Matthew 5:10-12 - July 28

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Alright, please go ahead and have a seat as we get ready to get started.
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I learned recently that one of the things that causes Amy a little bit of anxiety on a
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Sunday morning is when I repeat the same thing multiple times, over and over again, especially when we've gone on for a long time.
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But I want you to know that it's not often. Maybe it's sometimes I repeat those things because I can't think of what to say.
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But usually, if I say the same things over and over and over again, it's because I'm trying to drill them into my head, and I'm also trying to drill them into your head.
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Because some of these concepts, because as we've gone through the Beatitudes, I don't know if there's been a week where I haven't told you that these are sequential, that we have to start at the beginning and work through them.
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And I'll say it again this week, in addition to the time that I just said it. So things like that, I'll say them over and over and over again.
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And hopefully, one day, you'll remember, or you won't forget, or it'll just pop into your head as you're reading.
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So all that said, this is actually a pretty big day because we have reached the end of the
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Beatitudes. So we're in our last part of the Beatitudes. And don't worry, we still have a lot of the
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Sermon on the Mount to go, but this is essentially closing out the intro. So we're closing out the introduction to the
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Sermon on the Mount. And of all the Beatitudes, this one might be the most surprising, and maybe even the most controversial
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Beatitude of all. And that's saying a lot, considering what we've seen before. And this
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Beatitude might also be one of the most misused and abused of all the
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Beatitudes, and the most improperly taught. And that's also saying something when we consider what we've seen here.
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So back to my normal disclaimer, I've been saying all along that the
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Beatitudes were given to us in order. Jesus did not preach these things in this way for no reason.
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And they have to be taken in that order, and it's necessary for us today, as we close this out, to take one final look at the process that we've worked our way through from the first Beatitude to where we are now.
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Because this is really something that we have to grasp, we have to hold on to in order for any of this stuff to make sense.
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Because when we look at the Beatitudes, it just seems impossible sometimes.
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So as we consider this sequence in light of this last Beatitude, I want to share what
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Sinclair Ferguson said about this. This is his summary. And then he asked this question.
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After all, these are the very men and women that the world needs. So we've seen what the Beatitudes mean.
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We've seen the kind of behaviors that come from the Beatitudes. And if you're that person, wouldn't you expect everyone to say, oh, man, there's that Christian?
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But that's not the case. He goes on to say that even though the world thinks that it would welcome this kind of person, and even the church thinks that it would welcome this kind of person, when it comes down to it, that's actually not the case.
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And in fact, the reality of it is that's basically the opposite of what happens.
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The reality of what happens is the opposite of what we would expect. So what is that? What does happen to the
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Christian who lives out the Beatitudes? And that's where we're going to turn to our passage today.
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So we're actually doing three verses. We're in Matthew 5 still, and we're going to be looking at 10, 11, and 12 today.
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And those verses say this, blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
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Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.
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Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great. For in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
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So what we see here is this person, this redeemed Christian who's done their best, done their sinful best to live out the teachings of Jesus and the
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Beatitudes, is persecuted. And if we really think about this, it's not that big of a surprise for a few reasons.
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And the first is something that we've talked about many times before, and that is when you truly dive deep into the
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Beatitudes and what they mean. Well, before you do that, on the surface, they sound kind of nice and fluffy.
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They sound like really sweet things and easy things to do. But truly, each and every one of the
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Beatitudes that we've looked at challenges us on a personal level. And the reason they challenge us is because the true meaning of these things goes completely against what it is that we want to do.
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It goes completely against the way that our sinful nature wants to live our lives.
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And they challenge us, they challenge our comfort, and they even can challenge our religion.
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They even can challenge our perception of what Christianity is. And people don't like to be challenged.
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People don't like the things that they hold dear to be challenged, particularly religion. So, as a result, they persecute people who have truly taken the
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Beatitudes to heart. And the second reason that we shouldn't be surprised that we're persecuted for this is because that's what's promised to us in Scripture.
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This passage is the first reference in the New Testament to this kind of persecution. But it's obviously very significant.
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Jesus is giving it to us. But even in this passage, Jesus refers to the prophets who were before you.
