Living In The Kingdom Part 4 Series

Living In The Kingdom Part 4

Scripture: Matthew 5:10-12; Second Timothy 3:10-14

This morning we are going to be looking at what Jesus said about those who are persecuted and what our response should be when that happens. In Matthew 5:10-12 Jesus says, “Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11Blessed are you, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for My sake. 12Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets who were before you.” Have you ever been persecuted? Have you ever been persecuted for righteousness? The term “righteousness” means “the revealed will of God and man’s willingness to obey it.” When we are persecuted for righteousness (trying to obey and activate the will of God in our lives), we have been promised the kingdom of heaven (here on earth and ultimately when we depart this life for the next one.) Jesus follows this by saying that we will be blessed when people revile (insult and/or berate us) falsely for His name’s sake. In each of the statement the focus of the blessing is our standing firm in our belief in Jesus and what He said when people demean and talk about us for doing so. It is important to remember why we are being blessed.

We all know that not every persecution we experience is because of our being righteous. No, a lot of our persecutions are because of something we have done that was not righteous at all. I want us to understand the difference. Persecution is persecution, but the reason for the persecution is the issue. To persecute someone means to torment, wrong, afflict, annoy, physically hurt, them. There are many additional words/actions that can describe our persecuting someone which would include how we tease someone (innocently) which might get on their nerves and cause an offense. In its truest definition, persecution is not something that is done for fun or in love. Persecution is done, on purpose, with the intention of causing harm to the person who is subjected to it. If we are being persecuted for something that we started or for something we did wrong, that is one thing. But when we stand up for righteousness – when we stand up for Jesus – and we suffer persecution that is what these verses are talking about.

Our being willing to be persecuted for righteousness conflicts with the world because, by its standard, we only have to be committed until the going gets tough. There is a saying that really applies to most Christians and it goes like this: “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Depending on how you read this statement, it could mean that the tough person flees when the going gets tough or you could read it as the tough person starts taking action when the going gets tough. Based on your personal reaction, you can read this any way you choose, but if you land on the view that you are the one who flees when times get rough, then you will land on the world’s view. In our world today, you do not get much credit for staying in the fight. When you look around, you will find that when things get tough in a relationship, people leave. When things get tough on the job, people leave. When things get tough in the Church, people leave. When things get tough at any point in time and it looks like the ship is sinking, we will jump ship. After all, we are not the captain who is supposed to go down with the ship. This is what the world teaches us. I used to say all the time: “Life’s too short to have to put up with some things” and I truly meant it. There were some things that I believed I did not have to put up with because life was too short. When I look back on it, those things were generally things I did not want to deal with anyway – so I had an excuse to just walk away. How many of you know that we cannot walk away from being righteousness and defending it if we want to be blessed? In this life there are some things that we will experience that we will need to deal with, especially when it comes to being persecuted for righteousness’ sake. Those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake will inherit the kingdom of heaven. Although this may sound crazy, it is expected that we will suffer sometimes for standing for righteousness. Listen to what Paul told Timothy in Second Timothy the third chapter. Let’s start at verse twelve.