Blessed are those who are persecuted :: Matthew 5:10-12

If you would, open your Bibles with me, your copy of God's Word, to Matthew chapter 5.

This is kind of bittersweet for me because this is the last sermon in our sermon series that we've titled,

Upside Down. We are finally to the last beatitude, where Jesus has been using a term, blessed.

He is using this term as a counter -cultural term, a different way of life, a teaching of how the true citizens of the

Kingdom of Heaven ought to live in total distinction from the rest of the world.

The way that we are to pursue happiness is to have a right standing with God Almighty.

And that is totally counter, upside down to how the rest of the world thinks and how they pursue after happiness.

And so we are to the last beatitude, and I think that this is perhaps the most paradoxical of all the beatitudes.

This truly demonstrates God's reversal of the world's values and what they cherish most.

The world does not understand that true peace and everlasting joy only comes from being restored with God Almighty.

It comes from having faith alone in the Savior, Jesus. And so let's examine all eight of the beatitudes together.

So starting in verse 3 we read, Let's pray again this morning.

Heavenly Father, you are holy and God, we want to praise you for all of your mercy and your grace that you show us each and every day.

Lord, I pray that this morning that you would send your spirit to illuminate our hearts and our minds, to behold your glory, to look upon you,

Jesus, to walk with you, to put our full trust in you. Lord, I pray that you would give us wisdom to understand your word.

We praise things in your name, Jesus, amen. So we're to the eighth beatitude, and that starts in verse 10.

I want to show you that this beatitude is different in its structure than all the previous beatitudes.

All the other beatitudes were simply one verse long, and here Jesus uses three verses to explain

Christian persecution. That is the major theme that runs through verses 10, 11, and 12.

So look back with me. I want to read this and listen for the word persecuted. 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.

There are some people, commentators that I read that think that this is two separate beatitudes, and I do not take that view, primarily because Jesus' primary focus is on persecution.

That's that major theme, and it seems like verses 11 and 12 are an application of verse 10.

Jesus gives us that eighth beatitude, and then he further expounds on that. Let me show you.

Further expound. Let's look at the first half. Look at the first half of verse 10.

Jesus says, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake. What kind of persecution?

What does he mean for righteousness sake? Well, he further clarifies in verse 11. He talks about the kind of persecution that people will slander your character as we are pursuing the way of righteousness as we follow after him.

The second half of verse 10 says, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Look at the first half.

Verse 12, Jesus expounds that we rejoice because we are looking to our eternal home, and we are not alone on this journey.

There's been so many people before us that have endured persecution, and we lock arms together with our fellow believers.

And so I want to take a moment to really drive your attention back to that phrase, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Now does that sound familiar? This has actually been mentioned in the Beatitudes before. Look at the first Beatitude.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And so what

I think Jesus is doing is he's using this phrase as bookends. He began by talking about the kingdom of heaven, and now he is ending with the kingdom of heaven.

That's why I think this is primarily one Beatitude, but perhaps it has double blessing.

So I mentioned this earlier, this particular Beatitude is very paradoxical and confusing a little bit.

I think more so than all the rest of them. In fact, there's many Beatitudes that seem confusing. Jesus said, blessed or happy are those who are poor.

Happy are those who mourn. Happy are those who hunger and thirst. And now he's saying, happy are those who are persecuted.

How can being persecuted by the world result in happiness?

Well, we're going to unpack that this morning. And for all you note takers, the key qualification that Jesus uses to have blessed persecution is for righteousness sake.

Jesus is not saying that all persecution results in blessing, but only the persecution that is for righteousness sake.

So that term righteousness, back in our fourth Beatitude, we really spent some time unpacking what righteousness is.

The fourth Beatitude said, blessed are those who are present tense, hungering and thirsting for righteousness.

Now we talked about how the word righteousness primarily has two definitions that we see all throughout scripture.

And a way that helps me remember that is that little word that's in the word righteousness. It's the first five letters of right.

So the first definition is being right, having a right standing before God.

That's our justification. And number two, it's doing what is right. That is our sanctification.

And so the righteousness throughout the rest of the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount refers to what is doing right.

Because they are describing a person's way of life that is brand new. Someone who is already has a right standing before God.

So here in verse 10, Jesus says, for righteousness sake. Righteousness involves more than just doing what is right, but it's following after the person of Jesus.

