Pastor of Formation & Mission Benjamin Kandt resumes our Beatitudes series, focusing on the last beatitude: witness-bearing courage. He shares stories of what persecution may look like for those in hostile cultures, while also challenging listeners that their lack of persecution may not be because the culture isn't hostile to the gospel, but because they've compromised their witness. He invites us to examine ourselves, but to also seek the filling of the Spirit in order to truly bear witness to Jesus with courage and care.
For more on enduring persecution in the global church, you can listen to a powerful podcast episode here.
The acronym that Pastor Ben used in the responsive prayer is CREATE—How to be filled with the Holy Spirit:
Pastor of Formation & Mission Benjamin Kandt resumes our Beatitudes series, focusing on the last beatitude: witness-bearing courage. He shares stories of what persecution may look like for those in hostile cultures, while also challenging listeners that their lack of persecution may not be because the culture isn't hostile to the gospel, but because they've compromised their witness. He invites us to examine ourselves, but to also seek the filling of the Spirit in order to truly bear witness to Jesus with courage and care.
For more on enduring persecution in the global church, you can listen to a powerful podcast episode here.
The acronym that Pastor Ben used in the responsive prayer is CREATE—How to be filled with the Holy Spirit:
Hello everyone. This is Pastor Damian. You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, orlando. At New City, we believe all of us need all of Jesus for all of life. For more resources, visit our website at newcityorlandocom. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1:Holy Spirit, soften our hearts that the seed of your word might be planted and multiplied. May we hear your word and bear fruit through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. Please remain standing, if you are able. Matthew 5, 1-12 Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain and when he sat down, his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven where God lives.
Speaker 1:Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you, when others revile you and persecute you, utter all kinds of evil against you, falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. This is God's word. Thanks be to God.
Speaker 2:Blessed, happy, flourishing, fully alive. Are the persecuted Really Like? We might buy into some of this Jesus stuff on other occasions, but persecution is a place where we can experience joy, happiness. Well, there's a fantastic book called the Insanity of God by a guy named Nick Ripken, and he tells the story of some house church pastors in China and how what would happen is is they would host these house church gatherings in various houses. They'd shift them around, but the secret police would catch on and eventually they would approach the owners of these houses and they would intimidate them and threaten them and they'd come to them and say things like hey, if you don't stop meeting, we're gonna confiscate your house. To which these Christians in China would reply hey, listen, you have to talk to Jesus, we gave him our house years ago. To which the secret police would then say we can't get to Jesus, but we can get to you and we can throw you and your whole family out in the streets. To which these Chinese Christians would reply well, that's fine, because then we get to be freed up, to trust God as our refuge and to give us our daily bread. To which the secret police would reply well, then we'll beat you. And they'd say, well, that's great, because then we can trust Jesus to be our healer. To which they would say, well, then we'll imprison you. They would say, well, that's great, because then we can trust Jesus to be our healer. To which they would say, well, then we'll imprison you. They would say, well, that's great, we'll be set free to go into the prison where the captives are and tell them the good news of Jesus so they can be free, like us. Fine, then we will kill you. And now it's predictable at this point. That's amazing. Then you just set us free to be with Jesus forever.
Speaker 2:It actually sounds like there might be some flourishing, some blessedness, some joy connected in what it means to be persecuted, potentially Like there's something about what that story tells is that there's an invincibility about it, a non-anxious presence, an untouchability. Don't you want that? I want that. That's what Jesus is getting at when he talks about blessed. Happy are those who are persecuted.
Speaker 2:One of the things the church has had that almost nobody else has we've kind of cornered the market on this for millennia is our ability to form people into joyful martyrs. Now, when I use the word martyr, I'm using it more expansive than just people who die for a cause. Martyr is actually the Greek word for witness. I mean it in the sense of anything that you might do to bear witness to Jesus, even unto death, as has happened quite often in the history of the church. More martyrs in the 20th century than in all previous 19 centuries added up. People are killed for their faith in Jesus to this day. But I'm expanding it because I want to look at what it means to be joyful martyrs. What would that look like for us to become those kind of people?
