Honouring God in Tough Situations

let me deal with this point what is it that we do about those things where we can respond and i particularly want to single out issues where issues where there is where it is happening on account of righteousness what do i mean by that well just think of it like this the christian parent facing the conversion therapy laws that i talked about or the christian foster parent facing the system or the christian citizen facing the state when they demanded to do something they don't want to do like don't pray for that person well you probably should pray for that person christian employee you know facing hr when something goes wrong when something's been said and there's been a complaint lodged what about these situations well the first thing we need to understand is that jesus thought of this before you did and he said something very interesting about it in that opening monologue i detected a little bit of depression which is the point but this is what jesus said when he thought about this he said blessed are the persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven in other words he said there's a blessing here perk up there's a blessing i mean do we believe that and he goes on and doubles down he says rejoice and be glad for great is your reward in heaven and i think it's very sad to see christians living for this life christians living like this like they've got blinkers on and they're worried about all that's going on around them and the pressures of other people and the pressures of the institutions and all this kind of stuff but you know the plumb line for your life the basic guiding posts for your life should be founded in the next life and what you do daily should be defined by the next life jesus said you know if you're making treasure on earth you know and it's you know it's nice to make treasure on earth it's fun but here's the reality it's all going to go moth will come in and eat it rust will get in and rust it as he says as his thieves will break in and steal it he says you know the only lasting thing is the well done good and faithful servant what comes next and we must never forget that and people get overwhelmed in these moments and they forget where their anchor post is supposed to be that is for context every day some people do turn to me at this point because i've spoken on matthew 5 before and they say well they say martin but it's not persecution steady on steady on persecution is eating the lion's eating you and you know lit up his torches in nero's day fair enough i'm not going to take that away from anyone who's been through that experience but i want to make it very clear jesus defines his terms he says if they revile you if they're angrily disgusted with you if they insult you if they speak all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake now what do you mean by revile angry disgust well how's this bigot hater homophobe we know that's not true don't we it's just not true in fact it couldn't be possibly more wrong and yet there you have it that's the zeitgeist that's the belief of our day i think he is thinking about these things i really do actually it's getting harder and harder i was actually following a live feed discussion thread during the olympics because i was in i was in tasmania what biting my time to get over the berlin wall to come into wa and uh i watched tv for the first time in at least eight years can you believe that i turned on the olympics and uh i don't know if that's a badge of honor if it's weird actually but i turn on the olympics and it was interesting i was watching this live feed discussion thing of the olympics and do you remember nichola was it nicola mcdermott was that her name the high jumper that got silver you know and of course she was obviously a christian and she was there with a journal with the cross honestly the anti-christian commentary just vomiting out of these people for minutes they just couldn't let it go and i thought yeah wow okay this is how so many people think about christians but jesus said well take heart on this as well because they persecuted the prophets who were before you they had the same attitude here's an important thing it's a feature not a bug in the christian life it's really important to understand when we do the download we get a lot of young people come along and one of the biggest pressing concerns for them because they're just starting to realize they're not that popular in their beliefs particularly at university and places like that fair enough right and the concern is but how can everyone love me how can i say it so that it doesn't land like a dead fish how can i say it so that they all continue to be my friend i'm sorry it's a feature not a bug they're not all going to like you truth makes its own enemies jesus would never have said for righteousness sake if this stuff didn't happen for righteousness sake now that doesn't mean be a jerk of course that's a whole other discussion so don't but my point is you will never ultimately get there because it is the fact the truth that makes the enemy so often now i just want to be clear jesus saw this situation normal it comes out so clearly in all that he said especially in john's gospel but he describes the christian character in the sermon on the mount of the beatitudes and his next statement is blessed are the persecuted he's thinking this is normal there's two things he calls us to do two things number one and these are what we can do number one he says be salt now what does that mean the thing about the salt is it's got to keep its taste how does salt lose its taste salt loses its taste by reason of moisture compromising it in other words the environment it's sitting in gets into it and so he's saying when you're feeling the pressure the most important thing to do is do not compromise on the things that matter and that begins with your christian character he says this very thing in luke's gospel in the midst of him saying if your right hand offends you cut it off if your right eye offends you pull it out it's not really saying cut your hands off what he is saying is get serious about sin in your life very serious get serious about holiness because you're living in a putrid world that seeks to corrupt you and its standards are not god's standards and they are not holy and i think what we have to do as christians first and foremost if we're to abide by this salt metaphor and it comes before being light it comes before the work of god going forward in the world so people glorify god which is the next two points he makes but first he's talked about character in the beatitudes and now he says don't compromise and it starts in here and this is why if those of you are watching the perth live stream this is why i touched on the subject of what we're putting into our brains and through our eyes there's so many christian people who are allowing things to happen on screens in their lounge rooms that they wouldn't allow to happen in their lounge rooms otherwise and it's compromising them and it's numbing you to sin and evil and it's making you weak and it's wrong wrong wrong we have to start with making sure that we in our own hearts are not compromised and that we are getting serious about sin in our lives