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So, if we go back and look at who some of those guys were, we can turn to the
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Old Testament. And we see that these prophets... And it's important to know the reason that they were prophets and the reason their prophetic word is canonized in Scripture is because it was given directly to them by God.
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And everything that they spoke came true. And it's important to differentiate that from people who now call themselves prophets who are not, dare
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I say, who are not receiving a word directly from God. So, these men were speaking things that were told to them by God.
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So, we know that it's true and we know that it came true. But you'll see that men like Isaiah and Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, Zachariah, they weren't exactly welcomed with open arms by the people that they were sent to to prophesy.
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Hebrews 11 .37 tells us a little bit about this. And part of this may even have been referring to Isaiah.
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But Hebrews 11 .37 says this. They were stoned. They were sawn in two.
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They were tempted. They were put to death with the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, and mistreated.
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And obviously, that sounds pretty severe. So, again, think about that. These are people that are bringing a word directly from God to the people that God has said needs to hear it.
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I mean, I'd consider being sawn in two to be a little bit more than just afflicted or mistreated, but that's some real persecution.
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Now, obviously, that verse is from the New Testament, recounting some of the ways they were persecuted. But there are warnings directly to the recipients of the
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New Testament as well. This is all over the letters in the New Testament. So, while those are being written to Christians at the time, they also serve as a message to us.
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They serve as a warning to us, and they serve as words that we can expect to experience.
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And Jesus himself says this in John 15 .18. If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.
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And 1 Peter 3 .14 actually calls directly back to this beatitude. It says, but even if you suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed.
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And 1 Peter 4 .12 says, beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial among you, which comes upon you for your testing as though some strange thing were happening to you.
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And then there's 2 Timothy 3 .12. And this one might be the most shocking of all, if we're not paying attention, especially today, and the verse says this.
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Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
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So, if you're truly living out the Christian life in accordance with the beatitudes, you should expect some form of persecution in your life.
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John MacArthur put it this way. He said, the Lord's opening thrust in the Sermon on the Mount climaxes with this great and sobering truth.
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Those who faithfully live according to the first seven beatitudes are guaranteed at some point to experience the eighth.
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And Thomas Watson, a great Puritan author, Thomas Watson has a wonderful book on the beatitudes that was really helpful to me as I went through this.
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I'm sad to have finished it almost, but he says this. The saints have no charter of exemption from trials, though they be ever so meek, merciful, pure in heart, their piety will not shield them from sufferings.
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And brothers and sisters, it's a lot easier and it's a lot more popular for me to tell you that Jesus is going to answer all your prayers, or to tell you that God has a wonderful plan for your life,
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God has a plan for health, wealth, and prosperity for you, a life of peace, and a life of comfort, and a life of ease, and that you'll be embraced by the world because you're such a wonderful child of the king.
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God has placed a hedge of protection around you to shield you from any bad thing that could ever come your way.
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And I just gave you an entire year's worth of sermons from some churches. And people love that stuff, right?
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And they love it because it's great, it sounds good, it's comforting. But the problem is, it leaves out a big part of the truth.
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And in fact, we might even go so far as to call that a lie. Because how do you square all that good stuff with blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness?
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I don't think that you can. Remember that verse, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, thus saith the
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Lord. If they hated me, or if they hate you, remember they hated me first, thus saith the
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Lord there as well. And this brings us to something important.
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I don't think it's wrong to say that the most important words in Matthew chapter five, verse 10, are the words for the sake of righteousness.
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Because Jesus didn't simply end the statement after saying blessed are those who have been persecuted.
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Because if he did end it there, then it would be a completely different beatitude.
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It would be the beatitude that everybody wishes that it was, or it would have the meaning that everybody wants it to have.
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Because I think we've all experienced feelings of being persecuted at one time or another, persecuted in various ways.
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I mean, I feel persecuted every time my credit card is swiped at the grocery store now, right? But all kidding aside, you may have experienced feelings of persecution as well.
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And you may have experienced feelings of persecution for something that's much more serious than that, and much more real.
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But here's what we have to understand. Just because you've felt an experience of persecution, it doesn't mean that that's the type of persecution that Jesus is talking about in this beatitude.
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That doesn't mean that that's the type of persecution that results in you being blessed.
