I was talking with a friend who recently moved to Asia (where I live) from North America. She was telling me how increasingly difficult is is to be a Christian there. She said people frequently looked at her like an “alien invader” when referring to her faith in social settings.
“It was really hard,” she said. “I felt more and more isolated as a Christian.”
How are you navigating the changing religious climate? Can you relate to my friend’s experience of feeling pushed to the margins for holding to your Christian convictions?
In some ways this is no different than how the earliest Christians felt. When the Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Philippi, he said, “For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ” (Phil 3:18).
But he also says in that very same chapter that encountering our enemies of the cross of Christ is one of the key ways to get to know Christ more deeply, through “…participation in his sufferings” (Phil 3:10).
Notice that he said ‘his’ sufferings. Paul is not referring to all kinds of afflictions we endure in this life. He is talking explicitly about the very kind of sufferings Christ endured that were related to his calling as the Son of God.
So what were Christ’s sufferings?
Scripture tells us, even from the Old Testament, that when God became flesh that he was “a man of sorrows” and “acquainted with grief”:
- Jesus was rejected by members of his own family.
- Jesus endured the shame of his hometown community who gossiped about his “illegitimacy.”
- Jesus was hated by the religious leaders of his day.
- Jesus was betrayed by friends.
- Jesus was falsely accused.
- Jesus was physically beaten, broken and tortured to death.
We can see that at the root of Jesus’ suffering is persecution (hostility, ill treatment) because of his religious beliefs. Paul says that participating in this kind of suffering is how we can truly know Christ.
Yikes.
Are we willing to know Christ by participating in his sufferings? This is a tough question with an even tougher answer. But Paul says this should be a mark of every Christian, “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim 3:12).
John Piper says that when we follow the righteousness of Jesus, there are two possible responses people can have (see John 3:20-21): people will either hate the light or come to the light. In other words, the two responses are persecution or conversion.
So if we must take a moment to examine ourselves and ask: What response, if any, is the light of Jesus Christ in my life provoking in others around me?
No one ever wants to be persecuted. But it we are authentically and boldly living out the distinctive values of our faith—as Jesus did— suffering in the form of persecution will and should come to us in varying degrees. But we can rejoice, for as we participate in his sufferings, it is then—according to Paul, who was well acquainted with this kind of persecution— that we will truly know our Lord in a way that no other earthly experience will bring. So go forth with the light of Christ in this dark world, and always remember, “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness… because great is your reward in heaven” (Matt 5:10,12).