Finding Joy in the Midst of Persecution: Insights from Acts 5

In this sermon, D. A. Carson highlights the apostles’ joy in suffering for their faith. Carson discusses the Christian perspective on suffering, emphasizing its value as a testament to one’s faithfulness and alignment with historical believers who faced persecution. The sermon underscores the importance of rejoicing in suffering, not as a form of masochism, but as a reflection of being deemed worthy to suffer for Christ’s name.

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This evening I’d like to begin by reading Acts, chapter 5, beginning at verse 12 to the end of the chapter. We’re going to be focusing especially on verse 41, but the setting is important. Acts, chapter 5, beginning at verse 12.

“The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon’s Colonnade. No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people. Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number.

As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by. Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by evil spirits, and all of them were healed.

Then the high priest and all his associates, who were members of the party of the Sadducees, were filled with jealousy. They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail. But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out. ‘Go, stand in the temple courts,’ he said, ‘and tell the people all about this new life.’ At daybreak they entered the temple courts, as they had been told, and began to teach the people.

When the high priest and his associates arrived, they called together the Sanhedrin—the full assembly of the elders of Israel—and sent to the jail for the apostles. But on arriving at the jail, the officers did not find them there. So they went back and reported, ‘We found the jail securely locked, with the guards standing at the doors; but when we opened them, we found no one inside.’

On hearing this report, the captain of the temple guard and the chief priests were puzzled, wondering what this might lead to. Then someone came and said, ‘Look! The men you put in jail are standing in the temple courts teaching the people.’ At that, the captain went with his officers and brought the apostles. They did not use force, because they feared that the people would stone them.

The apostles were brought in and made to appear before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest. ‘We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name,’ he said. ‘Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood.’ Peter and the other apostles replied: ‘We must obey God rather than human beings! The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead—whom you killed by hanging him on a cross.

God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might bring Israel to repentance and forgive their sins. We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.’ When they heard this, they were furious and wanted to put them to death.

But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, who was honored by all the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin and ordered that the men be put outside for a little while. Then he addressed the Sanhedrin: ‘Men of Israel, consider carefully what you intend to do to these men. Some time ago Theudas appeared, claiming to be somebody, and about four hundred men rallied to him. He was killed, all his followers were dispersed, and it all came to nothing.

After him, Judas the Galilean appeared in the days of the census and led a band of people in revolt. He too was killed, and all his followers were scattered. Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.’

His speech persuaded them. They called the apostles in and had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah.”

This is the Word of the Lord.

Did you notice verse 41? “The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.” Here is an aspect of Christian joy that initially seems a bit unexpected. Don’t misunderstand what it is. It is not masochism. They weren’t rejoicing in their suffering. There are some people who have such twisted minds that they actually extract pleasure from pain, but the apostles are not among them.

It’s not as if they say, “Go ahead. Hit me again. I really love it.” Rather, in the pain, they rejoice because they are counted worthy to suffer for the name. What is the rationale for this? Where does this aspect of Christian joy come from? If all of this week we’re looking at one aspect or another of Christian joy, we need to face this one, for we shall soon see that it is a very rich New Testament theme.

What is the rationale for it? Where does it come from, and how binding is the example of the apostles on us? Now the best way to address this question, I think, is to pull together a number of biblical themes and passages that explicitly respond to these questions. At the end, we’ll see how these themes illuminate Acts 5 and the response of the apostles and how, in turn, these themes must then shape our own lives.

Let me pause here and underscore that the only suffering I’m talking about tonight … the only one … is suffering for Jesus’ sake. I’ll hint a couple of times at other forms of suffering. I fully insist that the Bible deals with many different kinds of suffering. It would be worthwhile taking an evening or two just on the book of Job, for example. The apostle Paul, as we’ll see later, suffers what he calls “a thorn in the flesh,” a messenger of Satan, presumably some kind of physical ailment which he is going to endure because the Lord will not heal him.

I am sure that in a crowd like this, there are some of you who are diagnosed with a terminal illness. Some of you have been recently bereaved. Quite a number of you have been divorced. Some of you here are in abusive relationships. Some of you have suffered physically a great deal in your life. I know that, and I don’t want to pooh-pooh any of that kind of suffering. It is all important material to think about in the light of Holy Scripture.