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And let me just say, before we get even deeper into this, that we're not going to be persecuted all the time.
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Life is not going to be, you know, unendingly terrible every moment of every day after you become a
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Christian. That's not the message here. But the message is, just because you're a
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Christian, just because you've been saved, doesn't mean that everything is sunshine and rainbows forever in the rest of your earthly life.
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You will be told that, and it's not true. By the way, another interesting thing about this beatitude is the promise.
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He says, "'Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.'"
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Does that sound familiar? I know that it was several weeks ago, or a long time ago at this point, but Matthew 5, 3, that's where we started the beatitudes.
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It says this, "'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.'" So we start the beatitudes, and we end the beatitudes with the ultimate goal, the ultimate reward, and the thing that we're all striving after, and it's the kingdom of heaven.
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And that's our promised reward. But let's get back to the topic at hand.
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Let's get back to the idea of persecution. So we have to be wary of persecution, or being persecuted for things that are not for the sake of righteousness.
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That's why I tell you those words are probably the most important words in this beatitude. So I want to look at a few ways that we as Christians bring about persecution that doesn't meet the standards that Jesus is talking about here.
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And just as a reminder, the standard of for the sake of righteousness basically means you're living out the teaching of the beatitudes that we've gone over for the last few weeks.
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So that is what it means to be righteous. It means you're living as a
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Christian, as Jesus has taught us that we need to do. And so what does that mean for ways that we can be persecuted as Christians?
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How can we be persecuted in ways that don't result in this promised blessing? Well, the main way is when we bring persecution on ourselves.
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Often, we can act in ways that cause us to be persecuted, you know, as a result of our words, or our behaviors, or the things that we prioritize, or just something about the way that we're living.
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And there's several ways that we can do this. So obviously, I want to share a few of them, but I do have to add a disclaimer here.
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And that disclaimer is this. There is some nuance here. There's a fine line that separates right from wrong or righteous from not righteous when we talk about these things.
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So we don't want to look at everything as a black and white, you know, this is what
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I'm about to say in a little bit is not righteous or is righteous. We have to look at all these things in light of the beatitudes.
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We have to look at all these things in light of the teaching of Scripture, not what we think about it, not what other people say about it, but what
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Jesus says about it. So that also makes this the perfect time to remind us that none of these things, none of these behaviors, none of these ways of living come naturally to us.
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They're not innate to who we are as people. They only come to us through the transformation of the
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Holy Spirit. So you're not, if you're an unbeliever, if you haven't experienced salvation, you're not,
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I won't say you're not expected to live this way, but we all know that you can't do it under your own power.
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You can't do it by yourself. And in fact, I'll go so far as to say, if you're trying to be righteous out of your own effort, it's not going to work because none of us are capable of being truly righteous apart from the
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Holy Spirit. So all that said, ways that we bring persecution upon ourselves, the first one is pretty obvious, and that is when we are persecuted as a result of our own sin.
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Now, obviously, this doesn't come out of a spirit of righteousness, although it's easy for us to be self -deceived enough to believe that somehow we're being righteous when we sin in certain ways.
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But of course, we're warned about this as well. Back in 1 Peter, 1
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Peter 4, 15 through 16 says, make sure that none of you suffers as a murderer or thief or evildoer or a troublesome meddler.
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But if anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be put to shame, but it is to glorify God in this name.
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So this is one of those times when a verse says something that's true.
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And the implication is that the opposite of that thing is also true. So he says, if anyone suffers as a
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Christian, he is not to be put to shame. But if you're suffering as a murderer, a thief, evildoer, or a troublesome meddler, you are going to be put to shame.
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Bad things are going to come of that. That's not persecution.
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I'm not sure how people get there, how people think that that's the case. But for example, if you commit a crime and you get arrested, you're not being persecuted, you're being punished.
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These are different things. Did you cheat on your spouse and subsequently lose that relationship, lose your relationship with your children, lose all your friends, nobody's on your side?
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That's not persecution either. Yes, bad things are coming into your life and it feels like persecution, but that's just consequences.
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You're experiencing the consequences of your actions. Cheat on your taxes and have to pay them back with interest, that's a consequence too.
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It's not persecution. And again, I think consequences is a key word here.
