It doesn't say: they were ‘tormented’ for God, or they were ‘punished’ for God. It does not say: they were ‘shamed’ for God.
It says: they were ‘shamed for His name’.
This is a concept that is not true of other people. Your name does not travel on its own. Your name does not have power that people walk in and out of. Your name - no one will ever be beaten in the name of Shane - no one. People are beaten because they made a decision to live a compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiveness life; and that the demonstration of that life is so powerful, that it threatens other people.
They're not shamed because they were shoving religion down people's throats. They weren't shamed because they were thumping their Bibles, saying: we're in, you're out. They weren't shamed because they were saying: we're right, you're wrong. They weren't shamed because they were handing out tracts that ‘don't make any sense’. They weren't shamed for any of that.
They were shamed for living a life, that was worthy to be called of the name; and that the power in that life was drawing people to itself.
Acts 19:37. There's this guy named Paul, and he's in a place called Ephesus. Ephesus was the headquarters to the goddess Diana, and the goddess Artemis. He is in the epicentre of the goddess Artemis. The temple to the goddess Artemis is still one of the eight wonders of the world today, and he's winning so many converts to Christ, they don't know what to do with him, so they arrest him.
This is what Acts 19:37 (I don't have it in front of me), but the judge in the court says something like: Why have you brought these men to me, who have neither robbed our temples, nor have they blasphemed our goddess? Paul is in the epicentre of the goddess Artemis, and he's building one of the greatest churches of all time, and he doesn't say one bad thing about Artemis. He simply lived a life in the name of God, and that, in and of itself, drew people to itself - and that's what we're called to do. That's what we're called to be. We're called to demonstrate before we announce - to demonstrate. It's worth dying for.
9) 1 Peter 4:14 – “if you are reviled for the name of Christ, then you are blessed, because the spirit of God and glory rest on you”.
He says: you want to walk in the spirit? Then you walk in that realm of awareness that Micah 4:5 talked about. When you're in the realm of awareness of the name of God, then that is walking in the spirit. That's when the spirit of God and glory rest on you.
You want to be about glory? Fine, but glory is not primarily gold, and diamonds, and angels, and wind, and trumpets, and all that stuff. I'm all for all of it - great. When God does that stuff – it’s fantastic. But if that kind of stuff is it, then we've missed the point - that the glory of God always comes back to a manifestation of the name; which is: producing a group of people, it's producing fruit, that produces the compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiveness God.
What good does it do, to have a church of people covered in gold dust, with diamonds in their shoes, seeing angels in the sky, and they walk out and be mean? No! That is not the point! The point of the spirit of God and glory resting on you, is that it produces something in your life of the name of God: the compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiveness God.
1 Peter 4:15, which doesn't have anything to do with it, but I'm putting it in for my own self, because I just love this scripture. It says: “Truly, according to them, He is blasphemed; but according to you He is glorified. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or an evildoer, or a meddler in the affairs of others”. I love that.