But when you read through the New Testament quickly asking the question, “What kind of suffering do the biblical writers consider at greatest length and most repeatedly?” then the answer is, “It is suffering for Jesus’ sake.” It’s not suffering from cancer (although in principle that’s treated here too). It’s suffering for righteousness. It’s suffering for Jesus’ sake. It’s persecution. It’s being despised. It’s being abused because of our attachment to Jesus.

Here the apostles rejoice because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the name. The question comes to us today, “Where does that kind of Christian joy play its part in our lives today?” Now I want to outline six themes for you. Then we’ll cycle back and see how this works out for us.

1. Jesus himself connects his suffering with our suffering.

Dominantly, he does this in two ways. First, by tying his cross with us taking up our cross. Now in each case, I’ll focus on one or two particular passages to illustrate the point. If you want to follow along in your Bibles, you’ll have time to find the passage at stake.

In this first instance, Matthew, chapter 16, especially where he begins by asking his disciples (Matthew 16:13), “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” I’m sure you recall the passage. “Some say this. Some say that.” Jesus finally says, “What about you? Who do you say I am?” Peter answers, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:16)

Then we’re told (verse 21), “From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.” Peter, thinking he has been approved by Christ for getting the answer right once, now is so convinced of his innate gift as a theologian that he can correct Jesus himself.

He takes Jesus aside and begins to rebuke him. “Never, Lord! This shall not happen to you!” “I mean, messiahs don’t die. They win.” Thus even when Peter is confessing that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, he did not mean what you and I mean today. His confession was still a sub-Christian confession.

When you and I say that Jesus is the Messiah, inevitably we can’t forget that the Messiah of whom we speak went to the cross and died and was the substitute sacrifice. We can’t ever forget that. We can’t forget that he rose again from the dead. But Peter still doesn’t have a category for that. He confesses that Jesus is the Messiah, but he doesn’t have a category for a crucified Messiah.

In fact, between this occasion and Jesus on the cross, in Matthew’s gospel alone, there are five explicit predictions on the lips of Jesus as to the fact that he must go to the cross and die. Yet on the night Jesus is betrayed, the disciples still don’t have a category for a crucified Messiah. It was so far out of their thinking, it was essentially alien.

After all, didn’t Jesus say a lot of pretty enigmatic things? Do you remember how in John 2 he says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it again”? John comments, at the time, the apostles didn’t have a clue what Jesus was saying. I am sure they were muttering under their breath, “Deep! Deep!” But they didn’t understand it. So Jesus wheels on Peter and says, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

Peter wanted a royal Messiah, a victorious Messiah, a strong Messiah. He had no category for a strong Messiah who would also be a crucified Messiah, a victorious King who would also be a suffering servant, a triumphant lion who would also be a dead Lamb. Then as soon as Jesus has finished this exchange, he says, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.”

Do you hear that? Today we sometimes use expressions like, “We’ve all got our crosses to bear” to refer to fairly innocuous sufferings: an ingrown toenail, an abscessed tooth, a grumpy in-law. “We all have our crosses to bear.” In the first century, you didn’t make jokes like that. The Romans had three categories of execution, and crucifixion was exclusively for scumbags, slaves, traitors. No Roman citizen could be executed by crucifixion apart from the explicit sanction of the emperor.

A German scholar by the name of Martin Hengel has collected all of the references to crucifixion in the ancient world, and he has shown that everywhere where the expression occurs, it is so associated with shame and ignominy and disgrace that parents are told not to talk about these things in front of their children. “If there’s a public place of execution, make sure you walk around it so that kids will never see it.”

Today we don’t feel that so strongly because we dangle crosses from our ears and wear them on our lapels and put them on our church buildings, and nobody is scandalized. We have a domesticated cross. But now along comes Jesus and says, “Unless you take up your cross and follow me, you can’t be my disciple.”

To take up your cross in the ancient world means that sentence has been passed, and you’re forced to carry the cross member, the horizontal bar on your shoulder out to the place of execution where you’re stripped naked and nailed or tied to the cross member, which is then hoisted up on the vertical. There you die in agony and shame. To take up your cross means you are dead, except for the dying. There’s no hope. You’re done.

Jesus says, after talking about the way he is going to the cross, “Unless you take up your cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple.” This is not what you call seeker-sensitive. But in the fullness of time, Christians came to understand that to live with Jesus, to live under Jesus’ authority, is in some deep sense to die to self. That can hurt. It can be painful. The only adequate metaphor Jesus has for describing it is cross work. You can’t be a follower of Jesus unless you take up his cross.

