Facing Persecution

Now the purpose of the Beatitudes we have been seeing together is to teach us how to live
God's way in a fallen and a broken world. And God's way can perhaps best be summed up in two
words, trust and obey. Trust that God in Christ has become our Father, that He loves us with an
everlasting love, and that He will look after us in life and in death. Obey, because as our Father,
He knows what is best for us, and He wants us to learn to listen to what it is that He wants us
to do. So here's the question this morning. What happens when by God's grace these Beatitudes become
increasingly a part of our lawyers? What happens when more and more we learn how to be peacemakers
in a broken world? Or when we become increasingly pure in heart or when we learn how to demonstrate
mercy or get filled after hungering and thirsting for righteousness? Well, I'd love to be able to
tell you this morning that the whole world will go beating a path to your door, that they'll hold
you up as an example and that they'll want to emulate you and follow heart after you. Indeed,
there will be some who do that. Those who are elect, if you will, from before the foundation of
the world, those in whose hearts God's Holy Spirit is already working, they'll recognize in you
in me the Spirit of Jesus, and recognizing the Spirit of Jesus, they will be drawn to us
into the light of His glory in us, and they in turn will be brought to faith in that way.
At the same time, there will be many, many who become strangely irritated with you in me,
one who are poor in spirit, one who learn how to grieve into mourn for our sin,
and one who we start living a life of meekness. They'll not only be irritated, but they'll turn
against us, and in turning against us, they will sometimes begin to slander us, work against us
indeed in extreme cases, if they have the power and the ability, they'll begin to persecute us. And
so it is that Jesus, in the eighth and last be attitude, now introduces you in me to the subject
of Christian persecution. Listen again to how he puts it, "Blessed are those who are persecuted
because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." As we take some time this morning
to look at this be attitude, three observations once again that I want to make, and the first is this.
Persecution, according to the words of Jesus, is the logical conclusion
of living the be attitudes. It is the logical conclusion of living the be attitudes. Notice how
be attitude number eight brings us full circle in terms of the presentation of the be attitudes.
The be attitudes begin, you will recall, with the exclamation, "Blessed are the poor in spirit,"
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. It ends with be attitude number eight, "Blessed are those
who are persecuted because of righteousness why?" For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. We've come
full circle. We start with the kingdom of heaven. We end with the kingdom of heaven. And in between,
there is a pattern that is easily overlooked because you will notice that the first three be attitudes
all are really a negative. Things that are wrong with us, things where we become aware of our
weakness. We were poor in spirit. We mourn because of our sin. And in our weakness, we understand
that we need to give up all this self-righteousness that we have. And so when you get to be attitude
number four, which is hungering and thirsting after righteousness, the scene begins to shift because
the promise there is that after an emptying of ourselves, after knowing what our weaknesses are,
we now receive the gospel promise. And this, of course, is the paradox of the gospel
that we will be what? We will be filled with righteousness. And so the rest of the be attitudes
now go back up because now we get to be filled with mercy. We get to be filled with a purity of
heart. We learn how to be peacemakers. And as we learn to incorporate all these values of God's
kingdom into our lives, what happens once again, we come into an area of persecution. We've come
full circle. We start with the promise of God's kingdom. And we end with the promise of God's
kingdom. And persecution is the logical conclusion then of living God's way. Now to be persecuted
is to be subject to hostility and ill treatment. And persecution can take, of course, many different
forms. It can take the form that a young girl encountered some years ago in North Carolina.
She was asked to read out loud before the class, ran into a cuss word in the book that she refused
to say because of her religious conviction. The teacher tried to make her say it. She refused
was sent to the principal's office. And all kinds of Hullabaloo ensued because she stood up
for her Christian convictions. It can take the form of of your husband being unhappy with you
because you want to go to church or your coworker or your friend being angry because you no longer
join them in their wild parties the way that you used to. And of course, it can take the form
of governmental authority and power taking a job away from you in many places in the world,
taking your house, taking your possessions or any number of things, putting you in jail,
even killing you. I find it fascinating to discover that on the average 465 Christians around the
world are put to death every day for their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. To be persecuted is to be
subject to hostility and treatment. And Jesus said, don't be surprised if the world hates you.
