Do Not Forget - 1 Peter 2:11-12

[Use the One Anothers of Christian Organizations as the introduction. (Have them ready, walk down into the congregation and hand them out.) Give them out as a gift from World Relief as we seek to become an organization that gives to the church not just receives.]

Fikret came home to find his wife murdered with a knife, raped, and his children witnesses to the neighbors, police, and military who perpetrated and watched her death in the kitchen of her own home. At the funeral the next day, for that is Bosnian custom, he was warned by sympathetic neighbors to leave town now! Don't go back home. They are there waiting for you next. He fled.

Muris lost a leg in the war but he can't go home. His neighbors have vowed to kill him. He fought on the wrong side.

Fatima, in her forties, was held in a concentration camp. She was raped. . A quota was set for each individual. A tally was kept. And when the woman's quota of rapes was reached, she was left alone. Like Fatima, some were rape more than a hundred. Others even a thousand.

Sead was 12. He was forced to rape his 8 year old sister.

Selena watched her three sons, husband, brothers, uncles, cousins, march away. She never got to say good bye. She never saw them again. One by one they are slowly being identified from the mass graves.

Martes neighbor and friend came and raped her, burnt her house, and drove here out of town.

Aida was carried physically across the Mostar bridge and placed on the "proper" side. Her husband was jailed and only a international outcry for him as an individual finally resulted in his release.

And Senada - Senada found three neighbor boys - 10, 15, and 16- two of them brothers, just as their attackers left. They were in a room. Blood and flesh was splattered on the ceiling and walls. The sixteen year old was slumped against the wall. The back of his skull was gone. His brain was missing. His arms and legs were mangled and broken, bones sticking through the flesh. I don't remember how Senada said they were laying. He was bleeding from the mouth and ears. Dead. The fifteen year old was laying on the floor. His eyes were missing, knocked out of his head by the force of the beating. His skull was cracked open and his brain swelling through. He was alive... but there was nothing she could do as he died. The ten year old, the younger brother ... crying ... I do not recall if he was standing,, sitting, or laying down ... asked Senada for help. One eye was knocked from its socket. His brain was hanging from his skull. She tried to but the brain back in his head and held him as he died.

These are the stories of the lives touched by churches, by World Relief refugee sponsors, in Chicago and its suburbs, every year!

But we will talk more about World Relief - Chicago later, after service. First, let us hear from the Lord this morning.

That message this morning is, "DO NOT FORGET!!"

"All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me! Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I will be with you always."

Don't you just hate it. Just when you've gotten comfortable. Just when you think you've resolved that knot in your stomach, that fist that tightens in your chest. Just when you've given enough dollars or enough time has elapsed. Just when God in compassion lets you off the hook and you begin to relax.

Oh, no!
It's Missions Sunday again! It's Missions Conference time!
And, some quest speaker gets up there and ...
As if you were all idiots ...
As if you all had never heard it again ...
As if "Missions Sunday" means a license to assume the worst of people ...
As if "Missions Sunday Guest Speaker" equals make them bleed, lay on the guilt trip ...

Some idiot gets up there ...
Some missions geek who has nothing more creative than the same message you've heard for twenty years, gets up there and demands one more time, "Go Ye Therefore Into All The World!"

Go!
Not me! I've settled it!

Go!
That's too far. God knows I'm not comfortable. I can't do that. My circumstances ... you know.

Go!
And this idiot today has the audacity to stand up there to declare, "My topic this morning is 'Don't Forget," then read that stupid passage that says, "Go!"

Well, I'm not here this morning to make you feel guilty about that word, "Go!"
I Am here this morning to say, "Don't Forget!."
And in a moment I will talk to you about what we must not forget.
And I don't mean, "Don't forget these terrible stories."

But first I wanted you to remember ...
To remember this verse at the heart of Christian missions.

First I wanted you to remember the verse that is the reason we have a Mission Sunday, the reason we created Missions Conferences.

I wanted you to remember the view of the world we have so long declared that "Go" represents.

Yes, I wanted you to remember that knot in your stomach, that tug of war that happens in each of us who hear that call, whose hearts see the nations and the mission, who maybe are even missionary wanna bees, but have by, our own choice or, more likely, by God's choice, seem called to stay at home.

