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Matthew 5:10-12
So, you want to be a Christian. That's what I should have maybe called this sermon tonight. Instead, I just gave it the title from the text, Blessed Are the Persecuted. That's what it looks like to be a Christian.
That's what we've been looking at in the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 1 -10. I invite you to turn there. We're on the last one this evening. I'll start off tonight telling you about a man by the name of Jim Elliott.
Jim Elliott was a missionary to the Aka Indians of Ecuador. The Akas were an unreached people group, and Jim received or felt a burden to get the gospel to them. This particular tribe was, at that time, a dangerous tribe.
They were known.
So he didn't go in blind here. They were known for killing outsiders. Nevertheless, Jim and a group of friends felt a burden for taking Christ to the nations, including these Aka Indians. So in 1946, at the age of 22, he wrote this in his journal.
He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep for that which he cannot lose. He is no fool who gives that which he cannot keep for that which he cannot lose. Perhaps sometime in his young life, Jim had read or certainly heard a sermon over the text of Scripture that we examined tonight, Matthew 5 -10, which is, blessed are the persecuted.
Knowing the risk of persecution, Jim and his companions traveled to Ecuador in hopes of showing the Aka tribe the love of Christ and the necessity of repentance and faith in Him. On January the 8th, 1956, so just 10 years after he had written this, Jim and his four companions were killed by the Aka Indians.
What were they trying to do? They were just trying to get the Gospel to them. He had been married to his wife Elizabeth less than three years. His daughter Valerie was only 10 months old, and he was killed for the sake of the Gospel.
What would you say about a man like that? Well, according to our text tonight, the Bible says a man like that is blessed. Matthew 5, beginning in verse 10. Would you stand with me as we honor the reading of God's Word?
Keep in your mind that phrase I mentioned as we began this sermon, He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, for that which he cannot lose. Matthew 5 -10 -12, Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Father, would you clear everything else out of my mind and heart tonight and enable me to preach Christ? I pray the same for the hearers tonight. Would you clear everything out of their minds? I know we have folks thinking about other things, and we're here just a week before Christmas, and thinking about those sorts of things, and not everything that would fill our hearts or minds are necessarily bad, and yet, they are bad if they'd prevent us from hearing Christ.
Let us hear Christ tonight. What your Word has to say. Let us understand what it means to be a Christian. We pray it in Jesus' name, Amen. You may be seated. I think one of the things, another avenue we could have gone tonight, I think one of the things that we don't understand in our area tonight is the definition of a Christian.
What is a Christian? Somebody who believes a certain set of truths. Maybe someone who goes to church every now and then, or maybe we just equate, this is losing its luster a little bit, but maybe for some you just equate, I'm an American, so therefore, I am a Christian.
But if we really take the Bible seriously about what is a Christian, we have to deal with texts like we are tonight, where Jesus says the idea of Christianity may not be all that you understand it to be.
So you want to be a Christian? Jesus says, blessed are the persecuted. Let me give you the first point. Gospel persecution is a pointed promise. Number one, gospel persecution is a pointed promise. Verse 10, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Persecuted three times in our passage, it's the idea of premeditated persecution. That is, it's not just happening by accident. The other thing is you need to see verse 3, look in your text and look at verse 3 and look at verse 10.
And let me just give you just a quick second. Identify the same phrase in verse 3 that is in verse 10. There's a phrase that is in verse 3 that is also in verse 10. You should note that because it forms an inclusio, if you will, it forms a bracket to open and close, if you will, the Beatitudes.
What is the phrase? Well, it's theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Verse 10, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
In other words, these two Beatitudes and everything in between are characteristics of who Christians are. That is, gospel persecution is, in essence, appointed promise. Like Paul says to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3 .12, those who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus.
Now listen to me, church. Those who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will, not might, this is 2 Timothy 3 .12, will be persecuted. Only those poor in spirit are Christians. Only those persecuted are Christians.
Verse 11 says this, blessed are you when, when. You know, we make this comment about prayer in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus says, when you pray, not if you pray. And he says, when you fast, not if you fast.
And he says, when others revile you, not if they do. Right, the idea here is that one of the marks of being a Christian is persecution. It's just a reality in the fallen world. Now, let me scale back on that for a moment and just offer this perspective.
There are various forms of persecution. You even see it here in the text, right? Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
So, I'm not trying to say everyone who's not a martyr is not a Christian.
Of course not.
Not everyone dies for the faith. Not everyone goes to the stake and is burned. But all Christians, in some form or another, at some point in their life or another, are going to endure some form of persecution or another.