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If you're doing something that you know is objectively wrong and objectively sinful and you experience negative repercussions for that, it's just not persecution.
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It's consequences. One perfect example of this is the thief who was hanging on the cross next to Jesus.
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If you recall, he was between two thieves. And that thief that we're talking about, yes, he did get saved.
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He did wind up in heaven with Jesus. We know this for a fact, but he wasn't on the cross because he was being persecuted.
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He was being executed for his crimes. And he says this himself, just so we don't get it confused.
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He says in Luke 23, 41, and we indeed are suffering justly for we are receiving what we deserve for what we have done.
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And he said this, of course, because while they were being punished appropriately for their actions, they were bringing what some could consider persecution upon themselves.
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We know that Jesus was not. And they were contrasting themselves with the fact that Jesus was being unjustly persecuted.
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I don't think we have to belabor that point because it seems pretty obvious. So the second way we can bring what we believe to be persecution on ourselves is as a result of our own effort.
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And this is the idea of bringing about some level of suffering or maybe even death upon ourselves in order that other people would look at us as a martyr or that other people would look at us as a good
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Christian. Maybe you know the type of person who insists on doing everything for themselves.
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They insist on doing all the work in the house or whatever. They won't accept any help, but they just love to complain about how hard everything is for them.
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They're turning themselves into some kind of houseworker, work, work, martyr.
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They tell you how nobody could possibly understand how hard things are for them.
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Or maybe you have people that put themselves in danger unnecessarily, as in they seek out danger as a way of saying that they did it and they suffer or they die as a result of this.
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And I don't want to confuse this with mission work, but even if you're going someplace dangerous as a missionary, there are smart ways to do it and there are not so smart ways to do it.
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Thomas Watson again says, that suffering is not reckoned for martyrdom when we pull a cross upon ourselves.
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We are bound by all lawful means to preserve our own lives. Jesus Christ did not suffer till he was called to it.
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And he closes by saying, when men through precipitancy and rashness run themselves into trouble, it is a cross of their own making and not of God's laying upon them.
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So on the surface, it makes very little sense to say that people would want to bring persecution on themselves or that people would want to bring suffering onto themselves.
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But what I would tell you is that I think what this is is sort of a really twisted form of works righteousness or a twisted form of salvation by works.
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This is where somebody believes that they have to artificially, you know, because I am I'm standing up here telling you the
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Christian life is going to be hard and that Jesus said, blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness.
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So some people will take that and they'll run with it and they'll artificially create difficulty in their lives so that they can prove to others and they can prove to God how good they are and how hard working of a
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Christian they are and how much they are suffering for the sake of Jesus. But this is completely unbiblical.
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Jonathan Edwards famously said this, you contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary.
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And Ephesians 2, eight through nine reminds us as well, for by grace, you have been saved through faith and this is not of yourselves.
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It is the gift of God, not of works so that no one may boast. And this also goes back to that idea of man -centered mourning that we talked about in the blessed are those who mourn beatitude.
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So again, when we, through our own effort or insist on bringing difficulty or bringing persecution to us.
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Now, the third way we bring what we believe to be persecution into our lives is as a result of our zeal.
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And maybe this one is a little bit of a surprise and that's because this one at least stems from a desire to do good things or from good intentions, but ultimately it winds up causing persecution, but not the biblical kind of persecution.
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And this is one of those places that I mentioned just a minute ago. This is where we're walking a very fine line because you should have zeal for God.
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You should have zeal and passion for the gospel. You shouldn't hide what you believe.
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You shouldn't hide your Christianity and you shouldn't do something that goes against what
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God says you should do. So let's give you a couple of examples to sort of hopefully make this real.
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So the first one would be in the workplace. I know a lot of workplaces and a lot of places where you all go are pretty secular.
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And while they may not be openly hostile or openly opposed to Christianity, they're also not overly accommodating to it either.
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So I have a friend that I've talked about before, and this friend works for a large government institution with a big facility just north of Charlottesville, and he wanted to host a
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Bible study at work. And in order to host this Bible study, he had to abide by certain rules.
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He had to meet at a certain time. He had to meet at a certain place.