Look with me at verse 11 because he further explains this. He says, blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

Jesus is saying for righteousness sake is on my account because of me, because you follow after me.

And please listen to me carefully once again, that Jesus is not saying that you will be blessed for just any type of persecution.

There are so many people that are overly zealous for any cause, and it's okay to have convictions about certain issues and topics and things in the world.

And if we harp on them long enough, you will receive pushback. And so the persecution that Jesus is talking about, those things that we are actively pursuing for the kingdom of God as we follow after Christ.

So I want to talk about the world of politics for a moment. So many people, it seems that they are fanatical about a bunch of ideals.

And they're not all bad, but I noticed some people kind of go over the top with some of these things like capitalism, socialism, the raising or lowering of taxes, issues of social security, healthcare, education funding, immigration, the environment, social services.

And these are all important issues. I think we should be studied up on them, that we should have really good ideas.

We should be very informed, but to receive persecution, because this is kind of our hobby horse.

We are not going to be necessarily blessed the way that Jesus is talking about it here. Because the key is for righteousness sake, on Jesus's account, pursuing after a life to be conformed to look more like Christ.

But it's funny because we're told not to talk about two things, politics and religion. And we have to talk about the

God that saved us by his grace, so I'm choosing that one. But there will be times where our view of politics will intersect with our convictions about God's truth.

And perhaps, well we will definitely receive persecution from that and we will receive the blessing that Christ is talking about there.

And so perhaps one of the best, clearest examples that I could think of is the case about when it comes to laws on abortion.

We ought to, what ought to influence our thinking about being pro -choice or pro -life does not have to do with our life experiences, not what is convenient or inconvenient, or not even what our preferences may look like.

The objective standard is what God has said and what he has revealed to us in his word.

So you can see as we approach God's word, we are informed about what truth is. And that will necessarily reflect our political views.

Scripture declares time and time over that fetuses are infants in the womb. They are persons.

They are image bearers of God. And it almost goes without saying that murder is categorically wrong and sinful.

It is wrong to kill another person because of your own preference. Scripture actually gives us insight to how

God views an individual in the womb. The Lord said to the prophet Jeremiah, before I formed you in the womb,

I knew you. God knew Jeremiah personally. That word know is more than just knowledge, but it's an intimate knowing.

It's an intimate relationship. King David understood this in Psalm 139.

He said, Oh Lord, you have searched me and known me for you have formed my inward parts to have knitted me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works. My soul knows it very well.

King David understood that life began at conception and he put it in the negative sense in Psalm chapter 51.

He says, in sin, did my mother conceive me? David did not mean that he was an illegitimate child, but that from conception he was a sinner and only a person can be a sinner.

My last point on this, I wanted to show you that the scripture speaks so much about who people are and where life begins.

In fact, case law in Exodus 21 says that if a person harms a pregnant woman and she loses the baby, then the punishment is life for life.

Point I'm getting at also is that no baby is a mistake. No baby is a sexual accident or a biological accident.

No baby is a pile of tissue and no baby is a part of the mother's body.

They are created by God. Now they are in the mother's body in the safest place possible, but they are a person created by God Almighty.

And we're talking a little bit about politics and friend. I hope that you are pro -life, but not because you are just a voice that wants to be heard.

Not because you are a male or female like that matters in this conversation and not because of any tradition, but I pray that you are pro -life because you stand firm on the word of God that informs us.

Every life is created by God and in his image to bear his image.

And so when we stand up on God's truth and we do vote in a particular way or we do have political views, let it be on the account of Jesus for his truth.

He is God. We do not get to determine these things. Sorry about that. So moving on, look back with me at verse 10 and we're going to zone in on the first part where we see the first half of this be added to blessed are the persecuted for righteousness sake.

We have been talking about certain principles already here, but something I want you to notice is that all the seven previous be attitudes are describing the heart and the mind of Christians in about halfway.

We see the actions that are propelled in the Christian's life and here in this eighth be added to, we see something a lot different.

This shows us how the world will react to our different way of life.

Jesus tells us those who are persecuted for righteousness sake will experience verbal attacks and physical suffering.

So remember this is the first half of verse 10 and verse 11 gives us a further explanation.

So look with me at verse 11 where we look at verbal attacks. Blessed are you when others revile you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely

As we live our lives for Christ, others will revile. They will insult our character and our reputation.