Speaker 2:You know, the early church was born in and under the Roman Empire, and one of the things that's true about Roman culture is that they had this prize of what they called an honorable death. If you could die honorably, then death wasn't that bad because there was glory in it. And so what they would do to Christians is they would, in their contempt for Christians, they would try their best to give them the most dishonorable deaths that they could, circumstantially. So they would crucify them upside down, they'd feed them to lions in the Colosseum, but what happened was they began to get quite frustrated because these Christians men, women, children even would go and face lions who were about to devour them with calm, poise, peace, joy even, and it drove the Romans crazy. And it drove them to Jesus Because they thought this is a way for us to get a real honorable death Is if we know this, jesus, that they know blessed are those who are persecuted. And so it makes me wonder what would it look like for us, new City, to actually set a path and say what if we actually formed you and then reverse, engineered to become joyful martyrs one day? What if that was our end game? What would that shape about what we do when we're together? How would that change the way that we relate to one another as a church? Just do it as a thought experiment for a moment.
Speaker 2:There's a book called Anti-Fragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, and he has this category. It's basically the subtitle of that book is things that gain from disorder. That's his definition of anti-fragile things that gain from disorder. So think about it like this something that's fragile would be like a champagne glass you drop it, it shatters, it loses form immediately. Other things are resilient. Think about your kids' sippy cups. They're thrown on the floor and they bounce, but they maintain their form. They're resilient. They're able to endure adversity, maintain form. Those are great. To be resilient is a really good thing, but what about those things that actually gain from adversity? Think about your immune system. Think about healthy relationships that can experience rupture and repair and be stronger on the other side of it.
Speaker 2:Listen, brothers and sisters, what Jesus wants for you is for you to be anti-fragile because of the good news it's available. I don't know about you, but just as I'm prepping for this sermon, I'm like I want to reach for all that God has on offer to me in Jesus. Don't you want to be gospel anti-fragile, to get better through suffering and adversity, even persecution? So my question is how do we become joyful martyrs with witness-bearing courage? What does that look like? And in order to get there, I want to look at it with two points. The first one is what is persecution? I just want to look at that briefly and then I want to ask my question of how do we become joyful martyrs with witness-bearing courage? So, with that, look with me, if you have a Bible or a device, at Matthew, chapter 5. We're going to look at the verses in 11 and 12, 10, 11, and 12 together, right here, when it says blessed are those who are persecuted.
Speaker 2:Now, that Greek word persecuted essentially just means harassed for one's beliefs. That's it. And it's actually helpful to me because Jesus seems to give us a spectrum here Because, look, he even uses cold shouldering, mocking you. Even if it's like subtle little jibes at work, like that's all in the category of persecution. So don't just think physical pain for your faith. But if that's on one end of the spectrum, the other end of the spectrum is something akin to state-sponsored genocide which Christians experience even to this day. So there's your spectrum of persecution and Jesus is saying that we might fall anywhere on that spectrum in our life of discipleship to Jesus. In fact, he's not just saying it might happen, he's guaranteeing it. That's a big deal. It's a big deal that Jesus is actually saying this will happen to you. We have a saying around here that expectations alter experience. Jesus is doing good expectation management for his disciples here so that when you or they get into the fray of things and they're persecuted for following Jesus, they don't feel like something's going wrong. In fact, this was guaranteed, it was promised, it was expected.
Speaker 2:Why are we persecuted? John Stott has a helpful definition. He says persecution is simply the clash between two irreconcilable value systems. Persecution is simply the clash that happens between two irreconcilable value systems. Jesus in the text says that we will be persecuted for two reasons. He says for righteousness sake, which John Calvin's interpretation of that is essentially social justice. It's remarkable. But the other one is he says you'll be persecuted on my account for your identification with Jesus. The more, the closer and more you look like Jesus, you can expect to increase in your amount of persecution that you have. And so if those are the whys Jesus is essentially saying who you are, what you say and what you do are all sources of why you might be persecuted. In fact, I think he's putting an emphasis on witness bearing in speech because he talks about how, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you, who were those who spoke. They were forth tellers, they spoke on behalf of God. They were persecuted for their speech. Now it is your identity and it is what you do, your actions. But I think primarily Jesus has in mind, when you speak out about what righteousness is and who Jesus is, that's when you can expect the most heated persecution.
