Luke 12:49-56

The sermon today was on Luke 12:49-56. I would like to quickly write down two personal stories that the speaker (Greg) shared.

First, he talked about giving a series of presentations to a group of international students at a university in Tennessee. His first topic was, “What is Christianity?” At the end of the presentation, a man in the back raised his hand and said that he was a Muslim. He wanted to know if Greg believed that Islam was wrong.

Greg said he thought for a moment, then said, “I think Christianity and Islam may both be wrong, but they can’t both be right. I think Christianity is the correct view.”

The Muslim responded, “I agree, only I think Islam is the correct view. You are the only Christian I’ve met in the US who thinks this way.” (By the way… this is not my point in sharing this story, but so much for the belief that postmodernism has at long last made it possible for people to share their religious views without coming to blows.)

At the end of the time that he spent there, the Muslim man confided in him, “I don’t believe in my religion any more. But if I became a Christian, my parents would kill me.” Greg didn’t dwell on whether he might be telling the literal truth. Instead, he left us with a question: What would you have said to him?

The second story is just as thought-provoking, but more affecting, in my opinion.

For several years, Greg and his wife lived at L’Abri Fellowship in Switzerland before Francis Schaeffer died.

The story he told was about the first church service he ever attended there. Schaeffer was the pastor of the church. During the service, he baptized two men with names that sounded Arabic. As he baptized them, and afterwards as well, he visibly wept. Greg recounted that he leaned over to the person sitting next to him and asked whey he was crying.

“Because these two men were Muslims.”

“So?”

“Tomorrow they are leaving to return home to Malaysia.”

“So?”

“There’s a significant chance that they will be killed because they became Christians.”