That means that they are going to go to such extremes to slander who we are and what we stand for.

They are going to actually lie about these things. In the gospel of Luke, the parallel account to the be attitudes,

Luke says, blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil on the account of the son of man.

That breaks my heart because we love people. We want to share with them the gospel of grace and how are they going to naturally respond with hatred and they are actually going to slander our character.

We have to be ready for when that happens. We call people lovingly to repent of their sin, to turn to Christ in saving faith, but we will be slandered as evil, intolerant and unloving.

So that is the first part of persecution that Jesus is talking about for righteousness sake.

We will experience verbal attacks and then number two, we will undergo physical suffering.

So Jesus says, blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you. Now remember this is the word that is the primary thrust in all three of our verses.

The basic definition of persecution means chasing or driving away or pushing.

Now that kind of carries this idea that there is a physical component involved. Not just verbal insults which will happen, but there will be harassment, abuse and other unjust mistreatment.

And so I want to illustrate to you for a moment the physical component of persecution. So if you would turn with me in your

Bibles to Acts chapter 26 where we are going to look at a brief account of the

Apostle Paul's past life. And as many of you know, he was known as Saul of Tarsus.

He was a Pharisee of Pharisees. He was the star pupil of the famous Rabbi Gamaliel.

And so Paul's main focus in life back when he was Saul of Tarsus was to persecute the church of God violently and he tried to destroy it.

So look with me in Acts 26 starting in verse 9 where Paul is retelling of his conversion and his past history to King Agrippa.

Paul says, I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth and I did so in Jerusalem.

I not only locked up many of the saints in prison after receiving authority from the chief priest, but when they were put to death

I cast my vote against them. I punished them often in the synagogues and tried to make them blaspheme and in raging fury against them

I persecuted them even to foreign cities. So I wanted you to notice all of what

Saul of Tarsus was doing to Christians. He was persecuting them and all of what that looked like.

He tried to lock them up in prison. He would punish them and he would have raging fury against them and he would even assist in putting them to death.

And if he couldn't kill them he would at least try to force them to denounce their faith. Saul was not just content in doing this in Jerusalem, but he was even persecuting

Christians in foreign cities. This was his mission as an unbeliever, somebody who was hostile to the true

God. And so the persecution of Christians runs so much deeper than us receiving verbal assaults and physical persecution, but when

Christians are persecuted it touches the very heart of God. I want to show you that since we're in the book of Acts, you'll like how

I strategically plan this. Turn with me to Acts chapter 9 where we see a little bit more of Paul's testimony that he was sharing to King Agrippa.

It starts back in Acts chapter 9. This is Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus.

So look with me at the very first verse in Acts chapter 9. But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the

Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for the letters to the synagogues at Damascus, that if he found any belonging to the way, the way of Christians, Jesus says,

I am the way, men or women, he might would bring them bound to Jerusalem.

Now, as he went on his way, he approached Damascus and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him.

And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

And he said, who are you, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.

So one of the first times that I ever read this, I was confused a little bit because Jesus said, why are you persecuting me?

And I came to found out that Christ and his followers, they have an inseparable union with one another.

When Satan or someone like Saul of Tarsus attacks Christians, that is a direct attack against Christ himself.

Christ doesn't leave us or forsake us when we're going through really hard times, when the world is persecuting us or hurling slanderous attacks against us.

And that also reminds me that our church name is 12

Five Church. That comes from Romans 12 verse 5. So we, though many, are one body in Christ and individually members of one another.

We not only have this inseparable union with Christ, but we have this union with other believers.

And it doesn't matter what our background, what our race is, what our different walks of life look like.

We have this common unity as Christians. There should be no division in the body.

Its parts should have equal concern for one another, even in the midst of persecution.

When a brother or sister hurts or goes through a hard time, we hurt. When a brother or sister has joy, we rejoice with them.

And guess what? Christ is there with us as well. Have you in Acts chapter 9, look with me down at verse 10 where we read,

Now there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision,

Ananias. And he said, Here I am, Lord. And the Lord said to him, Rise and go to the street called

Straight. And at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul.

For behold, he is praying, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias. Come in and lay hands on him so that he might regain his sight.

But Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard from many about this man how much evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem.

And here he has the authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name. But the

Lord said to him, Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel.

