Written in Red | Week 8 | Pastor Micah Sutton

Praise God.

So we are concluding our series called written and read the revolutionary ideas of Jesus.

And we've been talking about the sermon on the Mount and just, just the beginning of the sermon on the mountain.

The beginning of the sermon is called the, we call them the beatitudes and each one of them begins with the word

Blessed, blessed.

And this week I want to say thank you to everybody.

Who's been praying for me this week after LSU lost to Michigan on Monday, I've been blessed by a number of things, not the least of which is all the go blue paraphernalia that has been left around my

World.

But

This week, somebody also blessed me with this.

This was waiting for me on Tuesday.

When I came in, blessed are the Bayou Playmakers for, they shall enjoy a sweet 16 and then it has a little footnote marker next to it.

At the bottom of the page, it says this be attitude has recently been removed from most manuscripts.

That's pretty awesome.

I'm glad that they're clear that that's not actually still in the Bible.

It's also how we know definitively that God doesn't care about basketball.

Yeah,

Well that isn't one of the beatitudes, but Jesus is talking about the beatitudes, the youth giving, teaching the beatitudes.

And he, he is, his goal is very simple.

His goal is to change the world and that's an audacious goal, but it's not a complicated one.

It's he's going from loss to save from unrighteousness to righteousness.

And his goal is to change the world.

And his words are leading the way we've said throughout that words change worlds.

If you want to change the world that you live in, change the words that you use in your business and your family in your community, in your school, wherever it may be, change your words and you will change your world.

And Jesus is doing that.

He's speaking words of life into a dark world.

And, and his goal is to change the world forever.

We started in Matthew chapter number three, and I would encourage you to read with me aloud verses three through nine, as we go through all the, the beatitudes that we've already covered, and then we'll get into the new material for today.

But verse three reads and read with me, 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 shall be filled.

Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart for, they shall see God blessed are the peacemakers for, they shall be called sons of God.

And today we're going to talk about blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

There's is the kingdom of heaven.

We've been defining terms throughout, and, and we're going to define terms today and I would encourage you to take notes today.

The, the term blessed still means supremely blessed, happy, fortunate, well off.

I'm glad that the Lord wants to bless us, but then he says, blessed are the, those who are persecuted uses this word, persecuted and persecuted is a word that some of us feel at times, but none of us aspire to, I don't have never met anybody who says, you know what?

I just really hope that today I can just experience a little persecution.

That's really what I'm hoping for.

It's my dream.

Really.

Nobody has ever said that.

We might feel it at times based upon situations around us and what's going on and how people are addressing us.

But it's nothing that we're looking for.

But Jesus said that the blessed are those who are persecuted.

Persecuted means that someone is pursued.

They're prosecuted, they're persecuted there.

It literally means to press hard after or to vex.

This is not something that kind of happens by chance.

This is a very intentional thing.

You think about Paul, who is saved on the road to Damascus.

Paul is saved on the road to Damascus as he is going to from one place to another, in order to persecute the church, his whole job is to get there and to vex them.

I'm encouraging everyone to use to work the word vex into your sentences this week.

It's just a fun word to say, but it doesn't mean a great stuff.

Great stuff.

So use it, use it wisely, but he he's on his way to ask us to persecute the church, to, to hurt the church, to find people who are Christ followers and to, and to pull them away from their families, to pull them away from their homes to, to imprison them and to by force of will and force of circumstance, calls them to deny that Jesus is Lord and savior and return to the Judaism that he has passionate about.

It's an intensity of effort.

It's a diligent pursuit of someone to lay hold of them, to oppress them, to harass them intentionally.

And this is the one that Jesus is calling blessed.

The one that all of that is happening to he saying blessed.

And, and he says, but not just persecuted for any reason, persecuted for righteousness, snake sake.

Now we've already defined righteousness in a previous lesson, but it means to be just to be good.

But most importantly, it means to align with the standard that God sets.

So someone who is being persecuted, because they are aligned with the standard that God sets Jesus is calling blessed.

And what's the benefit here.

The benefit is there's is the kingdom of heaven.