Persecution for the faith is something that transcends culture and history. It doesn't matter what time period, it doesn't matter what culture. It's going to happen. Again, Jesus turns the world's ideas on their head.
Because we would say this. Even in our prayers, maybe. And it's okay in one sense to identify in this way.
However, be careful.
In our prayers sometimes, we pray for the persecuted church and we think,.
How poor are the persecuted?
That's not what Jesus says, though. He doesn't say how misfortunate are the persecuted. But what?
Blessed.
Blessed are the persecuted. J .C. Rouse says, if we want to know what holy living is, let us often think about who Jesus called blessed. Isn't that something? Does not Jesus confront worldliness and worldly ideology and turn it all on its head?
He walks us through that these are those who are blessed, the poor in spirit, the mourners, the meek, the ones who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemaker.
Did I mention the meek? Maybe I missed it. And the persecuted. These are the ones Jesus says are blessed. J .C. Rouse, again, just hear that quote again. You want to know what holy living is? Let us often think about who Jesus called blessed.
I just wonder tonight, based on those beatitudes and based on what we're talking about tonight, young people, older, wise people, right? Young people, wise people, everyone in between, is your life blessed?
Whoa, whoa, yeah, yeah, yeah,.
Because I got kids, I got family, I got money. I get to go, if you're like my boys, I get to go duck hunting.
I got, yeah, blessed life.
I live in America, blessed. I'm not asking about those tonight. I'm asking you if according to the beatitudes that Jesus gives us in Matthew 5, are you blessed? Because if you're not blessed in accordance with these blessings, then whatever material blessings you may be entertaining for a short time, they will vanish.
Notice the shift. Gospel persecution is appointed promise. Notice the shift between verse 10 and verse 11. Blessed are those who are persecuted. And then verse 11, blessed are you. We can go back to all these beatitudes and look at their promises, and we can see that whatever is said about they is a promise directly to me, if I am a Christian.
Blessed are those, blessed are you. This is the same here. Gospel persecution, what I'm trying to articulate here, is appointed promise. Secondly, gospel persecution has a particular prerequisite.
So it's a promise,.
But it has a particular prerequisite in verse 10. Blessed are those who are persecuted. It doesn't stop there. Because then you might say, there's lots of people persecuted, right? You can look at certain ethnic groups or certain religious groups, whatever the case may be.
There's a lot of groups out there that are persecuted, but it's not those that Jesus says are blessed, right? Well, I've suffered at the hands of the government, so I'm blessed. I am a product of, or I've suffered, say, racism or sexism or something like that.
I've been persecuted, therefore I'm blessed. That's not what Jesus is talking about here because there's a particular prerequisite. It's not just those who are persecuted, period. It's those who are persecuted for righteousness sake.
That is, we're justified by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Friends, the only way you can become a Christian is to look to what Jesus has done. The Sermon on the Mount is not live this and be a Christian.
The Sermon on the Mount, I believe, teaches us our need for regeneration. You hear these laws and you hear these rules and you're like, I'm undone, I can't do it. That's why Jesus says, blessed are the poor in spirit.
You realize your bankruptcy and your poverty of spirit and you turn to Christ, you mourn your sin, you run to Him. You see that His righteousness is all that you can plead before the Father, that He is the one who has fulfilled all righteousness and completed the law and the prophets and then suffered at the hands of wicked men under the wrath of God, dying on the cross for our sins, raising again on the third day.
And you put your faith in Him and you receive His imputed righteousness. But those who do that, those who are justified, listen to me, this is important, live in such a way that they seek to bear the fruit of righteousness.
And if you do that, you will inevitably, in some form or another, come up against persecution for righteousness' sake. Look at verse 11. Revile, persecuted, all kinds of evil falsely. The idea is not being persecuted for being a jerk.
I understand some Christians receive backlash because they're rude, because they're arrogant, because they sin. There are ways even to do evangelism that is wrong in the sense like, I've seen some people like unduly confrontational.
Like evangelism in and of itself is going to be confrontational, but there are people who maybe do things outside of wisdom and prudence and even legally and they'd be like, okay, you shouldn't have done it that way.
We're not talking about a persecution complex. We're talking about being reviled, persecuted, all kinds of evil falsely because of righteousness' sake. The point is, when we're serious about holiness in a culture that is not, our culture hates holiness.