Speaker 2:Another way to say that is, jesus is managing our expectations, because as we begin to develop in the previous seven beatitudes and embody them in our life, we're going to experience a heightened sense of resistance from a culture with a very different value system. The more that you live with open-handed trust in a world that has white knuckle gripping, clutching and grabbing at whatever they can get whenever they can get it white-knuckle gripping, clutching and grabbing at whatever they can get whenever they can get it you might be persecuted. The more you live with a broken-hearted honesty in a culture that wants anesthetics for everything, you might be persecuted. The more you live with love-constrained power in a culture that thinks all power is just a power play and a way to manipulate, coerce and dominate those around you, you might be persecuted. The more you groan with a right-making ache in a culture whose view of justice is increasingly secularizing and has no moral arc of the universe, to quote MLK. The more you live with a right-making ache for that kind of justice not the secular justice of our culture you might be persecuted. The more you live with a tender-hearted compassion toward the least and the last and the lowest in a meritocracy of social Darwinism, you might be persecuted. The more you live with this single-willed striving, seeking after the one true and living God in a culture that is atheistic and polytheistic simultaneously, you might be persecuted the more you begin New City to develop as a shalom, contending family in the face of division and discord, especially this year, in a political year that we're about to go in, the more that you seek for shalom and peace, the more you might be persecuted. You see, because, as you embody the previous seven beatitudes, what you're doing is you're living a value system that is irreconcilable with the value system of the world. That's what Jesus is inviting you into, and he said basically, persecution is one of the byproducts of that. If you want to avoid persecution, just avoid following Jesus. That's one way to get out of inevitable pain and difficulty.
Speaker 2:Why is this? Why is this so challenging? Well, it's because you represent a foreign invader from an alien kingdom, one that doesn't play by the rules that everybody else plays by. And so, since you live by a totally different value system, we can't really understand you. And since we can't understand you, we probably can't control you. And since we can't control you, we fear you. And since we fear you, we probably should just eradicate you. That's why persecution. And so we represent an arriving power base in the midst of an eroding power base, an arriving power base. In the midst of an eroding power base, we represent the kingdom of heaven, breaking in here and now to earth and, insofar as that's true, some people run to it for refuge. Other people can't wait to kill you. That's what Jesus is telling us here.
Speaker 2:So, if you're like me, as you are faced and confronted with this beatitude, you ask this question should I be being persecuted more? My answer is maybe, maybe, maybe. Let me give you the maybe not first. The maybe not is what I'm just going to call context. This is why maybe you shouldn't be being persecuted more. It's our cultural context that we live in. We live off the vestiges of Christendom, a day and age where the Bible and the Ten Commandments were used in courtrooms and schoolhouses, and we live in a place that not only has common grace, which is God's kindness towards all of humanity, but even something that a theologian named Peter Lightheart calls middle grace, which is when a culture has been so saturated and formed by this book that it begins to create an environment where, since we value things like freedom of thought and personal liberties and justice and the rights of the individual, all of which are deeply Christian concepts, you can live in this world of American Christianity and this cultural moment and not really be persecuted that much In many ways, that is a gift of God in many ways. And as our culture becomes increasingly secular or even pagan in its views of things like sexuality, justice and politics, you can expect increasing persecution.
Speaker 2:I promise you that the people I know personally who are most persecuted are my friends who have left the LGBTQ plus community in order to follow Jesus, and they know what that means is likely they're going to live the rest of their life celibate as a result of it. Maybe they'll be married and have a mixed orientation marriage, but likely they'll be celibate. And they are persecuted from the world, who thinks they're insane for not just in living out whatever is inside of them and expressing it for all to see. And they are persecuted from the church, who doesn't know how to handle somebody who realizes that, since they're same-sex attracted, they don't know how they're gonna be treated even in the church context. They get it from both sides. Like I said, these are my friends who are most persecuted today. Why? Because the value system around sexuality is so different from the value system of the Bible?
Speaker 2:Or how about those of you who do this as a thought experiment. Just next time somebody's canceled, step up and just say, hey, what about procedural justice? How about due process? What about innocent until proven guilty? And just watch what happens. Why? Because we have a secular vision of justice that couldn't care less about any of those things that are derived directly from the Bible, particularly Deuteronomy. Of course, it's not innocent until proven guilty, it's guilt by accusation.
Speaker 2:The third one would be in a moment like this where if you stand up and say, hey, so-and-so candidate is not God's man to bring America to some restored vision of what our glory days were supposed to be, if you step up and say things like that and you call people out of political idolatry called Christian nationalism and you say, hey, follow Jesus, he's the only king, you might be persecuted for that. And so as we have values that are more aligned with secular and pagan visions of sexuality and justice and politics, we can expect that we'll increase in persecution. So the first reason why you're not persecuted that much when I said should you be persecuted more? And I said maybe, maybe not is because of our context, our cultural context. But the second reason is more concerning to me, which is maybe you should be being persecuted more, but you're not because of our context, our cultural context. But the second reason is more concerning to me, which is maybe you should be being persecuted more, but you're not because of compromise. You're not being persecuted because of compromise.
