Love Does Not Rejoice in Evil
I hope you've been enjoying Brian Helsby sharing from his book, which is written about 1 Corinthians 13 and love—all the things that God’s love is to us. So, what have you got for us today, Brian?
Standing Together in Love
Well, yes, I’m going to continue with some stories from the book. I spent 10 years with Youth for Christ in Port Elizabeth, from '76 to '86, and they were in the midst of apartheid. I remember that the very first time I went there, I went to a minister’s fraternal. It was multicultural. The next day, I had a visit from the security police. They said, "We know you were at the meeting. This person said that, and that person said that, and we’d like you to continue to go and to keep us informed."
Very politely, because I am polite, I told them where to get off. They became abusive and angry. Very soon, I discovered my phone was tapped, and for the next 10 years, I had this constant run-in with security police. I wasn’t trying to be an activist; I was just trying to be a Christian.
But we had 15 Youth for Christ clubs that we had developed—5 in the townships, 5 in the so-called coloured area, and 5 in the suburbs. The 500 young people who went to those clubs, we got together every month—sometimes twice a month—camping, sand surfing, hiking, outreaches, you name it. We did it, and we did it together, in the height of apartheid, and the security police were not happy.
Love Rejoices With Truth
I just mention that because apartheid is not something of the past, but we have injustice all around us all the time, and we are called to be courageous. We are called to stand up against these things.
The Bible says "Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth." We live in a society where there’s a lot of evil, a lot of corruption, a lot of bad stuff happening all the time, and we are called to make a stand. Being a Christian means that we stand against the worldviews around us.
Making a Stand for God
One of my favorite verses, Romans 12, in a modern translation, says, "Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold, but you must be new and different in all you say, do, and think."
We live in a world where the values are different. They’re strange, they’re weird, they’re unchristian. We’re called to stand up and to be counted and to be the person that God wants us to be. May we today be that person who makes a stand for God.
