Persecuted? Rejoice and Be Glad!
Please stand with me as we go over our current memory Scripture:
Matthew 5:6-8
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
And our memory Scripture “refresher” verse(s) is(are):
John 14:6-7
“Jesus said, ‘I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you know Me, you will also know My Father. From now on you do know Him and have seen Him.’”
Today we will be reading from Matthew 5:1-12
For the past month or so we have been taking a journey through the Beatitudes. We have been looking at it through the lens of someone coming to Christ and growing in Christian maturity.
As we went through the Beatitudes we noticed that each Beatitude starts with the word “blessed”.
And, we discovered the wonder of the word “blessed”. This word is sometimes translated as “happy” but “blessed” goes much further than happiness which is dependent on what is happening in your life at that moment.
To be truly blessed there must be a giver of the blessing and a recipient of the blessing. God is the Giver and the person on the journey to and through salvation is the recipient of the blessing.
Finally, as the recipient is blessed by the Giver of the blessing, the natural response is to give honor, glory and blessing back to God the Giver.
As the Scripture of the Beatitudes is read once again, let’s think about the wonderful generosity of God the Giver of blessedness.
With that in mind let’s go ahead and read Matthew 5:1-12
(Prayer for help)
Blessed are the poor in spirit - the poor in spirit are receiving the blessing of coming to the understanding that they are in a spiritual state of unrepentant sinfulness apart from God. The Lord blesses their awakening of their need for Him. At this point they may not be able to bless Him back or to glorify Him at all. This is a one-way blessing …
Blessed are those who mourn - those who understand that even though they are in a spiritual state of unrepentant sinfulness there is nothing they can do to remedy the situation; they can do nothing by their own efforts to find salvation. This is once again most likely a one-way blessing … Jesus is calling … that is a blessing …
Blessed are the meek - those who are meek have finally come to the realization that they must abandon their efforts to be saved and trust in Christ alone to deliver them from bondage to sin and to give them eternal life. This is the decision point. The repentant meek person will turn to Jesus for salvation and the blessedness of the relationship with Jesus will begin. Others who are meek may turn away from Jesus out of preference for the sinful things of this world and the blessedness will cease. However, the tragedy of living a sinful life may once again bring them to the realization that they are “poor in spirit” and that they need a Savior.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness - these are the meek ones who have surrendered themselves to Jesus for eternal life and are now desiring more and more of Him. Righteousness is right standing with God and they want more of Him!
Blessed are the pure in heart - those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will continually seek to have their heart purified by the Lord in order to please their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Blessed are the peacemakers - those who are peacemakers out of a pure heart will seek to bring about peace between those inside and outside of the church, the Body of Christ. But, beyond that, they will constantly be seeking to introduce the unsaved to the Prince of Peace. The blessedness that they have known since becoming a disciple of Jesus is something that they want everyone, everywhere to know.
So, are you a person who hungers and thirsts after righteousness? Do you desire to live a life of purity that blesses the Lord?
Is it your desire to bring others to the saving knowledge of a love relationship with Jesus so that they can know the blessedness of peace with God?
If you honestly answered “yes” to these questions, what can you expect? You can expect to be persecuted! What???
“Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness!”
After all of that we can expect to be persecuted?
Yes, that is what the Scriptures say …
Matthew 5:10-12 says,
“Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
Whoa! Do we see that in the Bible? Were the prophets persecuted? Were the apostles persecuted for the sake of the Lord?
The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah said, “I am ridiculed all day long, everyone mocks me.” He also had his prophecies burned in the fire by the king. (Jeremiah 20:7, 36:23)
King Amaziah of Judah told Amos the prophet to shut up and get out of here! (Amos 7:13)
Zedekiah was put into prison by King Ahab. (1 Kings 22:23-27)
King Jehoiakim sought to put the prophet Uriah to death. Finally Uriah was captured and “King Jehoiakim … had him struck down with a sword and his body thrown into the burial place of the common people.” (Jeremiah 26:20-23)
Jesus, Himself, recounted to the Jews that their forefathers had murdered “Zechariah son of Berekiah … between the temple and the altar.” (Matthew 23:35)
Some non-Biblical texts say that:
- Manasseh the son of Hezekiah had Isaiah put to death by having him sawn in two
- Micah was slain by Joram the son of King Ahab
- Habakkuk was stoned by the Jews in Jerusalem
The prophets were certainly persecuted, weren’t they?
What about the apostles?
Acts 5:40-43
“The High Priest and the council called ‘the apostles in, they flogged them (beat them with whips) and ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and then released them. So, (the apostles) went on their way from the presence of the Council, rejoicing (WHAT???) that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for His name. And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they kept right on teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ.”