When we're serious about holiness in a culture that is not, persecution is going to happen. Gospel persecution, though, has a particular prerequisite. So let me say this. What if some are not persecuted because we aren't in love with Christ?
Well, I'm not persecuted. I slip in and out of church every now and then. I read my Bible some. I sing Lee Greenwood's God Bless the USA. I don't really have, everybody likes me. What if we're not persecuted because there's no righteousness in us?
Friends, that would be the problem. And I actually find in America, sometimes, listen now, sometimes the biggest opposition, some of the biggest opposition that I have personally faced has been from people who profess to be Christians.
Don't be preaching out here. Don't be preaching the gospel out here. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, no. When it comes to things like standing up for equal protection of the unborn. Like a woman who has her child murdered in the womb is not a victim.
Well, I understand you're saying, well, yeah, but there's all these, I'm gonna give you an extreme scenario. Fine, there may be extreme scenarios where a woman is held at gunpoint and forced to have an abortion.
In those cases, we have laws on the book that'll already take care of that, okay? But the vast majority of abortion cases, a woman is not a victim. She's a fellow assailant of our pre-born neighbor killing the child in the womb.
But if you say that, you know some of the biggest opposition to that? People who profess to be Christians. In Louisiana, it was either, I think it was 2022, maybe 2021, I think 2022. In Louisiana, there was a bill that would have outlawed abortion, outlawed it.
You know, this was before the Supreme Court case. Outlawed it, and one of the people who wrote in opposition to this bill was the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the ERLC, the Southern Baptist lobbyist group that's supposed to stand for righteousness' sake.
By the way, when we were giving to the cooperative program, we were funding this organization. We were giving our money to this organization. This organization took our money, turned around, and helped to kill a bill in Louisiana that would have stopped abortion.
That's wicked.
I'm getting off topic here. The point that I'm trying to make here is the persecution spoken of here is persecution for righteousness' sake. We stand in a long line of godly men and women who are persecuted for righteousness' sake.
No, I'll even give it to you like this. We are of a religion, of a Christianity that exists because of persecution. Jesus Christ is our quintessential persecuted one. He is the one that we are following.
But here's the comfort here that Jesus gives us. The comfort is theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Let that be a comfort to all true Christians no matter who may persecute us here. Because those who are persecuted are those who receive the kingdom of heaven.
In essence, you want to be a Christian? You choose tonight. Do you want the comfort and prosperity that is afforded in this life? Or do you want the comfort and prosperity that is given to us in this verse, in heaven, forever?
Are you trusting this Savior tonight? Even tonight, I invite you to place your faith in the finished work of Christ, the long for the forgiveness of your sins, repenting. Cultural Christianity does not save.
Cultural Christianity, back up, I could've said that more witty. Wittier?
One of those.
Cultural Christianity does save. Cultural Christianity saves you from persecution. But it doesn't save you from the wrath of God. True Christianity doesn't save. It doesn't save you from persecution. True Christianity does save you from the wrath of God.
Third point. Gospel persecution is a pointed promise, a particular prerequisite. Thirdly, gospel persecution is a personal proof. Meaning, it brings an element of assurance. Blessed are you when others revile you, I'm reading verse 11, and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Now, let me point out something here. Very interesting what the Lord Jesus says to us in verse 11.
Actually, if He is not who He says He is,.
It's quite arrogant.
Because He says, the very last two words in the ESV, last three words we'll say, on my account. In fact, throughout the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus, if you remember, makes all these audacious claims. For example, look at verse 27 and 28 of chapter five.
Examples like this. You have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery, but I say to you, you've heard this, but I say to you,.
What authority?
Or chapter seven, verse 22 and 23. On that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name? Then will I declare to them, I never knew you, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.
Verse 24 of chapter seven. Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. If Jesus is not who He says He is, these are outlandish claims.
If you just say this evening, you wouldn't say this out loud because you know better. But if you believe in your heart tonight, I don't know about this Jesus stuff. He probably existed. He probably was a good man.
But is He King of kings and Lord of lords that demands my full allegiance, that demands my every thought, that demands my every attitude, my every waking moment? Is He really that?
Well, I don't know.
But then a text like this comes out and confronts us because this is audacious. This is Jesus claiming that He essentially is God. He's not just persecuted on the account of whatever. He's persecuted on the account of whatever for my sake.
Blessed are you if you are persecuted on my account, essentially. Jesus is God. And in verse 12, we see rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Why did they persecute the prophets in the Old Testament on the account of Jesus? That's right. There's a solidarity. All those who are persecuted for righteousness sake are persecuted on the account of Christ.
