Matthew 5:9-10 | The Results of Godly Character

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Good morning again, and welcome to our worship services.

We're throwing you a bit of a curveball this morning.

I'm preaching earlier in the service.

So if you're a little confused as to what's going on, it's because I'm preaching earlier.

But not shorter?

What?

What are you saying about me, Webb?

We've just sung that we belong to Jesus, which is a great place to begin our study of God's word together this morning in Matthew chapter 5.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

If you're visiting with us, again, welcome.

We're glad that you're here to worship the King together with us.

We've been studying together the Beatitudes the last several weeks, and the Beatitudes describe those who belong to the King.

It's a great introduction to opening up God's word together this morning.

So as you're turning to Matthew chapter 5, which I encourage you to do, you can use a Bible in the seat back in front of you if you would like.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

Next Sunday, I'm going to interrupt Matthew chapter 5, and we're going to consider some lessons from independence.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

And not from our country's independence, but from the book of Judges.

So come next week and we'll look at the book of Judges together a little bit.

But for this morning, we want to focus for a few moments on Matthew chapter 5.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

We have been working our way through this.

This morning we're on verse 9 and verse 10, but to refresh our memories again, I will read from verse 2 to get it all in context for us.

The scriptures say, And Jesus opened his mouth and taught them, taught the disciples and the crowds surrounding him, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Let's pray together.

Our Lord Jesus, you you speak here and you spoke to those disciples so long ago about what it means to belong to you.

To be a citizen of your kingdom, to be one of your own, one of your called-out ones.

And I ask that this morning you would make this real to us in a new and exciting way, perhaps even in a convicting way, so that we might be made more like you.

Amen.

So as we've worked through this passage together, each of these items, each of these beatitudes, these blessings we've seen again and again are tied together.

They're linked.

We really can't separate one from another.

They identify the reality that exists in those who belong to Christ, who are a part of his kingdom.

And as we'll see this morning in verses 9 and 10, those who belong to Jesus will automatically be given to working toward peace.

But then there's a little bit of confusion.

Because while they are working towards peace, at the same time they will be prone to be recipients of persecution.

How do those two go together?

How do peace and persecution exist together?

In fact, Jesus says that that is a blessing.

Did you catch that?

We can understand, at least from our own personal perspective, that being in a place of peace or even working towards peace, we understand how that is a blessing.

But blessed are the persecuted is a little bit different, isn't it?

There's a unique, identifiable place of blessing, even for those who are persecuted.

Now this seems to be anything but normal in the average human life.

Every Christian in whom the Spirit of God dwells is going to work for peace.

But every Christian in whom the Spirit of God dwells will receive pain.

We are not naturally given to working towards peace, nor are we contented recipients when we're persecuted.

So as with every single one of these beatitudes, this requires a change of heart.

It requires first having come to Jesus as poor beggars in need of his righteousness because of our sin.

And it's through that confession and that faith in Christ that He gives us new life.

He gives us a new heart so that we can be called the pure in heart in verse 8.

The pure in heart then begin to exist in a different kind of category, existing like their father, living like their father.

Because they've had a change of heart.

Perhaps you've read of some of Pastor Max Lakato's books.

I appreciate his way of writing.

He's a great storyteller.

There's one story that really jumped out to me from one of his books that I can identify with because I can see this happening to me.

He'd been on vacation for a couple of weeks.

He came home, and as he was sleeping that night, of course, he went to bed thinking about everything that he needed to accomplish in the office the next day.

So in the middle of the night, at least that's what his wife thought, he woke up and was ready and raring to go.

So he mumbled something to his wife about getting ready to go into the office and get started on catching up.

And his wife mumbled something about it being the middle of the night and it was still dark out, and what if there were burglars out and that sort of thing?

But his energy level was high, and so he decided, I'm gonna get going.

He noticed on his drive to church that it did look a little ominous outside.

A little dark and the streets looked a little scary, and he was a little uneasy as he unlocked the door to the empty building.

And if you've never unlocked the door to a large empty church at night, you don't know what that's like.

But if you have, you know what it's like.

Because he remembered that there had been an attempted break-in earlier, a few weeks before that.

So once inside, he he locked the door.

This is what my wife would tell me to do.

He locked the door and he reset the burglar alarm to the church building.