So Jesus himself actually connects his literal, physical going to the cross with a metaphorical but telling cross work that every single Christian must face or he cannot be a follower of Jesus. There’s another way Jesus connects his suffering with our suffering. In a number of passages, he ties his suffering as Master with our suffering as his slaves. For example, in John, chapter 15, we read (verse 18) …

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘Servants [slaves] are not greater than their master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.”

In other words, if Jesus is persecuted, why on earth should you ever think that his slaves, his followers, should escape opposition? Why should you think that? “If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me.” The first point to observe is that Jesus himself connects his suffering with our suffering. Second, this last passage (John, chapter 15) also shows that …

2. Christian suffering for righteousness’ sake presupposes that the world is evil.

Do you recall what Jesus said? “Servants are not greater than their master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me.”

They do not know God. They’re alienated from God himself. Then he goes on to make it more explicit. “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.” In other words, Jesus’ very presence and teaching, because he is so righteous and his words are so utterly true and righteous and revelatory of God himself, it inevitably evokes a response from those who do not know God. There will be opposition.

“Those who hate me hate my Father as well. If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father.” You find a similar sort of notion when you are told by the Lord Jesus elsewhere in Matthew, chapter 5, at the end of the Beatitudes, “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

That is, they’re persecuted not because they’re bad people or just because they belong to another religion or another political or religious party but because of righteousness. Their own conduct is such that it shames other people. In other words, Christian suffering for righteousness’ sake presupposes the world is evil. That can take on so many forms, of course.

Notice the suffering in this passage may not be torture or crucifixion. Jesus says, “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.” Suffering because of Jesus and suffering for righteousness’ sake are seen as the same thing, so tied with Jesus that we act in certain kinds of ways which have the effect of making people want to dismiss us, to insult us, to persecute us, to say falsely all kinds of evil.

Jesus goes on to say, “Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven.” In other words, you’re at work, and your boss asks you to fudge on some of the accounting. Supposing you were an MP at Westminster, and the entire culture encourages you to fudge on your accounts. What would they be saying about you if you didn’t? How do you handle dirty office jokes? How about the kind of gossip? Do you participate in it?

Or is there a kind of integrity in your speech that makes you stand off just a wee bit, not with self-righteousness, not with rudeness, not by saying, “I belong to the local Baptist church. I don’t talk like that” (which is not righteousness, it’s arrogance)? Supposing with grace and integrity, your conduct is just different. It’s a cut above, and you make it clear this is because of Jesus.

Will everybody around you be happy, or will you face some insults, some to your face, some behind your back? Peer pressure at school, at university, in the business place, in the home, on the streets, in a factory. Listen. This is a damned world. When the light of righteousness shines in it, it is going to attract opposition of one kind or another, some very civilized and posh and some barbaric. But it will attract opposition.

3. This suffering connects us with genuine believers across the ages.

Now that last passage I read to you (Matthew 5:11 and 12) I left out the last line. Let me repeat the verses. “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

Isaiah wasn’t all that popular in his day. Oral history tells us that under the reign of Manasseh, he died as an old man fleeing for his life in a wood where he climbed into a hollow tree. When Manasseh’s troops caught him, they tied a rope around the hole where he got into the tree and then cut down the tree. Almost certainly that’s the allusion in Hebrews 11 where some, we’re told, had been sawn asunder, of whom the world was not worthy.

Oh, Jeremiah! How popular was he? Or Elijah. How popular was he? This text says, “Rejoice and be glad!” We’re back at it again with the apostles. “Rejoice and be glad!” Why? Because now you’re aligned with the very prophets of God. That’s part of the point, of course, of the end of Hebrews 11 and the beginning of Hebrews 12. Hebrews 11, that great faith chapter. Stalwarts of faithfulness.

Right at the end where the writer runs through those he doesn’t have time to talk about.… Verse 32: “What more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, about David, Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, gained what was promised.” A whole host of positive things.

Then he adds, “There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted, mistreated—the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains and in caves and holes in the ground.

These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”

You see, the assumption again is that either we align with these people who really have done by faith some wonderful things, but who have also suffered some pretty awful things too. This suffering connects us with genuine believers across the ages.