The prophets of old were preaching and teaching about Christ. And Jesus says they too were persecuted. It's on the account of Christ that we're persecuted. So gospel persecution is a personal proof because when we are persecuted for righteousness sake, it means we are identifying with our Savior.
We are persecuted on His account. If you love the things the world loves, then the world loves you and embraces you. But that would mean you're not a Christian. But if because of righteousness sake, others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on His account, then this is simply an evidence of what it looks like to be a Christian.
Persecution is an inevitable aspect of kingdom living. But not here though.
Not here.
Not in Perry County, Arkansas. No, it is. We may not be killed for the gospel at least yet, praise God. I'm grateful for that. But there is reviling. There is slander. There are false things said about believers in this church and about the things that this church believes.
There are lies and falsehoods even in this place. But we have to make the decision. Are we going to hunger and thirst after righteousness? Are we gonna long for holiness? Are we gonna love Christ? If we're going to be serious about a healthy church, there are going to be consequences even here is my point.
This is because to do things right ultimately brings an indictment upon those who do things wrong. Listen carefully here. It's not that we intend or have as our goal to be an indictment. That would be a terrible motivation.
So what we really want to do is we really want to just stick it to other churches and other Christians and we just want to, we want to be so good and so holy that they feel bad. No, that's a terrible goal.
It's not that we desire to do that or have as our goal to run any other church or any other person down. That is not our goal. That is not what we are after. But here is what we are after and we're not apologizing about it.
We are after Christ's honor and Christ's glory because we believe at Providence Baptist Church that Christ is worthy of a healthy church. And when we embrace this vision, which is not Pastor Jacob's vision and it's not my vision, it's Christ's vision.
When we embrace this vision of the church and we begin to order the church after that and live like that, there will be taught,.
There will be lies.
Even here in Perry County, we will be slandered. Sometimes we may even lose friends in the process or maybe be at odds with family through the process. Who knows what sort of evil things we may have to endure.
Maybe even in pretense, uttered in the name of God. Like maybe even people just calling us judgmental or even accusing us of not loving Jesus. But what shall we say to these things? Is it worth it? I'm not gonna answer that.
I'm just gonna let the Lord answer that. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
Rejoice and be glad,.
For your reward is great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets.
Who were before you.
Appointed promise, a particular prerequisite, appointed proof, a personal proof, sorry. And lastly, gospel persecution has a prophet's profit. Well, let's just think about verse 12 for a moment. You know, is it worth it?
There comes a time in the Christian life, I find this pretty true, with almost every believer that I've dealt with in just discussion and discipleship, there kind of comes a point where you feel like you're at a crossroads and you're like, man, who was telling me this the other day?
I'm gonna be careful and maybe in the middle of this analogy I'll remember who told me, but maybe it's someone in this room, I don't know, but they were telling me, basically they asked someone, are you a Christian?
And they were like, well, I'm a Christian, but I'm not a Christian like you're a Christian. And there comes a crossroads, I think, in true believers' life,.
Where they grew up a certain way,.
They are true believers, they saw Christianity one way, but all of a sudden they're confronted with all these different truths of Christianity that they hadn't seen before, and they have to make a decision, they're at the crossroads and they say, okay, here's the decision, this is a terrible illustration, but maybe we'll say it's like the matrix, okay, sorry, you got the, I don't even remember which pill was the good one, you got the red pill, the blue pill, essentially they're at the crossroads though, forget the matrix, back to the crossroads.
They're at the crossroads, and they have to make a decision. Am I gonna continue in the way that I've always been taught and always thought Christianity kind of was, and go down this path and keep all my friends, and just kind of keep the status quo, everything's gonna be cool at church, not gonna really have to deal, like I'm really gonna get to live the life I wanna live, and I'm gonna get to go to heaven, I'm gonna kind of get both of these things, and I'm gonna stay on this path, or I see this path and it's kind of overgrown, don't look like many people have walked it, have to walk through some briar bushes.
Even to get on it,.
I can't even fully see where it goes, but it's really pretty narrow, and if I go that way, if I go that way,.
I don't know what's gonna happen,.
With my friends, my popularity, I don't know. So we're confronted with this decision, am I gonna stay on this broad path, or am I gonna take the narrow way? And true believers may wrestle with that for a moment, but where do they always land?
