Challenging Selfishness: Uncovering Faith, Embracing Suffering and Navigating Persecution in the Light of Jesus' Teachings

I hope you're good today.

I hope you had a phenomenal Thanksgiving week.

If you had a less than ideal Thanksgiving week, we did too at our house.

I woke up Monday morning sick as I could be, and I know that's been the story for some of you all for quite a while in here, so I lament that with you and I had big plans for Thanksgiving week you all like.

Tuesday night last week was Thanksgiving dinner downtown.

I was going to be there and thoroughly enjoy that dinner.

Wednesday we were supposed to be in the upstate of South Carolina eating Thanksgiving dinner again with my family.

It was going to be exceptional.

Thursday we were going to eat Thanksgiving dinner with Tara's family and it was going to be exceptional.

And I didn't get to eat Thanksgiving dinner at any of those three Thanksgiving dinners.

We ended up having a Thanksgiving dinner at our house the four of us and it was good.

It was phenomenal, it really was.

It was a great Thanksgiving dinner, but it just wasn't the week we had planned.

And Tara tells me.

Tara tells me that I am not the world's best patient.

Like when I get sick, she calls it the man cold man.

I don't know if any of you can identify with that if your wives persecute you in similar fashion.

But Tara waited on me and took great care of me Monday, tuesday, wednesday, when I was down and out, and Thursday I woke up and she said, all right.

And I was like what do you mean?

All right?

She's like that's it.

I was like what do you mean?

That's it?

I don't feel good.

She was like you do.

And I was like how do you say that you don't know me?

Like that, you know I don't.

And she's like no, mine never mattered, you're not going to matter.

And I was like I don't have the ability to put my mind over my matter, like I don't feel good.

And she's like no, no, today you do.

Because what she was saying is that today, that day, thursday, it was no longer about me.

Monday, tuesday, wednesday, that was fine, but that was enough.

Thursday was not about me because we had a seven-year-old and an almost four-year-old who wanted to go see their grandparents and weren't going to be able to do that.

And so on Thursday, it was time to go mind over matter and get better and do what I needed to do.

And that's exactly what happened, because that's how it works at my house, and so that's what happened.

And I say all of that to say and maybe you can relate to this adversity exposes our selfishness, does it not?

Whether it's adversity at work or relational tension, or financial struggle, when we experience adversity, we encounter obstacles.

Inevitably what happens is our selfishness rises to the top and it's exposed.

And what I mean by that?

When we experience adversity, we don't become more generous, we don't become kinder.

People Right, when's the last time you met somebody really nice and you're like, oh, they must be going through the worst day of their life?

No, because we don't get nicer under pressure.

We don't get kinder in adversity.

Our compassion quotient doesn't grow on the worst day of our lives.

Adversity exposes our selfishness.

What happens in adversity is it causes us to hunker down, to pull in, to self-protect.

And not all of that's bad.

I mean, some of it is hardwired into the mental framework by our designer and our creator.

Some of that is good.

But then there's another level where we just place ourselves at the center of the universe.

And so when adversity comes, it's a sign that the universe is against us and things are not working out as they should.

And adversity has a way of bringing out not the best in us, but the worst, and here's what's interesting about that.

It doesn't matter how long you've been following Jesus.

That same truth remains true In adversity.

It has a tendency to bring to the forefront our natural bent towards self-protection, toward self-fulfillment, towards self-satisfaction.

It brings to bear the worst of who we are, and so we got to talk this morning just for a moment about selfishness.

What do we do with that selfishness that is within every single one of us?

What do we do with our tendency to put ourselves at the center of the universe?

I wrote this in my phone earlier this week and I wanted to put it on the screen exactly like I wrote it when I wrote this.

When we live as if the world revolves around us, the more disruptive adversity becomes.

When we live like the world revolves around us, disruptives even, or adversities even more disruptive, because we can't understand how this universe that revolves around us would ever bring anything into our lives that went against us.

Right, because we're the center of the universe, we're the most important thing happening.

How could anything not go my way?

And so adversity becomes incredibly disruptive to us, and the more likely it becomes that that adversity will be detrimental to our faith.

