Persecuted

SLIDE 1 Turn with me to the fifth chapter of Matthew. We are finishing up our study of the Beatitudes this morning. As we have done throughout this series we will start with verse 1.

1Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2and he began to teach them. He said: 3“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 5Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 6Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 7Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. 8Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. 9Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. 10Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:1-12)

As we do I want to remind you that the purpose of the Beatitudes is not to get someone saved. Jesus is not telling us what we must do to have eternal life. Jesus is instead telling us what someone on the road to heaven will look like. Nor is Jesus describing seven different kinds of Christians. If you are a Christian, a disciple of Jesus, these are the characteristics that will describe you:

Poor in spirit

Mourning

Meek

Hungering and thirsting for righteousness

Merciful

Pure in heart, and a

Peacemaker

SLIDE 2 To be poor in spirit is to recognize that before God that I do not have what it takes, and that all my good is in him. That leads to mourning.

SLIDE 3 I mourn over my own sins because I see their cost. I see what my sins cost me, the effect of my sins on others, and especially what my sins cost Jesus. But mourning is not just feeling bad about what I’ve done wrong; mourning moves me beyond feeling sorry to a place where I actually change. It leads me to submit to God.

SLIDE 4 That is meekness, submitting to the will of God, whatever the cost. Meekness is strength under control. I allow God to lead me and I follow.

SLIDE 5 These create a hunger and thirst for righteousness. There is a deep longing to do what is right and please God.

SLIDE 6 Out of this life will come a tenderness of heart from which flow mercy, compassion, and forgiveness.

SLIDE 7 Out of this life will come purity of heart—to will one thing, to move beyond the spiritual stagnation of double-mindedness that holds half to the world and half to Christ.

SLIDE 8 Out of this life will come a peaceable spirit. Peace in your own heart that makes it possible for you to be a peacemaker in this troubled world.

SLIDE 9 Here are the things I am to cultivate. Here is the life that God calls me to pursue, the pathway of sanctification. Here is the path on which God’s blessing is to be found.

These are qualities that should be growing in our lives and when they do Jesus says that we will be blessed. And what else can we expect? Jesus says we will be persecuted.

Blessed are those who are persecuted. (Matthew 5:10a)

Jesus isn’t saying we might be persecuted, Jesus is saying we should expect to be persecuted. In John 15, after Jesus has washed the disciple’s feet in the upper room, he warns them that the world has hated him so they should not be surprised when the world hates them as well. Jesus is preparing them for the persecution that would come. And it did come. Excluding Judas who took his own life, only the apostle John didn’t suffer a gruesome death. Tradition says that Peter was crucified upside down and that Andrew was tied to a cross so that he would suffer for a longer time before dying. Philip was skinned alive and then beheaded and Thomas was run through with a spear. And the list goes on. The disciples were persecuted and Christians have continued to be to this day.

It’s been said that this beatitude describes two different kinds of persecutions we can expect: persecution of the hand and persecution of the tongue.

Persecution of the hand is physical. Jesus was arrested, beaten, and hung on a cross. We don’t hear about the physical persecution of Christians in America, but it’s happening to Christians today all over the world. It’s difficult to know exactly how many Christians die every year because of their faith. No one announces, “We killed three Christians today.” SLIDE 10 So it’s only a guess, but the guess is between 100,000 and 150,000 Christians are killed every year simply because they are Christians. Since we can’t be accurate, let’s take the low number of 100,000. If that number is true SLIDE 11 that’s 288 Christians a day or SLIDE 12 12 an hour or SLIDE 13 one every 5 minutes. Somewhere in the world, every 5 minutes, one of your brothers, one of your sisters in Christ is not only suffering, but laying down their life. It is a sobering thought. Christians are the most persecuted people in the world.

SLIDE 14 The second persecution is of the tongue. We might call it today, “verbal abuse.” It includes mocking, slandering, even intimidating, and tormenting. It is any kind of spoken persecution. This is closer to the persecution we might face, though the chances of receiving physical abuse are increasing.

When we seek to follow Jesus and obey God, when we seek to do what is right we will be persecuted. If that doesn’t quite make sense, if it’s difficult to understand why you would suffer for doing what is right, then think about the life of Jesus. What did Jesus do wrong? He followed God perfectly and it resulted in him being crucified. Jesus warned the disciples – and us – that we should expect the same.

You’ve heard of books that include letters to God from children. One child wrote,

Dear God, maybe Cain and Abel wouldn’t kill each other if they had their own room. It works with me and my brother.

The letter is humorous, but the truth is it wasn’t because they didn’t have enough space that Cain hated his brother. It was because Abel did was right and Cain hated him for that.

If people know you are a Christian, you are going to get some opposition, and it might be a lot. Satan has his eye on you, and he won’t give you a break. Different people will have different experiences, but here’s what you should expect: If people know that you are a Christian, expect to be mocked for believing in Jesus, expect to be scorned for obeying Jesus. “How could you possibly believe in a Creator?”

