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Day 3 today of 2nd Timothy chapter 3, we're going to look at verses 12-13 and
focus on what Paul has to say following up from yesterday, what he has to say
about persecution. Let me read for you verses 12 and 13. In fact, Paul writes,
"Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,
while evil men and imposters will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being
deceived.

" Now first let's talk about verse 13 and then we're going to focus on what he
says about persecution in verse 12. Verse 13, these evil men and imposters going
from bad to worse, deceiving but notice they're also being deceived. No one is
hurt more by false teaching than the false teacher.

They're not just deceiving others, they're also being deceived. Oh, they may
feel like, "I'm doing great because of this false teaching. I'm somehow
gathering all these resources, all this money, all this power, all this
popularity in my life and it's meeting my needs.

" But the truth of the matter is in the end they're going to be devastated.
They're going to be devastated because they've not followed the truth of what
God can do in our lives and all those wonderful things they feel like they hold
in their hands are just going to all melt away. Somebody on our research team
asked about these verses and said, "I hate seeing people deceive others,
especially people deceive teenagers that maybe I'm responsible for in teaching.

Falsehood and deception out there every day. What do we do? How do we counter
that?

" How do you counter false teaching? You live the life that we talked about
yesterday. You live the life of verses 10 to 12.

Our way of life, our purposes, our endurance, the genuine life of faith will
always shine through in the end. Evil men and imposters are going to go from bad
to worse. But the true life of faith, it's going to grow brighter and brighter
until the full day.

No doubt about it. This genuine life of faith, it includes something that we
began to talk about yesterday and we focus on today. It includes endurance.

It includes endurance in the midst of persecution. And I want to just spend some
time telling the truth about persecution. This Bible verse says everyone who
wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

Most Americans that I know feel somewhat embarrassed by this verse. We know the
persecution that believers have faced around the world, are facing right now
around the world, and have faced throughout history. And we know that we're not
facing that kind of persecution.

We're not being thrown in jail for our faith. We're not being killed for our
faith. Just two weeks ago, I was in the countryside of Rwanda with a little
church that the entire church had been jailed just recently just for meeting as
a church.

That's not our experience in America. So what should we do? Should we just feel
guilty about these verses?

Like, well, they don't fit me. No, we should apply these verses to our lives.
What should we do?

First thing you should do is pray for those who are facing persecution
throughout the world. A kind of physical persecution, a kind of threat even, and
kind of persecution that can bring fear of life that you and I don't have to
face. We should pray.

When you read this kind of verse, when I read this kind of verse, it should lead
me to think about those who are in jails and maybe have been there for 10, 15,
20 years and pray for them in your mind right now. Pray for those men and women.
It should lead me to pray about those who their life is threatened because they
have faith in Christ.

And so they wonder, should I tell other people that I believe in Jesus Christ?
Should I let anybody else know? Right now in your mind, pray for those people.

What should we do when we read about persecution? We should pray for those who
are being persecuted. We should apply this verse to believers around the world.

But there's a second thing we should do. We should also apply the verse to our
own lives. All who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

That means if you want to live the kind of life that Jesus has for you to live,
you're going to face some persecution. We should recognize the persecutions that
we do face. Let me ask you a question.

Why is it that believers in the United States, and a lot of other countries,
European countries, Western countries, why is it that we seem so often to live
exactly the same lifestyle as those who are not believers? No real difference.
No difference in the way that we manage our marriages.

No real difference in the way that we succumb to temptation. No real difference
in the entertainments that we allow into our lives. No real difference.

One reason, not the only reason, but one reason is that we don't want to face
persecution. We don't want to face the subtle persecution of being singled out
as different, the persecution of being ignored, the persecution of being passed
over for a promotion. We don't want to face the persecution of being the subject
of all the jokes.

We don't want to face the persecution of being treated as a judgmental person
just because you love God. You see, you and I need to be aware of what the fear
of this kind of persecution does to us. If I allow that persecution to bring
fear into my life, then I'm going to become the kind of person who resists that
fear and begins to live just like the world around me, or try to at least look
like the world around me.