So what happens when we let our selfishness lead the way?

We place ourselves at the center of the universe?

Any adversity that we experience, we ultimately attribute to a lack of provision or protection or power on God's part.

And that's why people say things in the midst of pain like I could never worship a God who, blank, I could never follow a God who would allow this, I could never trust a God who would let me experience what I'm walking through.

We've all heard people say that, and while certainly we sympathize with people who are walking through pain and experiencing difficulty, what we have to understand is that when we make statements like that I could never worship a God who, or I could never follow a God who what we're saying is that my ability to worship God and follow God has everything to do with my own ability to understand and experience God in a way that I deem fit.

And so, by placing ourselves at the center of the universe, by seeing every bit of adversity that comes our way as, ultimately, an act of God towards us, we come to this place where, anytime we experience pain or difficulty or suffering, our faith hangs in the balance.

So what do we do with that selfishness that is within every single one of us.

My challenge for us today, my proposal for you today, is that what we need is a bigger view of who God is.

What we need is not a closer examination of us, because we got enough going on in us.

We could talk about us for a long time.

What we need is to talk about God.

What we need is to see God in a little different light.

You know our selfishness.

It's a really big deal, because not only does it have the ability to damage our faith, but it also infiltrates every human interaction that we experience the words we say, the motives of our heart, the thoughts that we think, what we're looking for in a relationship.

And so this is today's conversation.

It's gonna center around our view of God, but I just wanna say that it's got practical application for the way we relate to one another.

Matthew, chapter five.

We're closing out today this actually happy series.

We've been journeying through the Beatitudes, learning what it means, as followers of Christ, members of the kingdom, to live with these attitudes of the kingdom and y'all.

I want you just to put yourselves for a moment in the shoes of those first century Jewish people on the hillside in Galilee who were listening to Jesus say these words for the very first time.

For most of us in the room, you've probably heard most of these statements that Jesus makes in the Beatitudes before, and so while the concepts might be spectacular and the concepts might be difficult to integrate into our lives, at least the content is familiar.

But for these first century Jewish people listening to the words of Christ, this was their first time hearing it and they were selfish, like we are.

And so I want you to imagine sitting in that crowd of people as the Jewish Rabbi, jesus, sat down and began to teach.

And then he says this verse 10, 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.

We said this before, but it's worth saying again.

I've got a list of blessing, and I'm sure you've got a list of blessing as well, and nowhere on my list of blessing is being persecuted, being spoken badly about, having people say things about me publicly that are not true, like that's not on the list, and so this is beyond shocking for Jesus to say these words you're blessed when you're persecuted.

You're blessed when people revile you and slander you and gossip about you and say things about you that aren't even true.

You're blessed All of us.

We hear that, and maybe we've heard it before and so it's familiar content, but we hear that and there should be something within us that goes I don't think that feels that good.

I don't think I would choose that.

I don't know that I necessarily even like that, because then we're ready to wrestle with what Jesus is teaching us.

Here.

There's an organization called Open Doors, and they work worldwide with the persecuted church.

They resource pastors and leaders, they gather statistics and data.

Every year they release a list of the most dangerous places in the world to be a Christian, and they define persecution like this it's hostility experienced as a result of proclaiming the name of Jesus.

Then they give some examples of what constitutes persecution.

It's including, but not limited to, rejection and isolation from friends, community and family.

Persecution could be the denial of basic needs like food, water, medical care or, in extreme cases, persecution could be abuse or imprisonment or even death.

Open Doors tells us that today one in seven Christians worldwide lives under the threat of persecution.

That's one in five in Africa and two in five in Asia.

But 360 million brothers and sisters in Christ today live under the threat that they may be ostracized from their family, their community, their friends.

They may not have access to the basic needs of life water, food, shelter, medical care.

They live under the threat of violence, imprisonment and, in some places, even death.

And if you look at a map of the most dangerous places in the world, it is astonishing because it is literally worldwide.

So what do we do with this?

I wanna make a couple of kind of statements of nuance, if you will.

The first statement is this.

