Different Perspective on Persecution

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. They may also rejoice and be glad when His glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. For it is time for the judgment to begin with the household of God. And if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And if the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner? Therefore, let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good. Let's pray. Lord God, give us encouragement today in the midst of the realities of this world and in the midst of the reality that we can and do face opposition. We pray, Lord, You give us wisdom, that You give us the humility to see things as You see them, to receive what You give to us, but to respond to it in such a way that we are filled with joy, with the glory that is to be revealed, the hope that You have given us, the hope that You are, Lord Jesus. We pray for all our churches in our community today. As the gospel, as Your good news is being proclaimed in song and word and deed, we pray, Lord God, throughout this community, You would do a work that in this season of Christmas, as we approach during Advent and Christmas, that people look to You for their hope, their joy, their love, their peace, the whole thing, and they see in You that message. And Lord, give us open opportunities this week to be different and to show the difference that You are. All this we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. You are different. You really are. More than you realize, even when you want to blend in, even when you want to fit in, you are different. Now, before we even get into what Peter is talking here, I think there are a couple of things that are just kind of basic, fundamental truths about life that are true for everyone, and it's good that we understand them. And I think it's the assumption from the book of Genesis all the way through the Revelation that these two factors are true, and I'll just name them as A and B, because they are not our main points today, but I think they set the foundation that we need. A, life is tough. Have you noticed that? Life is tough. B, life is worth it. Those two truths happen at the same time. You know, following Jesus, He doesn't have this magic wand. Ching! You know, this is not Disney for some reason. And it's not Disney World that we live in. And He doesn't have this magic wand. There is no fairy dust that all of a sudden, as a Christian, life becomes easy and everything becomes joyful. Jesus never promised you're going to get everything on your Christmas wish list. Hear that, kids? Jesus never promised that life was going to be easy, and God never said that everything is going to always be fun and exciting, and you'll never be bored, and you'll never have a tough time in anything. In fact, life is tough. Life is tough. And that is a reality. One book that I read years ago, and I think it's a worthy read, it's Scott Peck's book called The Road Less Traveled. And he starts out with this, and I'm going to quote a larger section than normal from it, partly because I think it's kind of important for us to get. He says this, life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult, once we truly understand and accept it, then life is no longer difficult because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters. Most do not fully see this truth, that life is difficult. Instead, they moan more or less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties, as if life were generally easy, as if it should be easy. They voice their belief, noisily or subtly, that their difficulties represent a unique kind of affliction that should not be, and that has somewhat been especially visited upon them or else upon their families, their tribe, their class, their nation, their race, or even their species, and not upon others. I know about this moaning because I have done my share. Life is a series of problems. Do you want to moan about them or solve them? Do you want to teach our children to solve them? I think that's a good point. That is a good point. And you can try to defy that and say, it shouldn't be that way. Why does it have to be so difficult? But it doesn't change the fact that life is tough. But it doesn't end there. It doesn't end there. And we'll get to that. Now, in fact, there are people in life that look at the difficulties of life, t...