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Whenever or wherever there are forces that stand in opposition to each other, somewhere in the middle of the opposition is a conflict. A conflict is a disagreement, a dispute, it means to be at odds with another. Conflicts are very seldom amicable. Instead they are rather antagonistic, argumentative, and they have been known to create a hostile environment. The outcome of a conflict is contention, battle, struggle, a locking of horns with the opposition. If I could use a street term here; the outcome of a conflict is a throw down a knock down drag out, the kicking of some serious gluteus maximus, in other words a fight. Conflicts never come up unless there is a reason; and whatever that reason is my brothers and sisters, it should be something worth fighting for.. And if it’s worth fighting for, then victory has to be the ultimate goal.
This country of our might still be saluting the British flag if a conflict between the original Thirteen Colonist and the King of England did not originate. With one of Kings hands picking their pockets for more taxes, while his other hand was in their religious matters; Independence from British rule ignited a conflict that set the colonist in opposition to the King.. To these colonist this conflict was something worth fighting for. And so it gave birth to the Revolutionary War. This nation that we live in, is a nation which put laws on the books declaring that all men were created equal. But she failed to practice what she preached..
How equal was it when some men could help build the houses, and help pave the streets in neighborhoods, where they could not live. Although their money had equal value, how equal was it when they had to go to the back door of a café to spend their money, and other men could walk through the front door of the same café and spend their money,. Regardless of what the laws were, at that time, they racially divided the people. Racial equality and not racial depravity ignited a conflict which set the Black race and the White race in opposition to each other.
That conflict was seen through the eyes of a man named Martin Luther King Jr. To Dr. King, men should be judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin therefore in Dr. Kings eyes, this conflict was something worth fighting for. And so it gave birth to the Civil Rights Movement. In a world like this, conflicts will always exist. You can’t live here without having some disagreements. If Jesus had those who disagreed with Him what about us? He had a cause and that cause was the center of conflict. His cause was to heal, and to forgive all manner of sickness; to preach good tidings to the meek, to bind up the broken hearted, to set at liberty those who are captive.
His cause was that we might have light instead of darkness, and that we might have life and have it more abundantly His cause was to make salvation for the sinner something worth fighting for. He knew that His cause would bring about conflict, both physical and spiritual. He knew that His cause would generate a battle different from any the world has ever known. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this world, and against spiritual wickedness in high places..
So then He recruits the Church to fight for His cause. He said in the 18 chapter and verse 37 of John’s gospel, “to this end was I born and for this cause came I into the world. If Jesus’ cause was met with both physical and spiritual opposition, what about us? In this world you’re going to have many disputes and sooner or later you’re going to lock horns with somebody This world is not a world designed for you to live in free from antagonism. This is not a world where people don’t argue with one another. Sooner or later the person in the argument will be you or he will be me. Through all of this, the environment that has been created for us to live, is hostile.
It seems like everybody wants to be right and nobody wants to be wrong. Trust me on this one. ”you can’t ever be right all of the time, unless of course you are Jesus”. If you are not Jesus, then you can see the picture here. When you believe that right is on your side then prepare yourself to face opposition. And right in the middle, I mean dead in the middle, smack-dab in the middle of your opposition there is always going to be a conflict. Now if you believe strongly enough that your cause is right and that it is something that is worth fighting for, then you need to prepare yourself to do battle, to struggle, and to lock horns with opposition.
Here in our text, Paul speaks encouragingly to the Church. If there is a need for words of encouragement, surely it is the Church. The Church had suffered so much in the way of persecution and humiliation. In some Countries, Churches have been banned and outlawed by Government leaders. Church buildings have been bombed, her Bibles burned, her members fed to hungry Lions, her preachers have been martyred or exiled. Even her leader Jesus Christ had been crucified on the cross. In today’s society, they define the Church as a band of self-righteous pretenders, held together by smooth talking, money grabbing, gospel go getters called preachers.
If any encouragement needs to be given, I stopped by this morning to tell you the Church needs to be encouraged. Because the head of the Church, Jesus has suffered persecution and humiliation, the Church, which is His body, must also suffer persecution and humiliation. The head and the body suffer together. If your head hurts your whole body knows about it; and if your body hurts then your head also knows about it. Somebody once said that if you kill the head the body would die. Believe me they tried that with the Church. They tried to kill the body by killing the head. They took the Head of the Church, nailed Him to a cross, lifted Him up between the heaven and the earth. They watched Him lay His head in the locks of His shoulder and give up the ghost. They watched as He was buried in Joseph’s new tomb.
But early the first day morning it was on a Sunday morning that the Head of the Church rose from the dead. And is alive forevermore Because He lives He has proven to the world, that if you can’t kill the head, you can not kill the body. Peter preached one sermon on the Day of Pentecost and three thousands souls were added to the body of Christ. The Church is alive it has been recruited to engage the opposition for the cause of Christ. Jesus Himself has given us the assurance that nothing shall be able to separate us from His love. Not tribulation, not distress, not persecution, not famine, not nakedness, not peril and not sword. Nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of Christ.
How many of us know someone who feels that God does not love them? Many of us knows someone who feels that because they have come short, or because they have failed too often, or because they have made up in their minds that God just could not love them. And that feeling leaves them with a low self esteem, a sense of unworthiness, of always putting oneself down, along with a sense of discouragement. Imagine if you will a person feeling all of this. In his mind he might believe that he’s not good enough for God to love. The devil does not want you to know that the love of God and only His love can heal a sin sick soul, it can wash you whiter than snow, it can change the old to new, it can pick up the fallen and straighten out the crooked, Gods love is unconditional and never changes. He loves you in spite of not because of.
Anybody that feels that they can be too bad for God to love, I stopped by to tell you that the Bible does not agree with, nor does it support, but opposes this thinking. John 3:16 says, “ for God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that who so ever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life”. Romans 10:9 says, That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. And then here in Romans 8:35 the question is asked, “who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
No matter how
bad or terrible the life
you have lived,
if you believe in God, nothing
can separate you
from His love. Man’s
redemption was something
worth fighting for. Only
Jesus could redeem
us and nothing can separate
us from Him.
We are more than conquerors
through Him that
loved us. We
are killed all
the day long;
we are accounted as sheep
for the slaughter,
nevertheless we are
more than conquerors
through Him that
loved us.
I don’t
know about you,
but I can sing a
song that the
Angels can’t sing;
redeemed, redeemed my
soul has been
redeemed. I’ve been
washed in the
blood of the
Lamb, Somebody wrote,
there is a
fountain filled with
blood drawn from
Immanuel’s vein, where
sinners plunge beneath
that flood and
loose all of
their guilty stain
The blood that
Jesus shed for
me, way back
on Calvary, the
blood that gives
me strength from
day to day, will never
loose it’s power.
I’m so glad today that
Jesus paid it
all. All to
Him I owe.
He looked
down from Heaven,
and saw what
sin had done
to man His created being.
He saw the condition of
man’s soul and
how Satan had
tossed him from
creation to damnation.
He looked and
He saw a cause that
was worth fighting
for. Damnation had
opposed man’s creation.
And man’s creation could only be
redeemed from damnation,
through Salvation.. Satan
had us bound, our souls
were in the
lost and found,
and through forty
two generation Jesus
came into the
world and He
brought Salvation with
Him.