Made his way down the hallway to his office.

And he was feeling pretty satisfied and pretty secure in that.

And he sat down at his desk and then the siren went off.

And he immediately thought that someone was trying to break into the church building.

So he ran down the hall, turned off the alarm, and called 911.

Then it occurred to him that, you know what, if the alarm goes off, maybe the thieves are going to try to break in again.

So he reset the alarm until the police got there and went, made his way back down the hall to his office.

And just as he turned to go back to his office, the alarm went off again.

So he turned around and reset it, imagining the worst in his mind in the darkness, and he walked over to a window in the hallway to watch for the police to arrive.

And the alarm went off again.

Hoping the police would arrive soon, he reset the alarm yet again, took a few steps toward his office when it went off again.

That's when he realized there must be something wrong.

So he decided to call the alarm company to report the problem.

And when he got them on the phone, he explained the situation to the technician that answered the phone in a really frightened and frustrated and way, excited way.

He said, We've either got some determined burglars or the system is malfunctioning.

The technician said, Well, there could be one other option.

What's that?

Max said.

He said, Did you realize that your mo your building has a motion detector?

It knows when you move.

About that time, he said that he saw the lights of the police car pulling into the parking lot.

So he went out and told the officer, sorry, sir, the problem is on the inside.

Not on the outside.

Max wrote in his book, I learned a lesson.

You can't fix an inside problem by going outside.

I spent an hour hiding from thieves who weren't there, faulting a system that hadn't failed and calling for help I didn't need.

I thought the problem was out there.

All along it was in here.

Jesus went to people who thought that the problem was out there.

And he sat down on a hillside one day and sought to tell them, no, you don't understand.

The problem is on the inside.

Fix the inside.

They fully expected Jesus, a new teacher, a new rabbi, to come along and to affirm what they were doing, to affirm that their religious system, their system of do's and don'ts, would fix the problems that God said existed.

And Jesus said, No, you don't understand.

You need to have a new heart.

You need to have a change of heart.

Not simply an outward demonstration of being religious.

And that heart change comes through faith in God's promised King, the Lord Jesus Christ.

That's why he says, Blessed are the pure in heart.

They've had a heart change.

And now those who have a heart change begin to live and act and think and feel differently, so much so that Jesus says they are going to be peacemakers.

They're going to mirror the heart of God.

And notice that Jesus didn't say they're going to be peacekeepers, they will be peacemakers.

The blessing comes to those who don't work to keep a peace that already exists, but to take a situation where peace does not exist and bring peace into it.

They work to end hostilities between parties so that they might be reconciled.

But we have to ask, between whom are we making peace?

Does Jesus intend for all of us to work for the United Nations in order to bring about peace between nations?

Will we be called sons and daughters of the living God if we are able to broker international peace agreements?

Is that what he's talking about?

Or is Jesus talking about peace between one another?

You know, we all get on one another's nerves every once in a while, right?

Is Jesus telling us that there's a special blessing on those who fix that?

Who restore those relationships?

Is he proclaiming a blessing on people who restore relationships between individuals or groups?

I don't think that kind of peacemaking is what Jesus is talking about.

Now, don't get me wrong, those aren't bad endeavors.

In fact, I would say that they are extensions of what Jesus is actually trying to communicate.

So, what is this about?

What is going on here?

Well, let's remember back in verse 3 that this is a spiritual matter.

This is not a physical matter.

It's not a physical reality, it is a spiritual matter.

And it's a matter that has something to do in verse 4 with mourning over sin.

It has something to do with the reality that sin exists in us and sin exists between us and somebody else.

It's part of craving for God's righteousness in verse 6.

It's tied in with receiving God's mercy for our sin in verse 7.

It's the result of a purity of heart that comes in salvation from verse 8.

And so it's a peace that comes from God.

It's a peace that, when it's achieved, results in persecution.

That's a strange kind of peace, isn't it?

A peace that results in persecution.

Now put together, this peacemaking is not horizontal.

It's not person-to-person peace.

It's not the restoration of human relationships.

The primary message here is one that the Apostle Paul describes in Colossians chapter 1, verses 19 and 20.

Colossians 1:19

There he says, For in him that is in Christ, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.

And through him to reconcile, to bring together all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

A peace that comes through shed blood on a cross.