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There were certain ways that he could go about promoting it. He had to make sure everything was scheduled right.
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And this friend, he is truly a godly man. I've said that before and I'll say it always, unless he somehow acts to disprove it, but he's a godly man.
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So what did he do? He followed the rules. He did exactly what they told him to do in order to have this
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Bible study. And as a result, he had the opportunity to share scripture and share the gospel and even lead people to Christ.
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But some of us don't think that's good enough, right? Some of us say, this is
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America. This is a government building I paid for with my tax dollars, and I'll hold my
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Bible study wherever I want to hold my Bible study. And we force our will on the situation.
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And then what happens? If we're lucky, we just get in a little bit of trouble. But more than likely, if you go about it that way, if you say, this is my first amendment right to free expression of religion,
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I'll do what I want, you'll probably lose your job. Now, this is an example of misplaced zeal.
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And this brings about persecution, right? Losing your job's persecution. But it's not godly persecution.
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Because this is not how you go about things. If you're living according to what we've seen in the
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Beatitudes, right? This is not what Jesus said a
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Christian does with his life. It goes against God's word. So there's a specific example of this.
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It's in Ephesians 6, verses five through eight. And it tells you how it is you should behave where you work.
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Ephesians 6, five through eight. Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the integrity of your heart as to Christ, not by way of eye service as men pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, serving with goodwill as to the
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Lord and not to men, knowing that whatever good thing each one does, this he will receive back from the
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Lord, whether slave or free. And don't just ignore this because it uses the word slave.
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This applies directly to your job. This applies directly to where you are in your life.
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Be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the integrity of your heart as to Christ.
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You represent Christ in your workplace, in your school, wherever you are. And if you are combative, abusive, obnoxious, that's how unbelievers will think that Jesus is.
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That's how unbelievers will think all Christians are. Again, completely in contrast to the rest of the
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Beatitudes. That also goes against the principles in Romans 13 as well.
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So that's an example of how you can do the right thing or the wrong thing in the workplace.
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Well, let's move it to our home. Now, let's say that you were involved in a marriage with an unbelieving spouse.
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You have a few options here. You can browbeat your spouse. You can insult your spouse.
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You can ignore them, just kind of freeze them out. You can tell them you're going to hell because they don't believe in Jesus like you do.
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You can force them to go to church to the point where they hate it. Or you could tell them to believe just because you say so.
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And I could tell you why I don't think that being argumentative is the best way to go about trying to convince someone to be a
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Christian, even though, remember, it's not a decision that we make. But again, let's go back to Scripture because there is a passage that deals directly with this.
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There is a passage in 1 Corinthians that addresses unbelieving spouses. So we're going to read 1
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Corinthians 7, verses 12 through 16. But to the rest
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I say, not the Lord, that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever and she consents to live with him, he must not divorce her.
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And a woman who has an unbelieving husband and he consents to live with her, she must not divorce her husband.
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For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife. And the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband.
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For otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy. Yet if the unbelieving one leaves, let him leave.
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The brother or the sister is not enslaved in such cases, but God has called us to peace. For how do you know,
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O wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, O husband, whether you will save your wife?
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But the most important thing to remember here, not only do we have scriptural instruction on how this is to be handled, if we've gone through the
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Beatitudes and we've paid attention to the Beatitudes, you're going to remember that you're not superior.
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A proper reading of the Beatitudes is going to remind you of this. And just ignore the fact that if you behave this way, it's going to make your marriage miserable.
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It's going to make your household miserable. And you might have a stubborn spouse who decides that they're going to give back to you everything that you've given to them.
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And then you all feel persecuted and you brought it on yourself.
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But there's one more thing that's related to this. And this is a little bit of a twist.
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So this is when we bring persecution onto ourselves as a result of a cause.
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And again, our fine line is getting even finer because this is where zeal, passion for a godly cause can push you in the wrong direction.
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And it can come out as a combination of all the previous three scenarios. So in order to try to bring this into real life,
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I want to use a really simple example, like just a really straightforward, non -controversial example.
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So we're going to talk about abortion. Thank you. We're not laughing about abortion, but the idea that this is a simple thing to talk about.
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So let me just say from the outset that I think abortion is murder.