If you are committed to a path of sexual purity and you hold back from the sexual experimentation that is becoming a normal part of the culture, then people will think you are strange and they may make fun of you because of it.

When others know that you are a Christian, they may make your life hard. They may say things that are really hurtful. They may make you feel like a social outcast, and that will not be easy. But you need to understand what is happening and why. They see the light of Christ in you and they don’t like it.

So why does God allow us to go through persecution? First, God also uses our suffering to help spread the gospel.

I’ve read about a Bible College in India that gives out shovels when its students graduate. When you walk across the stage you shake the president’s hand, receive your diploma, and are handed a shovel. The purpose for the shovel is explained this way. You are told to go to a village that has not heard the gospel and start digging a hole. When asked why you are digging a hole you to tell this that this is where they are to bury you when they kill you. The students are warned that there’s a very good chance they will suffer for their faith. But every student knows it is worth it in order to spread the gospel.

Back when Russia was still a part of the Communist Soviet Union some preachers were arrested and beaten. Afterward an interrogator came out and said, “We have a problem. If we send these preachers to prison they will preach to all the other prisoners and they will all become Christians. We can’t have that.”

Can you imagine them being afraid of sending Christians to prison because the Christians will only make more Christians while they’re in prison?

Joseph Ton was a preacher in Romania until he was exiled by the Romanian government in the 1980s. Joseph had attended to seminary in England. When it came time to graduate some of the students tried to talk him out of going back to Romania. They asked him what chances he had of successfully preaching the gospel under a communist government. As he prayed about it he sensed God leading him the Matthew 10:16 which says, SLIDE 15

I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.

“Tell me,” he sensed God asking, “What chance does a sheep surrounded by wolves have of surviving five minutes, let alone of converting the wolves? Joseph, that’s how I send you: totally defenseless and without a reasonable hope of success. If you are willing to go like that, go. If you are not willing to be in that position, don’t go.” Joseph returned home and the harassment began almost immediately.

Joseph says that during one day of interrogation an officer threatened to kill me. It was then that he suddenly realized the truth of God’s power. Joseph told the officer:

Sir, your supreme weapon is killing. My supreme weapon is dying. Sir, you know my sermons are all over the country on tapes now. If you kill me, I will be sprinkling them with my blood. Whoever listens to them after that will say, “I’d better listen. This man sealed it with his blood.” They will speak ten times louder than before. So, go on and kill me. I win the supreme victory then.

How do you respond to that? The officer sent him home. Joseph says,

That gave me pause. For years I was a Christian who was cautious because I wanted to survive. I had accepted all the restrictions the authorities put on me because I wanted to live. Now I wanted to die, and they wouldn’t oblige. Now I could do whatever I wanted in Romania. For years I wanted to save my life, and I was losing it. Now that I wanted to lose it, I was winning it.

SLIDE 16 If we are fearful of what people might say or do we’ll be hesitant to tell others about Jesus or to live out our faith. But when we realize they really don’t have any control over us the word of God will be spread.

An American journalist interviewed a group of children from a Sunday school in southern Sudan where Arab Muslims regularly raided their village and slaughtered Christians. Many of their relatives had already been killed. The journalist asked, “Would you turn to Islam? Or would you prefer to die for Christ! And if so, why?” The children replied, “We will remain Christians because that is the truth.” The journalist reported that as they spoke, their faces seemed to glow with light, just like Stephan’s, Christianity’s first martyr.

When you suffer the gospel is spread.

Second, God allows suffering and persecution because he grows us through times of trials. It’s been said there are only two proven ways to grow spiritually and one is through suffering.

You may recognize the name of John Bunyan. He was the author the Christian classic Pilgrim’s Progress. Bunyan preached in England at a time when it was illegal to preach if you were not officially recognized by the Church of England. Bunyan preached anyway and was arrested. He was going to be let out on bail but no one would put up the bail money. They were told that if Bunyan preached again they would lose their money, and since they knew he was going to preach again they didn’t want to lose their money. Bunyan spent twelve years in prison away from his wife and nine children because of his commitment to preach the gospel. Concerning that time he wrote:

I have never in all my life had so much of the Word of God opened up so plainly to me before. Those scriptures that I saw nothing particular in before have been made, in this place, to shine upon me. Also, Jesus Christ was never more real to me than now; here I have seen and felt him indeed. I never knew before what it really was for God to stand beside me at all times. As soon as fears have presented themselves, so have supports and encouragements.

God used that time when Bunyan was in prison to teach him and help him better understand the Bible better.

Colin Smith, who preaches in Chicago, tells about the difficulties one of his sons had in high school. He says there was a particular teacher that went overboard in making barbed comments about his son’s faith and about his commitment to sexual purity. Colin says he and his wife prayed about what they should do. Should they complain to the principal? Should they adjust his schedule so he wouldn’t have that teacher? But as they prayed God showed them how their son was growing in that time of difficulty. Colin says that years later they still talk about how that time of persecution helped him grow spiritually. God put strength into him through the opposition that he faced. God’s hand was in it.