To read Jesus' words in Matthew five blessed are those who are persecuted.

It does not mean that we go looking for persecution.

It doesn't mean that, as Christians, we enjoy in some sick, twisted, demented way that we enjoy the pain of persecution.

That's not the point at all.

We mourn and lament the unjust violence and atrocity of persecution in the name of Jesus.

We don't enjoy it, we don't like it, we don't look for it.

Does that make sense?

It also second statement of nuance we have to recognize that what we call persecution, oftentimes in this nation, is vastly different than what happens around the world when the world talks about persecution.

In many places in our world today, to proclaim the name of Jesus publicly puts you at risk of imprisonment or death.

To claim the name of Jesus would mean you would lose contact with your family, you'd be shut off and shunned from your community.

But we don't exist under persecution of that level and we're grateful for that.

What a gift that is.

What we experience in our nation is a church that is no longer at the center of society.

There's a gap, if you will, between culture and church.

We, whereas in our nation, especially in the South, the church used to exist kind of as the center, the locus of society, Now the church is more on the margins, if you will.

People look at us and they think we're strange, and they get to know us and they find out they're strange.

But that's you know what I mean.

Like wait, it's not the same level of persecution that our brothers and sisters experience nationwide.

But at the same time, what Jesus says in Matthew, chapter five, 10 through 12, it is applicable and I think it's helpful for us today as we're trying to expand our view of who God is and move beyond the selfishness that we all experience.

And so to help us understand this morning, this passage in Matthew five, we're gonna talk about two qualifiers and three explanations.

Two qualifiers, three explanations.

I know it's the end of Thanksgiving week the trip to fans probably still in the system, so help me out a little bit.

Everybody say two qualifiers, your turn.

Two qualifiers, two qualifiers, three explanations.

How many qualifiers, how many explanations?

Fantastic, class is in session.

You guys are ready.

I can tell you've been up since early in the morning today, praying, fasting, preparing your heart to meet with God at church.

It's gonna be a fun time together.

Qualifier number one real persecution, jesus says, is persecution that happens for righteousness sake.

And the second qualifier is very similar.

Jesus says you're blessed when others revile you, persecute you under all kinds of evil against you, falsely, on my account.

And I say they're qualifiers because these are qualifiers for what actually constitutes persecution.

Here's why this matters.

Sometimes in our world this is what we do we treat people unkindly.

Then they talk about us and we cry persecution.

We misrepresent our faith where rude or arrogant or prideful in our presentation of the gospel, where we present truth with no love.

And then when people talk bad about us and the church, it's like well, they're persecuting me.

Well, no, they're not, you just weren't kind.

You know what it does that make sense.

So let me give you, and I'll use myself as an example If I yell at Will Rogan, will you need to meet Jesus?

Will you gotta learn about God?

When's the last time you read your Bible?

Will, right, I can use Will because I know he reads his Bible and he loves Jesus.

He already knows him.

So this is a good illustration.

But if I yell at Will, if I'm rude to Will and unkind to Will, and Will walks out of here and he's like that guy at that church is not nice and I wouldn't go to his church if I was you, then I don't get the right to stand up and say well, will Rogan, y'all, he's just persecuting me.

Will Rogan, it's persecution, is what it is.

No, it's not, I just wasn't nice to Will, right.

And so Jesus qualifies what is real persecution.

He says it's persecution if it happens for righteousness' sake.

In other words, our job, our responsibility as members of the kingdom who've received Christ by grace, through faith, we have a behavioral standard to live up to in our interactions with the world.

We're called to be people who are known for our love, who speak the truth with boldness and compassion, whose speech is seasoned with salt, whose words build up and don't break down Our conduct.

Before the world matters.

We live, we carry the gospel with kindness and compassion and grace and truth and clarity.

We stand on our convictions, but we stand in love, not in judgment over people who don't know God, but extending the hand of grace and compassion in the name of Jesus.

This is what it means to live for righteousness' sake.

Jesus said you're blessed when people persecute you and that's how you're living, not when you're rude, condescending, prideful, arrogant in your presentation of the truth and people call you out for your bad behavior.

