While most of us gathered with hundreds or thousands of people in our surrounding communities to watch firework shows, eat great meals, and celebrate the freedoms God has graced us with here in America through the blood, sweat, and tears of those long before us—there was a stark and shocking reminder that our freedom of religion and other freedoms are amazing gifts of God’s grace. The disturbing cross of Christ drew in more people as eight Christians were martyred for following Christ.
Across the globe this weekend there was a small group of former Muslims who had converted to become followers of Isa (Jesus) who paid for their commitment to Christ with their lives. These converted followers of Christ were charged with “Apostasy.” This means that they turned from Islam to the living Christ. These followers had the chance to deny Christ and live, but they saw something more glorious and magnificent than their own lives.
Here is the link to the story: (caution for graphic scenes)
Upon facing His own cross 2,000 years ago, which bought these martyrs eternity, Jesus had a vision of joy unspeakable that was greater than the shame and suffering of the cross. His sacrifice was the worthy appeasement to God’s justice and wrath for all who would put their trust in Him. Here are the encouraging and shocking words from Hebrews concerning Jesus, His cross, His vision, and anyone who would follow Him who might face suffering:
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.” (Hebrews 12:1-4)
Jesus looked beyond the cross to the greater glory of eternal worship of God and eternal security of salvation of those He would redeem through the cross. He “for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross,” because of His great love for us and His single pursuit of God’s glory.
We are not to grow weary or fainthearted—most of us have not even been close to shedding blood in our faithfulness in following Christ.
But these eight people on Saturday did. Yes, on the earthly side, our perspective sees the loss of life, the families missing loved ones, the children with a martyred mom or dad. But on the heavenly side, there were eight people who were so captivated by the cross of Christ that they had the extreme privilege of dying in same manner. They were not worthy of a death so similar to their Master’s, but He was worthy of their lives.
John Piper and several other theologians have suggested, with harsh disagreement, that it will be upon the backs of bloody martyrs that the gospel will step across into the beachhead of Islamic extremists. He is saying that the spiritual oppression and fierceness of this false Satanic lie is so extreme and so difficult to see breakthrough that there will probably be many Christian missionaries who will have to give their lives in martyrdom in getting the gospel to Muslims. And like I said, he and others have faced opposition to that perspective. But what is shocking is the very fact that this seems out of sorts to us—that this seems weird or halting that this could be true! Jesus Himself said that this sort of persecution would be “the norm” in following Him.
Jesus clearly told any would-be followers, “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.” (Luke 9:23-24)
From the very beginning of the church in Acts, to Stephen’s catalytic martyrdom, to the first few centuries of the church expansion—it was the norm to see martyrdom furthering the gospel. So why would we consider it shocking to propose that more martyrs will be killed in our own time? Refer back to my point—we have a version of Christianity that seems shocking to experience suffering, pain, and any kind of persecution, much less death. Add to this phenomenon the strikingly false “health, wealth, prosperity gospel,” that tries to equate following Christ with no chance of pain, suffering, illness, nor lack of extremely materialistic possessions.
I don’t know what prosperity gospel adherents do with gruesome realities of martyrdom in our own time. I suppose they mark it up as those people having lacking faith and lacking financial “sowing” that led to their demise.
Most of us will never have to endure anything of that nature in following Christ. In fact, God has poured out so much grace in America over the past three generations that our version of Christianity is actually dangerously referred to as comfortable. What I mean is that sometimes the very graces of God provide such safety, security, comfort, and blessing that we get to the point of removing any “cost” or “sacrifice” from following Christ. So, we’ve had at least two if not almost three generations of believers in America who have had religious freedoms, steady success, nice neighborhoods and schools, opportunity for further education and career advancement, and almost no fear at all of true persecution for their faith. Sure, a neighbor or family member or city council may do things that are hurtful for us in following Christ—but not true persecution. And that is a complete blessing and grace of God that we can thank Him for! But it is not the same version of Christianity that other brothers and sisters in Christ are facing throughout the world.
When two to three generations are allowed to have a version of Christianity that is strangely low on “cost,” it can produce a mindset of entitlement. Think about some of the things that produce church splits or divisions in our local bodies of Christ. People argue and fight over paint colors in nurseries and small issues on budget items to the point of splitting a church. This is where entitlement and preference rule the day in an age of grace and true suffering and cost are far removed.
Again, this is not to say that we don’t sacrifice for the sake of the gospel in many ways as believers here, but just not to the extent that others across the globe are experiencing. The point of this blog today is to simply remind us of the true reality of the spiritual war that is being played out here on this planet in our immediate times. This is a matter of life and death. Life is war. And we so easily turn our heads and forget what goes on for those without the freedoms we enjoy.
We must remember we’re living as strangers in this fallen world.
Please don’t allow your heart and emotions to be turned off as if this was a “downer” of a blog. This is reality for literally millions of believers across the globe living in hostile Muslim-extremist areas. And please know that this is not an anti-Muslim campaign. The great majority of Muslim peoples who are not part of some extremist regime are people just like you and I. Our media has caused us to fear anyone wearing a turban in many cases. But the greatest majority of Muslims are trying to raise good families, be good moms and dads, provide for their families, work decent jobs, and live in and support their communities. Yet they are blind or ignorant of the salvation Christ has already purchased for them.
The purpose was to make us pause and come to grips with the reality of God’s amazing grace on our lives as we’ve experienced great freedoms and at the same time to halt us to the reality that we cannot close our eyes to what is happening to fellow brothers and sisters in Christ on a daily basis in other regions across the globe. Let us not be so self-focused as to stick our heads in the sand to ignore the shrieks of horror coming from fellow believers in less comfortable places. Let us lift up holy prayers to a God who knows and understands faithfulness, death, and crucifixion.
We celebrate freedom with fireworks because God has ordained that we live in this land at this specific time in history. God wisely placed us in this time period with His purposes and glory as the end-all goal. We do not have the right to turn our heads to whats going on across the globe. We see the theme throughout the Scriptures of "being sorrowful...yet always rejoicing." That is because God's beautiful goodness was corrupted with sin and now we live in a fallen world. And as Christ came and inaugurated His Kingdom, it is a Kingdom that is "already present...but not yet fully." So let us live and celebrate and enjoy and mourn and weep with the gaze of this amazing and disturbing and yet still captivating cross of Christ as supreme.
Sankie P. Lynch
Pastor of Families
www.nbchurch.info
www.nbfamilies.info
sankie@nbchurch.info
No comments:
Post a Comment