The Christian and His Comfort Zone: Paul, Suffering, and Endurance (Part 1)

I want you to know that when Paul got out of there, the brothers and sisters in Ephesus were greatly hated. I think I can say, from having looked at this so much, that the saints in Thessalonica were literally ostracized by the community, the society in Thessalonica. I have a notion they couldn’t get a job unless they hired one another. I’m going to tell you what, these people are also crazy. When Paul and Silas were preaching in Thessalonica, they began spinning yarns about the early persecution of the church in Jerusalem. They say, and Paul quotes them: “Boy, we could get persecuted.” Paul, when he writes the letter to him, says, “You asked for it, and you’re rejoicing within God.” So, saints, if you ever run around with a Paul of Tarsus, you’d better learn how to rejoice. Now, I want to come back to your comfort zone. I want to come back to your stress level. I want to come back and ask about your endurance.

Now I want to tell you something. Every man and woman in this country operates within their comfort zone, and their stress level, and if they get in a situation where that stress level gets too high, or that comfort zone gets breached, they’ll find another job, they’ll move to another town, or they will come up with a new philosophy or a new theology. Someone very wisely said, and this is off the subject, a man’s theology will change according to his morals. I thought that was profound, and I have never seen anyone disprove that statement. But the same thing is true whether we realize it or not: we are captive to our stress level and our comfort zone, and we make our ambitions, we live our lives, we develop our convictions to match them. We don’t know that, but we will not get far outside that comfort zone or stress level.

Gene, are you saying that in a condemnatory fashion? No, ma’am. I am saying that by revelation. You won’t hear me use that word very often. I learned something—that I must honor how God made us all. Now, please look over here at Cindy. How high do you figure Cindy’s stress level is? Is she going to preach on the streets? Is she going to get her back beaten four, five, six, seven, eight, nine times? Cindy, I don’t mean to in any way; I’m trying to make a point. Cindy, you and I know that you’re not going to do that because God made you the way you are, and I understand that I have to honor Cindy the way God made her. That’s one of the reasons I’m talking to you right now. We make the mistake, we Christian workers, especially the nutty ones…I’m not speaking of myself…I’m done with the nuts out there. (laughter) To think that all Christians should live the way Paul of Tarsus lived. Is that not the impression that we kind of get a byproduct of a secondary, “Paul did this, and he did this, and we’d better that.” It’s not true. God did something in Paul’s mother’s womb, but I’m going to turn that around right quick and tell you this. You should also recognize that, every once in a while, God sends one of these crazy people around, and you cannot match his stress level, his comforts, or his endurance. What you can do is the same thing they did, and I don’t think anybody’s ever heard this statement made before. You can help him. You want to know what else you can do? Don’t make life any harder on him than he’s already having to deal with, and I’ll get to that in a minute. Personally, I’m not asking for pity or help. I happened to know and knew when I signed up for this job exactly what I was getting into. I’d already read Paul’s letters in their chronological order.

Every once in a while, running around with these kinds of men, you’ll get pressed out of your comfort zone. Every once in a while, you get pressed out of your stress level, but I’m going to tell you something: that’s good for you. It really is. This will cause you to grow. It’s a privilege and a work of God in His transforming nature to do this in our lives, to put us in a situation that we ourselves cannot contain. It is better that you embrace that than start blaming God for how you’re being treated. Now I would like to say this for Paul Tarsus and Gene Edwards, so you don’t start blaming them.

The story is here, saints. These things have to happen. It’s built into the very song of the universe. It’s in the very bloodstream of creation. Every once in a while, one of these crazy people has to come around, and they have to change things, and always, the system of the world will rise up and cause unmitigated…the belches of hell upon them. It’s just the way it is. I think I’m being as even-handed here as I’m capable of. I know that I’m supposed to protect you, but you also need to know that if you’re going to run around with me, some of the mud’s going to get splashed on you. I don’t know what your job is. Your job is to, I suppose, not get bitter and embrace and grow. I know what mine is. It just doesn’t get better.