Now we've defined that several times and it simply means they're they, they are in a place where God rules, where God is in control, where God has it together, if you will.

And that's on earth, that is in heaven.

It's the place where God rules.

Now, this is revolutionary.

It's revolutionary because whether they were a Jewish person listening, or a Gentile person listening, you have Jesus teaching that if you are persecuted because you're doing right, then you are blessed.

And everything that either demographic would have understood is that if you are being persecuted, it's probably because you were doing that.

Persecution was a punishment for wrongdoing, not something that indicated that you were doing right.

In fact, whether it be

And families or politics or religion, the Jewish people would S would teach and believe and understand, and had been taught that if you're doing right things, that it's going to be smooth sailing in those areas, because, because God would bless the right things you're doing.

And therefore you would not have any trouble

Now

Enrollment than the Roman world and the Gentile world you may have in history learned about what happened to people who didn't align with the political powers of the day.

It usually ended in death.

So if you were aligned with the political powers, then you got you, you became wealthier.

You became a powerful, a lot of good things happen, but if you were misaligned or unaligned with the political powers that he could end in your demise and the demise of your family and things could be taken from you.

And so what, what their understanding on both sides of this equation, they're understanding that if you are aligned with God, if you are aligned with whomever, God has raised up.

If you were aligned and everything's good, then it should all be positive in your life.

But if you're not aligned in persecution would come as a, as a way of aligning you with what God's wanting you to do, or in the Roman and pagan culture, the gods would want you to do goes a little further because Jesus is a Jew.

He is talking to primarily Jews and in the Roman world, the almost the worst thing that you could do is to say that the God of you worshiped was greater than the God that anyone else worshiped, because in a polytheistic context, what you would be saying is my God's greater than your God.

That's the equivalent of kids on a playground.

My dad's stronger than your dad.

And I'm putting you down by putting, by raising my God up.

And so even in a polytheistic world, that was a, that was a deal.

But, but Jesus is coming from a place.

That's not even saying that your God is greater.

My God is greater than your God.

He's.

He is coming from a place that says there is no God, except the one that I worship.

I mean, in fact that's why the Jewish people didn't get along well.

And didn't assimilate well into the, the Roman world at large, in the first place, because they were worshiping one God that they said was the one true God and no other gods existed.

And the Romans didn't appreciate that.

Very much.

Those who were worshiping other gods, didn't appreciate that very much.

And I can even say that today.

People don't appreciate that.

Very much.

The gods

Names are different, but make no mistake.

There are plenty of little G gods in this world and they're yet is, but one God, and he still, he still says him only shall we serve.

And Jesus is saying, you can be doing right things for right reasons and be persecuted.

Furthermore, he's saying you'll experience.

God's blessing if you do right things for right reasons and are persecuted.

And our big idea today is this

Right kind of life will produce the right kind of battle.

The right

Kind of life will produce the right kind of battle.

Cause it really doesn't matter.

W if you're fighting the battle and if you're winning the battle, if you're fighting the wrong battle, it's pointless.

It doesn't mean anything.

It's not progressing you towards a goal.

If you're fighting.

And even if you're winning, if it's the wrong battle to fight, it's doing you.

No good.

And Jesus is saying we're fighting a battle for righteousness sake,

Not fighting a battle for popularity sake.

That's a great battle that people fight today.

How do I get more popular?

How do I get more friends?

How do I get more likes?

How do I get more comments?

How do I get more?

How do I get?

It's a battle that I'm trying to fight.

How do I put myself out there more?

How do I just get known more?

It's not a battle for popularity sake.

It's not a battle for ease sake.

Oh, that's a great battle today.

How do I make sure I have the easiest life possible with not, not a lot of struggles?

And so I'm going to fight that battle.

How about the battle for acceptance?

I just want people to accept me and to like me and I just want, I just

Want Jesus

Isn't declaring any of those, the right battle.

He's saying the right battle is the battle for righteousness, for our alignment with God and the right kind of battle, a great kind of life.

Rather he say it will produce the right kind of battle.

All three thoughts for us today.

Thought number one is this persecution will

Come.

It will come now.

Aren't you delighted that you came to church today.

