Lets Pray…
I had a friend who told me, last Wednesday that they didn’t like church because all they ever heard from preachers when they were growing up was what horrible little people they were,
that God was mad at them
and that Hell was real and that Hell was in their future.
The problem wasn’t that the preachers were saying the wrong thing. The problem was that they seemed to have forgotten the other half of the message. They forgot to give the good news, the Gospel.
If you believe Scriptures to be true, The Bible does tell us that we are sinners, that we deserve death and Hell for that sin.
But the reason we gather is because we have a shared hope, a shared promise a shared expectation.
It is because of our brokenness that Jesus came to live a perfect life and die on the cross. He knew we were unable to make up for our sins against God, so while we were still dead in our sin, while we were hopeless and helpless and slaves to our sins — He rescued us.
God gave us the gifts of mercy and grace. If we trust in the work of Christ on the cross to take away our punishment, to cleanse us of our sins, to adopt us into God’s family
— If we trust in the Lord, He casts our sins away, there as far from us as the east is from the west.
I have to admit, I can’t really relate to my friend’s experience.
I’ve heard that story a lot from many different people, but I grew up outside of the church. The only glimpses of preachers that I usually got, when I was a kid, were the ones coming across the television on Sunday mornings.
I’d be flipping through the channels looking for cartoons, and once in a while I’d stop on some preacher man, smiling a slick smile on the screen.
I never saw any of them preach fire and brimstone, what I saw were the fellas with tacky clothes, with wives with too much make-up and the personalities and methods that you might associate with the cliché of a used car salesman. I didn’t know anything about God, but I did feel like these guys were not telling me the whole truth. No, they were just trying to close the sale.
Today, many — not all — but many of the Christian T.V. personalities dress in a more normal attire, but there is still a bit of uneasiness that rises up in me when I hear them preach.
Concepts from many — not all — but many of those televangelists include the ideas that:
— God just wants you to be happy, (as the world defines happy)
— That if you are sick, or struggling in any way, it’s because you don’t have enough faith,
— That the mark of a Christian is a nice car, or house, or more stuff.
— And, that if you are having troubles in your life, they can solve all of your problems with their new book, or a prayer cloth, or some holy anointing oil — if you’ll just send them a love offering.
They may not be shady. They may have a sincere heart to do God’s work — I’m just saying I get a slimy feeling from the whole thing. It may be my sin there, let’s move on and get to the point of today’s message.
You see, Jesus was not a used car salesman.
And as much as we as preachers, both in the community and on television, want to bring people into the fold, into the church, into a saving relationship with Jesus, we must follow His lead
We must let non-believers know what they are in for if they surrender their will and their lives to God.
Jesus NEVER preached that you should expect your best life now, He said this life. Your life and my life on this side of eternity, is going to be tough.
He said, in this tough life, persevere,
in this tough life trust in Him,
in this tough life Love one another through the trials and in Heaven — in Heaven — in the future we will find our best lives. Not now.
We have been going through the Sermon on the Mount for several weeks.
The Sermon on the Mount is one of the top ten, one of the greatest hits of the Bible.
So far we have gone over the First several Beatitudes, Where Jesus tells us what we will be like if we are truly following His lead.
He says we will find real happiness, the happiness of those who are secure in our faith with God,
secure in our faith that Jesus is our Savior —
We will have that happiness if we are:
— Poor in spirit — that is, if we understand our sinfulness and the fact that our sin separates us from relationship with God before we are born again, and separates us from fellowship with God after our salvation. That is going to bring us happiness, or blessings, because that will bring us to God.
— We find happiness when we mourn those sins — when we are repentant, ready to turn our backs on sin and pursue God,
o To act out our faith in gratitude for His glory and to honor Him.
— He said we will be humble if we are His and find happiness in that humility or meekness.
— Jesus said if we are His we will hunger and thirst for righteousness — that is we will desire a closer and fuller knowledge in our head and in our hearts for the things of God. He said if we are His and we have that hunger and thirst for Him we will be blessed or happy because we will be filled,
o that hunger and thirst will be satisfied.
— If we are His it is because we have been shown mercy.
o And that mercy is not only a blessing, it doesn’t just make us happy, it fills us to overflowing so that we then pour mercy out to those around us — Out of our blessing we bless others. Mercy can be seen when we forgive people who have hurt us, when we provide for neighbors without food, or shelter or clothing, and most of all we show mercy by sharing the Gospel with those who have yet to be saved and with those who have been saved and need to be reminded where they are to find their joy and encouragement.
— He reminds us specifically that we find our happiness in the relationship with God by being pure of heart. And that purity cannot be something we get on our own.
o It comes through the work first of Christ on the cross, washing us clean of our sin
o And secondly, we find purity through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, who is moment by moment, glory by glory helping us to conquer the habits and behaviors that turn us away from God. The sanctification process will not be complete until we are done with this life in this world.
— And as we talked about last week, we will find happiness, we will be blessed when we are called sons (and daughters) of God.
o And we’ll be called sons and daughters of God when we strive to make peace in our world.
o That is, when we work to get rid of confusion and disorder.
o And, we don’t only find happiness or blessedness because God adopted us into His family as His children,
o We will also find joy in those moments (however rare they might be) when the people around us see the family resemblance.
And that leads us into tonight’s passage, it is the last beatitude and it is the longest of them all, the other 7 were all one verse each. The last beatitude is stated in one verse (Matthew 5:10) and then Jesus restates and fleshes that verse out in the next two verses (Matthew 5: 11-12).
Lets read:
Matthew 5:10 (New International Version)
In other words, Jesus is building on the statement he made about being a son (or daughter) of God.
