Not long ago, a short animated film was produced titled The 21,
and it recounted the story of 21 Egyptian Christians who were
martyred by ISIS on a beach in 2015.
The execution was filmed and broadcast for the world to see.
What is less known, however, is the fuller story of these 21
men. According to the producer of the
film, which was Co produced by Christianity Today, reports from
some former ISIS members involved in the event indicate
that the men were held for days and subjected to torture in an
attempt to force them to recant their faith in Christ.
None of them did. Among them was one man from
Ghana who was originally not scheduled to be executed and
when given the opportunity to save his life by renouncing
Christ, he instead declared this their God is my God, and he
chose to die alongside the other men.
Eventually, the men were marched out onto a beach in Libya to be
executed. As they were being led to their
deaths, eyewitnesses report that they testified to these strange
and supernatural figures walking among them, and the same reports
also describe flashes of colour in the sky and the ground
shaking as the men walked toward the shore.
The ISIS members then lined the men up and they executed them
one by one, slowly, in hopes that by the others witnessing
the deaths of their friends, the hopes would be that they would
cause them, at least one of them, to renounce their faith as
captured on film. None of them did.
One of the ISIS members involved was a reportedly so shaken by
what he witnessed that he later left ISIS, converted to
Christianity, and went to hiding.
Reports further suggest that the more the men were tortured, the
stronger their faith became. In the film, the the men can be
seen as quietly praying as they are marched to their deaths and
even asking God to forgive their executors.
What kind of faith is this? I mean, this is something
different when you hear stories like this.
This is this is the type of faith that can survive even
death itself and torture. This is kind of faith so many of
us, you know, we try to even wrap our heads around because
truthfully, none of us most likely in this country are going
to face this kind of opposition and this kind of persecution.
We're blessed to live in a country where we don't have to
be killed and executed for our faith.
Many of us won't endure this type of persecution.
And yet in in some ways, we do still face some level of
resistance and persecution, just in a different way.
For us, it's typically less physical and and often times
it's more social or it's more mental or emotional.
We will not likely face beheading, but we will face
opposition. Maybe you won't get the job that
you initially hoped for because of your faith.
Maybe you feel the pressure from people who are are involved
heavily politically right. Maybe.
Maybe you're considered, if you're bold for your faith, as
as not being affirming enough enough from those on the left or
not being forceful enough on the right in the cultural wars.
Whatever it may be, you may get less opportunities at work.
People may call you discriminatory or bigoted.
Whatever it may be, our our persecution, our resistance is,
is much more social than it is physical.
And the question today that I'd like to address is how can we
live boldly and endure for our faith even in the midst of
opposition, even in the midst of persecution?
We're finishing out our Beatitudes series in Matthew
chapter 5. We're going to be in two
sections of Scripture today. If you want to turn there in
your Bibles. First is Matthew 5.
We're going to introduce Jesus's words here in the Beatitudes,
and we're also going to be in Second Timothy chapter 1.
These are Jesus's words on the Sermon on the Mount, and he is
speaking to the new realities of the Kingdom that he is ushering
in. And he does this with a series
of blessed statements, says blessed are those who pour in
spirit, those who mourn. And in verse 10, this is what he
says as he closes out the list of the Beatitudes.
Jesus says blessed are those who are persecuted because of
righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
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. So with these series of
statements, we've said in the past that these are not
statements of of things we must do in order to gain entry into
the Kingdom. These are not how we're saved,
nor are they necessarily virtues that were called to aspire
towards. In other words, Jesus isn't
looking at his followers and saying, hey, you go out and
actively be persecuted or find someone to go and persecute you,
but rather he's talking about these groups of people who will
find themselves at home in the Kingdom should they choose to
enter it. And among those groups, those
who will find that the Kingdom is theirs are those who are
persecuted for righteousness and who are insulted for Jesus,
theirs is the Kingdom. Now we have to understand where
this persecution was likely coming from for early
Christians. There's a couple different
spots, you know, for for us as believers, we may feel
persecution from those on the political extremes, or maybe we
feel persecution from those who are non religious.
Maybe it's the, you know, the angry atheist or whatever it may
be. But in their day, it was
actually not the atheists who are persecuting them per SE.
It was the religious leaders who were after the early Christians.
It's interesting. It was the Pharisees and the
teachers of law of the law who were coming against them.
In other words, the religious leaders.