It will come

Intense effort at some point in your life.

And your walk with Christ and intense effort to oppress or to harass will come in your life.

And we work hard to work, to live peaceful lives.

We work hard to, to work, to live painless lives, but persecution will come.

In fact, Jesus said it this way in John chapter 16, he said in the world, you will have tribulation that word.

John 16 · chapter mention

Tribulation could also be translated persecution,

But take heart.

I've overcome the world.

So

The wheel, it's an unavoidable reality that persecution will come in your life if you are living for Christ, but it's not a hopeless situation.

It's actually a very hopeful situation because Jesus said, I've already overcome the world.

So because I've overcome the world, you also can overcome the world.

Now in our modern day, we, and in a modern day, Christianity, even we can confuse two things with each other.

We often say that we are being persecuted about something when we're actually experiencing the consequence of something and persecution and consequences are not the same thing.

Consequence,

Consequence of decisions made are often considered persecutions when they're not.

I've had people say I'm being persecuted right now, but I know Jesus is going to get me through.

And I say, man, what are you?

What's the persecution you're facing?

Well, those bill collectors just keep calling and calling and calling.

And, and I'm just being persecuted.

No, you owe them money.

You made choices in life.

You brought ups, you attain some debt in your life.

And so, and maybe it's for valid reasons and valid causes, but they're not persecuting.

You.

They're trying to collect a debt that you engaged.

I've had people say, well, I'm being persecuted because I can't get a job.

But then you find out that the reality is they're they're, you know, their qualifications are for this.

And they're trying to achieve that.

That's not persecute.

It's not persecution.

That has consequence.

Fusion is it's when you're attacked for who you are not because specifically what you've done, sometimes what you've done is the catalyst for, or what is used as an excuse for, but it's really about who you are.

For instance, Jesus never heard anybody.

Jesus never did anything wrong, but he was persecuted.

We can call crown of thorns whip to do shreds and hung on a cross.

We can classify that as being persecuted.

We can say that the disciples

We're persecuted, but

It wasn't because of what Jesus did.

It was because who he was.

And sometimes that, that persecution was direct.

Physical persecution.

Sometimes it's economic persecution that you can face.

Sometimes it is.

It is emotional threats that you can face because of who you are.

I know a situation, young lady comes to Christ.

She had been a prostitute and a drug addict.

She came to Christ.

God began to change her life.

She stopped being a prostitute.

She got off drugs.

She got a regular job.

The whole time she'd been a prostitute and on drugs, she had been welcomed in her family's home.

They had a room for her.

She could come home at any time.

We just love your baby.

We want you at home it, whatever we want to help you get off drugs.

And we want to help you be a better person and live the life that you can live.

And all of that was true.

And I honor them for that, but she came to Christ and suddenly she became passionate about the things of God.

And one day she came in and said, I need to find a new place to live because my parents basically are saying, because I'm so caught up with Jesus.

I can't have a room in their house anymore.

Physical persecution, economic persecution, emotional persecution.

How about spiritual persecution?

This is situations that are leveraged to restrict your effectiveness or impede the progress that God's calling you to.

Maybe by unseen.

You think about Paul.

Paul is shipwrecked on the isle of Malta.

No body did that on purpose.

That wasn't an organized attack by people against him, but he was trying to get to Rome to fulfill his calling there.

And he includes that in the list of things that he is struggled through and the sacrifices that he has made for the gospel's sake.

It's indirect

Persecution by spiritual forces, Paul writing to Timothy.

He reminds him of all the persecution and the sufferings that he has.

He has faced.

And then he says in second Timothy three, he said, yes.

And everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ, Jesus will suffer persecution.

He doesn't say, if you're an apostle writing two thirds of the new Testament, then you will have persecution.

Is there anybody in the room or online who wants to live a godly life?

No hands.

Okay.

I thought you'd read the rest of the passage.

And we're like, yeah, no, Because the bar is not super high.

It's I want to live a godly life.

And he says, yeah.

So you're gonna, you're going to experience persecution because of that, I faced it.

Paul writes, you're going to face it.

Everyone.