Then the second qualifier that Jesus gives is on my account.

So the point here is that the persecution that the church experiences ultimately isn't even about us.

It's about Jesus.

Right?

Real persecution isn't even about the one being persecuted.

Real persecution is I would go so far as to say it's a demonic attack on the person and work of Christ.

We're just the messengers in the middle, if you will.

We're the ones living out the gospel, proclaiming the name of Jesus.

Persecution comes to us, not because of us, but because of the person and work of Christ.

So what is persecution?

Ultimately, it's pain that is a direct result of faithfulness to Jesus.

It's pain that comes as a direct result of faithfulness to Jesus.

So then, three explanations, okay.

Well, if that's what persecution is, it's when I live to the best of my power, the best of my ability, in the power of the Holy Spirit, in order to proclaim the name of Jesus and instead of receiving good for that, I get bad for that.

Why would I want to live that way and take that chance?

Why not just hunker down, self-preserve and self-protect?

Well, there's three great explanations that Jesus gives as to why.

Number one is this you get the kingdom of heaven.

Why would you choose, as a follower of Christ, to live out your faith in a way that could cause people to talk about you and slander you and ridicule you and look down on you and call you names and say things about you that are not true?

Because, at the end of it all, you get the kingdom of heaven.

Isn't that beautiful when you live for Jesus and you stand on the truth of the word and you boldly proclaim the love of Christ and you demonstrate the love of Christ with your life and people make fun of you and they talk about you and they laugh at you at work.

That is a sign that you belong to God, and Jesus says that's a good thing.

It's a good thing, it's a good thing.

So don't fear what people say, don't fear what people think, don't worry about what they Say about you, and they go home.

At the end of the day, you, by the power of the Holy Spirit, do everything in your power to love and serve like Jesus and proclaim the name of Jesus, because the promise is that if you're in Jesus, one day you get the kingdom of heaven, and today the kingdom of heaven belongs to you.

Second explanation is great as well.

Jesus says not only do you get the kingdom of heaven, but you get a great reward when you come into the kingdom of heaven.

It's this already not yet idea.

The kingdom of heaven is here, but it's not yet here in its fullness.

And one day, when the kingdom of heaven comes in its fullness, faithfulness to Jesus in this life will be rewarded with a reward in that life.

Isn't that beautiful.

You can store up treasure in heaven.

Today, some of y'all you're trying to hide presence at your house right now so your kids don't find them till Christmas.

You're storing up some stuff and there's nothing wrong with that, but how many of you know that stuff's gonna get open and it's gonna get stuck in the playroom and in three years from now you're gonna be trying to give it away as you can make room for more stuff?

You get a chance to store up treasure in heaven.

You get a chance to store up a reward in heaven.

You're like James, what's that reward gonna be?

I don't know.

I haven't been to heaven yet.

I don't know.

I don't know what it's gonna be Like.

I got an idea of what I'd like my reward to be.

That's great.

Have that idea.

When you get there, that reward's gonna be better.

I promise I don't know what the reward's gonna be, but I do think I have an idea about what you're gonna do with the reward that you get when you see God face to face.

I just imagine, like, as we enter into the kingdom of heaven one day, whoever's in charge of the rewards for that day is gonna meet us there and they're gonna start handing us a reward and you're like thank you, this is amazing.

I love that Been waiting on that my whole life.

Don't even know what that is, but I gotta turn to figure it out.

Thank you for this reward.

I can't carry all that right now.

Come back and get the rest.

But I gotta take this with me and I gotta take it to the feet of Jesus and I'm gonna lay this reward at his feet because the prize of heaven is the glory of Almighty God in the face of Christ and whatever reward we get in heaven, it's going straight to the throne of God and we're gonna lay it at his feet, however many trips it takes.

That's what's gonna happen in that moment.

And Jesus says that when we're persecuted, we can know that we're storing up for that day and one day we'll lay our rewards at the feet of the risen Son of God in the coming of the kingdom of Almighty God.

The third explanation why we would choose to put aside selfishness and embrace this suffering in this life is this you're in great company when you're persecuted.