I wanted you to remember how to us in America "all nations" has come to mean "over there" and to feel again the longing or frustration in our hearts when we feel so disempowered to "go" "over there".

I want you to remember because that was yesterday and today's message, "Don't Forget" is not based on the "all nations over there" but on the new reality of the "all nations over here, not just there." I want to call your heart, I want to call your mind, to the new reality. A reality in the midst of which Christ is standing today and calling out to the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church of South Holland, "DON'T FORGET!"

For 20 years, World Relief-Chicago has worked at the heart of a dynamic ethnographic change God has brought to the face of America.

Something unexpected has happened. Something unprecedented has happened. While we have reached less and less of our own nation - our part of the all nations - Christ has stood in the field outside our doors called "here". Christ has stood here outside the doors of every local church in America, in Chicago, in South Holland, and the smallest of suburbs.

Christ has stood outside, but He has been busy. He has been preparing the field. He has been getting things ready for us - who won't leave the "here" - we who are reluctant to "go", we who feel disempowered about the "all nations" over there or we who simply are not called to leave the part of the "all nations" that is here.

Outside our doors, Christ has been busy. Christ has been getting things ready for us. Christ has been calling the nations. And two by two, and four by four. Five hundred by five hundred and 10,000 by 10,000. And, yes, today, 100,000 by 100,000 and even in a few cases, 1,000,000 by 1,000,000. The mission field has come to our doors.

From Kosovo, Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Rwanda, Congo, Eritrea, Liberia, Togo, Sierra Leon, Nigeria, and more ...
The mission field has come to our doors.

From Laos, Vietnam, the Philippines, Timor, India, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Burma, China and more ...
The mission field has come to our doors
.
From Guatemala, Argentina, Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico, Belize, Cuba, Jamaica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Peru, Bolivia and more-
The mission field has come to our doors.

From Russia, Latvia, Armenia, the Ukraine, Moldavia, Bulgaria, and the killing fields of Bosnian and Kosova and more ...
The mission field has come to our doors.

And while we have not resettled refugees from that other continent - Australia - I have met some Aussies here, and that mission field too has come to our doors.

Go, make disciples of all nations!
That means . . . in this nation too!

And for all us missionary wanna bees, for all the fearful, reluctant, timid and sea sick,
for every Christian who has ever felt the tug of missions or heard the tap of Jesus at our hearts, Christ has been bringing refugees from "all the world" to our door!

And that is why He has brought me this morning to say in His behalf,
"Do Not Forget!"

DO NOT FORGET!
Christians
Do Not Forget!
You are refugees!

YOU ARE A REFUGEE!!

First , You are a refugee, because ....

I. A Refugee Is a Person Who Flees ....

Listen to scriptures and tell me if you are a refugee!

Flee from sexual immorality! ... he who sins sexually sins against his own body. And ... your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, who you received from God!

Flee from sexual immorality!

Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry. Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? ... You can not drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons!

Flee from idolatry!
Flee from the table of demons!

Flee from godless chatter that looks like knowledge but causes
controversy, envy, strife, and constant friction.

Flee foolish and stupid arguments... because you know they produce strife. And the Lord’s servant must not quarrel ... (but) be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful.

Flee from the love of money.

From the arrogance that stalks those who are rich in the things of this present world.
From putting your hope in wealth.

Flee the evil desires of youth.
Do don’t embrace them! Flee!!

Oh, how often we do not flee,
but under pressure from society,
under the pressure of advertisement,
under the whisper of Satan that youth is better,
that youth is our salvation,
we glorify, deify, and seek to cling to the desires of youth
until death do us part from this world and from our last opportunity to learn and value the wisdom of age!
Flee the evil desires of youth.

Flee says the Scripture ...
Flee! ... Flee !! ... Flee!!!

Have you fled?

Then you are a refugee.

Unless you forgotten or refused to flee -
And only a person who flees
Can take refuge -
Then you are a refugee.

And that is our second point . . .

II. A Refugee Is a Person Who Takes Refuge ...

A refugee is a person who flees ...

And ... a refugee is a person who takes refugee ...

Rescue me from my enemies Lord, come to you for protection!
(cries David)

The eternal God is your refuge! (shouts Moses)

I cry to you, O Lord; I say, "You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living. Listen to my cry for I am in desperate need; rescue me ... set me free from the prison of myself that I may praise you!