Part of the Christian life, there will be persecuted at some point, someone somewhere at some time will take exception to your stand for righteousness

And attack you because of it.

And if you're facing persecution today, everything in your world, everything in your life, even everything in your heart may call you to align with whatever it is that people will.

If I just say the right thing, if I just do the right thing, I don't even have to think it.

If I just act like I do, then it'll all be okay.

But the persecution you're facing may be the very thing that is confirming.

You are on the right path.

You're on the right path.

And Paul,

He says, but evil people and impostors will flourish.

They'll deceive others.

And will themselves be deceived.

Some translations say that evil will become worse and worse.

And what it's telling us is that evil people will do evil things and it will seem like they get ahead because of it.

And so not only will they say, Oh, I should do that again.

In fact, not only am I going to do that again, I'm going to find other ways to do stuff like that so I can get ahead even further, even faster.

And then those around them.

See that and go, wow, they're, they're getting ahead by doing bad things.

And if they just cheat a little here or lie a little there or do something, that's not right over here.

If they just obfuscate things a little bit here and there, that it seems like they're getting ahead.

So I should do the same thing too,

Because man, things are going well for them.

Threes, verse 14, he says, but you must remain faithful to the things you've been taught.

You know, they're true for, you know, you can trust those who taught you.

You've been taught the Holy scriptures from childhood and they've they have given you the wisdom to receive salvation that comes by trusting in Christ Jesus.

He said the same scripture that gives you the ability to be saved through Christ.

Jesus is giving you the ability to make wise choices in the moment when you're persecuted and it takes trust.

And it takes wisdom to remain faithful.

When that persecution

Trust that what he said is right.

Wisdom to navigate the uniqueness of the moment.

And Jesus makes the difference because when we are saved through Christ Jesus, he, his power, the power of the Holy spirit comes into our heart, into our life.

And it begins to direct us and guide us and lead us.

And this is what Jesus is saying.

He's already defeated.

What's trying to defeat you.

The thing that's trying to defeat you, the persecution, that's trying to defeat you.

The spiritual attack, the personal attack, the outright attack, the indirect attack, whatever it may be in your life, Jesus has faced it in one way or another.

He's already defeated it and because he's defeated it and you can defeat it as well.

So stay faithful.

And when you stay faithful, when I stay faithful, we are living within the will and plan and purpose of God.

We're living in the place where God is in control.

We're saying I'm not going to bend to the pressure out there because the will and power of the one that I am submitted to is greater than that in my life.

And ultimately it's going to pay the greater dividends.

And that brings the thought number two, that righteousness is the right cause for persecution, Jesus qualifies this.

He qualifies the cause of the persecution.

He doesn't say blessed are those who are persecuted for rudeness sake or weirdness sake or laziness sake or crudeness sake or meanness sake, or because they are obnoxious or because there are offensive.

There are people in this world, Christians in this world who I think they are trying to be out.

They are trying to out rude other Christians.

I

Was doing some study on this and not on this specific, but for the sermon.

And I thought I'll go on social media and I'll just pick out some examples.

There were too many one.

I saw this young lady, everything I can tell.

I know that on Twitter and on social media, you can't always tell if what you're seeing is actually there.

I get it.

But this person posted five words.

I became a Christian today.

I saw that they didn't have a whole lot of followers.

And, but yet they had thousands of comments, thousands of likes, thousands of retweets.

And I was like what's.

And so I went to look and on the comments, you had people questioning, whether this assumably this young lady who had become a Christian and posted it on Facebook or on Twitter, rather whether she was involved in a cult or not, whether or not she was following, going to the right church or not, uh, whether or not she was believing the right God or not, whether or not there was a God.

Um, there were commentator common.

There was commentary on all kinds of things.

Five words.

They couldn't, they, they didn't know where she was going to church.

They didn't know what she believed.

They didn't know.

All they knew is that I have become a Christian today.

That's it?

Thousands of comments, most of them having nothing to do.

And then some of them saying, praise, God, God bless you.

Happy for you.

That's not the right place or the right battle.

There's a lot to be said on this.

And I'm going to move on.

