Christians Standing Defiant for Jesus

My pastor has asked me to preach the sermon this Sunday 27th December. My topic is Matthew 2:1-12, the visit of the Magi.

I have decided that I'm going to talk on the theme of trust - that the Magi trusted Jesus as a future saviour, even though He was just a baby and it would be 30 years before he even began His ministry.

Matthew tells us that Joseph, Mary and Jesus were forced to flee to Egypt, and in my sermon I shall point to the Egyptian Coptic Christian church as a church that has survived centuries of persecution - continuing to the present day - thanks to trust in Jesus.

Here is an excerpt from an article I wrote earlier this year:

Egypt holds a special place in the history of the church. Mary and Joseph fled there with the infant Jesus. Saint Mark founded the Egyptian church just a decade after the death of Christ, possibly wrote his gospel there and was martyred there.

In addition, few places better symbolized the third-century church father Tertullian’s famous statement, that the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church.

In the words of the Tour Egypt website: “It was in Egypt that some of the greatest defiances of the Romans by Christians were done. While their Roman counterparts worshipped in catacombs and underground vaults, the Egyptian Christians built their churches openly and performed their ceremonies in full view of the Empire. And for every one that the Empire struck down, more would be converted by the example of the martyr.”

For several hundred years Egypt was a proudly Christian nation. Then the Muslim invasion of the seventh century saw the country slowly turn into an Islamic state. Today Christians number only around 10 per cent of the population.

But the martyrdoms continue. Recent years have seen some particularly grotesque attacks on Christians from Saudi-inspired Islamists. The Islamists even try to deny the Christian heritage of Egypt.

Yet Christians in the West generally know little about the Coptic Church. This is unfortunate, as it has much to teach us.

In the early centuries it taught that to become a Christian was possibly to enter a world of suffering.

Now, with persecution on the rise in many parts of the world, we see a praying church that, despite enduring many centuries of hardship and martyrdom, stands strong, proud and defiant. For nearly 2,000 years it has remained true to its calling - true to Christ, true to the Bible, true to its teachings and unafraid of death. This should be an inspiration to us all.

Staying Power

James is speaking to me. Over and over. He is rather insistent that way.

Other biblical writers take a more roundabout path, craft a message that isn't too in your face. But James is not like that. He is so straightforward, it's hard to take sometimes. And for two weeks, I've not gotten past his first eighteen verses.

“Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.”

Heck, I can barely get past that.

Troubles are an opportunity for great joy. I know, in retrospect, that this is true. I didn't usually know when troubles were actually in my way. It's kind of difficult to see the joy when the trouble is filling your entire windshield and blocking the view of anything else. But I know, deeply, that these verses are true. I know that the steadfastness (the word the ESV uses for endurance) I feel in my faith is a result of the extreme pains of the past, and I feel nothing but grateful for that. But the knowing when pain suddenly pierces your side – that is far more difficult. Only falling back on my history with God, and on his words, will remind me.

“If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do.”

I know when people read this, they think, “But I can never ask without doubt. Isn't that beyond human ability? Besides, God doesn't always give us what we ask for, so how can we not doubt we will get it?” 

I believe that's a misreading. James isn't implying we will receive what we ask for. He has no stock in the name it and claim it gospel. His point is not that we never doubt the outcome but that we never doubt God. The faith should be in the One we are praying to, not in the thing we want. 

Do we doubt God himself, his goodness, his power, or his love? Do we pray to him but hedge our bets, putting real trust in something else in case God doesn't come through? Can we joyfully say when we pray, “Your will be done. If I never see any result, if I live in trials from this day forward, I will trust in you”? Like Job, in other words, can we mean, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him”?

That's the faith James is talking about. And “God, I'm stamping your name on what I want, and I know you'll deliver” is an anemic substitute for that kind of faith.

Plus, let's not forget he's encouraging us to ask for wisdom, not a grab bag of stuff. Specifically, wisdom to endure trials and know how to mine the joy from them and leave the junk. I can only imagine what American Christianity would look like if more of us asked for wisdom first before asking for anything else. It might be a good Lenten discipline right now.

“Believers who are poor have something to boast about, for God has honored them. And those who are rich should boast that God has humbled them. They will fade away like a little flower in the field. The hot sun rises and the grass withers; the little flower droops and falls, and its beauty fades away. In the same way, the rich will fade away with all of their achievements. God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. And remember, when you are being tempted, do not say, 'God is tempting me.' God is never tempted to do wrong, and he never tempts anyone else. Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death.”

We're talking priorities here. Going through trials with faith and endurance, rather than impatience and blaming, creates in us the kind of maturity God seeks. The kind that shines like a light for others going through pain. So it makes sense he would follow up those lessons with a reminder that, in this tiny slice of eternity, our relative abundance of possessions or security doesn't matter at all. What matters is how we react to the circumstances of our lives. Choose joy and faith, or choose complaint and striving? Either way, the moments of our lives fade quickly. So why spend them chasing after what will splinter and dissolve even faster?

I don't know what that is for you. Maybe it's a new house, but you'r sacrificing time with those eternal beings known as your family to get there. Maybe it's a job promotion, but you're living and breathing in dissatisfaction every time you get passed over. Maybe it's notice and appreciation for something you've done, but you're letting bitterness and resentment keep you from tangible love for the offending person (who probably doesn't even know you're waiting).

I don't know. I just know, from experience, that chasing what I don't have ruins all chances of living in gratitude for what I do.  [tweet this]. If I'm tempted to disbelieve, doubt, and chase, it isn't God tempting me. It's me wanting what God is not offering. That is such a waste, considering what he does offer.

"So don't be misled, my dear brothers and sisters. Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow. He chose to give birth to us by giving us his true word. And we, out of all creation, became his prized possession." 