Speaker 2:G Campbell Morgan, who was a preacher in I don't know a couple centuries ago, basically said that the devil's number one tactic I'm sorry, persecution is the devil's number two tactic in order to get you to lose your faith. The number one tactic is materialism, consumerism, because if he can make you fat and happy, then you don't really have to live for Jesus in any area of your life, and so persecution isn't his best strategy. It's actually getting you to have whatever you want whenever you want, on demand, at any given time, because then you don't actually need Jesus. That's the cultural moment that we live in, and so what happens is that we compromise because we live in a cultural moment where compassion is the highest virtue. Now I'm defining compassion the way our culture defines compassion, using the language of Anna Lemke, who describes it like this Empathy without accountability.
Speaker 2:What Damien, two weeks ago, quoted somebody else calling it ruinous empathy. This is our culture's highest virtue. Now, don't hear what I'm not saying, if you read Matthew, mark, luke and John, the number one emotion Jesus exhibits compassion. Compassion. This is really important. It's just not our highest virtue.
Speaker 2:Our highest virtue is covenant love, or what you could call the double love command loving the Lord, your God, with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength. And second, but real second, loving your neighbor as yourself. You see, what happens is, when we exalt compassion, ruinous empathy, to the place of the highest virtue, you love your neighbor more than you love God. You compromise because you think that you're loving your neighbor, but you're compromising what God has clearly said and Jesus deals with this in Matthew 10, which is his master class on persecution and he says hey, listen, if you love your father or your mother or your child or your own life, or just fill in the blank, your co-worker, your neighbor, somebody you follow on Instagram if you love them more than me, you're not worthy of me. Jesus took it really seriously that you kept the order of loving God with all of yourself before loving your neighbor as yourself. Why? Because it's the only way you can love your neighbor as yourself. Another way to say that is if you live with a sense of compassion is if you live with a sense of compassion. Let me say it like this If your compassion leads to compromise, it's not real compassion, it's cowardice.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm trying to say. It's cowardice, it's the unwillingness to tell the truth to the people that you're supposedly loving. Rowan Williams said it best. He said love makes truth bearable, but truth makes love possible. You cannot love your neighbor unless you love them according to truth. But you love your neighbor, you feel for your neighbor, you want to have empathy and compassion for your neighbor. Those are all really good things, but not at the expense of loving them in light of reality, and reality we believe comes from divine revelation, from God telling us what the world is like, from us thinking God's thoughts after him.
Speaker 2:And so, brothers and sisters, friends, I want to invite you out of compromise into fidelity, into covenant, faithfulness, into love. God first, neighbor second. And so one of the reasons that we're not persecuted as much as we should be, I believe, is because of compromise. And this is the way that Jesus talked about this. He said in Luke 6, 26, woe to you. That's the opposite of blessed. Woe to you when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets. Just hear Jesus for a moment, loving you right now, saying, hey, if everybody speaks well of you, that's a scary place to be. Be warned. He's put us on notice.
Speaker 2:So my question for you in light of those things is simply this Is there a place in your life where you have compromised your discipleship to Jesus? Is there a place in your life, an area that you've left off limits to him and his invasive reign over all that you are? If so, just in community, in a circle. Tell the truth. Tell the truth to somebody who's gonna love you well, who's gonna meet you in that place. Come out of hiding in the dark and come into the light. That's the invitation.
Speaker 2:The second one, though, is not only is there a place in your life, are there people in your life that would be surprised to find out that you follow Jesus? If that's the case, just tell the story. Tell your story. Tell them why Jesus matters to you. Now. I'm not saying hi, I'm Ben, have you been washed in the blood of the Lamb? Like, don't do that. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying talk to them about who Jesus is to you today. Why does he matter today? What does it look like today for you to need his grace. When we say all of us need all of Jesus for all of life, what does that mean for you right now? Just bear witness to that. All that you've seen and heard. That's the invitation of witness bearing courage.
Speaker 2:Okay, so if that's the case, if that's what persecution is and maybe why we experience it or don't, let's look at the second point here, which is how do we become joyful martyrs with witness bearing courage? How do we actually become these kind of people? What does that look like? Well, a witness I'm going to define it based on acts 420 is just those who cannot help but speak of what they've seen and heard. That's all a witness is. That's what it is in a courtroom. That's what it is in the Bible. You're just telling people what you've seen and heard, and so a witness is actually a remarkable opportunity because it doesn't have this crazy burden on you to get these like points of an outline figured out or like answer all the objections or the things that show up that cause fear for us, that make it so we don't have witness bearing courage. A witness just simply says, hey, this is what I've seen, this is what I've heard. There's something strong in that, and so we know, though, that this requires courage.