we must now people say oh but you know it's it's there for artistic value and i said well that means you're being entertained by it it's worse not better okay it starts there and i make that point hard because i do believe that so much of what we want for the world starts with the people of god and if we want the world to revive if we want people to be changed in the world we got to change and we've got to be the people god can use to make that change and i tell you you know light shines light a dim light shines a dim light a light that's gone out shines no light really the nature of the thing itself is so often what creates its effect and that is true with salt no compromise but of course it doesn't just mean that it means in actions publicly as well for example um i think of that law don't pray well what's a person going to do if they get asked to pray about such a thing for such a person the answer is you've got to pretend the law doesn't exist at that point gotta pray for them obey god not men there's not many laws in this country where that clash happens but that is one of them where it's very very clear we've got to make sure we're not bending to these standards we've got to in fact make sure that we are a daniel daniel knew that he couldn't plan his life better than god could he knew that he couldn't be pragmatic and practical and figure out how to generate the right outcomes he knew when his day of testing came when they said compromise you know whether it was his prayer whether it was his eating of king's food all these things what'd he do he said no i will do the right thing today i won't compromise even in babylon and god will take care of tomorrow and so he did it's a story of daniel's life didn't hurt him did it he served five kings um i'm not saying that's definitely going to happen but that's the reality salt no compromise here's the second thing second thing we can do the last thing we can do be light be light in other words be visible don't be under a basket and this is a big challenge the thing about being a christian is you can hide there's nothing really you know hopefully you look like a relatively nice person but there's the fact is you don't have to reveal who you are that's shipper sale for me let me tell you um but i didn't realize how i got away with it until i got the job with acl because people ask you early on in the conversation what do you do you got to reveal right you got to say but see that's a good thing i have a friend actually and he said to me you know he said i said my pastor was saying a good thing the other day he said you should introduce yourself as a christian i'm not saying in a weird awkward way be like hey man i'm a christian but i do mean it should lead it should lead in how you interact with the world you know you shouldn't be in a workplace where they don't know shouldn't be in a university course where they don't know people should know because visibility now the problem is if you're visible you've got to live like it right that's the challenge because the point is if you are visible and if you're salty you're going to make a difference in people's lives people will ask you you know if you are different they will ask you and you will get opportunities if you think well i never get any opportunities well pray for some opportunities and they will come i can tell you from experience or create some maybe do say i'm martin and i'm a christian not man whatever your name is and see what happens they might not pick it up they might drop it but visibility is so crucial because if you are visible then people know what makes you tick they know why you are the way you are and you can just don't get too keen about what you can accomplish sometimes you just accomplish something with someone you know you're going to change everyone's world view in a single conversation that's a big mistake we make right we think we'll have a conversation with someone they'll just say well you're right blow me down it doesn't usually happen that way you might get to loosen one of the bolts right good the light's got to be on to loosen one of the bolts or you might be given an opportunity to um uh to put a rock in their shoe as a friend of mine used to say that's something that makes them think you know you just never know and i will say i mean i don't want to i'm always mindful talking about these things it's not it's not us versus lgbt but i do want to say this about the lgbt communities they've done this brilliantly visibility brilliant right cracking strategy and everybody knows someone from the lgbt community i'm sure most of us here do but the thing is when you do the surveys and you say to people you know you know a serious christian the numbers don't stack up people say no when they surely do because there's so many of them a huge number of people but the light's got to be on and if we do all of that the work of god will advance do you notice we started this section about persecution it was where you're on the back foot all of a sudden we're walking the other way jesus says they will see your good works and glorify your father who is in heaven until he closes out now he doesn't say they might or he doesn't say make it so he says they will if you're salt and light they will see your good works and glorify your father who is in heaven sometimes the noise and the negativity is very loud i've certainly found that and we can think that that's all there is but let me tell you if you're salt and light the good stuff is happening but it usually happens very quietly i've been so blessed particularly through this tour to meet people who come up to you and say this is how i've been impacted and you go oh good stuff is happening in the world you know and you get this quiet stories whispered in your ear it is happening jesus said that it would happen i want to finish with this note what is the ultimate goal we can't lose this even in the political sphere the ultimate goal is that people would glorify god the ultimate goal is the changing of hearts the restoration of souls god's glory we're not here just to do good things for the sake of doing good things you know well well done good and faithful servant for pretending you know deliberately not mentioning jesus or the bible every time you spoke and just doing good things for the sake of it and letting people win the whole world and lose their soul i don't think that's how it's going to go the reality is that ultimately we must never forget that the final destination that god desires for every single person is that they would know christ and we need to be salt and light to that end to that end and so we must never hide the true reality of that in our lives so that it may transform other lives on the same basis there's all kinds of ways in which people are drawn into that and that's why we do so many things in so many public places but what's the ultimate goal that we've always got in the back of our head it is christ and it is that people would come to know him i'm mark niles and that was the truth of it thank you ladies and gentlemen

Channel: ACL – Australian Christian Lobby

Views: 16,435

Keywords: the truth of it

Id: hDA9Bw7FeTk

Length: 14min 49sec (889 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 08 2021