He's saying, if you're persecuted for righteousness sake, if you're attacked, if you're pursued because you're standing for or speaking for or against things that God is for or against.

If you're saying this is not right, because God says it's not right, or this is right, because God says it is right.

You will be attacked.

It could look all kinds of different ways.

For instance, it might be that your company, Susan advantage in obfuscating the truth.

And so you call them out on that.

You say none of them have that.

That's not actually accurate.

And you're called, you're labeled, not a team player.

I experienced that in my own life.

You're not a team player, Micah, because you're not gonna just let that go.

How about your friends sees an opportunity for pleasure and an unrighteous way?

And you say, no, no.

I don't think that's a good idea.

You call them out on that.

Suddenly you're against them.

You don't even care.

If I have a relationship, you don't even care.

If I have a job, you don't even want me to succeed.

I hope you've never heard that.

How about when elected officials see gain and pushing agendas contrary to scripture and they're elected into that place.

And if you don't agree with what they're saying, you're called ignorant.

You're called hateful.

You're called bigoted.

So you don't even want to speak up.

You don't even want to say anything.

You don't even want to, you don't want to speak up for righteousness sake because well, if I do, I'm going to be called all this stuff.

How about when your kids see fun in bad behavior?

And so you say, you know what?

You should not have do that.

And they say, you're so controlling.

You're just me.

I don't like you anymore.

[inaudible]

Persecution comes in different forms.

People kicked out, told you about the young lady.

People fired people, physically attacked, imprisoned.

You say, well, that doesn't really happen.

It does.

You go to China right now.

You go to Iran right now, you go to Iraq right now, you go to different places in our world and you will find Christians behind bars, not because of what they've done, but because of who they serve In the United States, it's more likely that you're going to be attacked, verbally accused of hatred and one kind or another.

Maybe somebody will become passively aggressive toward you.

So they just start ignoring you or, or shunning you from things that you've normally been connected to or slandering you to other people.

All of these things happen and persecution rises as the level of the culture begins to shift away from Christian values.

The further it gets from Christian values, the greater the persecution will be too toward anyone who stands against the thing called progress in a non-Christian manner.

Anything against that progress is attacked.

And you might wonder, well, why in the world would somebody speak against me or be angry with me or, or say mean stuff to me, if I'm not being hateful, if I'm not being bigoted, if I'm not being hurtful, if I'm not doing these things, why do people attack me for it?

It's because simple as this, the life of a committed Christian brings conviction to the heart and the life of the uncommitted Christian or the non-believer.

That's the reason why you're not in a natural warfare.

You're in a spiritual warfare and spirit is conflicting with spirit loyalty to Christ creates friction in the hearts.

And ultimately in the minds of those who don't believe or give lip service to their Christianity, it pricks their conscience.

If you want to use biblical language and leaves them with only two alternatives, I will either follow Christ or I will silence Christ.

That's the only two options.

A couple of weeks ago, we talked about how Satan was kicked out of heaven.

And the, and the fact was there was no major war.

It was Satan rebelled, and Jesus and God kicked him out.

It was as quick as that, and Satan knew he couldn't come against God.

And so he came against the thing, the ones that God loved that is you that's humanity, that's you and I.

And so today, just as Satan couldn't defeat God and attack those that God loves.

It's the same with those denied, who deny him.

It's the same with those who do not follow him often their own.

Their only way to silence Christ in their life is to silence his servants.

I can't stop him.

So I'm going to stop you.

And so sometimes we want to stop.

We want to just sit back quietly and just let the world go on.

And you know, what's gonna happen is gonna happen.

And I don't have to engage and, and so on, but how can truthfully, how can we keep silent?

How can we truly keep silent?

If I know the truth and the truth has set me free, and I know the truth for you.

And I know the truth for this world, how can I hold back the truth?

It's like watching a child walk into the middle of the busy road and saying nothing.

It's like watching your child go over to the hot stove and start to place their hand on it and saying nothing, because you love them.

You say something because you love them.

You yell because you love them.

You engage in some way or another.

And you say, well, I don't know.

I don't know how they're going to receive it.

And it is true that we need to wrap truth in grace, but grace wrapped truth is still truth.