Now why is that? Why are some of... I mean, you cannot get nicer people than us.
Nicer people than those who live by the Beatitudes. And yet historically and universally,
we are often hated and despised. Why is that? Well, the Bible says it's because
if we truly live the way that Jesus wants us to live, we are a serious threat. We are a serious
threat by our very presence to those who are not believers. And we're a very serious threat,
I think, in three ways. First of all, because we expose their sin. John puts it this way,
concerning the Lord Jesus, light has come into the world, but men love darkness instead of light,
because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the
light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. Why was Jesus persecuted? Why did Herod try to kill
baby Jesus? Why did the Pharisees later on become so angry with a man who was so good and so righteous?
Because when you are confronted by righteousness, it exposes your own sin. There's nothing
like being with somebody who refuses to cuss to make you feel bad about your own language.
There is nothing like being with somebody who refuses to break the law,
to shine the light into your own places of sin. And so the world always feels under conviction
when God's people try to live righteously. That's also why when we fail or when we fall into sin,
they pounce on us the way they do, because it justifies their own guilty consciences. There's no
love lost. The world will cover one another for their sin long before they will cover you or me.
We not only expose their sin, but we have a life. Jesus says, I've come that you might have
life and have it abundantly. And for all the struggles that we sometimes experience in the Christian
life, the fact of the matter is God has given us the be attitudes and the teachings of scripture,
because foundationally and fundamentally it helps us do life in a way that not only honors God,
but brings us joy. And the world when it refuses to walk in the ways of God,
often brings all kinds of trouble upon itself, because they have forsaken the true and the living God.
And so when they see Christians who have good marriages, Christians who have good families,
or Christians who enjoy their work, or Christians who are life-giving Christians,
then sometimes the world looks at that and they want us to be as miserable as they are.
And they'll turn against God's people, because when you walk in relationship with the Lord,
and the Lord's blessings flow in your life, then sometimes it's a sharp contrast to what you find
in the world. Not only do we have a life, but we have in Christ God's favor because each of the
be attitudes begins with what word. Blessed are the poor. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are those
who are meek. Doesn't mean our life never has any trouble. Doesn't mean that in this life,
or in this age, everything goes the way that we think or we'd like for it to go. I have all
people can tell you about that, but to be blessed means to have God's favor, to have God's presence
in good times as well as in bad times. And to have God's favor ultimately makes people really
jealous, because who do you think you are when you claim to be a friend of God,
when God is nowhere to be found for me or in my life? And so for those in many more reasons,
people who walk in darkness will inevitably turn against those who are the children of God. It's
very important for us to understand this because it offends our sense of fairness. And we all have
the tendency of thinking that if we live righteously, if we really love the Lord and demonstrate
our love for the Lord, then everybody ought to be a friend. And when sometimes people look at us
as scans and when sometimes people don't want to be a friend, when sometimes people gossip about us
or sometimes people will turn around and stab us in the back, simply because we own the name of
Jesus, then we're devastated and we can't understand why that ought to happen. Well, the Apostle
Paul says, "All who live godly lives in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution." And there doesn't
mean that you and I have to go looking for it. It means that the closer we walk with Jesus and the
more the be attitudes are representative of how we live in the kingdom of God, the more trouble
will come our way because the more out of tune we will be with the world. And rather than grieving
about that, as we'll see later on, and really rather than be moaning our lot in thinking there's
something wrong with us, what we need to do is thank God and rejoice in it because as we'll see
later on, it is proof positive that the work of Jesus has really taken root in our lives and that
we are siding with God rather than with the world. Am I making sense here when I'm talking about
that? Very important for us to understand. Persecution is the logical conclusion of living Jesus
as way. And the more you grow up in Christ, the more there will be times and situations and
individuals who decide they don't like you simply because you're getting to be more and more like
Jesus. Second observation I want to make is that in order for persecution to qualify as a blessing,
it has to be for righteousness sake. It has to be because of righteousness. And I say that because
there are, of course, many reasons we can be persecuted. Let me give you a few. There is a thing
called wrongdoing. One of my favorite jokes is that of the young man who was just speeding down
the highway but instead of driving in the proper lane, he was just aberling down the center line.