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Let me just say that straight up. I believe scripture teaches us this clearly about the sanctity of human life, respecting human life, about all of us being made in God's image.
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And I have trouble envisioning a scenario where abortion is the right choice. Would I like to see it abolished?
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Would I like to see the murder of unborn babies abolished? Absolutely I would. And that said, we've seen people zeal for this issue, take forms that I don't think we can call
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Christian. Killing abortionists, the people that perform abortions, bombing abortion clinics, those things don't help the cause.
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That's not doing what Jesus would have you do.
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I would even say that those kind of aggressive, screaming protests, the kind where you have a bloody picture of a baby on a sign and you're yelling at people, that's not
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Christian either. Shaming people who have had an abortion is not living peaceably with those people.
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But does this mean abortion is okay? No, no, it doesn't. But this is where the nuance and the fine line comes in.
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Is getting an abortion a sin? Yes, yes it is. But let me ask you,
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Christian, if you truly understood anything that we've learned from the Beatitudes, are you in a superior position to judge somebody who is doing these things, even if they're participating in performing them?
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You're not. And also don't make the mistake of believing that this is a sin that can't be completely cleansed by the blood of Jesus.
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His righteousness is imputed to that woman, to those people, exactly the same way that it was to you.
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So if you're participating in aggressive, abusive, or even violent confrontations about this issue, whether it's in person, whether it's at your work, on social media, and you've been somehow persecuted as a result of that, just know that's not godly persecution that you're receiving.
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You've brought that persecution on yourself. You played a role in bringing that persecution on yourself.
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So just as a thought experiment, think of ways that you can hunger and thirst for righteousness on this issue.
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Where are ways that you can bring the righteousness of Christ to this? Protesting is one thing, but prayer at an abortion clinic, prayer for the doctors, prayer for the women that are going there.
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Help support organizations like Lifespring. Help them with your money, help them with your time, help them with whatever it is that you have to give them.
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That's just a couple of examples. So remember, bringing that kind of persecution on yourself is not what
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Jesus is talking about. But if it's possible, I wanna take one step deeper into this issue before we wrap up.
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The other popular way for Christians to get involved on either side of the abortion issue is to become active in politics.
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And I'm not saying that this is a bad thing. We should vote. We should get involved with the candidates.
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But what I would suggest to you is that you proceed with caution. Because here's the fact.
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I will call this a fact. Revival in our nation is never going to come through the ballot box.
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Revival in our nation is never gonna come as a result of a political candidate getting elected.
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The only thing that is gonna bring revival is us individually seeking our own righteousness.
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Collectively, that's what'll do it. But that's not always the way
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Christians go about it. I mean, we're looking at a presidential race right now where we have no righteous candidates.
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No righteous candidates. I don't really think either one of them are
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Christian based on their lives, based on their behavior, based on their words. But that doesn't mean they're both equally bad.
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We won't name names. But if you have a candidate that's all for the murder of babies and you have one who's actually done something to help slow it down, well, that seems like a clear choice for Christians.
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But my point here is that zeal for righteousness often leads Christians to believe that politics will somehow bring about that righteousness.
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And here's what happens as a result. Christians find themselves, maybe unknowingly, placing more faith in a candidate, a presidential candidate, a senatorial candidate, a congressional candidate, or a political party.
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They find themselves placing more faith in that than in the words of God and in the words of the
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Beatitudes and chasing after their own righteousness. And you know what?
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You can absolutely find yourself persecuted for your politics. You can find yourself persecuted based on where you work, by what party you support, or what bumper sticker you put on your car, or what you posted on social media.
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But that persecution, you're not bringing godly persecution onto yourself. If you will more loudly place a bumper sticker or a sticker about an issue on your car than you will about Jesus, you're not bringing godly persecution into your life.
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So that's my caution to you. Zeal for a cause is easy to mistake for zeal for righteousness, especially when it comes to something that a
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Christian should have such a clear stand on. But they're not the same thing.
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Martin Lloyd -Jones said, if you and I begin to mix our politics and religion, then we must not be surprised if we receive persecution.
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And I think that's true. And I'll say this too. I'll risk going way out of my lane here.
