walk into their home and they’re all well behaved, and the children put their hands underneath their chin, and they say, “Shalom,” which is the Hebrew greeting for complete and total peace, and love under the Grace of God. And if you’re older, they will call you Auntie or Uncle, because in their mindset, if you’re part of the church, the church is their family and you are their Aunt or their Uncle, if you are coming to visit.

And I would encourage you. There’s some stuff on the back table. I got very convicted this week with my daughter. The Lord always convicts me through my four-year-old daughter. At night, we have Bible time, in which the kids get dressed up. I’m the narrator and we act out a Bible story. And we got into the story of Queen Esther, and my – the story says that Esther was essentially an orphan, and Ashley – my inquisitive four-year-old says, “Well daddy, what is an orphan?” I said, “Sweetheart, it’s someone who doesn’t have a mommy or a daddy.” She says, “Well, who takes care of them?” I said, “Well, God’s people are supposed to take care of them.” She said, “Well, who are we taking care of?” I was like, “Oh, man.” I stink. That’s a good question. That’s one of those simple four-year-old, earth shattering, drop daddy to his knees questions. I said, “Honey, we’re gonna – we will, honey. We’re going to adopt some children,” and I explained the children’s home. “And then, when you get older, you can take a mission trip with me to India to see your brothers and sisters, and to meet them and to help me with the work of the ministry.” She says, “We should do that.” Yes. We should.

So I want our eyes off of ourselves. We are fine. We are like kids who have moved into Toys ‘R Us as our home, and we sit in one of the isles throwing a temper tantrum, because there’s nothing to do. When we are just surrounded with so much grace, that we actually have failed to see how incredibly rich God’s kindness has been to us. We’re fine. We’re totally fine. You’re fine. And so, I want to break for a moment and have you be praying. In addition, if you’ve been a person who has been having a tremendously “Woe-is-me, pity me. It’s so hard. I have an excuse for everything. You don’t understand my story. You don’t know how hard I’ve had it,” and you’ve been justifying your apathy and your unfruitfulness, apologize to God. Say, “God, okay. You got me. I’m fine.” And then, I want you to catalog and thank God, for the inventory that he has given to you, of life. “Thank you, God, for these friends. Thank you for these opportunities. Thank you for these – thank you.”

And if you will just commit yourself to praying for the things that God has already done, that will incredibly change your disposition. We will not leave it there, though. We will collect an offering, because that is part of our worship. Ten percent of our money always goes to other churches. We believe that not only should our people tithe, but our church should tithe as well, so we give ten percent of our monies, gladly to other churches. This year we’re funding 13 church plants, and six acres land purchased in India, so we could help brothers and sisters there. Guys getting on bicycles and going to unreached villages to plant churches, that’s what we do. We also take communion. And tonight when we take communion we’re remembering Jesus, that God became one of us and in his humility was persecuted and murdered – that God was murdered. And that God was murdered because of his love for us. That our sin was placed on him and that he was punished in our place, and he died for our sins and his blood was shed, and his body was broken out of his love for us to overcome our enemies of Satan, sin, and death.

But that is not the final word. The final word is resurrection. That Jesus rose from death, conquering those enemies and giving us life, and love, and grace, and joy, and all of the things that he had promised us in the first half of John 15. And so, we’ll take communion to remember Jesus, but then after that we are going to celebrate, because God has been good to us. And for our brothers and sisters, they – as Hebrews 11 say it – were such people that the world was not worthy of them, and they were not concerned about their suffering, but they were looking forward to a better resurrection. Crucify me like Christ; sure, no problem. When I get out of my grave at the end of the age, I will look the Lord Jesus in the eye and I will have a clear conscience, and a much better resurrection. So, thank you for the favor of chopping my head off. It’s a privilege. And so we’ll pray, take our offering, celebrate communion, and then thank God with some singing.

Lord God, we thank you for a chance to come together. Lord God, I confess to you, I am a pathetic man. Lord God, I confess to you that even in this last week, you have blessed me with so much, that it is hard for me to keep up with it. My house is so big, that it’s hard to keep it clean. My car is so nice, that I can’t afford to keep it running. That my lawn grows so fast, that I complain about having to mow it. Lord God, you have been so nice to me, and so kind, that sometimes I feel overwhelmed with the burden of just keeping up with all the nice things you’ve done. And Lord God, I repent of ever complaining for mowing my lawn, when I have a low to mow, and I have a mower to push, and I have health to push it. Lord God, I’m fine. You’ve been great. You have killed me with your kindness. You have extended friendship immeasurably, and you could not have been sweeter to me.

Lord God, you’ve given me a family that loves me. You have given me a beautiful bride who is dear to my heart. You have given me two healthy children, with a third on the way. You have given me a church that is committed to your purposes. You have given me the scriptures to read. You’ve placed your Spirit within me to understand. You have permitted me to participate in the work of the Gospel. Lord God, I am a spoiled man. I am richly blessed, and I thank you for your kindness. Lord God, I pray that we would just be a grateful people tonight, that we would realize that we are fine. And for some of us, being fine is hard, and we just want to create drama when there’s really no reason to.

So, Lord Jesus, would you please, through your grace, cause us to look somewhat like you, to live in such a way that we are a condemnation on this world. Not by being angry and mean-spirited, violent, but by just loving people to the degree that their sin is exposed and they confront, face-to-face, the depths of their own depravity. Lord Jesus, we love you. We thank you. We look forward to seeing you again, and meeting our brothers and sisters who have died for your cause, shaking their hands, kissing their necks, and thanking them for the legacy they’ve left for us. Amen.