As a matter of fact, in Matthew 23, Jesus calls the religious
leaders the descendants of those who killed the prophets.
That is not pretty language. Jesus is directly going after
them because of their persecution.
And it wasn't just from that angle.
It was like a double persecution.
On the one hand, they're getting persecuted from the religious
leaders. On the other hand, though, they
were getting being persecuted by the cruel Roman Empire at the
time. There's stories about Christians
who are being fed to the lions in the Colosseum.
Stories of Christians being ignited on fire in order to
illuminate gardens of Nero. This is historical information
that we receive, right? Awful, awful things we can't
even hardly imagine. Like, I can't even endure when I
don't get the parking spot I want, You know what I mean?
Like, we don't have context for this type of thing.
So it was a double persecution. Why?
Because Christians were easy targets.
All throughout history we see political powers targeting
various groups that are not powerful either They choose not
to fight back, can't fight back in order to offer them up as
scapegoats or whatever it whatever it may be.
And Nero did the same thing. Christians were used as as
scapegoats because they were easy targets.
They refused to worship the empire, they rejected multiple
gods, and they actively chose to not fight back.
So they were targeted. So the question is, how can we
endure in our faith and be bold in living for Jesus?
Well, I think we have a lot to learn from this man called the
Apostle Paul. So we're going to look at his
words today. The Apostle Paul was in a unique
position because he lived on both ends of the persecution.
Not only was he the religious leader who was going after the
Christians, but he then was imprisoned by Rome.
He endured the persecution from a different angle.
So he has a unique perspective on persecution.
And then we're going to look at Second Timothy in the context
here is that the apostle Paul has been imprisoned for his
faith, and he's writing some of his final words to his young
protege named Timothy. Timothy was likely a pastor in
Ephesus. So these are his final words.
He's likely writing from a cold, dark prison cell waiting to be
killed for his faith. Just listen to what Paul has to
say. First Timothy verse or chapter
one verse eight or second Timothy Paul writes.
So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of
me his prisoner. Rather join with me in suffering
for the gospel. By the power of God, he has
saved us and called us to live a holy life.
So Paul is saying do not be ashamed about the testimony
about our Lord or of the gospel. Paul saying there is good news
that needs to be shared. You and I need to remember this,
that we need to remember that we can endure first and foremost by
remembering that the news of Jesus Christ is still really
good news. The testimony about Jesus is the
best news and we've somehow forgotten that I think, right?
Like our good news is this, that that the Kingdom of heaven has
come here on earth, that Jesus ushered in a new way of living,
a new way of commanding or a new way of life, a new culture.
And we can enter into that and receive its blessings.
We can now join into the Kingdom with Jesus participants and Co
rulers in all the work that God is doing here on earth.
So the good news pretty simply is, is what Paul said that he
has saved us and he has called us to a holy life.
This is the best news. Not only does does God rescue us
from our sin and from defeat, but he also calls us into
sanctification, which is just a word we use to say more and more
becoming like Jesus. And here's the thing, good
things are always worth sharing, are they not?
Good things are always worth sharing with others.
If you see something, you're scrolling on social media,
you're scrolling through reels or something and you see
something that like absolutely makes you laugh or you think
it's hilarious or, or you're just dying laughing.
What's the first thing you do? You, you tell someone about it,
right? You, you hit the share button
and you send it to to someone else.
That's how things go viral. They spread like wildfire
because people keep sharing them.
We love sharing good things, whether it's like planking or
like the ChatGPT caricatures that are going around these
days, right? Like things catch on when
they're fun and they're interesting.
Human beings instinctively share what's good and what's beautiful
and what's true. We need to remember that the
gospel is still good news today. It is good and second Timothy 1
again, Paul says do not be ashamed of that testimony about
our Lord and or me as prisoner. And he says this rather join
with me in suffering for the gospel.
He's he's he's inviting this young protege Timothy.
He's saying, I know you're enduring.
I know you're going through it right now, Timothy, Join with
me. You see, good things aren't just
worth sharing. Good things are also worth
suffering for. Whether it's something as silly
as like the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, remember that people
willing to dump ice on their heads all for a good 'cause,
right? We're willing to suffer a little
bit for things that matter. Or something as serious as a
single mom working multiple jobs to support her kids and be there
for them, right? We are willing to endure
hardship for things that matter in this life.
And Paul writes. So do not be ashamed.