Well, a policeman saw him, took after him in hot pursuit and pulled him over.
And he said to him, what's the idea? You are just aberling down the highway. You're not only
breaking the speed limit but you're driving down the center lane. The center line.
Well, the young man says, I've got permission. And the cop says to him, excuse me, you've got what?
He says, I've got permission. Policeman says, what in the world do you mean? Well, he says,
pulls out a driver's license. This is in the days and it will still paper. Unfolds it, gives
it to the officer and he says it says right here, tear along the dotted line. And that's exactly
what I'm doing, tearing along the dotted line. What a policeman pulls you over for a traffic
violation. That's not persecution for righteousness sake, trust me. When you get yourself in a bar fight
and get a credit off to sober up in the clink, that's not persecution for righteousness sake.
When creditors come knocking on your doors because you haven't paid your bills,
that's not persecution for righteousness sake. Many instances, that's wrongdoing.
And when you're guilty of wrongdoing, you face the penalty of the law. And scripture says,
"Led, none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or a wrongdoer or a mischief maker."
Then there are personality quirks. You'll have noticed, as I have, that our dear Lord has
got some very strange sheep in his flock. And you know, that wouldn't be you or me, but we all
know some who are just played weird and who act in weird ways. And it is very easy to cloak a
significant personality defect or a lack of maturity under the guise of being spiritual.
And so the worker who sits around reading his Bible all day long or preaching at his co-workers
but doesn't do his job or doesn't do it well, and it gets maligned by his friends is not being
persecuted for righteousness sake. He's just setting a very bad example. And the wife,
who in spiritual tones invokes the name of the Lord to try to manipulate her husband into this,
that or the other thing ought not to be surprised when he turns nasty. And he doesn't bend her way.
And the child who wants to go to church or go to Sunday school,
but is actively rebellious against his or her parents in the process,
ought not to be surprised that his or her parents are less than enthusiastic.
And the church goer, who gossips under the guise of sharing prayer requests,
or who preaches while he or she is praying, all of which happens not uncommonly,
ought not to think he or she is being persecuted for righteousness sake
when people get annoyed or irritate it. Remember when Jesus was crucified,
there were two others crucified with him. And the only one who was crucified for no sin of his own
was Jesus. And many times you and I, when we experience what we call persecution,
whether it's light persecution or heavy persecution, it's not uncommonly the result
of either our own sin or just the corks of our own personality.
And those do not qualify as blessings that God can honor. There's still a third one,
and that is fighting for a cause. And this is a tricky one, so please listen to me carefully.
There are many causes that can be said to be causes of righteousness. When a cause is motivated
by the Holy Spirit, when it is carried out in step with the Spirit for the glory of God,
a cause you and I join may well be a kingdom cause and the persecution that we experience as a
result of that may well be biblical persecution on the basis of righteousness, fighting abortion,
or fighting the persecution that Christians experience around the world are standing up
for many human rights or justices might well fall under that category,
but understand that not every cause, not even every cause that bears the name of Christian,
is therefore by necessity the cause of righteousness. When we fight for a political party,
or when we fight for a particular social movement, or we join a particular organization
and we're all excited about it, and we think yes, this is for the cause of Christ.
We've got to remember that good and noble as many causes are and worthy as they are
perhaps of our allegiance. That's not necessarily the righteousness of God's kingdom that Jesus
is talking about in this particular verse. To be persecuted for righteousness sake
is to be persecuted because we foundationfully and fundamentally embrace a kingdom way of living.