They say, look, I can't unsee what I've seen, I can't unsee how the Bible confronts Bible Belt Christianity and cast it into the lake of fire, I can't unsee how many people view the church today is wrong, I can't unsee the sovereignty of God and salvation, I can't unsee the necessity of evangelism, I can't unsee the honor and worthy of Christ, so come what may, I can't go that way anymore, I'm taking that path, but it's that path, that narrow path that leads to the prophet's profit.
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. If we live radically different than the world, we're going to have persecution, it's a promise, but we can rejoice in that, why can we rejoice?
Okay, because it's going to be like Job, God's going to take something away from you in persecution, but you'll get a better truck later on. That's not, no. No, no, the reward is great where? In heaven.
There are so many ways our dear Lord blesses us in this life, amen and amen, but the reward He speaks of in our text is much greater than that, it is in heaven. You want a prophet's reward, here it is.
Gospel persecution has a prophet's profit. When we are persecuted on the account of Jesus, we are showing solidarity with the followers of God from all ages. You can't have a prophet's reward without a prophet's rejection.
There is no prophet's profit without a prophet's persecution but we can rejoice in persecution because the text says we are blessed. The kingdom of heaven is absolutely right now in part. The persecuted belong to this kingdom, the kingdom of Christ, but the misery here is not worth comparing to our reward.
Look again at verse 12, just to point this out. It's obvious, it was so obvious you may just read over it. He doesn't just say rejoice and be glad for you have a reward in heaven.
He doesn't say that.
That would be good enough, right? Instead he says, rejoice and be glad. For what?
Great.
Your reward is great in heaven. Do you seek a worldly reward now or do you seek a great reward then? What are you living for? If you're living for the kingdom of heaven, this is going to change everything.
Is your life different like the clothes that you aspire toward or the status you aspire toward? Maybe I should say it that way. The things you love. Is this different from the world around you? If it is different, you're going to be ridiculed, but take heart, gospel persecution has a prophet's profit.
The prophets, if you know... When it says in verse 12, so they persecuted the prophets who were before you,.
What does that mean?
They laughed at them like, ah, you're dumb. No, there's lots of stuff that happened to the prophets. They were killed. They were reviled. They were jailed. They dropped down Jeremiah into a well and they dropped him down into a well.
What happens when he got down into the well is he just sank in the mud. They said, you're going to preach? You're going to preach what God says? Boom, here you are, stuck in the mud. They treated the prophets scornfully and shamefully.
Jesus himself was a prophet. More than a prophet, of course, but he's not less than a prophet. He had no place, the Bible says, to lay his head. He was perfectly righteous. He was obedient every way that mankind has went astray, and yet he was persecuted.
He was cursed from God on the tree. He is our propitiation, the wrath-satisfying sacrifice. And he tells us to do what now as our leader, as our God, as our King? He says what? Take up your couch cushion and follow me?
No, friends, he says, take up the cross and follow him.
Die to the world. Die to your love for the world.
And follow Jesus. And great is your reward in heaven. If we refuse to trust in his death, in his burial, in his life, in his resurrection, for the forgiveness of our sins, and we don't endure persecution now, then we will endure hell for all eternity.
The place of outer darkness and eternal pain. Even now, I bid you, if that is you, repent and believe the gospel. And for those who repent and believe the gospel, you do endure persecution now for righteousness' sake on the account of the Jesus of the Bible.
And Jesus says to you, rejoice and be glad, for great is your reward in heaven. Gospel persecution has a prophet's profit. So one question to ask yourself tonight is this. Will I settle for a meager reward in this life, chasing the world, and receive eternal punishment?
Or will I be resolved in persecution in this life to whatever degree the Lord may allow and receive an eternal reward? That's what's before us tonight. I'll land the plane by saying this. Jim Elliott was right.
He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose. There is so much in this life that we hold very tightly and cling to that we cannot keep. I know it's kind of a silly cliche, but it bears true.
How many times have you followed a hearse on its way to a funeral and it was pulling a U-Haul behind it? You can't take it with you. No amount of plastic surgery, no amount of keto, no amount of herbal remedies, no amount of money can keep a man from dying or a woman or a boy or a girl.
If embracing Christ means persecution, then so be it. For when we embrace Jesus by faith, we cannot lose Him. Providence Baptist Church, let us deepen our resolve for holiness. As we look at this text, if we are believers, we are compelled to believe and trust and live out what it has to say to us.
Father, thank You for Your Word. I pray that we would be a people resolved, not to have a persecution complex, but resolved to be persecuted for righteousness' sake, whatever degree Your providence may dictate, because we love and trust Christ.