All of us face the very real challenge of shame when we're
met with resistance for our faith.
We need to be ready for that. Think about the the disciple
Peter. Peter was someone who had an
understanding of who Jesus was. When Jesus asked him, who do you
say that I am, Peter gave the correct theological answer.
You are the Messiah, you are the Christ.
And Jesus said blessed are you Peter.
But when it counted most, when the when the pressure was on,
when the fire came to him, Peter denied Jesus multiple times.
See, just like it, just like we're, we're called to share
good things that we love, We also need to take into account
and remember like it is easy to become ashamed of Jesus when it
gets hard to live for Jesus. Would you agree?
When it gets difficult, when the going gets toughed, our, our
temptation to be ashamed of what we believe increases.
I shared this story with our our launch team before we actually
started the church. But we took Sundays and we
didn't always meet for services. We'd go out and do service
projects. And one of those Sundays we
decided we were going to go out into the city of Ankeny and we
were going to knock on doors and just bless people by asking them
how we could pray for them and just be in there.
And so we were going around and we were knocking on doors, a few
of us. And we were surprised by how
many people didn't need prayer because life was going so good.
OK, I'm going to preach a sermon on that someday, but that's not
for today. But we came across that we rang
this one doorbell, the smart doorbell, and it took a while
for someone to answer. But when they finally answered
the door, it was this this young lady.
And you could tell she was not happy that we were there.
We said, hey, we're with Presence Church and we're just
going around hearing the needs of the community and we're just
offering to to pray with people. Is there anything at all that
that you would like prayer for today?
I'm with Susan. I'm with Jane.
And we're pushing around David. And she says, yeah, you can pray
that my baby, that you just woke up falls back asleep.
Ouch. Right.
Like, oof. Right.
And I got to tell you, in that moment, like, I imagine the
blood just, like, drained from my face.
I felt so bad, right? I was so, so embarrassed.
And so we apologize. We're like, so sorry.
We're just trying to pray and meet people and like, have a
good day. And we, you know, went on our
way to the next one. But I got to tell you, between
the people who didn't need prayer because life was so good
and that Lady that we had just ticked off, like I was feeling
so defeated. Like Susan and I both like, we
just have the sense of like, are we doing more harm than good out
here? You know what I'm talking about.
It was like, man, what are what are we doing?
And I got to be honest, like I wanted to give up in that
moment. I didn't want to knock on any
more doors. I felt ashamed because I was met
with some resistance. And she didn't stop there,
right? She she took the QR code we
handed her and she submitted a prayer request that basically
talked about how rude it was to come on door, you know, knock on
people's doors on Sunday morning and this, that and the other.
And so, you know, I emailed her back and said, well, why don't
you turn your doorbell off? I'm joking.
I didn't actually do that.
I didn't do that. That's a joke.
I wanted to do that, but I but I felt terrible.
And we were both so, so defeated.
And we're like, what are we doing out here?
Here's the point. Like when we're met with
resistance, it's so easy to feel shame.
It's so easy to be embarrassed. It's so easy to want to give up.
And yet Paul to the Romans in in chapter 116, Paul writes for I
am not ashamed of the gospel. Why?
He writes because it is the power of God that brings
salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew and
then to the Gentile. Paul wasn't ashamed of the
gospel because he'd experienced the power of the gospel first
hand. You and I today do not need to
be ashamed of what we believe. Be ashamed of our faith #1
because we believe Christianity is actually true.
OK? We believe that that Christ
actually raised from the dead. So we don't believe Christianity
is true just because some some book told us, although that book
is reliable and trustworthy. But we believe in the actual
historic resurrection of Jesus Christ.
We believe that His resurrection was foretold hundreds of years
by the prophets. We believe that Jesus did
miracles while he was on this earth, and then he predicted
that he would die and be raised back to dead.
We believe that he actually was crucified under Pontius Pilate
around 30 AD and on the third day, through the power of God, a
miracle, we admit it's a miracle.
He was raised back to life, actually living and appearing to
people who then documented everything that happened.
And we believe that the eyewitnesses who saw Jesus were
willing to go to their death, refusing to recant, refusing to
renounce their faith in Jesus, just like those Coptic men,
those Christians on the beach. We believe that Christianity is
true. We do not believe that
something, all of this can come from nothing.
We don't believe that life can come from non life, that order
can come from chaos, or that the immaterial consciousness can
come strictly from physical matter.