The truth doesn't change just because grace is inserted.

And it was love that caused Jesus to declare who he was and what he was doing.

It was love that took him to the cross.

It's love that moves you and I to speak truth, our love for Christ and our love for those around us.

See, I cannot sit by when I see somebody that I love walking in the wrong direction in life.

I have to say something and here's the problem.

I still believe that God sets the standard of right and wrong.

And I still believe that his word is settled in heaven forever.

I still believe that what he said is good is good and is not only good, but it is good for me as well.

I believe those things.

And I believe them.

Some, sometimes people say, well, that's kind of old and antiquated and, and that really doesn't apply for today, but here's the problem.

He says, I am the alpha and the Omega and the beginning and the end.

So as long as the end has not yet come, his word remains.

It cannot be, it cannot be antiquated.

It cannot be applicable to the day because the end has not come.

And so therefore I still believe.

And because of that, persecution will come.

But can I encourage us today that the battle, the benefit rather is worth the battle.

The benefit is worth the battle.

No, there is no battle that God will ever call you to fight

That the benefit will not be worth the cost.

He said, well, you don't understand the problem.

No, I may not understand the problem, but I understand our God.

And that brings us to thought number three, and the closing thought of our series, the beatitudes are earth wrapped in heaven because of it.

If you look at how Jesus lays this out, Jesus begins and he ends in the exact same place.

Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs,

The kingdom of heaven, the poor,

The spirit live in the place that God controls that God rules and

Reigns blessed

Are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs

Is the kingdom of heaven.

Quickly walked through this backwards with me, the persecuted for righteousness sake live in the kingdom of heaven.

The peacemakers are called the children of God.

The merciful receive mercy.

Those desperately desiring a right relationship with God will have that relationship.

Those who keep their power under control will inherit the earth.

Those who express internal grief externally, they will receive comfort.

And those who are poor in spirit will live in the kingdom of heaven.

The beatitudes

Are a picture of our earthly existence, right

In the present and future realities of heaven taught by the eternal son of God.

Praise God.

So the challenge today is to look at our earthly existence

Through heavenly lenses and what Jesus is doing is he saying here, here, here, put my glasses on here.

Let me show you how you can view this.

Let me show you how you should view this.

And when you put

On the glasses of heaven, the lenses of heaven, These lenses that we see our spiritual prob poverty and understand that even in our spiritual poverty, there is great

Power and authority.

We, we, we look at our need for internal healing and recognize that healing is there for us.

These lenses, that we see the power and authority that we do have on this earth.

And we recognize our responsibility that comes

With it.

It's through

These lenses, that we, we see our emptiness God in

Our life.

And we cry out to him and understand that regardless of how deep the emptiness may be, his filling comes into our life.

And we are satisfied it's through these lenses that we see our consistent need to both give and receive mercy and understand that the merciful one offers his mercy to us.

And it's through these lenses that we, we recognize that the persecution received when we just do what is right, that both now and any eternity, right.

Remains right.

And God remains with us.

And no matter what the world looks like around us, when we're doing what is right, we are living in the kingdom of heaven and there's blessing to be found.

There.

We look through Christ's lenses and see heaven's power and God's purpose.

And the craziest part about it is that Jesus taught this.

Then Jesus lived this out in his own life.

And because he lives, you and I live to bow your heads with me, father in the name of Jesus.

I thank you for the lenses that you provided us in your word.

You did not teach one thing and practice another, but you practice what you preached in a way that is beyond my capacity to you did it.

You lived it, you taught it.

And then you empower us to teach it and to live it to I thank you today for your power.

That's in this room right now for your presence.

I thank you that in you, we have hope where there doesn't seem to be old that we have, we have strength when it feels like we're just completely weak.

I praise you today.

Mighty God that that, even in the ma the moment of persecution, we actually stand in a place of power and authority as the heirs of Christ.

Thank you for what you taught us through the beatitudes.

And I pray that you give us the courage to stand strong, even in persecution, and to testify, to testify of your glory, your grace, and your saving power in Jesus name, we pray.

And if that's your prayer, can everybody say, amen?

Amen.

Let's stand on our feet.