Now I'll draw your attention to verse 16. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.

Now that sounds a lot like our beatitude this morning. Blessed are those who are persecuted.

If you are in Christ, you will receive persecution. But it must be for the sake of righteousness on the account of the

Son of Man. And one scripture tells us that this is a guarantee in 2 Timothy 3 .12.

Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

The world will persecute us. The world will hate us because they first hated our

Lord. The night before Jesus' crucifixion, he is talking with the disciples.

And he tells them, if the world hates you, it's because it first hated me.

Remember this one thing, a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.

Now this is one of those moments where I'm like, man, this is kind of paradoxical. How does this work? We are told that we will be persecuted, that we will be mistreated, and yet there's going to be blessing in them.

And it almost doesn't seem to make sense, but there will be everlasting joy.

So turn back with me to our beat attitude in Matthew 5, verse 10. I'm wanting you to hang on to this paradoxical principle of how can we be blessed when we are living in a dark, sinful world that will verbally attack us and physically mistreat us.

Matthew 5, verse 10 once again says, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Remember the structure of our beatitude? We're looking at the second half of verse 10, so Jesus explains this more in depth in verse 12.

He says, rejoice and be glad, for great is your reward in heaven.

We who suffer persecution for Christ are promised everlasting life. We deliberately choose to suffer with Christ rather to enjoy the pleasures of sin that only last for a season.

I'm reminded the book of James says to count it as joy when we go through all these trials. Why? Because God is working in us.

He is strengthening and molding our faith, making it complete and perfect.

And so we should rejoice that one day we will be in glory, but we can count it as joy now because God is molding our faith.

He is sanctifying us to be more and more like Christ. And so back in verse 12 again,

Jesus says, rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Something else that we can rejoice in is that we are not alone in this journey.

Satan and the unbelieving world have been persecuting the saints ever since the beginning of time.

All the way back in Genesis, we read how Abel was persecuted by his brother

Cain. We read about Moses received grievous persecution. I even think about the way that David was persecuted by King Saul and Daniel.

What a remarkable figure of faith that we read about how he pursued after righteousness.

These people were not overly zealous for a cause, but they stood on righteousness.

They were committed to God's truth. And so that theme of persecution that started in the

Old Testament even bleeds over and comes into the New Testament. I love reading about this more in the book of Acts.

Peter, the apostle Peter and the rest of the apostles were thrown into a public prison because they were told to stop preaching the gospel.

You know what their response was? We obey God rather than men. And so they were thrown into prison.

And they didn't stay in prison long. God had plans for their life, and I love how they departed.

Listen to this. And when they had called the apostles to them, they beat them and charged them not to speak the name of Jesus and let them go.

Then they left the presence of the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.

I love that. There was so much intense persecution, right? But they were able to count it as joy because they were promised to receive persecution.

They knew it was specifically for Jesus Christ, not being overly zealous for a cause, but standing on truth.

Remember how earlier we read that Jesus said, Paul must learn to suffer for my name.

Well, later in Acts 16, you had Paul and Silas together. They were beaten and thrown into prison for preaching the gospel.

And in chapter 16, it begins by saying, it was about midnight, and Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.

Man, how were they having joy like that? How were they able to sing hymns in prison?

It's because they had the joy of the Lord. And so I'm reminded of the prophets of old and the apostles in the

New Testament. We see this persecution, but even us as believers today will be persecuted, and we must stand in unity with one another.

You may say, Jeremiah, I love the Lord so much, but how can I have that kind of joy that the apostles had to even sing in the midst of intense persecution?

Well, I think it all kind of boils down to three things, three principles that you will hear me talk about a lot, a lot.

And that is consuming your life and studying the word of God, being in constant prayer and fellowshipping with the saints.

A lot of times I'm talking with people or even reflecting in my own life, usually if there's a lack of joy in your life, there's a deficiency in one or more of those areas.

And I'm not talking about these things legalistically, you got to check off your list and that'll produce joy.

No, I'm talking about a heart that loves Jesus. You're living your life pursuing after him. Those are the things that are going to keep you tethered with him in relationship and also in that unity with the saints.

But Jeremiah, I would love to spend more time in the word, but I just don't really like to read.

I just have too much schoolwork. I just have too much going right now at my job.