We are poor in spirit. We are learning how to mourn for our sin. We have adopted the meekness
of Jesus. We hunger and we thirst after righteousness at every level of life. We want to be merciful.
We want to be pure and hard. We want to be peacemakers. In short, we want to be like Jesus.
And the more we become like Jesus, the more we will experience the persecution
that comes along with being out of tune with the world. And the more blessed we are,
says Jesus. So persecution is a logical conclusion. In order to qualify as blessing,
it must be for the sake of righteousness. And then it's very helpful to understand
that persecution can come at us from many different sources. If you look at the history
of the Christian church and the history of God's people, both in Scripture and in history,
you will discover that the most severe and deadly persecution typically comes from the world.
Jesus puts it this way. He says, "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.
If you belong to the world, it would love you as it's all done. As it is, you do not belong to
the world. But I have chosen you out of the world. And that is why the world hates you."
As I said, that can range from friends turning against you to governments turning against you,
to your freedom and your liberty being denied. It happens all over the world today. Would you
believe there's a church in Oregon that is not allowed, this is a really interesting story,
they're not allowed to hold, let me read it to you here, they're not allowed to hold weddings or
funerals because of the crowds that that draws. And so the local town council, and of course,
this thing goes to court and gets appealed, are trying to just dictate the liberty and the freedom
of that particular congregation. And throughout the course of history then, some of the worst and
most deadly persecutions have been state-sponsored persecutions. And there have been seasons and whole
periods in history where the church has been almost decimated because believers by the hundreds,
by the thousands, by the hundreds of thousands have been put to death. But that ought not to surprise
us because that's simply the nature of two kingdoms clashing. And typically historically,
that has been limited to certain periods of history and those periods, though common,
are relatively rare. But there's another form of persecution that
God's kingdom, people experience, that is far more subtle and harder to place. And that is
persecution at the hands of fellow religionists. That is to say, those who hold a form of religion,
but deny the power thereof. And Jesus talks about that in Matthew 10, 17, and 18 when he says
to his disciples, beware of men, in other words, be on your guard. For they will deliver you up
to councils and flog you in their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings
for my sake to bear witness before them and the Gentiles. So here you have the Gentiles, those are
the unbelievers, that are going to hold you to task for being followers of Jesus. But he says,
there will also be those who represent the synagogue. That is the religious establishment of Israel.
And they too will persecute you. And if you look at Jesus' own experience,
then you will discover that while it was the Gentile government that put him to death on a cross,
and it was Herod who tried to kill all the babies in Bethlehem, they were motivated, at least pilot
was motivated by the scribes and the Pharisees because the Bible says they were jealous of Jesus.
And if you look at the ministry of Paul and the New Testament, yes, it was the Roman government,
history tells us, or tradition tells us that ultimately had his head chopped off when he was
martyred for Christ, but who put them up to him? It was the religious establishment of his day.
And you will discover in your own life, and you will certainly discover in the study of history
that not only do God's people experience persecution from out there that we call the wereld,
sometimes the most serious persecution comes right from within our own homes,
sometimes within our own communities. It comes from those who have the form of religion,
but deny the power they have. And the reason for that is that in scripture,
there are two ways of serving God. Now listen to me really carefully because it's very important
for us to understand this. There are two ways of serving God. There are some who live by the law,
and there are some who live by grace. Now those two scriptures says are two very different ways
of life. They're both trying to serve God, but they're serving God on an entirely different
principle because to live by law, excuse me, to live by law is to say here is the standard. And somehow,
I got to find it in myself to perform and to measure up. And what that does, it produces a slave
mentality. It makes God seem like the harsh and the cruel taskmaster. I constantly find myself
falling short, so I must either try to bring myself up, but when I find that too difficult,
I'll try to bring down the law. And so I begin to concentrate on those areas where I'm strong,
but I'm always looking over my shoulder because I never have that internal sense of really belonging,
this internal sense of really being good enough. And so I always feel inferior and I'm always
struggling with the fear of not living up to the proper standard. Now over against that is a
thing that the Bible calls grace. And grace says yes, the standard is no lower than under the law,
as a matter of fact, as we'll see later on in this sermon of the mad Lord willing, it is if anything
higher. Because now it's no longer just the letter of the law, it's the spirit of the law. It's
not good enough not to commit adultery. I mustn't even think about committing adultery. It's not good
enough not to steal. I must not even cover what belongs to my neighbor. The difference is that
under grace, we acknowledge the standard is so impossibly high that nobody in his or her
own natural state can ever possibly measure up. Instead, we confess that God has sent Jesus.