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When we look at what Jesus did when he came back, remember I've told you before, the
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Jews were expecting him to address the political system. The Jews were expecting him to come and overthrow the
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Roman government, to end taxation, to end persecution. But Jesus came back and talked to the religious leaders.
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Now, today, when people say that Jesus had more words for the religious leaders than the sinners, they mean
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Christians in general. Jesus had words for the religious leaders that were twisting the scriptures of God.
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Jesus had words for the Pharisees who said that if you don't follow these 600 laws perfectly, you can't be righteous.
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And you gotta give us money and give sacrifices in order to fix it. That's who Jesus came back for.
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So if we think about an issue like abortion, if Jesus were to come back, and again, I didn't get this out of the
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Bible, maybe indirectly, right, based on context. He would not be going after the politicians.
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He'd possibly be going after the churches who won't speak out about this or who affirm these kind of sins.
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That's who he would be after. Because the politicians, the sinners are not believers.
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We hope to bring them to Christ, but that's not where they are. But the people who say they follow
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Christ and then act in ways that directly contradict this are probably who Jesus would have his words for.
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So let's close with a few things that we can take away from this last beatitude. So the first one is that you can bring persecution upon yourself, and that's not what
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Jesus is talking about. So we spent the bulk of our time discussing this, so I'm just gonna leave that one there.
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I think we all understand that concept. Number two, you should expect persecution to come at some point if you're living according to the will of God.
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And I realize that in our day and age and with the just abysmal state of American Christianity, this sounds crazy, sounds unlike a lot of what you're probably accustomed to hearing in the your -best -life -now kind of everything -is -awesome church.
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But Scripture's clear about this. There's another thing that you need to know, and that's the reason why you should expect persecution.
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The reason that living out the beatitudes and seeking to conform yourself to Christ, hungering and thirsting for righteousness causes persecution, and that's because true righteousness really shines a terrible light on darkness.
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It shines a light on sin, the sin of people, the sin of the church, the sin of the world.
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And what happens is that people would much rather snuff out your light than they would rather snuff out their sin.
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It's much easier to shut you down than it is to stop doing something that's temporarily very pleasurable or enjoyable.
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Nobody likes to be confronted with their own sin. And I would say that probably the worst of this, and this is what we talked about, is that it confronts people who are pretending to be
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Christians most of all. And that's why Jesus, that's why the religious leaders, the scribes and the
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Pharisees ultimately killed Jesus. Jesus came and brought perfect righteousness and died as a result.
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Charles Spurgeon says, the only homage wickedness can pay to righteousness is to persecute it.
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And this is because the world is rebelling against God. The world is in total and complete rebellion against God.
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It hates God and it hates his followers every bit as much as it hates him. We read that in John 15, 18 and some of the other verses.
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So there's that. You should expect persecution to come at some point if you're following the Beatitudes, if you're following God's will.
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But with that, there's a pretty frightening corollary to that point.
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And number three is if you never experience any kind of persecution for your faith, you have to ask yourself why that is.
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I said earlier that the world hates God, but the world loves Christians. They love certain types of Christians.
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It loves secret Christians. It loves the kind of Christians who say stuff like, preach the gospel at all times, use words if necessary, because none of those
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Christians are actually preaching the gospel. Because those Christians are never sharing the truth of the gospel.
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But I wanna tell you this too. You don't have to be aggressive. You don't have to be confrontational about this kind of thing.
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Because the truth of the gospel, the truth that you're a sinner, that you're destined for hell, but that Jesus died for your sins if you only repent and believe in him.
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That truth, you know, that's just a very, very brief summary of the gospel. That truth is confrontational enough all by itself.
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Because the fact that we are all sinners in need of Jesus tells you right away that you're probably not living the right way.
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And that's hard for most people, not only to say, but it's even harder to hear.
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So that's confrontational enough in itself. But the thing about it is that most
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Christians and most churches are content to never talk about that.
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They're content to never talk about sin, to never talk about hell, to never talk about the fact that apart from Christ, we're all destined for hell, apart from Christ.
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And they're too scared of persecution, whether it's direct persecution or persecution and the fact of offending somebody and they leave the church to talk about things like abortion, to talk about things like homosexuality, to talk about adultery, to talk about premarital sex, to talk about pornography.
