The Persecuted
Notes
Transcript
Good news to the persecuted, theirs is the Kingdom. It is the repeated expectation of Jesus and the apostles that Christians would face persecution for righteousness. Walking in the footsteps of Jesus. We should never seek persecution for its own sake. This is folly. We should perhaps wonder whether our relative freedom from persecution is because we have “modernized” the world for Jesus… or because we have “modernized” Jesus to avoid censure. What will people say when they learn that I’m a Jesus freak?
Punk Rock - Die Verfolgten (the Persecuted)
Punk Rock - Die Verfolgten (the Persecuted)
Blessed are the Persecuted.
This was the coolest band in our youth group. 1995 maybe? First, they called themselves “The Persecuted”… because that’s super punk rock. Then they found out there was another band already named that, so they renamed Die Verfolgten (which is German for the Persecuted).
These four met at Village Christian, an expensive private Christian K-12 in Sun Valley.
Super punk rock… not so much. Middle class suburbanites rebelling against “the man.”
Is this what it means to be persecuted?
Brother Yun came and shared his story at Denver Seminary a few years back and I had the privilege of hearing him speak.
Despite a life of poverty in China, he since has spoken to thousands internationally with the Gospel message. Seen as a rebel among some Chinese for not joining the government-controlled Christian organization, he was imprisoned and tortured by the government authorities. His book reports that he became a highly wanted man across several provinces. He was finally arrested and sentenced to many years in prison. However, Brother Yun continued his ministry while in prison, with more claims of miraculous results. As a result, many prisoners and even prison officials are reported to have become born-again Christians. While he gained increasing favor from some officials, he also became a target of increased persecution by others. He was repeatedly beaten and became severely malnourished. While in prison, Brother Yun writes about undertaking a total fast without food or water for 74 days. After many years in prison, he escaped from Hangzhou from which it is reported that nobody had previously escaped. He described how he heard the voice of the Holy Spirit, telling him to simply walk out the heavily guarded prison gate.
Is this what it means to be persecuted?
Jesus has gathered his disciples, that’s Matthew 5, verse 1… and that is who is listening to him. So all these are following him in some sense… but these are early days. They come from all walks of life, though almost all from the Galilee region so far. Among them are the spiritually poor, mourners, people hungry and long deprived of righteousness, meddling peacemakers, meek grace-givers...
And now to the persecuted.
Blessed are the Persecuted
Blessed are the Persecuted
10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Persecuted. To “impel” or set in motion.
To persecute…
It’s hard to put those together… unless you think “Get ‘im!” (then it makes sense).
Going after someone.
Verse 10: connects back to the first beatitude. Sums it up, the end connecting back to the beginning. That’s some poetry. The end matches the beginning.
These two are saying the same thing twice, classic Hebrew poetic structure. Verse 11 is in parallel to verse 10. It unpacks “persecuted” to be “when others revile you, and persecute you, and utter all kinds of evil against you...”
Verse 11 shifts from third person to second person. Now it’s personal.
Blessed are the persecuted
So what counts as persecution here?
What is Persecution?
What is Persecution?
So, I KNEW it. They are out to get us!!!
We could make a whole sermon on a “Christian persecution complex.” People can take this to a ridiculous degree. I didn’t get a parking space? Persecution!
There is a WORLD of difference between your friend at school looking at you funny because you accidentally said something real about “Jesus” at lunch… and Brother Yun being imprisoned for boldly declaring the name of Jesus against the law.
But Jesus doesn’t just leave it with persecution.
11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
Revile, reproach, denounce. They feel bad toward you and they talk bad about you.
Now that sounds more like high school, yes? Work place drama. Yup!
Just in case, “utter all kinds of evil.” Big and small.
Look, the small stuff hurts too!
In fact, if all the enemy has to do to shut you up is apply light social pressure… what do you think is going to happen?
Simon, also called Peter, he is surely in the audience here. He is going to get intimidated into denying Jesus by a little girl. And if that works, and it does, why should the enemy try harder?
