Voice
of the Martyrs reports about cases of martyrdom and persecution around the
world. Telling of a church in China, the
website records:
Living
Stone Church in Guiyang has worshiped openly since 2009, growing to a regular
attendance of more than 700 members. The Chinese government has harassed the
church since its founding, but the purchase of a new office space for meetings
seemed to bring tensions with the government to a new high.
The
church’s…co-pastor, Su Tianfu, previously reported that 99 percent of the
church’s members have received calls from government officials, pressuring them
to leave the church. In addition, church leaders have been continually
pressured to join the government-sanctioned Three-Self Church.[i]
We in
the United States are quite blessed to live in a culture where we don’t
experience this kind of intense persecution.
Movies like “God’s Not Dead” and “God’s Not Dead 2” underscore that we
American Christians can often feel quite persecuted, regardless of the fact
that we aren’t being killed on the streets for our faith, or imprisoned for our
beliefs. But what did Jesus have to say
about His followers being hated by the world?
In
John 15:18,[ii] Jesus says, “If the world hates you, remember that it
hated me first.” This word “if” can
also be translated as “since,” indicating that Jesus assumed that His followers
would indeed be hated. So it’s not
surprising that some Christians feel like the world hates them. There are basically three possible reasons
why some believers might feel that way.
First,
some Christians have a persecution complex, and they only think the world hates
them. When I was a child, I was picked
on a little bit because I was the kid who brought his Bible to school and went
off to the corner of the playground to read it during recess. I remember one boy calling me a “religious
freak.” Because of this, I felt
persecuted. Maybe at work, your boss has
asked you to take down your religious artwork because the company doesn’t want to
promote the disunity that religious expression in the workplace can
create. You may feel that Christians are
discriminated against because Duck Dynasty got canceled, or Tim Tebow got cut
by the Eagles, Broncos, Jets, and Patriots.[iii] But this isn’t persecution—it’s
business. Persecution is when, as Jesus
said in John 16:2-3, “you will be
expelled from the synagogues, and the time is coming when those who kill you
will think they are doing a holy service for God. 3 This is because they have
never known the Father or me.” Persecution
is when Boko Haram beheads Christians, or China jails them, or Rome feeds them
to lions. “The world hating you” isn’t
when some people dislike you. When we
American Christians exaggerate how much everybody hates us, that’s called a
persecution complex.
Second,
the world system hates some Christians because they accurately represent Jesus,
whom the powers that be despise. In John 15:19, Jesus says, “The world would love you as one of its own
if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world. I chose you to
come out of the world, so it hates you.”
Being part of the world means following human standards of right and
wrong, rather than God’s. It means
following greatness, rather than following goodness. This is what the Pharisees did, as they
sucked up to the power of Rome. But
heaven’s reign isn’t about following the world system. It’s about caring for the downtrodden and
outcast, welcoming refugees and strangers, forgiving those who have harmed you,
loving your enemies, speaking up for the oppressed, defending the weak,
providing for the poor, and helping the hurting. It’s about challenging those who value money
over mercy, rules over relationship, and convenience over justice. So if the world hates you because you look
too much like Jesus—then good! You’re
doing the right thing. Jesus says in
Matthew 5:10, “God blesses those who are
persecuted for doing right, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.”
Third, the world
hates some Christians because, well, they’re jerks. Some people who call themselves Christians
are anything but followers of Jesus. They
may be church members or attenders, but they have never let the teachings of
Jesus impact their behavior, and they certainly don’t have the love of Jesus in
their hearts. They are bitter, uncaring,
judgmental, mean-spirited, power-hungry people who are part of a social club
called the Church. The world hates people like that, and can spot fakes a mile away. So just because the world hates you, that
doesn’t mean you reflect Jesus—it might be the opposite. Maybe you’re just a jerk in Christian
clothing. Time to repent of false
religion and find a relationship with Jesus that truly transforms you.
In John
15:26-16:1, Jesus says, “But I will send
you the Advocate—the Spirit of truth. He will come to you from the Father and
will testify all about me. And you must also testify about me because you have
been with me from the beginning of my ministry.
I have told you these things so that you won’t abandon your faith.” Jesus promises that He will be with us,
in the person of the Holy Spirit. The
Spirit will comfort and teach us, giving us courage for each day so that we
will keep the faith. Jesus says in John
16:33, “I have told you all this so that
you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows.
But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”
So if you ever get
to feeling like everybody hates you, it’s best to ask why. There are good and bad reasons why people
might hate you—and maybe they don’t hate you at all. But you can be sure that if you let Jesus
transform you by His love, He will be with you no matter what the world says or
does.
[i] The
Voice of the Martyrs. April 17, 2017. China:
Jailed Pastor Gravely Ill. https://www.persecution.com/public/newsroom.aspx?story_ID=%3d383439. August 10, 2017.
[ii]
Scripture quotations taken from the NLT.
[iii]
For a poignant article on Tim Tebow, read: Redeeming God. Myers, Jeremy. “Why the Eagles Cut Tim
Tebow.” https://redeeminggod.com/tim-tebow-stop-praying/ August 10, 2017.
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