In other words, we believe there's a creator God we believe
is sent us on Jesus so that we can know him and we can enter
into relationship with him. Scripture says that God is love
and God is invisible, but so is love.
Yet none of us would deny the power of love.
So first reason we don't need to be ashamed of the gospel is
because we believe Christianity is true.
The second reason we don't need to be ashamed of the gospel
because Christianity is beautiful.
We believe that each of us in our sin and our mistakes, we
deserve punishment, we deserve wrath and we deserve death.
But but God had a rescue plan in mind.
He was willing to send his only Son to come and live a perfect
life and die on a cross for you and for me.
We believe Christianity is beautiful because God loved us
so much that He was willing to take the punishment and the
curse of death upon himself. And the story of Scripture, all
of Scripture, points to this reality.
If you put your trust in what Jesus did on the cross, if you
put your faith in Him, and you step into his forgiveness, you
can leave eternally with him. You can be reconnected back to
your Creator, not just here on earth, but for eternity.
That's good news. We don't need to be ashamed of
that because Christianity is beautiful.
God loved us so much that he came for us, his children.
Second Timothy 1 Paul writes that is why I'm suffering as I
am. Yet this is no cause for shame
because I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that
he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day.
Paul is not ashamed because he knows Jesus.
He had relationship with him. He had seen him, he had spoken
with him. Christ had given him his
Commission and his calling and his second chance at life.
So Paul is like, how can I be ashamed of the one that I
actually know and the one that I actually love?
We can't be ashamed of those we truly love, right?
There was, there was this man I was, I was preparing my sermon.
This weekend he was in the library and it was very quiet in
the Kirkendale library. And all of a sudden his phone
goes off like full ring. You know, it happens.
We kind of looked around and and then he decided that he was
going to answer the phone call in the quiet library, Okay.
And not just answer it, but he put it on speakerphone.
Okay, Yeah. And so, you know, there's like,
six of us, you know, near him. And we're kind of like looking
at each other, kind of smiling, and he's off in his own world.
And we hear the entire conversation, right?
We hear about what he's going to eat for dinner tonight and
tomorrow. We hear about the brakes that
need fixed on the cars. Then he starts talking about the
prescription medication that he needs to get picked up, right?
Like all of it. All right.
And we're just kind of all like, what is going on here?
This is the library, OK. And at first, I'm sort of like,
man, what? Like, isn't he embarrassed?
Like, isn't he kind of, like, ashamed to be like, interrupting
everyone and talking? And I'm like, what?
What is compelling him to to have this conversation?
And then I realized what the reason was at the very end of
the the phone call, the person he was talking with said, all
right, Dad, I love you. I'll talk to you soon.
And in that moment, I got it right.
Like this man isn't ashamed because he's speaking to his
daughter that he loves. He's not going to miss a single
opportunity. He's going to hear every word on
speakerphone, even if it upsets the people around him, because
he's talking with someone that he loves.
He's not ashamed of her. He's not going to be ashamed of
that moment. He only cares about the one he
loves. You see, if we truly love Jesus,
we're not going to be ashamed of him, not going to be ashamed to
talk about him in front of others.
We're not going to be ashamed to proclaim him to the world.
And Paul, we find the reason that the reason he has no shame
is because it says quote, I know whom I have believed.
He knows Jesus and he was convinced.
So the reminder for all of us guys is that you and I also, we
need to have a actual growing relationship with Jesus Christ.
That means we need to take time to abide with him, to escape
with him in the secret place in prayer.
We need to actually know Him. Here's the point.
If God is just theoretical for you, if God is just head
knowledge alone for you, you're always going to be living an
insecurity about Him. You're always going to be having
doubts, feeling hypocritical when trying to live for Him
because it's not relational for you.
It's just like a head exercise. Does that make sense?
And so the invitation here is for us to truly know Jesus, like
Paul, some application for us when it comes to living and
enduring for our faith, even in the midst of resistance and
persecution #1 as a church, you and I have to do everything we
can to reject any spirit of timidity.
Second Timothy 1 again, Paul writes for the Spirit God gave
us does not make us timid. So I think every one of us needs
to be honest with ourselves. Where?
What are the areas of our faith that we're tempted to be
embarrassed by, that we're tempted to be ashamed of?
We need to be honestly examine those things.