And that because Jesus has fully measured up by faith in him, we fully measure up.
And now Jesus comes to living us by his Holy Spirit. And that spirit wears witness with my spirit
that I'm a child of God. And whether I manage to make it right or not, whether I fail or whether
I succeed, I belong. God loves me. It is in biblical language the difference between his slave and
a son. Because a slave is only as valuable to the master as long as he can produce and a slave
always has to live with the fear of being thrown out on his ear because he no longer produces.
But your child is your child. When they're out of line, you correct them but you love them
and you grow them up their yours and their place is secure because they are the children of God.
Now when somebody who lives under law, now hear me well because this is so critical to the
New Testament. When somebody who lives under law, prides himself in being the first born, prides
himself in being a hard worker, prides himself in trying so hard. And yet constantly feels insecure,
constantly feels like you're not making the grade. Now you see somebody over here who has confidence
and who has a sense of belonging and who has a sense of accomplishment and who has a freedom
in spirit that you do not have, though they are much inferior to you, they fall far short of what
you try to do. And you look at that and you have to be a very rare individual not to get mightily
annoyed because it doesn't feel right. Do you understand what I'm saying? Very, very critical because
throughout scripture that's where you find the conflict. Why did Kay and Kill Abel? Because Abel's
offering which was an offering of faith was acceptable to God and his own offering which was
based on self-righteousness was not acceptable to God and Satan found a root of bitterness in his
heart that led him to murder. Why did Ishmael persecute Isaac? Because Isaac was the son of
promise. But Ishmael was the first born and he felt put out because he didn't receive the inheritance.
Why did Issa get so royally ticked with Jacob? Issa in many ways was a more desirable individual than
Jacob ever was because Jacob was a man of faith for all his shortcomings and God offered him the
promises of his covenant, promises that Issa had so lightly sold for a bowl of potage.
Keep on going to the New Testament. Why do the Pharisees hate Jesus? Because he pleads of
familiarity with God the Father that for all of their religious attempts they cannot measure up to.
That's why ultimately they betray him the pilot and haven't put to death and you find the same
thing with the Apostle Paul. Why did the Judaizers and the circumcision party so get on his case?
Because they saw in him a freedom that they themselves were not experiencing.
Here's how Paul puts it writing to the to the Galatians talking about Isaac and Ishmael.
Now you brothers like Isaac are children of promise. At that time the son born in the ordinary way
persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now but what does the scripture say
get rid of the slave woman and her son for the slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance
with the free woman's son. And for that reason one of the ironies of the history of the Christian
Church is that much of the persecution that a new wave of Christians experience, interestingly enough,
often comes at the hands of the previous movement of God in history. Let me give you an example in the
late 60s and the early 70s. The charismatic movement burst forth in Christian Church. The charismatic
movement was really an outpouring of the Holy Spirit in many mainline churches where people had
become hungry for God and hungry for more of an experience of the Holy Spirit and a variety of
renewal movements broke out in many churches caused a lot of conflict, some justly and some unjustly.