4. Otherwise put, such suffering is part of our calling as Christians.

Understand that. Such suffering is part of our calling as Christians. If you are a Christian, you are called to suffer for Jesus’ sake. That’s not too strong. It’s virtually a direct quote. Do you recall Philippians, chapter 1, verse 29? The apostle writes, “For it has been granted to you …” The word means given by God as a gracious gift. It has been granted to you, given by God as a gracious gift.

“… on behalf of Christ …” “It has been given to you … not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him.” That’s your calling. It’s amazing, isn’t it? It has been graciously given to you by God Almighty, not only to believe on Christ but also to suffer for his sake. That is God’s gracious gift to you.

Then the next verse (verse 30): “Since you are going through the same struggle you saw I had, and now hear I still have.” In other words, these people in Philippi are aligning themselves with Paul as a sufferer for Christ just as, in Jesus’ teaching, his followers aligned themselves with the prophets who had come before.

But there are other passages that tie this understanding of suffering with the gospel itself. Do you recall that remarkable passage in 1 Corinthians, chapter 9, where the apostle talks about how he flexes to win people? “To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law, so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law.”

That’s an important passage. I would love to unpack it at length, but then when he is finished, he says this. Verse 23: “I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may …” Now here our translations differ. “That I may share in its blessings.” ESV says something like that. NIV says something like that. “That I may share in its blessings.”

Do you know what the Greek literally is? “That I may be a partaker in it.” Do you know what Paul means by that? He doesn’t mean share in its blessings. That’s true, but that’s not the point. The point is, as he has explained in the first two chapters, the gospel is the gospel of Christ crucified. It’s the word of the cross. Later on in this book in verse 15, when he starts defining the gospel, he begins by saying, “It is Christ Jesus who died and rose again. He bore our sins in his own body on the tree.”

“Now I do all of this in evangelism with a suffering and self-discipline and awkwardness that it entails so that I might be intimate with it, so that I might partake in it, so that I might be part of the gospel. The gospel intrinsically is about self-death heading toward resurrection. That’s the way our Master went. I do all of this that involves so much self-denial not only to win others but so that I might be a participant in the gospel itself.”

That’s why Paul can say in Philippians, chapter 3, that he wants to know not only the power of Christ’s resurrection but the fellowship of his sufferings. You may have noticed by now that each time I have finished one of these points, the last passage has not only dealt with the point but has anticipated the next point because these things really are linked. They’re not really separate points. Now we move on to Philippians, chapter 3, and we really do see the next point most powerfully.

5. Our Christian suffering is tied in the Bible to experiencing Christ’s resurrection power.

Philippians 3, verses 10 through 12. Verse 10: “I want to know Christ.” This isn’t an apostle who already knows him. He means, in the context, to know him better. He is talking actually about the nature of justification.

Granted that he is justified by Christ, he says, “I want to know this Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings …” Okay, get the order right. “… becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.” A, B … B, A.

“I want to know the power of his resurrection.” Elsewhere, Paul talks often about the power of the resurrection that is at work in us in transforming us. When he writes to the Ephesians, for example, he speaks about how God works in us to transform us with the very same power God exercised in raising Jesus from the dead.

He prays in chapter 3 that the believers might have power, the same power that he has defined in chapter 1, the power that raised Jesus from the dead, power to be able to grasp how long and wide and high and deep is the love of Christ. He wants us to have power to be conformed to Christ, and it’s the same power that raised Jesus from the dead.

Do you know what? Wherever there’s a resurrection, there’s a death first. It’s jolly hard to get resurrected if you don’t die first. Now he says, “I want to know Christ. Yes, yes.” “I want to know the power of his resurrection,” the power of which he often speaks, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead in so transforming me in line with Pauline teaching everywhere, and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death and somehow attaining the resurrection from the dead.

This “somehow” does not mean, “Somehow.… I don’t know how, but somehow maybe I’ll be good enough somehow to attain there if I suffer enough.” That’s not what he means at all. What he means is, mysteriously, this is the very avenue in which God metes out his power. It was so in Jesus with his unique sacrifice in death. Jesus suffered and rose again.

Elsewhere Paul teaches when he writes to the Romans, “If we suffer with him, we will reign with him.” What is the venue then in which God’s power works within us? Oh, I know it’s purchased fundamentally by Christ, but in our own experience as we take up our cross and die, as we are aligned with the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings, with participation in Christ’s shame, that same resurrection power is at work within us now.