Speaker 2:There's this story of a pastor named Dmitry who lived in the USSR the former Soviet Union and he was a pastor there, and so he was captured, imprisoned, and every morning, dmitry would wake up and he'd lift up his hands, and he would lift up his voice in what was called his heart song, his favorite hymn, this song that he would sing to the Lord. And he was in this prison with 1,500 other hardened criminals who would mock him relentlessly, every single day, for lifting up his heart song. After 15 years of being away from his wife and kids, he began to lose hope, his courage began to fail him, and he began to wonder should I just sign the confession statement that they've been telling me to sign for the last 15 years? It'll get me out of here, I'll be able to see if my wife and kids are still alive. And as he's about to go do it, he gets kind of a boost of courage in that moment and decides no, absolutely not, I can't do this. And actually, he was emboldened. And so he goes back to his cell, and somehow he had a Bible. He begins pasting pages of scripture up all over his cell, which was otherwise, prior to that, really hidden, and so he enraged the guards and so they decided to take him out of there and lead him to his execution.
Speaker 2:And in the process of that, 1,500 other prisoners saw what was happening and began to sing Dimitri's heart song, wow, to which the guard who was taking him to his execution turned and looked at him, said who are you? To which Dimitri replied I am Jesus in your midst. Now some of you tomorrow go into your lunch break room and I want you, when you walk in then, to say, hey, who are you? Be like I am Jesus in your midst and just see what happens in that moment. You Be like I'm Jesus in your midst and just see what happens in that moment. You guys are like you just ruined a sweet moment.
Speaker 2:That Dimitri story was really great. It was Listen. Here's what I'm inviting you to. He is not wrong. You are the body of Christ. You are the representative, the re-presentation of Jesus in the midst of the places where you live, work and play. That is what his plan was all along. That's what a witness looks like. Your very self is a witness to who Jesus is in those places. But that takes courage. And GK Chesterton has my favorite definition of courage. He says courage is a strong desire to live, taking the form of a readiness to die. Courage is a strong desire to live, taking the form of a readiness to die. That's what it requires. It requires a courage like that. And so Jesus, he's inviting us into what this looks like to be those who have witness-bearing courage.
Speaker 2:And I have a friend who led a 24-7 prayer movement in his country for 25 years nonstop prayer for 24 hours a day, seven days a week for 25 years straight. And I was sitting down to coffee with him. I said, hey, by the way, this prayer movement. Studies have been done to show that probably 50% of the prayers lifted up in that nation were a result of this prayer movement. That's remarkable. And I said, hey, how do you sustain night and day prayer for 25 years? And he, without missing a beat, said two words intimacy and eschatology. Intimacy and eschatology I'm going to define both of those in a moment, but that's the two ways in which I think we become the kind of people who are joyful martyrs with witness bearing courage Intimacy and eschatology. Intimacy I get from the text here in verse 11. Look again with me.
Speaker 2:Jesus says this Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you, falsely on my account? You see how he does that. You, you, you, you, my. A lot of people think this is a ninth beatitude, but I think he's just double-clicking on the eighth one because it's going to cause us the most problems. But he's not only double-clicking. He does this thing where he moves from talking in the third person to the second person. He goes from blessed are those who are persecuted to blessed are you when you are persecuted? You see how he does that. In other words, he's now looking at his disciples, he's making eye contact with them in that moment, and you know what he doesn't do. He doesn't do what I would do.
Speaker 2:I think I would have had a little bit of self-pity. I think I would have gone listen, it's going to be bad for you, but I'm going to get beaten, mocked, spat upon my beard, ripped out, crown of thorns on my head, crucified bear. Hell on earth for all of you. Like it's not that bad, like I'd be tempted to relativize, even minimize their persecution and suffering in light of mine, if I was Jesus. But Jesus is so utterly unselfconcerned, it's beautiful, it's winsome, doesn't it draw you towards him? At this moment, he goes you. I want to tell you about what it's going to be like when you suffer persecution, because it's going to be on my account. In John 13 through 17, when Jesus primes them on the night before this begins for him, he primes them by focusing on them for chapter after chapter after chapter of reassurances, and he says things like this hey, the world's gonna hate you. You know why? Because it hated me first.