Apostle Paul said something similar to the church at Ephesus in Ephesians chapter 2.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

Again, speaking of Jesus, he said to that church, He Himself, that is Christ Himself, is our peace.

It's emphatic.

He himself, Christ Himself is our peace.

He has made us both one and broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances.

Or maybe we should consider Romans chapter 5.

Romans 5 · chapter mention

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

The ultimate peace needed by every single human being is not peace with one another, but peace with God.

You do not want to have arrived at the end of your time, whenever that might be, to not be at peace with the living God.

We are born into this world with God as our enemy because of sin.

But Jesus, who is our peace, is the means by which we can be at peace with God.

And the reward for peacemaking is being called a son or a daughter of God.

In other words, when we work to establish peace between a person and God, we're acting like our Father.

It is evident that we are children of God when we act like Him, when we live like Him.

We are blessed in that way.

Sons and daughters of God bring others to Jesus so that they might be made to be at peace with God.

They facilitate reconciliation between human beings and the living God through Jesus.

That is peacemaking.

But let's not, well, let's be careful to not erect a false barrier.

Peace with God is what Jesus blesses here in the Sermon on the Mount.

But peacemaking does not end there.

Because God's children are active in reconciling people to God, they will also desire to work towards peace between people as an extension of that.

The scriptures are quite clear of that.

Consider what the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, where there was a lot of not peace, hostility, arguing, fighting.

He said to them in his second letter, aim for restoration.

Comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace.

And the God of peace will be with you.

So he says, listen, come together, work together, work things out.

If there is someone in your church that is not at peace, work towards bringing them together, reconciling them, because that's what God does, that's what God wants, that's what God's children are to do.

Or Romans 14, let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.

So again, it's talking about our human relationships there.

The peace that we have with God then begins to extend towards one another.

Perhaps one of the most frightening statements about peace is Hebrews chapter 12.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

Strive for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

Interesting connection there between peace and holiness.

If we are holy as God is holy, that's what we're called to be, right?

We will be working towards peace.

A son or daughter of God will do what God does.

They will seek peace.

First and foremost with God Himself, after which peace with one another is possible.

Now, how many of us, how many of us get irritated with one another?

You know, maybe it's at a church function.

You know, maybe you had someone over to your home and and they they did something that offended you, they said something that offended you, and so you're just irritated with them.

That's our first reaction, isn't it?

Get irritated.

And then we hold on to that, don't we?

But what are we supposed to do?

We're supposed to work towards peace.

No, it's a given that we're going to get irritated with one another.

You sit this close to one another, and you're gonna get irritated with somebody eventually.

It's gonna happen.

We're sinful people, right?

So we sin, we confess that sin, and then what do we do?

We work towards peace.

Why?

Because we have been brought to peace with God.

We will be known then as children of God.

But while we actively seek to establish peace, we may be in that process, we may be wanting to work towards peace, but at the same time, we may not experience the fullness of peace in this world.

Blessed are the persecuted for righteousness' sake.

For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

I think we should set out here first what Jesus does not mean.

Because we in the in the Western world, in the United States especially, we can make lots of excuses and we can we can make lots of things into persecution that really aren't.

I really appreciate what James Boyce said.

He was a prominent pastor in the mid to late 1900s.

And he wrote very clearly and succinctly.

He said, the persecution Jesus is talking about, and for which believers are to rejoice and be glad, is not the hostility that will come to them from the world because they've made themselves a nuisance.

If you irritate somebody else, you're not being persecuted if they react in kind.

That's not persecution.

It's not because you have insulted people that you're trying to influence.

Persecution is not what comes to you when you've been rude, crude, or fanatical.

It's because you have become like Christ in his righteousness and are therefore being hated for righteousness' sake, as Jesus was.

See, too many Christians, myself included, from time to time, we display the opposite of the fruit of the Spirit, don't we?

We may desire the fruit of the Spirit to be evident in us, but we're doing the exact opposite.

The fruit of the Spirit is gentleness.

How many of us were not gentle this morning?

We display the opposite of that, don't we?

We do that.

We display the opposite of the fruit of the Spirit.

And then when something happens to us as a result of that, we get all up in arms and all irritated saying, hey, we're being persecuted here.

When that may not be true, because that's not how the Bible talks about persecution.