If you make the Most High your dwelling, even the Lord who is my refuge ... he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; They will lift you up in their hands ...

Do Not Forget!
A Refugee is a Person Who Takes Refugee!

If God is your Refuge
You are a Refugee!

Can I begin to think of my love for God
and forget that I am a refugee.

Can I so devalue my Refuge, my God,
that I forget why I am there!
Why I am with Him!

Have I gotten such a pride in what I have become
That I have forgotten the pit from which I have come!

In the fear of the Lord His children will have refuge.

Can it be?
Taking refuge ...
Being a refugee is a requirement for salvation?

My God is my rock, in whom I take refuge! my shield and the horn of my salvation, He is my ... refuge and my savior ... I call to the Lord ... and I am saved!

Remember!!
If you haven’t fled, you can not take refuge
If you haven’t taken refuge,
You are not in Christ Jesus

If you are not a refugee,
You are not saved!
You are not a Christian!

Do Not Forget!
The pit from which you were dug.

Do not forget
You are refugees!

And that brings us to 1 Peter 2:11-12 , our actual text for today ...
and our final point ...

Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world to abstain from sinful desires which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us."

III. A Refugee is a Stranger and an Alien.

A refugee is a person who flees ...
A refugee is a person who takes refuge ...
A refugee is a stranger and an alien in the land where he or she lives.

You are a refugee -
Because you are a stranger and alien --

That is what God calls you
That is what you became when you took refuge in Him!

But unlike 28,000,000 million or more people in the world today
who remain refugees,
the person who is in Christ
is a stranger and alien in a unique way.

The person who is in Christ Jesus
has fled this world,
but may not have left their own country.

The person who is in Christ Jesus
has taken refuge,
but may not have left their own home.

The persons who are in Christ Jesus
are strangers and aliens,
but may be in the same place
and surrounded by the same persons
which have been there since the day of their physical birth.

Yet like a Bosnian or Ogoni,
like a Kosovar or Burmese!
we are a stranger and an alien
because we too have fled and become a refugee.

Listen again to the Psalmist:

I am a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my own mother’s sons...
I am a stranger to my brothers,
an alien to my own mother’s sons,
for the zeal for your house consumes me,
and the insults of those who insult you
fall on me.
(What about you? What about me? What consumes us? When is the last time we were insulted for God’s sake?)
When I weep and fast, I must endure scorn;
when I put on sackcloth, people make sport of me.
Those who govern mock me,
and I am the song of the drunkards.

Talk about being a stranger and alien in ones own house and ones own land...

But when we have taken refuge in God, we . . .
If we are fleeing, we. . .
Are a stranger and alien in this world . . .

This is what Peter calls normal Christianity.

That is why we are still refugees
in this world
and will be until we come into the next.

1 Peter 4:3-4 clears it up - For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do ... They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you.

If we have fled,
if we have taken refuge in God,
we have become strange and alienated in the eyes of this world.

If any man , woman, boy or girl be in Christ Jesus
She/He is a living breathing walking alien and stranger?
He/she is a refugee!

CONCLUSION:

A refugee is a person who flees to seek refuge elsewhere.

A refugee is a person who flees to seek shelter, protection from danger and difficulty, to seek help and comfort, to seek a place of safety and safe retreat.

A refugee is a person who flees to seek refuge elsewhere.

DO NOT FORGET!
We are refugees!

DO NOT FORGET!
You are called to live every day as a stranger and alien
even if you have never left home.

DO NOT FORGET!
You are called to
Pain
Feeling alien
Being the stranger
always on the outside looking in
always different.

And that is where
The Refugees Coming Through World Relief,

Jesus Call to Missions,
And This Morning's Message

Because our hearts can look into the depths of a Bosnian's soul,
of Congolese' being, and
feel their struggle,
feel their pain ...

Because our hearts can look into the depths
of their being,
We are compelled to reach out
To relieve that pain and trauma in any way we can..

We are their fellow refugees!

Christians help refugees
because of who we are!!

Christ has brought the world to our doors.
Because of who we are!!!

Many of these individuals are refugees

Christians help refugees
because we are refugees!!

GOD’S WORD FOR today is ...
DO NOT FORGET!!
WE ARE REFUGEES!!

ACT ON IT!!