Encouraged by God

In the 1986 movie, The Karate Kid, Daniel LaRusso travels with Mr. Miyagi to Okinawa, Japan.

There is a particular scene that I really enjoy watching over and over.

Daniel LaRusso is fighting his enemy, Chozen.

Daniel is bleeding, exhausted, and about to give up.

The struggling Daniel looks up to his sensei, Mr. Miyagi who takes out a small drum from his kimono and starts to do half turns from left to right.

Incredibly, this reminds Daniel of the drum fighting technique that Mr. Miyagi taught him.

Everyone watching joins in to do the same with their drums.

…and all of a sudden you can hear the music score start playing, Daniel gets up with a new sense of energy, and you know that Daniel is going to win this fight.

Let’s watch this brief scene.

The point of this scene is that Daniel won the fight not because of his inner strength or his fighting ability - he won because the entire community rallied behind him carrying him towards victory.

But what happens when the community is against you?

What happens when most everyone around you wants you to fail?

This is exactly what happened to Paul when he arrived in Corinth.

Corinth was a godless society where people where slaves to their own desires.

…even those that were religious Jews were very much against Paul preaching about Jesus Christ. They wanted to get rid of Paul.

…and lastly, the people even used the legal system / the courts to bring up charges against Paul so that they could put him in prison or at least get him expelled from the town.

…most everyone was against Paul; and all he was doing was faithfully preaching the message about Jesus Christ just as God had called him.

These people were not against Paul’s personality or his ethnic background.

They did not criticize him for his culture or his social class.

What they hated most was his Christian Faith; and they were determined to destroy it.

We are living in such a time where most people in society would rather live in a world where there were no christians that believed in God and called others to follow Jesus Christ.

How then are we to live in this type of society where people are so much against the Christian message?

We simply need to go to the Bible and see where Paul found his encouragement to continue the mission he was called to.

Hechos de los Apóstoles 18:9–10 NIV

9 One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision: “Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent. 10 For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city.”

As Paul faced each of these struggles in Corinth - a godless society, adversity from the religious jews, and lawsuits at court - God himself was his source of encouragement.

It was the Almighty God who came to Paul and said:

Do not be afraid.

Keep on speaking, do not be silent.

…why? Because I am with you. They will be against you but remember, I am with you. They will surely not destroy you.

God had given Paul a mission and he would see it through - God had many people to save in that city.

So as we go into the world this week, let us not be afraid about sharing the message of Jesus Christ or sharing about our faith and him in him, we do not need to fear because God is with us till the end.