If we are being treated in kind because of our sinful actions or our sinful attitudes, that's getting what we deserve, not being persecuted.

See, the persecution that Jesus speaks of is all tied to Jesus.

It's speaking of being related to Jesus, of belonging to Jesus, and living like Jesus and then being treated poorly because of that.

Consider, for example, in the Gospel of John, this idea of belonging to Jesus and being treated poorly.

He says in John chapter 15, if the world hates you, know, know this, that it hated me first before it hated you.

John 15 · chapter mention

You don't belong to the world.

If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own.

But because you are not of the world, but instead, I chose you out of the world, you belong to me, therefore the world hates you.

Oh, by the way, don't forget that I said to you, a servant is not greater than his master.

So if they persecuted me, they're going to persecute you.

So this is a persecution that comes from belonging to Jesus, but there's a persecution that comes also from living like Jesus.

Consider here 2 Timothy 3, verse 12, where we are told, indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

2 Timothy 3:12

So we are persecuted for belonging, we are persecuted for living like Jesus.

Persecution is not mistreatment that results from our sin or from our unrighteous actions or attitudes.

If people hate being around you because you're simply unkind and rude, that's not persecution.

Persecution is mistreatment that comes because you identify with Jesus and you live like Jesus.

And when you do that, the unbelieving world will despise you and despise how you live.

Now it takes all kinds of forms.

There is what we might call soft persecution.

An old writer from another time wrote, There is a native dislike of falsehood to truth, of worldliness to godliness, of evil to good that still dwells in the heart.

I love this description.

He says, that hatred, that dislike, oozes out from the world in bitter though quiet drops.

It leaps forth sometimes in words, which, though smoother than oil, are very swords.

Persecution can come in looks, in words, even in feelings that are directed towards you.

Of course, there's harsh persecution as well.

And that kind of persecution is more real than you or I would care to admit.

A few years ago, the British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs commissioned a study on the global persecution of Christians.

The initial draft of that study has recently been released, and it indicated that Christians make up the largest group of faith-based persecuted people in the world.

Now, granted, I don't know what kind of Christians are being included in that.

Pretty broad term, but nevertheless it applies.

This study quotes journalist John Allen writing in The Spectator, quote, the global war on Christians remains the greatest story never told of the 21st century.

Additionally, the report indicated that, quote, evidence shows not only the geographic spread of anti-Christian persecution, but also its increasing severity.

In some regions, the level and nature of persecution is arguably coming close to meeting the international definition of genocide.

You want to belong to Jesus?

Good.

Yes.

The report noted that the organization Open Doors revealed in its 2019 World Watch List report on anti-Christian oppression that approximately 245 million, two, four, five million Christians living in the top 50 countries suffer high levels of persecution or worse.

If you haven't experienced it yet, it's coming.

I recommend to you two books if you want to read more.

The first is an old one, but a popular standard, detailing the lives of Christians from a bygone time, Fox's Book of Martyrs.

If you've never read that, I encourage you to read that.

The second is a new book by the founder of Frontline Missions, Tim Cassie, entitled A Company of Heroes.

In fact, I have six copies of this book to give away today.

If you want a copy and you commit to read it, you can go to the welcome desk out front here and request a copy after the service.

Tim Cassie has traveled around the world and he knows today's heroes.

He tells a story in this book of two of our Central Asia brothers in Christ.

Timor was a Muslim who came to faith in Christ.

He invited another believing brother, Ivan, to visit an underground Christian camp in Uzbekistan.

There were about 30 believers present studying the Word of God, mostly from Muslim backgrounds.

On the third night of the camp, Timur was preaching from 1 Timothy, holding his infant daughter in one hand and his Bible in the other.

Don't you love that image?

Suddenly, they were raided by heavily armed police.

All of the men were taken, and they spent that night in interrogations and beatings.

Timur and Ivan shared a jail cell handcuffed together for a week.

Like Paul and Silas from so long ago, they sang hymns in their jail cell.

Tim Cassie writes, and I quote here, the other Christians also stood firm through these hard days and nights in the face of torture.

Their assailants used police gas masks to suffocate them while beating them with rubber sticks and putting their feet in acid.

Timur said of several new Christians among them who had recently turned from Islam, they went through the fire and they came out on fire for the Lord.