Speaker 2:This is what I mean by intimacy, this identification with Jesus and his sufferings. This is what Paul lived for. Oh, that I might know him. And the fellowship, the koinonia, the intimacy of his sufferings that, by any means possible, I might attain the resurrection from the dead, philippians 3. This is this intimacy with Jesus, this nearness to Jesus, this knowing of Jesus in that moment, in intimacy with Jesus. Identification with Jesus is both the cause of our persecution and the cause of our perseverance through persecution. This is how we get through. We identify with him even in the midst of being reviled.
Speaker 2:Oscar Romero was an archbishop in El Salvador who was martyred on March 26, 1980 while he was celebrating the Lord's Supper. He was literally breaking the bread and pouring out the wine and he was shot to death. Before he was shot to death he had a bomb mailed to him. And this is what he says about that experience. Quote I received in the mail a letter bomb. In the blast I lost both of my hands and an eye and my eardrums were shattered. Here's the part Quote.
Speaker 2:That's the promise of intimacy, of identification with Jesus. When you're persecuted on my account, jesus says I'm drawing near to you. You're going to experience a nearness with me that you've never felt before. He says in Matthew 10, that master class on persecution. He says in that moment, don't be anxious about what you're near to you. You're gonna experience a nearness with me that you've never felt before. He says in Matthew 10, that masterclass on persecution. He says in that moment, don't be anxious about what you're gonna say. The spirit of my father and your father will be speaking through you. Intimacy. God is with you, he's in you, he's gonna work through you in those moments.
Speaker 2:But it's not just intimacy, it's also eschatology. Intimacy, it's also eschatology. Look at verse 12 with me, rejoice and be glad. Let me just pause for a moment. That's the first command in the Sermon on the Mount. The first command in the Sermon on the Mount rejoice and be glad. That means something In the context of persecution rejoice and be glad. That's what Jesus' first command in the Sermon on the Mount is. He goes on. He says for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Now, when I say eschatology, it's a fancy word in Christian theology. That just means we know how the story ends, the last things. But something unique happens in Christian theology, which is the things that will happen there and then in the end of the world are actually bending back and breaking into the here and now in a real way. We live now in light of then is essentially what eschatology means. And so there's something that happened in 2010.
Speaker 2:I went to Uganda with a church planning organization, and one of the things I do if I'm about to go to a new place I've never been before is I read a book or I listen to podcasts. I just try to learn about the history and the culture of that place. And so in 2010, I read this book called A Distant Grief by a guy named Kifa Sampanji. Kifa Sampanji was a pastor in Uganda during Idi Amin's tyrannical reign. If you don't know Idi Amin, he was Uganda's Pol Pot, or Adolf Hitler or Mao, or he was this dictatorial mass murderer, okay.
Speaker 2:And so he was talking about what it's like to be a pastor in that setting, and he tells this story of a friend of his who was a pastor, who, after worship on a Sunday morning, quite like this, it'd be like if somebody walked in and pulled me aside One of the Idi Amin's thugs pulls him aside and says I just want you to know we're gonna kill you, you're gonna die for what you're doing here. To which the pastor responded immediately you can't kill me, I'm already dead. The thug was so confused by that that he left, and he ended up coming back and asking questions, eventually came to know jesus, eventually became a part of that pastor's church because of the courage, the witness bearing, courage in the midst of persecution. What did he mean by that, though? Well, christians confess this weird thing, which is that we have already died with Jesus and been raised again with Jesus. His death and resurrection are our death and resurrection. This is the way that Romans 6.11 puts it. Consider yourselves dead. That's pretty straight forward, right. Consider yourselves dead, the way that Paul put it in the text that Damian preached on Easter Colossians 3,. You have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. The way that Paul puts it in Galatians 2.20,. All my NAVs people know this verse because it's the first one that you memorize in Navigators right, I have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, in the life I now live in the flesh. I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me, crucified with Christ Paul. You see this theme, the theme that this Ugandan pastor knew you can't kill me, I'm already dead. Do you see the boldness, the audacity in the face of threats?
Speaker 2:Hebrews 2 tells us that the reason Jesus came was to taste death for everyone. Why? In order to set us free from the slavery, the lifelong slavery, of the fear of death. Do you fear death? There's so much more on offer to you in Jesus than you have right now. I love to think about this reality. Jesus, he came. One of his primary purposes was to set you free from the fear of death.