We should never desire persecution, but God uses persecution and the difficulties we face to help us grow in him.

What should we do if we are not being persecuted?

First, be thankful for the blessings of peace and freedom. In many parts of the world today, if a policeman comes to church on Sunday he is there to make arrests. We are not to wish for persecution. We are not to seek it. We are to be thankful for the gift of freedom, and we’re to do everything in our power to protect it. In fact, we are told to pray for peace. SLIDE 17

1I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people – 2for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. (1 Timothy 2:1-2)

A peaceful and quiet life is something to pray for and something to be thankful for. We aren’t to make ourselves obnoxious to attract it.

Second, we need to remember those who are persecuted. We are told in Hebrews: SLIDE 18

Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering. (Hebrews 13:3)

It’s easy to hear about the persecution of Christians in the Middle East and pray for them once. It’s more difficult to remember them daily. Occasionally we hear a news report of Christians being arrested, beheaded or crucified, but it goes on every day. We need to pray for those around the world who are persecuted because of their faith in Jesus.

And third, we must make sure we are doing what is right. We need to remember, Jesus says we are blessed if we are persecuted because we are doing right or because of our faith in him. Jesus didn’t say we’d blessed if we persecuted for being rude, arrogant, judgmental, or make bad choices. There are times when we bring hardship on ourselves.

I could go on for hours telling you the stories of Christians who have suffered for the sole reason that they believe in Jesus. While the vast majority of these stories are about people outside the United States, there are some that are happening here. The point is we need to be ready. We shouldn’t be surprised when it comes and when it does come we need to have a faith that will depend on God.

History shows that two things happen when the church gets persecuted. First, church attendance declines. When persecution begins all those who were only attending because it was fun or easy stop attending. Second, the church begins to grow. When the world sees how far believers are willing to go because of their faith they start taking it seriously.

Do you remember the request Thomas made after the resurrection of Jesus. He said he would only believe if he saw evidence of the crucifixion. He wanted to see the hands of this person who supposedly rose from the dead. He wanted to see the nail marked hands. The world makes the same request today. They want to see how serious we are about our faith. Are we willing to suffer for it?

Wayne Ming Dao was arrested in China at the age of 60. A well-known Bible teacher and evangelist, he wanted to write more books so he could reach more people with the gospel. But instead he found himself in prison with no pen and no paper. After twenty years of imprisonment he says that he had the greatest relationship with Christ he’d ever known. His advice to believers is this:

I was pushed into a cell, but you’ll have to push yourself into one. You have no time for God, you need to build yourself a cell so that you can do for yourself what persecution did for me – simplify my life and help me know God.

How serious are you about your faith? Would you be willing to go to prison because of it? And if you were arrested, would there be any evidence to convict you with?

10Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:10-12)

Tertullian was a preacher born in North Africa in 160. He wrote about a man who came to him one day saying that he’d become a Christian but now had a problem at work. He said, “I have a job that I don’t think is consistent with what the scriptures teach. What can I do? I have to work. I have to have a job. I have to live.” To which Tertullian replied, “Must you?”

Why is it that loyalty to Jesus is always the second option?

What comes of such a life?

If I pursue this life to which Christ calls me, what should I expect? What lies ahead of me? To that question, Jesus gives two answers: 1. You will be persecuted by the world, and 2. You will be blessed by God.

The poor in spirit are those who recognize their sin. They understand they don’t deserve God’s forgiveness. They don’t boast about before God all their goodness. Instead, they come before God broken and admitting they don’t have anything to earn his love.

The Sermon on the Mount is not the gospel. The life of the Sermon on the Mount is what happens when the gospel takes hold. Living out the Sermon on the Mount in order to wins God's approval is nothing but a more sophisticated form of legalism, and we've all had enough of that. This is kingdom life.

http://www.theblaze.com/news/2017/02/15/indian-christian-couple-refusing-to-deny-jesus-forced-to-stand-in-freezing-pond-for-17-hours/

http://www.wnd.com/2017/02/declared-dead-girl-stuns-doctors-by-getting-up/

A 14-year-old girl in a coma in an undisclosed North African country after being attacked and mutilated by Muslims upset with her conversion to Christianity has stunned doctors and hospital workers by getting up from her bed and going home. Two doctors last week in the West African nation “confirmed the death of Lydia (14), the daughter of Yoonus, a Christian missionary with Bibles for Mideast.” She had been in a coma for 6 days before being declared dead. Later those who attacked her came to see if it was true, she forgave them and shared the gospel with them. Do we see this 14 year old girl as being blessed? Sure, The Lord gave her life back. But she was blessed because she was brutally attacked because she is a Christian.

As we sit gather here in freedom it seems we are far from persecution. But Open Doors Ministry reports that each month on average in the world:

322 Christians are killed for their faith

214 Christian properties are damaged or destroyed

772 Acts of Violence are carried out on those who carry the name of Christ

It may be hard for us to think of it this way but each one impacted by this persecution is blessed

That is what Jesus says! They are blessed!