I wrote this down. You’ll find it in a book. When a man has been through a church split once, he bails out. A few will survive two. A few will survive three, but nobody in the ministry is going to keep on going when he goes through four splits. Somewhere around 50 or 60, these are my exact words, 50 or 60, he will bail out. I am 75 years old, and I have been at least through 13. I’m not going to give them the privilege of making me bitter. These are the fields in which we grow. There are a lot of different people I’m a little bit afraid of, but one of them is people who think they are one of these people with this kind of stress level, but then they become judges. They don’t get into stressful situations, but they judge…I’ll tell you what I’d do if I were him…I’d do that a little bit better than he did. I told you that we’ve lost over half our churches in the last five years, and almost every one of them follows the same pattern. In fact, they all follow the same pattern except for one, and I’ll tell you about that.

We have now come to the end of Paul’s life. He went to Jerusalem. Somebody thought that he had seen Trophimus, a Gentile, in the temple in Jerusalem, because his head was shaved – thought he was the same person – and he yelled out to some bystander there, “Paul of Tarsus is in this place, and that man’s a Gentile. He’s desecrating the temple,” and everybody in that town wanted to kill him, anyway; read the story. The church feared for his (Paul’s) life, the church in Jerusalem, the Christians, the Jews there. I would like to know what their opinion of this man was. He’s coming in from his third journey, and he always returns to Jerusalem to report. This time, he doesn’t get to. Brothers gather up with him and say, “You’re hated in this city. The daggermen are present. They’re here to kill you.”

Well, they drag Paul out. I assume that those other four or five men were taking a vow. Somebody help me. Is it five? I think it’s five men. He paid for vows for them to fast, and they probably all got beaten up, too; they all had their hands shaved. But here’s all these people crammed down all the streets yelling, screaming, bloody murder, and the Romans have a way, when somebody’s causing a problem, you don’t ask who he is; the first thing you do is you beat him. So, the soldiers grab him and start beating him. Paul says, “Do you have the right to beat a Roman citizen?” And the gentleman whose name is mentioned in the Scripture said, “You are a Roman citizen?” I am. I paid for my Roman citizenship.” Paul said, “I was born with mine.” Then he switches to three languages while talking to him, and the man says, “You’re not the Egyptian?” By the way, that Egyptian is also known in history. He said, “No, I’m a Jew.” And he said, “I want to speak to these people.” He then switched from Greek or maybe Latin to Aramaic and Hebrew. Same thing… a crowd… hot dog; I can preach Jesus Christ to these people. So, the Roman soldier lets him, and he starts telling his story of how he got saved on the Damascus road, and he does really well right up to the resurrection. Well, he’s put in prison for a few days, and he’s marched out of Jerusalem. This story is so unbelievable. The Romans have taken a liking to Paul, and the number of guards around him to get him out of town has increased, because a group of men said, “We will never eat again or drink water until he’s dead.” He was surrounded by about 300 Roman soldiers, and you cannot help but wonder how that guy must have felt who had taken that vow. He can’t even see Paul, much less reach him. I assume that he kept that vow and died of starvation.

Do you understand? Let me ask you, what do you think they were talking about in the marketplace the next day? The Jews were talking about this horrible man named Paul, and the Jewish Christians were trying to look around like they never heard of the man. Anyway, Paul goes to prison for two years, then gets on that ship, and spends over a year getting to Rome, and he writes this beautiful letter. Bring me my cloak and some sheepskin; I want to do some writing to try to get there before winter. He’s probably no older than 60 years old. Might have been 62. Saints, I wonder what his body looked like. I bet you he was one of the most scarred-up human beings that you and I could imagine. Then he wrote these words to Timothy: “All in Asia Minor have left me.”

I was reading this just before I left the institutional church. I was 30 years old. I remember so clearly, I read that, and I said, “Whatever happens, Lord, I’ll die a failure. I’m not going to succeed at what I do.” That has been a comfort to my life ever since. With a pedal to the metal, not stopping for wood, water, coal, or diesel…that’s a southern saying…I always knew I’d fail. How do I know? After all Paul did, the saints in Asia Minor forsook him, and you know something else? I am certain that man was not bitter. He had to be above that, and so, they took him out and chopped his head off. “I finished the course, and I’m waiting for a crown. He was so optimistic, but I have a notion that Paul of Tarsus had no idea there would be around 20 billion copies of his letters. That’s part one of this message. We’re going to take a 10-minute break, and then we’re going to turn the page, and we’re going to look at the other half of the story that’s right here.

(Continued in Part 2)