Speaker 2:And then I watch thrillers or any action movie and the plot is so lame if there's no fear of death, it just immediately breaks down. It's just like oh no, you got me, I'm captured, you're going to kill me. It's just like, hey, whatever, I'm already dead. End of movie Credits roll Like that's how you're supposed to live, christian. I don't hear that as an oppressive. Oh, I don't hear that as a oppressive. Oh, I don't do that. Yet hear that as an invitation for how much more Jesus has open-handed on offer to you. What does that look like?
Speaker 2:Well, in all of those passages about death and us dying, it also says things like you are alive with Christ Jesus. Paul says it most clearly in Romans 8, I think, 11, he says. He says it like this if you have the spirit who raised Christ Jesus from the dead dwelling in you, then he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead by his spirit will also bring life, give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you, the Holy Spirit, is the in-breaking of the end times into the here and now, poured out onto the people of God. We live moment by moment, dependent on the Spirit of God to overcome our fears of death, to overcome our fears of social rejection and ostracization and all the things that show up, that get in the way of witness-bearing courage. Here's the reason why I think Jesus says rejoice and be glad. Why? Because the definition of joy that is true both in the Bible and in neuroscience goes like this Joy is I'm so glad to be with you.
Speaker 2:Like when I come home and I see my kiddos, the first thing I say is I'm so glad to be with you. Why? Because that's joy for the two of us. That's joy in say is I'm so glad to be with you. Why? Because that's joy for the two of us, that's joy in that moment. I'm so glad to be with you. This is what fear sounds like. I am alone and powerless, which are the two prereqs for trauma. By the way, a traumatic event is traumatizing if you feel alone and powerless in it. Jesus is trying to set you free from that. Why? Because he's saying I'm so glad to be with you. Rejoice and be glad. I'm not only with you, I'm within you by my spirit. I'm dwelling in you in that very moment. This is why Oscar Romero could say God was with me in my crucifixion. I'm so glad to be with you. That's what joy looks like. That's why he can command rejoice and be glad. He's basically just take up the truth that God is with you in those moments and even within you by his Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2:And so I wanna close by inviting us to what does it look like to have witness bearing courage? Very practically, and here's my response If you lack courage, you need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. You need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Let me put a two by two up on the board here, this couple, alex and Hannah Absalom. I've learned a lot from them and they talk about how witnessing is essentially this combination of boldness and intentionality.
Speaker 2:Boldness and intentionality In other words, if, for some reason, you find yourself not really bearing witness to Jesus, telling people what you've seen and heard even today, the things that you've seen and heard, telling other people about that. If you lack that, it's probably going to be a deficit in either boldness or intentionality. This is what that means If you are timid and distracted, you're going to have little to no impact at all. If you are timid but intentional, you're going to be pretty ineffective because you're going to be really relationally savvy. You're going to build relationships with lots of people that don't know Jesus, but then you're actually scared to open your mouth to tell them about Jesus. I think that's probably most of us, if I'm going to guess, based on our context.
Speaker 2:The other one would be if you're bold, you've got a lot to say and you're bold to say it, but you're not very intentional about it. You just kind of like pop off whenever you feel like you're up to it. You're pretty sporadic, but if you're bold and intentional, you're a witness. You're a witness towards those who don't know Jesus. So here's the thing If you lack intentionality, schedule it.
Speaker 2:If you lack boldness, spirit, you track with me. Boldness is a fruit of the spirit. It's not in Galatians 5, but it is a fruit of the spirit. You look at Acts 4, they're afraid because there's been persecution against the church. What do they do? They pray, and then the spirit comes powerfully upon the church and when the spirit comes powerfully, they are filled with all boldness to proclaim Jesus, even in the face of persecution.
Speaker 2:So what I don't want you to hear me say is hey, if you lack courage, you just need to muster it up and get after it. That's not what I'm saying. It's the opposite of Christianity. What I'm saying is, if you lack courage, if you feel like a coward. If you're timid, you need to say Holy Spirit. I am afraid right now you confess that and then you receive forgiveness, you receive his presence, you receive those things and then you entrust yourself and the situation and the conversation and the person to God. And then you ask Father, fill me afresh with your Holy Spirit. Luke 11, 13 says if you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father, who's in heaven, give his Holy Spirit to those who ask him? Ask him, and then you thank God. Thank you so much. You gave me the thing I was lacking. I've got the Spirit. And then the last thing is is that you expect his presence and power to go with you and go before you. But let me just warn you on that last one.