Continuing to quote, another brother, Hamid, had only recently come to faith out of Islam.

Because of where he was from, the police beat him mercilessly and drove needles under his fingernails in an effort to get him to reject Christ.

But he would not.

Through tears of pain, he said, I will not deny Christ.

I've seen his power in my life.

I cannot deny Christ.

Watching all of this unfold, Ivan said seeing Hamid's courage gave him courage that night.

This is our time, folks.

This is our time.

Now, if you're not a Christian, you might be thinking, yeah, not sure that I want to sign up for that.

Come on in, the water's warm.

If that's you, if that's you, I want to encourage you in this.

Don't look at the persecution.

Look at Jesus.

Look at Jesus.

The promise here is for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

I want you to understand something.

The coming joy and reward far surpasses anything we might endure for Jesus now.

What is ahead of us far surpasses anything that we might endure now?

That might seem hard to believe, might be hard to see and understand.

But it's true.

Additionally, ask yourself: why have millions of people in the last 2,000 years been willing to subject themselves to persecution for the sake of Jesus?

There must be something to Jesus.

There must be something to faith in him, to who he is and what he's able to do in your life, the power that you can experience in your life through Jesus that makes it worth it.

Come to Jesus and let him carry you through whatever comes.

And there's a lot of us that'll be right beside you.

You know, if you are a Christian, I want you to remember that we've been given some promises to encourage us.

Jesus said in John chapter 17 that we don't belong here.

John 17 · chapter mention

He prayed for us before the Father, and he continues to pray for you this very moment.

He intercedes before the Father on your behalf, and he keeps reminding the Father, Father, they don't belong there.

They're not citizens of that world, they belong to me.

So remember, if anything bad happens, you're just going home.

We don't belong here.

Our time here is temporary, and while we're here, we are ambassadors for the king.

And we're reminded in Romans chapter 8, verse 18, that the rejection and the pain that we might face in this world is nothing compared to the glory of eternity.

Romans 8:18

Of course, you probably remember if you're a believer in Christ, Romans chapter 8, verses 31 and through 39.

Romans 8:31

Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

What does nothing mean?

Nothing.

Nothing.

And that's in the context of terrible things that might happen to us in this world.

Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And James reminds us that there is a reward for remaining steadfast in our love for God during trials.

The crown, he says, which is life.

Which is life.

Jesus is describing here the blessing that belongs to those who come to faith in him.

He's not saying that you need to endure persecution to make it to heaven.

He's saying that those who already have their heavenly passport stamped and ready look like this.

This is what they look like.

We don't go looking for persecution, but we endure it when it comes because God enables us to do so.

And in the meantime, we keep working towards peace.

Bringing people to peace with God and then working to bring peace between one another.

You might say, I you know, I don't know, I don't I don't think I could handle severe persecution.

I hear those stories that you talk about in that book, and I'm just not sure that I could take that.

You're right.

Of course you can't.

I can't either.

No one can.

It's the Spirit of God that empowers you in the moment that takes you through whatever comes.

You haven't been given the grace for tomorrow yet.

If you are not experiencing persecution today and you think I can't handle that, you haven't been given the grace for it yet.

Trust that Jesus will carry you through it when the moment comes.

Because he's not going to leave you alone.

Trust that he will carry you through so that you will be able to rejoice and be glad even in the pain of faith.

My brothers and sisters, keep your eye on the prize.

The prize is the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

We need men and women, boys and girls, children, teens and adults who follow in the steps of Timur, Ivan, and Hamid, wherever we might be, people who will speak of Jesus, who will live for Jesus and endure for Jesus, looking forward to the blessing of eternity with Jesus.

Let's pray together.

Lord Jesus, we would come before you this morning recognizing that we need you.

Lord, I can't imagine facing the reality of pain and persecution without your strength.

Grant us faith today.

May everyone who is in this room hearing this trust in you with all of their heart because of your death on the cross for them.

Bring peace today in this very room between you and us.

Enable us to be at peace with one another.

And then Lord Jesus, carry us.

We can't imagine standing firm for you in the face of harsh persecution.

So we ask you now, hold us fast.

Hold us in your hands so that nothing can snatch us out, so that we might remain firm for you, declaring your praise and your glory and your grace and your mercy and your peace to all who will hear.

Amen.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.

You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.