Is it good? Then it's from God. Does it feel good, look good, or sound good? It may be from God. Then again, it may not. Good doesn't always feel good. Sometimes, it feels an awful lot like pain. Sometimes, good appears as great hurt that peels away at our selfishness and pride and exposes the raw, vulnerable flesh of repentance and surrender.  [tweet this]. And that, my friends, is very, very good. You can trust that kind of good, because it doesn't depend on circumstances or feelings. It depends on the character of God, which never changes.

Our feelings go in and out like the tide. His core being remains like the sun, the center around which we must orbit. Maybe that's why James uses such a beautiful, evocative name for him – the Father of Lights.

I feel deeply ashamed, when confronted with brothers and sisters who are losing their lives rather than doubt their Father. Sisters who watch their children murdered; brothers who see their wives and daughters sold into slavery. Because they are people who chose not to doubt their Father.

Meanwhile, I live in a culture where we desert churches because we don't like the choices they make for a building project or an outreach ministry, or we just wanted to be noticed and appreciated and don't think we were. I live in a world where Christians expect God to come through for them because they've prayed a prayer and thought positively, so that job, relationship, bank account should be safe and secure. And when it isn't? Oh, we are driven and tossed by the wind of doubt and disbelief.

We have no concept of steadfastness.

I have no concept of it.

Lord, give us steadfastness. Give us wisdom. Give us perspective on what is real trouble and what is our selfish response to temporary discomfort, offense, or inconvenience. Make us a people of lights that rely on the Father of Lights so that others will know – you are good. You are totally, unflinchingly, everlastingly, good. 

In Mortal Danger

Yesterday, my daughter told me a lesson she has learned over the years from her best friend's mother. My daughter and her best friend tend to scream. A bit. 

Lest you think this is annoying but innocuous because you are imagining junior high girls squealing and giggling--no. My daughter is trained in musical theater. When she screams, the neighbors head to the basement convinced it's the tornado siren. These girls are loud. 

So to retain her sanity, said friend's mother has a refrain. When she hears screaming commence, she calls out: "When do we scream? Only when we are . . . "


And the girls must answer: "In mortal danger!"

See her belt that song?
Yeah, the girl can scream.

So far, I'm not sure of the progress. But I like the idea. 


By now you may be wondering how far afield from the 4th of July I'm going with this. OK, bringing it back.

I think American Christians are guilty of screaming a tad too much. When the danger is not mortal.

Today, we celebrate the founding of a country based on a difficult and dangerous decision to separate from a government that "has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people."

In other words, a government that had committed atrocities against its own people and denied them the right to be heard. Their endeavor was to create a new country where  "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." It was a revolution--unlike any before. 

It would be disrespectful at best to trivialize the sacrifice of those men and women by forgetting the seriousness of their struggle. It would be unforgivable to equate lesser struggles with what they fought against and sacrificed. 

Yet, too often, this is the precise parallel many Christians make. We cry tyranny and persecution, appropriating for ourselves the terms our founders gave their lives, property, and liberty to stand against. Unjust treatment. The end of Western Civilization. Why? Because store clerks don't say Merry Christmas and schools teach evolution and Duck Dynasty might lose its elder stateman. 

 Compared to those men and women? We're screaming when we're only in moderate danger, at best. 

I would like to see a revolution, too. A revolution in evangelicalism of choosing our battles, meeting anger with love, and refusing to scream unless the very Kingdom of God is at risk. Because if we refuse to understand the difference between what is mortal danger and what is not, we're in real danger of becoming the whiny kid that mom automatically tunes out because she's heard this tune before.

Persecution is defined as: a program or campaign to exterminate, drive away, or subjugate a people because of their religion, race, or beliefs.

It's a deliberate plan to wholesale silence a group of people, in whatever way necessary.  Unless you are Meriam Ibrahim or Pastor Saeed, you are probably not being persecuted. To use the refrain, you have to be . . . in mortal danger.

Yes, there are many forces in the US allied against traditional Christian beliefs. Yes, we find ourselves insulted and our point of view minimized or ridiculed. I don't want to make light of the reality that the culture has shifted, and it is quite acceptable to call Christians as a group a host of degrading names. It is becoming acceptable to tell us we have no right to do business or hold office because of our beliefs. These are things of which we should be wary.

But it would help further the legitimate conversation if we did not scream over the trivial. If every time we felt our rights threatened we did not cry wolf. If whenever our comfort or status quo is challenged we didn't complain of persecution. If when our ego is insulted, we didn't holler that it was only because of our faith. If when another opinion in a pluralistic society wins the day we would not claim that the end of the world is near. 

--A negative Huff Post article is not persecution.
--A bad book review by an unbeliever is not persecution.
--An insulting Facebook post is not persecution.
--Being asked not to mention God in a graduation speech is not persecution. (Though a student can and perhaps should disobey. It is a legal right.)
--A boycott of Duck Dynasty or Hobby Lobby is not persecution. 
--A court ruling for gays or Muslims or abortionists is not persecution.

The problem is, we too often mistake insult for intentional assault. Our comfort is in danger. But it's not worth screaming.

We are in danger of being that proverbial boy who cried wolf when in fact, mortal danger did not exist. When it does, who is going to listen? Not the villagers, who have heard it too many time before. Do we really want that?

On July 4th, I want to remember why our country was founded. I want to remember the sacrifices people made to give us a beginning for a country that has more freedoms than the vast majority of the other 196 out there. I want to be grateful to them and to God. Because I know it could be completely different. 

I'll save my screaming for when it matters. That's not really a revolution. It's what Jesus told us to do. 

"You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike." (Matthew 5.45)