Speaker 2:Faith could be spelled R-I-S-K. Risk. Faith could be spelled T-R-Y. Try. Faith is more often stepping into the Jordan before the waters part. But entrusting yourself, expecting that God's going to show up for you in that moment, that's the invitation of a bold witness.
Speaker 2:Let me close with a story about a guy named John G Patton. John G Patton was a missionary to the New Hebrides Islands, particularly one called Vanuatu, and they were completely unreached with the gospel. And there was a couple missionaries that had gone before him and within minutes of stepping on shore they were eaten by cannibals. So John G Patton is getting on a boat and heading to that context, okay, and while he's there he's building relationships. He doesn't get eaten by cannibals right away and he's trying to build camaraderie and connections with the people that live there. And, as was often the case, he'd get betrayed or backstabbed by somebody and he'd have to run for his life. And so one particular night he was hiding in a tree because he had about 100 or 200 of the natives that were around that were trying to kill him. So he's running for his life, he's hiding in the tree and he writes down in his autobiography these words, which I think are the source of what it means to be, of his joy and his courage, of what it means to be a joyful martyr and have witness-bearing courage. Here's the source Quote I climbed into the tree and was there, left alone in the bush.
Speaker 2:The hours I spent there live before me as if it were yesterday. I heard the frequent shooting of muskets and the yells of the natives. Yet I sat there among the branches, as safe as in the arms of Jesus. Never in all my sorrows did my Lord draw nearer to me and speak more soothingly in my soul than when the moonlight flickered among those chestnut leaves and the night air played on my throbbing brow. As I told all my heart to Jesus, alone, yet not alone. If it be to glorify my God, I will not grudge to spend many nights alone in such a tree, to feel again my Savior's spiritual presence, to enjoy his consoling fellowship. If thus thrown back on your own soul, end quote. He goes on to say I pity the person who's never had this experience, getting chased up into a tree by cannibals and experiencing the intimacy of communion with Jesus in that place. The promise he laid hold on in that tree was Jesus's in Matthew 28, 20. The way he ends the gospel of Matthew behold, I am with you always, to the very end of the age.
Speaker 2:Eschatology Intimacy. I'm with you always to the end of the age. Eschatology. If this isn't intimacy and eschatology, I don't know what is. This is a picture of what it means to be a joyful martyr in the face of persecution and stand strong with witness-bearing courage.
Speaker 2:Let's pray. Father, would you fill us with your spirit. Those of us who belong to Jesus have been baptized in your spirit. We already have your spirit, but we want more. Fill us afresh with your Holy Spirit. This morning we pray so that we can bear witness with joy to all. Jesus is all that we have seen and heard in him. We pray this in his name, amen. I'm going to lead us in a time of what's called a prayer of response. We've heard God's word.
Speaker 2:Now we respond through prayer, and there's an acronym I talked about it a moment ago that I've developed, basically about how to be filled with the Holy Spirit. I wanted to know what that was, so I really studied it and then I simplified it for my own sake. Here's the acronym CREATE C-R-E-A-T-E. Confess, receive, entrust, ask, thank, expect, create. That's what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit. I'm gonna lead us prompt by prompt, through those various letters as we ask the Spirit to fill us afresh even now. So I want you to bring to your mind a situation, a person, a scenario you might be in the next week where you might need the boldness of the filling of the Holy Spirit to bear witness with courage to who Jesus is, to be a joyful witness to who he is.
Speaker 2:Let's pray, father. We come to you now with boldness, because we know that you are our Father through Jesus Christ. We take a moment now to confess our fears, our sins, our weaknesses, our needs. We confess those, we tell you the truth about those now. Now we receive forgiveness for our sins. We receive your power in our weakness. We receive your words of life in the midst of a culture of death. We receive those things now, father.
Speaker 2:We entrust our lives to you. We entrust the people around us that you've put us in proximity to bear witness to. We entrust the situations and scenarios at home, at work, in our friend groups. We trust the neighborhoods and networks that you've placed us in. We entrust those to you now, neighborhoods and networks that you've placed us in. We entrust those to you now and now we ask, I ask, father, fill us with your spirit afresh this morning. We thank you, father, for giving us your spirit, holy Spirit. We thank you for filling us, for enabling us, for coming to be not just with us, but within us. We turn towards the future and we know that we will walk in your presence, in your power. It's for Jesus' beautiful name, we pray, amen.