That’s the context in which Christ’s resurrection power works within us until ultimately we’re raised in resurrection existence on the last day. Paul understands this beyond the suffering of persecution. There is one passage where it runs both ways (2 Corinthians, chapter 12) where Paul talks about his thorn in the flesh, this messenger of Satan that was sent to torment him, to keep him humble and all of the rest.

He prayed earnestly three times that God would take it away, and God’s answer was simply, “No, Paul. It’s not going to happen.” “My grace is sufficient for you.” Paul concludes, “Therefore I will rejoice in my weaknesses so that Christ’s power may be perfected in me.” That’s the pattern: Death to life, and it’s tied to the gospel itself. That’s what Jesus did. His death was in some sense unique, but in other sense, it’s a pattern. That’s why we are to take up our cross and follow him. If we suffer with him, we will reign with him.

6. Christian suffering in the Bible is also tied to the dissemination of the gospel.

Now that’s what’s going on obviously in Acts, chapter 5. It’s while Peter and the others are still preaching that they get arrested. Eventually they get flogged, and they rejoice that they are counted worthy to suffer for the name.

Then later on in the book, in Acts 16 we find Paul, for example, one of his many incarcerations or beatings. There now he is in prison himself. After a severe beating and being locked in the stocks, he and Barnabas are heard at midnight singing hymns. That is, they are rejoicing. Rejoicing! Thanking God for the grace that is granted to them not only to believe in his name but also to suffer for his sake, which is what Paul then wrote in his next letter to the Philippians.

There are other passages that make this same point with equal power. In Revelation 12, this spectacular description of Satan himself.… I don’t have time to go through the whole chapter. Satan is defeated and thrown out of heaven.

Because he is thrown out of heaven because of Christ’s cross work, we hear a loud voice in heaven say (Revelation 12:10), “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.”

Verse 12: “Rejoice, you heavens, you who dwell in them” because Satan has been destroyed. He has been cast out of the presence of God. He has no ground on which to accuse us. “But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.”

In the context of that chapter, he vents his full fury on the children of the woman. That is, on Christians, those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus. That is, they are Christians. The church is the personification of the very people of God, Israel in the Old Testament, the church in the New Testament, this woman whose children are under constant attack by the Devil whose fury is unreservedly fierce precisely because he knows he is a defeated foe.

How do the Christians beat him? We’re told (Revelation 12:11).… First, “They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb.” Secondly, “By the word of their testimony.” And thirdly, “They did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.”

First, “They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb.” What this means is that when the Accuser throws anything in our direction, we don’t say, “Well, I’m not really all that bad.” What we say is, “I plead the blood of Jesus. It’s all I need. He died for me. His death is my death. His life is my life. He has died in my place. He has borne my sins in his own body on the tree.” They overcome Satan and all of his accusations on the ground of the blood of the Lamb.

Secondly, “By the word of their testimony.” That does not mean they gave their testimony a lot. It means they bore testimony to Jesus. That is, they talked about the gospel. They bore testimony to Jesus as the apostles were doing in Acts, chapter 5. They bore testimony to Jesus. That’s how they triumph over the Devil. They ground their entire confidence before God and the blood of the Lamb, and they preach the gospel. They teach the gospel. They live out the gospel. Comprehensively, they teach the Word of God. They bear testimony to Jesus.

Lastly, “They did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.” How are you going to stop a Christian? Kill them? What good will that do? God is converting more of them all the time. Kill the apostle Paul, and he is busy saying, “Well, I can’t really decide which is better. You know, to stay here and help you folks or to go and be with Jesus. Which is far better? Go ahead. Kill me.” “They did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.” They serve a Master who has gone to death.

Do not fall into the easy conclusion that the blood of the martyrs is always the seed of the church. That’s not always true. It is often true, but it is not always true. Sometimes the persecution, the torture, the deaths, the eradication are so violent that the church in a particular area is actually wiped out. That’s what happened in Albania.

It’s closer to the truth that when persecution comes in, the hangers-on and those who are merely nominal Christians fade away. They die off. They’re not interested. The cost is too high. But the church then is purified, and when the pressure comes off a bit, there’s rapid expansion again. Sometimes in countries where there have been cycles of persecution, God actually uses this in a glorious way to bring in millions and millions and millions of people.

