“For some, owning their faith may lead them to lose their life, their family, or their job. But that’s probably not you. After all, not all suffering is life-threatening or career-ending, is it? Almost all of us will suffer social rejection, criticism, or ridicule for identifying with Christ. The friendship that goes cold; the snide remarks over the dinner table; the whispered gossip behind our back.”

My parents couldn’t afford to send me to university. So, to pay for my school, I enlisted in the United States Navy. In God’s kindness, I eventually won a Navy scholarship to the University of Florida. As a part of my training, I served on a tugboat one summer. Our job was to guide large ships through the harbor without incident, using only thick, heavy lines (ropes, to the non-nautical). One morning, the petty officer assigned to the tug was preparing the lines. You can imagine how thick and heavy they had to be to pull such large vessels, yet he was throwing them around like they were dental floss. As he organised the lines, he started to bad-mouth Christians, going on and on about how hypocritical and unreliable they were. Then he looked up at me, 19 years old at the time and only a Christian for two years, and he said, “You’re not one of those Christians, are you?!”

That was it. That was the first moment of truth in my young Christian life. It was the moment to stand for my faith and muster the courage required not to deny my Lord. It was the moment to declare my allegiance to King Jesus and, in love, explain the gospel to this skeptic.

So, I responded, “Me? No, not me!”

What happened? Why, at that moment, did I become a coward? It’s simple, really: I was afraid. I was afraid of what that intimidating, unbelieving sailor would think of me, what he might say to me, or what he could do to me. I was afraid to suffer, even if only a little, for the name of Christ. I suspect I’m not the only one.

Small Sufferings and Functional Denials

Sooner or later, we will all be confronted with the choice of identifying with Christ publicly or denying him. For some, owning their faith may lead them to lose their life, their family, or their job. But that’s probably not you. After all, not all suffering is life-threatening or career-ending, is it? Almost all of us will suffer social rejection, criticism, or ridicule for identifying with Christ. The friendship that goes cold; the snide remarks over the dinner table; the whispered gossip behind our back. These are small sufferings compared to some, but they still hurt. And they still force us to make a choice: will we identify with Christ or deny him?

Some denials are public, verbal, and outright; others are “functional denials” by virtue of our silence. When we go about our lives trying to hide the fact that we belong to Jesus, we are denying Christ. But whether functional or actual, denial is denial. And such denials are almost always rooted in fear of suffering—even if the suffering is sometimes bigger in our imaginations than it would be in reality.

This is a danger facing the whole church in the west today—that in the face of persecution, we would allow the fear of suffering to lead us to deny Christ. In the face of such a danger, the New Testament calls us time and again not to be afraid of Christian suffering, but, instead, to remain faithful, even to the point of death.

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