In my heart, I really don't want to believe that way or follow that way, but
I'll go along. And it's because of persecution. You don't have to be afraid of
persecution.

In fact, it's just a fact of life as a believer. Everyone who wants to live a
godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, and God will use it. God will use
it to let other people know the good news because they're going to see the
difference, and God also wants to use it to reward your life.

The fear of persecution, our confidence suffers great erosion under the fear of
other people's response. What will they think of me? What will they do to me?

The number one fear of Americans is just standing up and speaking about anything
in front of a large group of people. Why? Because we're afraid of how they're
going to respond.

We're afraid we'll look stupid. We're afraid we'll look silly. We're afraid
we'll be embarrassed.

Here's a confidence building secret about persecution, persecutions that we
face, the subtle persecutions that we face in America, much of the Western
world. Look at your insults with insight. Realize that many times the reason
somebody is insulting you is because God is convicting them.

And you're just the target. You're just the lightning rod. But the truth of the
matter is the reason they insulted you is because they noticed the difference.

And the fact that they noticed the difference means there is opportunity for
change in that person's life. You see, the fear of persecution causes you and I
to retreat from our faith. What does actual persecution do to us?

When we actually are persecuted, when we allow ourselves to be seen as
different, and maybe we're ridiculed for it, maybe we don't get the job because
of it, we don't get the promotion because of it. What does actual persecution do
to us? In a word, reward.

That's the word. Jesus told us in the Sermon on the Mountain, the Beatitudes,
that persecution brings reward. So when you face subtle persecution, say two
things to yourself to battle this fear of other people's response, this fear of
being embarrassed that we all have.

The two things you say are number one, I have a great reward, and number two, I
have some great company. Number one, I have a great reward. If I stand up for my
faith and the world around me, seemingly everybody that I know, and these days
even more it's everybody on the blogs and everybody on the internet, everybody
seems to know.

If I stand up for my faith and I'm ridiculed for it, you have a great reward in
that. And don't think of that as just the broad concept of heaven. I get to go
to heaven someday.

Think of God the Father personally handing you a reward because you had the
faith to stand in that circumstance. That's what you say to yourself to battle
the fear of other people's response. And then you also say to yourself, I have
some great company.

He persecuted even the greatest of prophets. He persecuted Jesus Christ. The
truth is that even if you and I face the worst, people of greater faith than you
have faced greater persecution than we'll ever face.

So let me ask you, where is fear of somebody else's response, fear of being
embarrassed, eroding your faith confidence? Are you thinking, what will they
think if I become a Christian? Are you wondering, what will people say?

What will my family say if I'm baptized and I let other people know I'm standing
for Christ? Or you wonder, will they accept me if I begin a ministry and I let
people know it's for Jesus, it's not just for me? Or what if God's calling in my
life that I serve him in some significant way by going to another country or by
taking on this significant role?

What's my family going to say? What are all the guys at work going to say? What
are all the women at work that I know going to say?

How much are you willing for your faith to cost you? In the most wonderful
paradox of life, when I'm willing for my faith to cost me everything, that's
when God gives me everything. Now I wish that I had the faith to recognize that
and see it in every circumstance, every moment of life.

Sometimes I miss it. I don't want to miss it. I don't want you to miss it.

First Peter 414 says, "If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you
are blessed. For the spirit of glory and of God rests on you. " Let's pray
together.

Lord, you know us. We're human beings. And sometimes the fear of embarrassment
keeps us from standing up like we want to in faith.

And we're sorry. We wish we had greater faith, but sometimes we don't. But we
know that you can put into our lives what we do not have.

So Lord, instead of living in fear of persecution, help us to accept it as a
fact of faith, that those who don't understand our faith are going to attack it
in various ways. But also Lord, help us to see your reward. The reward of what
we look forward to with you in eternity, but also the reward of what you do in
other people's lives as they notice, as they see the difference that's in us.

And use even that persecution. Use even what seemed like an embarrassment to let
someone else see how we react with love and with grace, and to allow someone to
come to know Jesus Christ, even out of that circumstance. We ask this, Jesus, in
your name.

Amen.