When the missionaries in China were all left about 1949 to 1951 or thereabouts under the influence of Mao, there were fewer than a million Christians of any sort of description in the entire country. Now the most conservative estimate puts it at 80 million. “They didn’t love their lives so much as to shrink from death.” Christian suffering is tied to the dissemination of the gospel.

So then now come back to Acts, chapter 5, and we conclude. We are told the disciples left the Sanhedrin rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the name. You see, the apostle Peter himself was present when Jesus taught the Sermon on the Mount. He was present in Caesarea Philippi when Peter gave that glorious confession, “You are the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of the living God” and then was rebuked because he had no category for a crucified Messiah.

Then Jesus went on to say, “If you want to be my follower, you have to take up your cross and follow me.” Peter was there. So were the other apostles. This was now their theology. They had begun to understand Christian suffering for righteousness’ sake presupposes the world is evil. In this passage they say, “We must obey God rather than human beings.”

Their suffering connects us with genuine believers across the ages. It’s almost as if the apostles are (dare I say it?) relieved. They’ve been given authority, astonishing apostolic authority to perform spectacular miracles. They have seen the church grow by thousands. Instead of strutting around and talking about power because they are powerful, they’re a little worried they haven’t suffered yet.

Now they’ve been good and flogged, and they smile because now they’ve been counted worthy to suffer for the name. That is so diametrically opposed to every hint of health, wealth, and prosperity gospel. This linking of suffering and the gospel and modeling with other Christians just shows up in so many passages.

One more: 2 Timothy, chapter 1, verse 6. Paul writes to Timothy his last letter, so far as we know. “For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of hands. For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner.”

The power of God here is going to work out in boldness of Christian articulation. “So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel. Do this by the power of God who has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace, the grace that was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time.”

Later he says, “Of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher. That is why I am suffering as I am.” “Now join me in this.” Do you see? The theme is everywhere. When I was a boy, many, many younger Christians were encouraged to read Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. It’s not always good history. It’s not bad, but it really runs from martyrdom in the early church down to the 1800s. Some have tried to update it a wee bit, but do you know there have been more Christian martyrs in the last 150 years than in the previous 1,800 years combined?

Today you now also need to read, for example, Don Cormack’s Killing Fields, Living Fields, the account of the suffering church in Cambodia. The story has not yet been told about Southern Sudan. One of my former PhD students at Trinity is a Palestinian who teaches at Bethlehem Bible College. His best friend ran a Christian bookshop in Gaza. A few months ago, he was killed, hacked to death with knives, and then his little store was bombed and burned.

The story hasn’t been told about the number of deaths in Indonesia in the last 15 years. We’re not heading into that kind of violence here. Not any time soon anyway. But I can quite believe that, for example, legislation could be passed in one or more Western democracies (it’s been tried already) that would make failure to advance practicing homosexuals in the local church a civil offense and, therefore, you could go to jail.

That will probably happen in one or more Western countries before I die, certainly before some of the younger ones of you die. America, where I now live, is a big, strange, multi-faceted country. There are Bible Belt corners of it where it’s another planet.

Then there’s New York City, which in the last four years has published eight books that I know of which have all sung the same tune; namely, “Evangelicals are effectively Protestant Jihadists driven by hate.” “Rejoice when they say all kinds of evil things about you, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets.” “Rejoice that your name is written in heaven.”

Brothers and sisters, do you want Christian joy? Do you want the fullness of Christian joy? Be bold in your Christian witness, steadfast in integrity and righteousness, honest and quick to speak the name of Jesus, gently, humbly but boldly, irrefutably, and you will face opposition (I guarantee it), and you will be filled with joy, not only now but 50 billion years from now looking back on it and thinking it a very small price to pay to follow the way of Jesus Christ to the cross. Let us pray.

Open our eyes dear, merciful heavenly Father so that we may not be snookered by the world’s agenda of temporary gifts and graces that bring a kind of transient happiness but nothing stable or eternal, nothing characterized by overwhelming righteousness, nothing that loves Jesus’ name.

Guard us that we may not be snookered, and give us courage and boldness, not because we love suffering any more than anybody else, but because we serve a Master who went before us. We begin to glimpse that if we suffer with him, we will reign with him. We are to rejoice if we suffer for the name. It is in that name we offer this request. Amen.