He gets redemption though, he ultimately dies for the name of Jesus.
One of the Good Ones
One of the Good Ones
I remember hanging out with a couple of my really good friends, back in California. Neither of them Christians, and I would pat myself on the back for having some non-Christian friends.
But one of them starts complaining one day about Christians, and how they were all “Jesus this” and “Jesus that.” And he turns to me and says this:
“Not you, you’re one of the good ones.”
He meant to reassure me, I think. But what he was saying was… we don’t feel convicted or challenged at all by you! You never make us feel uncomfortable by bringing Jesus into the conversation.
Should I have “shoved Jesus down their throats?” No, of course not, that’s dumb.
And Jesus loved to dine with sinners, and they loved being in his presence, that says something powerful about the way Jesus is loving and welcoming.
But were they ever confused about whether he was Jesus? Whether he was righteous? Whether he was holy? They were confronted with their sin, received forgiveness and welcome, and they loved him because of that… or they ran away. Or they hated him.
“One of the good ones.”
That meant “one of the quiet ones.” “The secret ones.”
Oh, you’re Christian? Could have fooled me.
Writing nearly 100 years ago, A.W. Tozer says this:
People remark how favored the church is in this country. It does not have to face persecution and rejection. If the truth were known, our freedom from persecution is because we have taken the easy, the popular way. If we would love righteousness until it became an overpowering passion, if we would renounce everything that is evil, our day of popularity and pleasantness would quickly end. The world would soon turn on us.
We are too nice! We are too tolerant! We are too anxious to be popular! We are too quick to make excuses for sin in its many forms! If I could stir Christians around me to love God and hate sin, even to the point of being a bit of a nuisance, I would rejoice. If some Christian were to call me for counsel saying he or she is being persecuted for Jesus’ sake, I would say with feeling, “Thank God!”
John 15:18–21; 1 Thessalonians 2:2–4; 2 Timothy 3:12
Jesus, Our Man in Glory, 67.
A. W. Tozer
Go Get Persecuted!
Go Get Persecuted!
So, how do we go out and get persecuted?
No! That’s not the point!
Jesus NEVER tells people to go out and get persecuted. Go get slapped. That’s dumb. And yet people take it that way.
Ever meet a “Christian” jerk?
Go knock on people’s doors at 3am to “share Jesus”… get knocked on the side of the head… treasures in heaven! No!
Jesus is clear, this is when people say evil things about you falsely. They can probably say plenty of evil things about me truly! Those don’t count.
This isn’t something you are to aim for at all.
Why are they being persecuted?
See in the parallelism, “against you falsely on my account” is in parallel to “for righteousness’ sake.”
We immediately get that. On Jesus’ account = for righteousness’ sake… but this is here at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. It’s subtle, and may have slipped past some of his hearers perhaps… but at the end of the sermon it says “the crowds were astonished, teaching them as one who had authority...”
Yeah. He is righteousness. Persecuted for his sake is to be persecuted for righteousness.
Right living - Jesus is right living, and here he is teaching us about right living.
Righteousness? Jesus is all of it, His righteousness, given to you and me. Imputed, imparted, sanctified now and forever, Amen. Jesus is it!
No, he is clear, if you are pursuing righteousness, persecution will come. Because you are living in a way that is fundamentally at odds with the way the rest of the world lives.
12 Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,
People’s heads go straight to “evangelism” and getting in trouble for preaching on street corners… but that’s not all of it.
Boldly speaking the name and testimony of Jesus? Absolutely.
Boldly loving as Jesus loved? Yes!
Living to honor God with your body, in your family, structuring your life to serve Him?
Wearing modest clothes, maybe getting teased for not wearing the latest hotness?
How about refusing to celebrate what God calls sin? I see how that could get me in trouble real quick.
How about honoring God’s creation of humanity, male and female, God’s creation of marriage and sex inside marriage between a man and woman only? Yeah… we might get in trouble for that.