They were persecuted because of righteousness, for proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus and salvation through Christ alone!
Acts 7:54-60
“When the members of the Sanhedrin heard (Stephen’s testimony), they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.’
“At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.
“While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ Then he fell on his knees and cried out, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’ When he had said this, he fell asleep.”
Persecuted because of righteousness …
How did the apostles and Luke die?
Only two of these deaths are recorded in the Holy Bible, the rest come to us through history and tradition …
- Matthew suffered martyrdom by being slain with a sword at a distant city of Ethiopia.
- Mark expired at Alexandria, after being cruelly dragged through the streets of that city.
- Luke was hanged upon an olive tree in the classic land of Greece.
- John was put in a cauldron of boiling oil, but escaped death in a miraculous manner, and was afterward banished to Patmos.
- Peter was crucified at Rome with his head downward.
- James, the son of Zebedee, was beheaded at Jerusalem.
- James, the son of Alphaeus, was thrown from a lofty pinnacle of the temple, and then beaten to death with a fuller’s club.
- Bartholomew was flayed alive.
- Andrew was bound to a cross from which he preached to his persecutors until he died.
- Thomas was run through the body with a lance at Coromandel in the East Indies.
- Jude was shot to death with arrows.
- Matthias was first stoned and then beheaded.
- Barnabas of the Gentiles was stoned to death at Salonika.
- Paul, after various tortures and persecutions, was beheaded at Rome by the Emperor Nero.
They were persecuted for righteousness and for the cause of Christ!
But, why should those who hunger and thirst for the righteousness found in Christ be persecuted?
Why should those who show the mercy of Jesus and who have pure hearts be persecuted?
Why should those who are peacemakers be persecuted?
After all we have the fruit of the Spirit right?
Galatians 5:22-23
“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”
What if we take the name of Jesus with us and we go out with a spirit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control?
Will we still be persecuted? Yes, from time to time we will.
We would fully expect to be persecuted if we went out to declare almost anything with a spirit of hate, misery, impatience, rudeness, vileness, disloyalty, meanness and no self-control, right?
So, if we do go out with a spirit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control why would we still be persecuted?
In answering this question I came across what seemed to be two contradictory Scriptures. What are they?
In John 7:7 Jesus says,
“The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify that its works are evil.”
And then in John 15:18 Jesus says,
“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated Me first.”
In one verse Jesus says, “the world cannot hate you” and in another it says, “if the world hates you”. How can it say “IF the world hates you” after it says “the world cannot hate you?”
It is because Jesus is speaking to two different groups at two different times!
In the first instance when Jesus says, “the world cannot hate you, He is speaking to His half brothers who never believed that He was actually the Messiah until after He was raised from the dead.
In John 7:2-7 we read,
“When the Jewish Festival of Tabernacles was near, Jesus’ brothers said to Him, ‘Leave Galilee and go to Judea, so that Your disciples there may see the works You do. No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since You are doing these things, show Yourself to the world.’ For even His own brothers did not believe in Him.
“Therefore Jesus told them, ‘My time is not yet here; for you any time will do. The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify that its works are evil.’”
Believe it or not, Jesus is being ridiculed and persecuted by His own half brothers!
In the second Scripture Jesus is speaking to His 12 disciples when He says in John 15:18-19,
“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated Me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.”
We can be filled with the fruit of the Spirit. We can be filled with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control and the world will still hate us because we belong to Jesus. Jesus said that people, “people (will) insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.”
We CAN be hungering and thirsting for righteousness; we CAN be merciful and pure in heart; we CAN be peacemakers and STILL be persecuted for the sake of Jesus Christ.
Why will we be persecuted?
Because the kingdom of this world and its ruler hate Jesus!!!
We will be persecuted because as peacemakers our greatest desire is to bring those who are lost to a saving knowledge of Jesus. When we do that, one of those who belong to the evil one will be transformed into a child of God and the devil hates that!
John 3:19-20 sums it up this way …
“This is the verdict: Light (Jesus) has come into the world, but men loved darkness rather than Light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the Light, and will not come into the Light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.”
If you are at truly born again people will, “insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of (Jesus).”
And in spite of all of this we will still have a blessed relationship with Jesus and great will be our reward in Heaven.
Not only will your life be filled with the blessedness of Jesus’ presence but you will be able to “rejoice and be glad” in spite of the persecution.
As a believer in Jesus who hungers and thirsts after righteousness you WILL be persecuted. Why should we be any different?
But don’t let that deter you from fervently following Christ, instead …
“In your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”
1 Peter 3:15
For great is your reward in Heaven!
Final thoughts and prayer
