Persecuted Church 2021 Special Service Open Doors and Reasons for Persecution
Notes
Transcript
Call to worship (voice recorder) 2min
Call to worship (voice recorder) 2min
Welcome to a special service that has two sides to it. Father’s day which will be mainly reflected in some of the songs today. But this is mainly a service about persecution with one ministry especially in mind this year which is Open Doors. There are others such as the Barnabas Fund, Persecution.org, Voice of the Martyrs and so on, and in other years, God willing, we shall look at these.
Let’s sing our first Hymn...
SONG: Glory be to God the Father 2.25min
SONG: Glory be to God the Father 2.25min
SONG: Father God I wonder 3.25min
SONG: Father God I wonder 3.25min
Children’s Talk 5.5min (Brother Andrew video)
Children’s Talk 5.5min (Brother Andrew video)
Notices 3min
Notices 3min
SONG: How deep the Father’s love 4min (Kingfishers…leave to their class - no YPF)
SONG: How deep the Father’s love 4min (Kingfishers…leave to their class - no YPF)
VIDEO: OpenDoors Video 1
VIDEO: OpenDoors Video 1
Open Prayer for the Persecuted 3min
Open Prayer for the Persecuted 3min
Reading
Reading
12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. 17 These things I command you, so that you will love one another. 18 “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. 21 But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 Whoever hates me hates my Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. 25 But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without a cause.’
Nigeria and China Open Doors Video 2: 15min
Nigeria and China Open Doors Video 2: 15min
Sermon 17min
Sermon 17min
In today’s reading of John 15:12-25 we find that the world is not exactly on our side. We should not expect the world to like anything that Christians have to say or to like us at all if we are true followers of Jesus. I suppose that is what is meant by being of no reputation. Nothing should surprise us about the opposition that we will be on the receiving end of. Clearly the world’s system is at enmity with God and is under Satan’s influence and power, in so much as God has allowed him. The world cannot stand the light and it hates truth because it exposes them for what and who they are. They do not want to know they are accountable to God for their thoughts, words and actions. Initially their hatred is towards Jesus and that had its culmination in the cross.
And because of our association with Christ as Christians we are also hated by the world. I have heard that the world loves Jesus, but what Jesus do they love? The blue-eyed, blond haired Robert Powell or Jim Caviezel or any of the 60 or so actors who have played Jesus in films? Or Jesus meek and mild? This is not the Christ of the Scriptures who said let the dead bury their own dead, and you brood of vipers, and they certainly will not love the One who will come back in power to judge the living and the dead. This One the world does not like. As Christians we are bewildered that they do not come to faith in Christ who has done it all to save us but they love lies and love deceiving and being deceived.
Today, there is a love for socialism and communism and its promised utopia that believes that humans are basically good and can achieve great things without God, as Marx said in a derisory way that religion is the opium of the people. And we see the result, in the videos from OpenDoors, first of communism in Eastern Europe but now of a rising Socialism and Marxism in China which is about kowtowing to the state but takes away the rights of individuals to have freedom of religion and choice - that is the end of such politics. Only Jesus offers a way out from our guilt and sinful nature but most people want to stay in the mire they are in, concerned with the here and now rather than eternity.
It makes me wonder if we are Christians for what we can get out of it, for it seems we are increasingly egocentric and more concerned about health and wealth and comfort believing that that is the reason that God is there for. Interestingly, though, Scripture tells us that suffering can be part of the will of God (1 Peter 3:17 and elsewhere). As we get older, especially, we are aware that pain encroaches on our lives. Is God to be abandoned then - like Job’s wife said: Curse God and die? We have a skewed understanding because we have been cocooned here in the West and not able to see the hundreds of millions of Christians who are persecuted and/or living in abject poverty around the world without access to basic healthcare - where is God here if health and wealth and comfort are the rights of Christians from God? Except Scripture says that suffering for Him or for righteousness leads to glory.
17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
And the fact is we should be and will be persecuted for standing up for what is right as well as for sharing the good news of Jesus. We have One who is always with us and telling us to not let our hearts be troubled by abiding in Him but to also be aware that we are among foxes that have been let in the chickens’ coop. We must expect to be hated. Enemies can be from within as well as without.
In John 15:18-19 Jesus plainly states that: You WILL be hated. Are we ready for the vitriol that we see politicians get or what the writer of the Harry Potter books J.K. Rowling got for saying biological sex is immutable especially in this time of cancel culture. Wo do you think the world wants to cancel?! Truth is the standard that society is trying to undermine. We do not have the luxury as Christians of compromise.
Preaching the Word: John—That You May Believe What Christians Should Expect as Theyrelate to the World (15:18–25)
In 1937 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was executed at the end of the war (1945) in a German concentration camp, prophetically wrote in The Cost of Discipleship:
Suffering … is the badge of the true Christian. The disciple is not above his master.… Luther reckoned suffering among the marks of the true church.… Discipleship means allegiance to the suffering Christ, and it is therefore not at all surprising that Christians should be called upon to suffer.
Such persecution will be proportionate to the extent of one’s identification with Christ.
There are many examples in Scripture of persecution, just read Hebrews 11, or Acts, or Daniel, who, for example, was never shown to have any sin yet was thrown to the lions. Perhaps God will save us in such situations and perhaps we will suffer and/or die instead.
And we have heard of the 340 million Christians who are suffering today, this very day, and many today will be bombed, will be arrested, will be beaten, will be kidnapped, will lose their possessions, will lose their lives. We must pray for our brothers and sisters and help organisations like OpenDoors. But persecution is also coming to our shores without a doubt, Scripture promises it. OpenDoors could end up helping us here in the future.
Let us be willing to share in Jesus’ sufferings who was hated without cause and not be surprised it should happen to us. But for now, we know it is happening to many others.
Our relationship with God is paramount and we have to abide in Christ or we will not cope with the pressures that can and will come upon us. We can do this best by remembering the sacrifice of Jesus and be thankful He came all the way from Heaven willingly to take our place, and He loved us to death itself. Let us take our place alongside Him and take a share of His suffering by living for Christ completely and loving one another as He loved us.
Song: There is a redeemer 3min
Song: There is a redeemer 3min
Benediction
Benediction
20 Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, 21 equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
Bibliography
Bibliography
Hughes, R. K. (1999). John: that you may believe. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.
Nelson’s Annual Children’s Ministry Sourcebook, 2006 Edition Preparation