Are we trying to start fights? Absolutely not! Are we going to love everyone, be as respectful as possible, welcome folks to the foot of the cross, all of those! I’m a sinner too, saved by grace alone...
And, let me tell you, this HURTS when it comes from people you like, people you love, people you want to admire and respect you. That’s real. And I’ve had conversations where we both walked away at the end, kind of feeling persecuted. They felt judged, I felt judged, everybody loses.
But I can’t, I don’t get to decide what righteousness is… Jesus does that. God says it. I just do it.
Letting God decide what Truth is… that’s persecution worthy right there!
Just the name of Jesus is offensive, because, guess what, Jesus was and is offensive.
18 “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.
19 If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
20 Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.
So what’s the payout? What’s the reward? What’s the good news?
Treasures in Heaven
Treasures in Heaven
Yours is the Kingdom of God and...
12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Does he say here that you get a “greater” reward in heaven? He does not. There are many verses elsewhere to wrestle with that… but this isn’t one of them. Here the “reward is great!” And it is in parallel with “yours is the kingdom of heaven.”
And is that a great reward?
INCOMPARABLY GREAT!
Does that trivialize our pain here on earth? Not that God doesn’t empathize, Jesus empathizes, he enters into our pain, Jesus wept even knowing he was about to bring Lazarus back from the grave...
But is it WORTH it? yes it is. Incomparably greater!
If I told you I would give you a million dollars, briefcase right here full of cash… and you have to give yourself a papercut… would you do it?
You would, of course you would! Momentary affliction.... HUGE payoff!
Now, that’s really a bad analogy, because do we earn life or the Kingdom because we are persecuted? No. We never earn it, it is the gift of Jesus, purchased only by His blood and sacrifice.
This is more like getting a papercut while counting the money, spending the money, living life out of the richness He has given us… how could we do any less, any different?
Jesus Freaks
Jesus Freaks
Fanatics. This is some cult forming stuff, right here. It really truly is.
Think how dangerous this kind of rhetoric is.
Do what I say, and don’t listen to what anyone else says or does or threatens you with! This is powerful, dangerous, be careful!
And that’s why, I will never say “don’t question what Pastor Dusty says.” Go and do what I say. Go and do what Wayne says.
I want to come to the Word of God humbly. I want to come to God humbly. God teach me what righteousness looks like.
I want to come to Jesus humbly. Listening. Seeking. Teach me how to live life. You have given me life, you are life, the way the truth and the life. Teach me how to do it.
And then, follow that to the end, regardless of how popular or unpopular that makes me.
It comes down to this.
No, we don’t seek persecution, that’s dumb.
Jesus is about to lay it all out, to teach us what life looks like, what real life looks life. Life abundant. Righteousness.
And to be a disciple of Jesus is to be all in. All in for life. And that includes, fair warning, all in for the suffering. All in when the world won’t understand.
Your friends may not understand it, your relatives may not understand it… you will get insults and people “going after you.” That’s persecution.
Though it take a thousand forms, may it be as nothing to us. It has no comparison to what is here now and what awaits us in heaven.
May NOTHING hold you back from life as God promises it to you. No insult, no social pressure, no threat of legal action, no threat of violence, no act of violence!
You are an unstoppable juggernaut, a fanatic, a freak… but one aimed at righteousness, in the name of Jesus, for the sake of Jesus.
You “go after me?” Do you know who I am? Better yet, do you know whose I am?
I am child of God! I am in the Kingdom of Heaven.
We are immortal unstoppable un-scare-able unshakeable…
Those disciples listening to him went out and turned the world upside down… or rather it was upside down and they started setting it right-side up, and they were persecuted and many of them killed for it… but other disciples picked up and continued living and bringing and being righteousness… and you and I exist and know the name and love and glory of Jesus because of it.
We walk in their footsteps, in the footsteps of Jesus himself. Terrifying to the enemies of God because we are unstoppable. But what we bring is love, forgiveness, the grace and peace of God, life everlasting, hope in the darkness.
7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.
8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair;
9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;
17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,
18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.