And He’s telling the crowd that if people in the world see the family resemblance,
If they see His, love, compassion, righteousness, meekness, humility, forgiveness — if the see Jesus, in us; and iff they hear the fact that Jesus is their only hope for salvation, then persecution is the next logical step. Persecution will be the world’s reaction.
In other words, faith in Christ, produces joy because we know our eternity is one where we will be walking with God, free of sin, pain and sickness —
But, that same faith is going to produce something much different here.
He makes no guarantees of a nicer house,
He makes no guarantees of perfect health,
He makes no guarantees of a life of wonderful relationships where no one betrays you, where no one lets you down.
What Jesus guarantees His followers, what he guarantees you and guarantees me, is persecution.
Then He unpacks it a little bit more:
Matthew 5:11-12 (New International Version)
A wonderful preacher from the late 1600’s and early 1700’s by the name of Matthew Henry, points out the distinctions that Jesus makes here when He restates the Beatitude.
Throughout the Beatitudes, Jesus is saying, “Blessed are those.” But here, in verse 11 he transitions to, “Blessed are you.”
And in verse 10 He says, “blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness.” While in 11. He says, “blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.”
The distinction is this. He is not talking to everyone, it is not a generic crowd of faceless somebody’s.
No, He is talking to His disciples, to those who trust in him to the point that they resemble the family of God, those who produce the fruit that connects them with the Father and distinguishes them as different in the world’s eyes.
If you have been saved, if you have put your faith in Jesus as your Savior and Lord, And if you are living out that Faith. He is saying this message to you and to me today.
And what’s more, in case any of the people then or if any of us now haven’t caught on. We will suffer persecution for righteousness. That’s where we find the blessing.
And in verse 11 He clarifies that when He speaks of righteousness, He is talking about Himself.
This is important. Because you suffer in this world even if you are not a believer.
Even if you are an antagonistic atheist like I was before my salvation, you can testify that you already deal with persecution.
He’s not saying that we will be blessed because of those struggles or that persecution.
We are only promised blessings in this passage from the persecutions that are born out of our faith in Jesus.
To quote Matthew Henry, “It is not the suffering, but the cause, that makes the martyr.”
We are going to suffer for all kinds of things, but it is only suffering for Christ that brings blessings.
Jesus then goes on to explain what that persecution will look like.
People insult you — We will be called things like bible thumper, self-righteous, holier-than-thou, close-minded, naive, hypocritical, and the list goes on. Some insults will be to our face, and others behind our back.
People Persecute you — they rise up against you. It was common in the days of the early church to be killed for your beliefs, because if you were under the control of Roman rule, being Christian meant denying the total sovereignty of anyone but God, and that made you an enemy of Caesar.
Today you don’t hear about Christians being crucified, but there are pastors who are physically attacked in the states, men and women are fired from their jobs because of their beliefs, families turn away from their brothers, sisters, children and parents because of their faith. And that’s here, in the U.S.
In India, churches are being burned and Christians are being killed. In China, there is an explosion of new believers, but they have to meet in secret or else they can be put into prison. Persecution is still a reality.
Then Jesus says People will falsely say all kinds of evil against you —
The truth is most of us give people plenty of ways to discredit us and rise up against us without ever going directly after our faith or without having to make up false accusations.
If they can’t find a way to tear you down, don’t be surprised if they do make stuff up. Don’t be surprised if they lie about you to discredit you.
So all of that is a huge downer right? You can’t build a church with that kind of message. But, here’s the thing. This is the kind of stuff Jesus was always putting out there.
Matthew 10:34-35 (New International Version)
34 "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn
" 'a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law –
In other words, Jesus wants our total allegiance and while that will draw some into the same kind of relationship, it will cut other relationships apart.
He tells them, if you want to follow me, this is what could be in your future.
He wants us to know that if we make Him ultimate in our lives, we may deal with persecution — even from those people we are closest to.
And then comes the blessing.
Matthew 5: 12
If persecution is born from the world’s reaction to our faith — We are blessed in our persecution.
We are blessed in the knowledge, that we are not the first to be persecuted, the prophets of the Old Testament suffered too. They were the mouth pieces for God and they suffered terribly.
But, like the prophets, we can lift our eyes up! We can focus on the prize. The prize is God and Heaven!
And one day, we will all be up there and sharing stories, about how hard it was, but we will share that in light of the reality of Heaven
In the reality of Heaven we will grasp how worth it, it all was.
We’re almost done but I can’t let you go without re-emphasizing that the blessing is for those who are persecuted for Christ.
We are not blessed when we are persecuted for being jerks who preach God’s wrath and forget to follow up with God’s mercy and grace.
We are not blessed when we are persecuted for casting judgment and condemnation on our neighbors for their sins.
It is our job to proclaim God and rely on the Holy Spirit to convict people of the sin in their lives.
We are blessed when we are persecuted for our resemblance to Jesus.
We are blessed when we are persecuted because we display love, when others hate.
We are blessed when we are persecuted because we display forgiveness, when others seek revenge.
We are blessed when we are persecuted because we pledge our ultimate allegiance to God before ANYTHING else, when others bow first to a nation, or a political party, or even to a family over God.
We are blessed when we are persecuted because we reach outside of our churches to draw others in, while other church members would want to make church more exclusive.
We are blessed when we are persecuted because we love sinners and tell them about Christ while they are still in bondage to sin, while others dictate that the sinner must clean up his act first.
We are blessed when we are persecuted because we reach out to solve problems while others do their best to ignore problems.
Do you get it? We are blessed when we are persecuted for our faithfulness —
Not for our worldliness,
Not for our churchliness,
Not for our sins —
For Christ and His righteousness.
This week, when you feel persecution coming up against you, figure out if it is because of your faith, or because of consequences of a broken world or your own sin.
Let’s pray…