Are we tempted to be embarrassed by some of the exclusive claims
of Christianity that Jesus is the one and only Lord, the only
one and only way to get to heaven?
Are you embarrassed by that? Is it your doubts that you're
embarrassed by? Is it the fact that you know,
science claims rationality and and logic for all things, but
but our faith involves some miraculous things like a
resurrection and we're not exactly sure how to reconcile
those things. So is that a cause for shame and
embarrassment for you? Maybe it's the Bible itself and
some of the really difficult passages, especially in the Old
Testament, right? Or maybe it's our our stance on
sexual politics and gender or whatever it may be.
The point is, be honest about it.
Where are you tempted to be embarrassed or be ashamed of
your faith or Jesus? Galatians one, Paul says.
Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings or of
God? Or am I trying to please people?
I think every one of us needs to grapple with that question in
our lives. Like who are we really trying to
impress? Who are we really trying to win
the approval of? Is it Is it the person in HR?
Is it our friend group? Is it social media?
Who is it? Are we trying to win the
approval of man or of God? My wife Susan tells a story when
she used to used to work in HR about how there was this Muslim
man who who came to her and came to the staff and asked if he
could stop work for a moment during the day in order for him
to pray, which is typical practice for Muslims.
And what he was asking was he was asking to come off of the
factory line in order to pray to his, his God.
And I just got to say, like, I, I, I don't believe that, you
know, the God of Muhammad is the father of Jesus.
I don't believe we're worshipping the same God.
And yet I got to say, like, I almost want to commend him for
his willingness to step out and faith in that way.
You know what I mean? Like that's a bold step to say,
Hey, can I, can I leave all of my Co workers while they're
working so I can go and pray during my shift?
And here's the radical part. They actually tried to
accommodate them. They weren't able to, of course,
but that's kind of interesting, right?
And I just, I bring that up to say, like, in what ways are you
willing to step out and risk for your faith?
In what ways are you maybe called to step out and and take
chances for God? So many of us are worried about
offending people and we have doubts lingering in our minds
and we worry about looking stupid.
And so we just kind of adopt this like you do you posture,
I'll do me over here. I'll have my private faith and
and you do you whatever you believe.
And what Paul is doing here is he's writing to us through
history and he's saying join with me and suffering for the
gospel. He's saying, come on in, the
water's fine. Jesus is encouraging his
disciples and encourages us through history in Matthew 5.
Rejoice and be glad because great is your reward in heaven.
For in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were
before you, Jesus is saying there, there will be great
reward when you step out in faith and you meet resistance
because you're doing it for me. I can't even imagine the reward
that those 21 men have in heaven.
Can you imagine the applause that they received in heaven
from the angels the moment they left earth and into eternity?
There is reward waiting for each of us who step out boldly for
our faith. So we need to reject any spirit
of timidity or fear. That's not it's not who God's
made us to be. And #2 we need to truly know and
love Jesus. There's a deep human impulse to
share things that are good and beautiful and true.
Paul had tasted experience and he knew Jesus in the good news
about him, so he was willing to go and endure suffering for him.
Each of us share what we love, whether it's technology for me
or a a deep spiritual insight that I learned or whatever it is
for you. We are meant to talk about God
and share him with others. Frank Laubach puts it this way.
I must talk about God or I cannot keep him in my mind.
I must give him away in order to have him.
So if we really want to know God, we really want him to dwell
within us and know him, we have to give him away freely.
Paul puts it this way. For Christ's love compels us.
Christ's love, if we truly know that love, it drives us outward
into a Dark World to be the light, to be salt, and to show
who He really is to the world around us.
We need to discover His goodness and His love more and more
because we cannot be ashamed of those that we truly love.
Look, my kids make some mistakes.
They make kid size mistakes right now.
But one day they'll be teenagers.
And when they're teenagers, they'll likely make teenage size
mistakes and eventually they'll become adults.
And it's very, very likely that they will make adult sized
mistakes as well. But even when they make
mistakes, I can never be ashamed of them because I love them.
Even when they mess up or they do something embarrassing, as a
parent, I'm never going to have shame about them.
I'm never going to reject them or refuse to claim them.
Why? Because I love them.
Because they're mine. We, in the same way, need to get
to know Jesus if we truly don't want to be ashamed of him.
Spending daily time with him, Going on walks with him in
prayer. Reading just one chapter a day
in the Gospels, Getting to know his word.