You just don't understand. And trust me, I would love to spend more time with the saints, but my kids are on the traveling team and in the middle of the week,

I'm just so tired. I just don't seem like I can make it. I understand all of those things that oftentimes are legitimate.

I'm just talking about why there's not joy in your life. And if I can step on my own toes for a second,

I noticed I have so many responsibilities in my life, but I don't go to the Lord in prayer.

I don't give it over to him and trust in him and ask for him to give me strength. I try to pull myself up by my bootstraps from time to time, and I don't go to the

Lord in prayer. This is the key to having joy, even in the midst of intense persecution.

I pray that the Lord would teach us how to pray from the heart.

Lord, help my unbelief. Lord, give me faith. Increase my faith.

So just a few more closing thoughts. What are we to take away from all of what we've been talking about,

Christian persecution? Well, for one thing, we know that as Christians, we will suffer persecution for the sake of righteousness.

Philippians 129 tells us very clearly, for it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ, you should not only believe in him, but also suffer for his sake.

Now, this verse, I love for so many reasons, because if you're reading it like I am, the reason that we believe is a result of God granting it to us.

Remember last week, we talked about that whole regeneration precedes faith thing?

I see that directly in this beatitude, in this verse, and it excites my heart to know that God in his mercy would have mercy on a rebel sinner like me.

But I also notice that not only are we granted faith, belief here, but we are granted to suffer for the sake of Christ.

It makes sense. Christ received persecution and suffered and died on our behalf.

And so we are granted to suffer with him, to partake in with him.

And last time, I know I talked a lot about the apostle Peter. I just see this figure as being sanctified over and over and over again.

We see the good work that God began in Peter's life, and we see that he is bringing it to completion. And so this is one of the last passages of scripture

I want us to really try to focus in on, on 1 Peter chapter 4. I love this because it's as though he was there or could remember everything that Jesus preached on in the

Sermon on the Mount and these beatitudes. 1 Peter 4 .12 says, Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you, but rejoice in so far as you share in Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.

If you are insulted for the name of Christ, don't miss this, you are blessed because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.

I don't know about you, but I could almost preach a whole nother sermon on that alone because that really gets me fired up.

Okay, I'm going to receive persecution. Let's receive that with joy. When we see another brother or sister hurting because of persecution, let's lock arms with them and remind them of God's truth.

Persecution is proof of our salvation. And so when we are receiving persecution, we need to rejoice.

I can remember back to a time where I really felt persecution and I didn't know how to,

I didn't know how to think about it at first, but I'd spent many months talking with a friend who was

Jewish and I was very glad that all he was really interested in was what kind of person

I was, talking about the scripture, talking about the scripture. So I'd pray for him, pray that God would bless our conversation, and we'd spend a lot of time in the

Old Testament. I thought, this is good, I need to be equipped in this way. Eight months went by and I remember it like it was yesterday, out of nowhere, we're having a great conversation.

He yelled at me. He says, all you're interested in is talking about knowledge and truth, and he had some other choice words and he hung up the phone on me.

And I was praying, God, I've been trying to love on him from the very start to articulate the gospel.

But that is persecution. When somebody knows you are standing firm on the words of Jesus, that's going to happen.

But we count it as joy and we remind ourselves that that is our proof for our salvation.

So I want to challenge you with the question, I want you to ask yourself this, are you suffering persecution?

If not, then at least one of two things is going on. Number one, that may mean you are simply lost because our beatitude tells us that true citizens of the kingdom of heaven will be persecuted.

We just looked at the apostle Paul, true citizens of the kingdom of heaven, it has been granted to you not only to believe, but also to suffer.

So I want to challenge you to examine your heart in that way. Maybe you are saved. Maybe you are saved, but you see zero persecution in your life.

That is because the way that you live your life is indistinguishable for how the rest of the world lives.

Yeah, you won't receive any of the world's persecution. If you're not praying to God to give you opportunities to share the gospel of peace, right?

If you're just kind of coasting by in life, you won't receive any pushback in life. I don't know about you, but I want my life to matter.

I want it to count for Jesus Christ. The only thing that truly matters is your standing with Him because that has eternal value.

I want to live my life in such a way to glorify God. Kind of persecute God as His child.

Scripture teaches us that the children of God are without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation among whom you shine as lights in the world holding fast to the word of life.

May we live for righteousness' sake and that we would be salt and light in this world.