As Presented at Hillside Free Methodist Church
for Refugee Sunday
for Refugee Sunday
Introduction
KOSOVA - (shake your head) - Kosova.
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.
Alija's 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.
A dog, once he's drank blood, will kill again, only each time with more savagery.
Do you wonder what is happening in Kosova?
Then don't forget Bosnia.
For these are stories I have heard face to face. The most detailed are stories I have heard direct from their victims. It makes me tremble.
Do you wonder what is happening in Kosova?
I fear it may be a hundred times worse - for a dog, once he's drank blood, will kill again, only each time with more savagery.
Yes, it is true that I work with a Refugee Resettlement Agency. It is true that Kosova is breaking my heart. It is true that my heart is breaking from the stories I have heard face to face. It is true that there is so much to do. So much World Relief - Chicago could help everyone of you do. It is true, in the face of such stories and the renewed tragedies of Kosova, that I should take as my topic this morning:
Why Should We Help Refugees?
Why should we help refugees?
Because they are people in need
Because we would want someone to do the same for us if we were in their shoes.
Why should we help refugees?
Because its nice to get a thank you and know that its more than just a
courtesy.
Because it makes us feel good ,
good about what we have done
good about ourselves!
Why should we help refugees?
Because it is the scriptural mandate!
Scripture is full of commands, reminders, and admonitions to not forget the stranger, the foreigner, the alien among you.
Do not deprive the alien of justice!
for you were once ...
Never mistreat or oppose foreigners
because you were ...
Treat the alien as native borne ...
Love the alien ...
for you were once ...
Be as generous to the alien
as the Lord your God has been to you ...
My topic this morning should be !! ...
Why Should We Help Refugees?
Why should we help refugees?
Because of what you once were!
DO NOT FORGET!!
I COULD CHALLENGE YOU THIS MORNING TO CONSIDER
THERE IS A MORE IMPORTANT REASON
TO HELP THE REFUGEE!
THERE IS A REASON WHICH IS AS FAR ABOVE
GOOD MOTIVES AS the sky is above the land.
THERE IS A REASON WHICH IS AS FAR ABOVE
HUMAN NEED AS the moon is above the earth!
THERE IS A REASON WHICH IS FAR ABOVE
THE MANDATE OF SCRIPTURE AS humanity is above the tiny clam!
I should take as my topic this morning -
Why Should We Help Refugees?
But I can't.
I can't! I can't - because there is something greater happening in our world today! There is something God wants us, His children, to remember today. There is something that needs to mark our lives everyday, something about refugees that we should never forget and therefore I must take as my theme this morning:
DO NOT FORGET!
GOD’S WORD FOR Christians ... THIS MORNING IS:
Do Not Forget!
You are refugees!
YOU ARE REFUGEES!!
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 the 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 -
For 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, I 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!
You are refugees!
How 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.
The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life! Turning a man from the snares of death!
Being a refugee is a requirement for salvation?
The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge! my shield and the horn of my salvation, He is my stronghold, my refuge and my savior ... I call to the Lord ... and I am saved!
Quite simply put ...
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 primary text 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 3,000,000 million 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,
like a n Ogoni,
like a Kosovar!
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 - living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing, and detestable idolatry. 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.
What about you?
Do you feel at home in the world?
Do non-Christians around you
think you strange, a tad bit alien?
Do they sense and know the difference?
Do they heap abuse on you for not being like them?
For not having their motives?
For not participating in the things from which we have been called to flee?
If not, is it because you have not begun to flee?
Is it possible that
you are not really in Christ Jesus,
that you have not entered the refuge
without which you can not be saved?
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:
WE MUST 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 because our hearts can look into the depths of a Bosnian's
of Kosovar's being and
feel their struggle,
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 we can..
We are their fellow refugees!
We should help the refugee
because of who we are!!
Why should we help the refugee"?
because we are refugees!!
DO NOT FORGET
WE ARE REFUGEES!!
WE ARE REFUGEES!!
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.
WE ARE REFUGEES!!
GOD’S WORD FOR Christians ...
[And I hate to use that label
for our friends from Bosnia and Kosova and so many other places have been
killed and raped and hunted like animals
by men who use the label "Christian"
but are not men of the Cross
Not men of Christ ... ]
GOD’S WORD FOR Christians today is...
DO NOT FORGET!!
WE ARE REFUGEES!!
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