Joining a discipleship band with two or three others in order to
hold each other accountable, to learn how to actually obey and
follow Jesus's teachings. Maybe it's setting alarm, an
alarm early to pray with him in the morning or setting alarm at
noon to remind yourself to pray. Whatever it is, don't be ashamed
of him. Live for him.
Truly learn to love him. I'm going to invite Josiah to,
to come back up and play underneath us when it came to
that prayer walk. And it came to that Lady who was
very upset with us. God, God bless her.
I, I still pray for her, by the way, that poor mom, we've been
there. But when I think about that Lady
and I think about that perceived persecution that I felt, I was
so tempted to give up and I was so disheartened.
And in that moment, I almost called the whole thing off and
texted people and been like, this is a terrible idea, right?
But instead we pressed on. And I remember we knocked on a
few more doors. And I remember we encountered
this one lady who we knocked on the door.
She came out and we said, Hey, we're with presence church.
We're just trying to pray for the needs of the community.
Is there anything that we can pray for you about?
And she said, actually, yes, there is.
She said, my, my stepson, whom I love was, was just deployed to
the Middle East. And we're we're very scared and
we said, Oh my goodness. Thank you so much for being
willing to share. You know, we have a prayer team.
And if, if you'd like, like, we can have our team pray for that.
We will pray for that. But if you'd like, we could, we
could also pray for you right now.
Either way is fine. And she said, yeah, I think I'd
like for you to pray right now. And so Susan and I and the kids
on a stranger's doorstep, we we prayed for this lady who was
going through a really hard time.
And we were able to just share Jesus with her in that moment.
And it wasn't just that Lady. But then I started getting text
messages from all the other people who were out and about in
the community on the prayer walk.
And I got to hear some of the testimonies that were coming
out, testimonies about how people were praying over those
who just found out they had cancer, those whose loved ones
were hurting, those who were down and out and didn't know how
they were going to make it to the next day or the next meal.
And, and more and more and more these text messages begin to
flood in. And my soul was so encouraged.
And I thought to myself, why was I ever ashamed to be out here
for Jesus? You see, if we're truly living
for Christ and we're truly trying to live for Him in
boldness and in truth, the reality is we might make some
mistakes. There might be some babies that
get woken up. There might even be some
resistance and there will be persecution.
If we're truly living for Him, we need to remember that
obedience won't always feel successful, and we may not
always see the fruit. But we need to remember Jesus's
words when he says blessed are those who are persecuted because
of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
We need to remember that it's never a bad idea to be bold for
Jesus, that our reward is the Kingdom, and that Jesus is
always worth sharing, always worth sharing.
Church. The Kingdom advances on earth
not by forcing what we believe unto others, but rather sharing
what we love even when we face resistance.
So the question for each of us is, what are you afraid of?
What are you really afraid of? As a younger man, when it came
to living for my faith, I was afraid of missing out on fun.
As a younger man, I was afraid of people not liking me, I was
afraid of life being too hard when living for Jesus, and I was
afraid of danger and persecution.
But as I get older, as I get older, my fears shift and I find
myself now being more concerned of not making a difference in
this life. I'm more concerned now of what
legacy that I'm leaving for my kids.
Up to know. Jesus.
As an adult as. I get older, I'm more concerned
about compromising for my faith. And my fears.
Have shifted my fear now. Is that I wouldn't live.
Fully into all that God has for me and the calling He's placed
on my life. So my encouragement to you.
Is this? If you're going to be afraid, if
you're going to be concerned, start being concerned about the
right things and not the silly things.
Leave it. All on the field for.
Jesus, just like those 21 men did.
It should have been 20, but there was 21 because there's
that man from Ghana said there. God is my God.
Remember that monuments were built in.
Their honor? They were declared as martyrs,
and their stories continue to inspire millions of people
across the globe. Leave it all in the field for
Jesus, because even in the face. Of persecutions and setbacks and
resistance, even when we are getting called names.
When we're. Being insulted.
When opportunities are being taken away from us, Jesus calls
us happy. He calls us blessed and even if.
People, take your life. On this earth, even if your life
on earth comes to an end, Jesus says congratulations because
yours is the Kingdom and his Kingdom will never end So as a.
Church, may we just. Step out in boldness for Him,
even in the face of persecution. May we fall in love with Jesus
and then share what He love, what we love, but may we do.
It with the power. Of the Spirit which does not
make us timid or fearful.