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But these churches, they will talk about some things. They'll talk about racism or they'll talk about social issues.
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And all that's good too, right? Because racism is absolutely a sin. If you consider somebody not to be a child of God because they look different from you, yes, you're not a
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Christian. But the problem is the churches, they don't use biblical language to talk about those issues.
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They use the language of the culture. And the reason they do that is so they can fit in, get along, but most of all, to avoid persecution.
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But to avoid persecution, they're compromising the word of God and they're replacing it with the word of culture or the word of society.
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And they call it loving your neighbor. They call it being winsome. And like I said, the world loves these
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Christians because frankly, they don't pose a threat to anybody's godless lifestyle.
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So they're accepted. They're embraced in polite society. They write columns for the
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New York Times or whatever. But this is so far from who our
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Lord calls blessed. I mean, just review what he says in the three verses that we're looking at today, 10, 11, and 12.
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What does he say will happen? He says, they will insult you. They will persecute you. They will falsely say all kinds of evil about you because of me.
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And Christians that dare share the words of Scripture are said to be speaking hate or being harsh or being unloving when it's exactly the opposite if you do it the right way, if you're truly sharing the word of God, if you're truly sharing the gospel from a place of humility, from a place of understanding who you are apart from God and what
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God has done for you. So if you've never experienced any type of persecution for the sake of righteousness, ask yourself why that is.
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Because I get that we don't want to experience negative stuff. Now, the reason that we don't want to experience that persecution is because we still value stuff of the world.
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We still value our reputation. We still value what people think of us more than we value the word of God.
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And Jesus has something to say about that. Luke 12, verses eight through nine says, and I say to you, everyone who confesses me before men, the son of man will confess him also before the angels of God.
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But he who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God. So downplaying the full counsel of God's word or downplaying the gospel or downplaying why we all need
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Jesus to avoid persecution, that is denying him before men.
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So don't be a secret Christian, but don't be a Pharisee. Read the
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Beatitudes, live in the middle. Again, understanding what has been done for you that you had no contribution to.
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Martin Lloyd -Jones says, we are not to be offensive. We are not to be foolish. We are not to be unwise.
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We are not even to parade the Christian faith. We are not to do anything that calls for persecution.
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But just by being like Christ, persecution becomes a part of us. It becomes inevitable.
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Don't hide from it. Don't bring it onto yourself. Hunger and thirst for righteousness.
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And embrace this. Embrace persecution and embrace suffering because Jesus suffered.
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And you're sharing in that suffering with him when you experience persecution for the sake of righteousness.
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And while it's temporarily painful, the rewards of it are great. And I think the triumphant nature of this blessing, the kingdom of God, there's not a lot of description of the kingdom of God in the
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Bible. And I think that's because we don't have words for it. Our words would just dirty the glory of God because we can't express it.
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But I love what I saw in the last verse of the hymn, a mighty fortress is our
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God. It says, that word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them abideth.
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The spirit and the gifts are ours through him who with us sideth. Let goods and kindred go.
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This mortal life also. The body they may kill. God's truth abideth still.
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His kingdom is forever. Thanks be to God. Please pray with me.
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Heavenly Father, these beatitudes have been so enriching, so inspiring, yet at the same time, so humbling.
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Lord, I pray that the Holy Spirit guides us and assists each one of us in recognizing who we are before you in providing us the humility to recognize that we're sinners, but the joy when we recognize also the fact that you loved us enough to send your son to die for us, to do something that we could never have done on our own apart from you.
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And we thank you for that. God, I pray that as we go out into the world, whether it's to school, whether it's to work or whether it's simply in our households, we live out the beatitudes.
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We represent you well. We share the gospel. And if necessary, we endure the persecution that comes from that.
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For we know that you will give us the strength. We know that the Holy Spirit will give us the strength for those situations.
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God, but at the end of the day, it's not about whether or not we suffer.
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It's about the joy we experience for knowing that from that suffering, which is terrible while it happens, comes your blessing and comes the ultimate reward of the kingdom of God.
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Lord, I lift up every person in this room today. God, I pray for them, for their families, for their souls, and for their lives.
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Help us all to share who you are. And we love you. And we pray all these things in Jesus' name.