But I have found it so fascinating to discover when that charismatic movement first burst forth
guess where most of the original opposition came from and this is not a point fingers at anybody
or to say anybody that they're not Christians but do you understand that when the charismatic
movement first burst first fourth some of the primary resistance came from all places churches
of the Pentecostal tradition. Now if you know anything about the history of those two movements
you shake your head and you say if anybody should have cheered it on it ought to have been the
Pentecostal movement because the charismatic movement in many ways embraced many of the tenants
of historical Pentecostalism. So you say to yourself what's happening here? Well I'll tell you
what happens after a while every given church movement figures they've got to figure it out
and you know who the Holy Spirit is or who God is and how God works and then as time goes on
and sometimes you lose the fire of the Holy Spirit it becomes institutionalized you know exactly
how to put God in a box and then when God bypasses that box and pours out fresh wine into
fresh wine skins brings about renewal in new places sometimes it's the elder brother who has the
greatest difficulty with the prodigal son coming back because it doesn't seem fair and so it takes
a lot of adjustment to recognize that God can do a new thing whatever he wants it in whatever way
that he wants to do it and you and I we need to be very careful
lest on the one hand we embrace something that is not of God but on the other hand we reject
something that is of God and so here's what I want to leave you with do you understand what I'm
saying do you understand how all of us are prone to thinking I've got it all figured out I know
how God ought to be worshipped I know how God ought to work I mean one of my favorite stories is
Andrew Murray in South Africa prayed for 25 years for revival to come to his church
and one day there was a youth meeting taking place with I think some ministry type people from
elsewhere and the Holy Spirit fell on that group and they prayed and they sang a storm to heaven
and Andrew Murray was so upset he was walking up and down the aisle trying to quiet everybody down
and he was saying this cannot be he was a good reform man it wasn't decently in an order
which is what we have always prided ourselves in until finally somebody took him aside and said
you know do you think that maybe this is the answer to your prayer and that God through the Holy
Spirit has begun to move among us in ways that are unprecedented in your previous experience
so whatever you run into something that doesn't make sense
and whenever you run into something like you have serious questions about because it is so
far removed from your own experience here's the question to ask where is Jesus in this
does it point to Jesus does it help people to become in the long term never mind the short term
because all kinds of things happen in the short term but in the long term does it make people
of Jesus more does it make people poor in spirit does it make people grieve for their sin does it
make people become more humble does it make people hunger and thirst after righteousness does it
produce the fruit of the spirit if it does Jesus as you will know a tree by its fruit so if you can
make up your mind stand back watch and see what the kind of fruit it will be and that will tell you
whether it's a work of Jesus or not and likewise if somebody critiques you because of your service
to Jesus and you experience misunderstanding gossip slander or persecution as indeed sometimes
we all shall then ask yourself this question is it because of Jesus and because of my commitment
to walking after his spirit or is it because I'm doing something wrong or because I just have a
quirky personality or I'm pushing for some cause and confusing my cause with the cause of Christ
because you see that will help us to let our light shine before men in such a way as to make sure
that should we suffer persecution it's only for the cause of righteousness because if we are
persecuted for the cause of righteousness Jesus says we are blessed and Lord willing when we
come back to this another time we're going to see that his response or our response to that
ought to be very different from what you and I naturally would do because he tells us to rejoice
and maybe one of the assignments that I can give you for the course of the next week is just
to do some pondering about that next those next couple of verses why in the world does Jesus call
as blessed when we experience persecution what does that say about us when it's for the cause
of righteousness and how can we hold our heads up high knowing that we are honoring God in all that
we do because we're learning how to walk with Jesus
I have decided to follow Jesus
I have decided to follow Jesus
I have decided to follow Jesus
not turning back
not turning back
still I will follow
though no one joined me
still I will follow
though no one joined me still I will follow
not turning back
no turning back
the world behind me
the cross before me
the world behind me
the cross before me
the world behind me
the cross before me
not turning back
not turning back
I have decided to follow Jesus
I have decided to follow Jesus
I have decided to follow Jesus
not turning back
not turning back
not turning back