You're in great company because who else was persecuted?

Well, jesus says it very clearly You're blessed.

When people revile you, persecute you, utter all kinds of evil against you, you can rejoice and be glad because your rewards great in heaven For so.

They persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Every person who's ever spoken for God in the past has experienced the same kind of adversity.

They've experienced this gap between God's way and the world's way, and they've experienced the pain that comes with trying to stand in the gap and invite the world to walk God's way.

You're in great company.

You're in great company.

You just imagine that gathering one day in heaven as we're sitting around and we're telling stories about what it was like here on this earth and we get to hear from the apostle Paul about what it was like the time he was stoned and left for dead.

Then he got up and shook it off, kept on preaching.

He was on preaching.

Can you imagine the stories from Jeremiah in the Old Testament?

How many times he wanted to quit Jeremiah?

What kept you going?

Just had a fire in my bones.

I couldn't stop proclaiming the good news about God.

I can't wait for that moment.

Faithful men and women throughout the eras of history, who have proclaimed the name of Jesus at great cost to themselves, stories that we've never heard, names that we've never known that in heaven will tell the story of the faithfulness of God in the midst of our suffering, you'll be in great company and even more than that, the only one who's ever perfectly lived out these Beatitudes, the one who perfectly embodied every single aspect of everything that we've been talking about.

His name was Jesus, and we crucified him.

There's always been a gap between the world and God, and that's why Jesus came.

That's why Jesus was willing to take that weight of our sin, our shame, our guilt, on his shoulders, to make a way across the gap, so that when we stand in the pain, when we stand in the gap, we invite people to come and experience the kingdom of God.

We stand on the finished work of Jesus, who went before us, who paved the way, who resurrected to give us resurrection power so that we could conquer sin, death, hell and the grave and tell the story of the good news of Almighty God every moment that there is breath in our lungs.

You're in good company.

So what do we do with this?

Well, we wanna live with a thick skin and a soft heart.

We wanna live with a thick skin and a soft heart.

World, take your shots.

Office coworker who thinks I'm insane.

Take your shots.

Family who doesn't understand why I follow Jesus.

Take your shots.

It's okay, I've got a thick skin, but I've also got a soft heart.

I'm not gonna let the barbs of the world extinguish my love for Jesus or my love for you.

I'll take your worst and I'll give you back God's best.

I'll take your unkindness and I'll repay it with kindness.

I'll hear your hate and I'll turn it back to love.

That's the mantra, that's the message that we get to live out Thick skin, soft heart so that people who are far from God can see the transforming love of God changing our lives, and they'll be drawn to that.

They'll want some of that.

So, in the meantime, what do we do with this?

I got two quick stories to close it down today.

The first is from what is unequivocably, inarguably, not up for debate, the greatest movie of all time in my opinion, and it's the Dark Knight.

It's the second of the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy the greatest movie of all time.

Y'all saw that.

Y'all, like I, did not see that coming.

I gotta be honest with you today.

I sound a little bit like Batman today, and I'm not mad about it.

I'll be honest.

It's the second movie of that trilogy Dark Knight.

Christian Bale is Batman, michael Cain is Alfred, heath Ledger is the Joker, and the Joker's wreaking havoc on Gotham.

He's turning the city from good to evil.

The city is turning against Batman.

The worst of humanity is on display.

It is the Dark Knight, and Batman is about ready to give up.

He's about ready to hang up the cloak and the cowl and turn himself in, because what the Joker has said is that if Batman will hang it up and give it up, the Joker will quit, and he'll quit killing people and he'll quit wreaking havoc on the city.

And so Batman's done.

Batman's ready to put it aside and give it up.

And he comes to Alfred and he says Alfred, what would you have me do?

People are dying, alfred.

And Michael Cain, the world's greatest Alfred, looks back at Christian Bale, the world's best Batman.

And this is what Michael Cain says.

He says endure, master Wayne, take it.

They'll hate you for it.

But that's the point of Batman.

He can be the outcast.

He can make the choice that no one else can make, the right choice.

And when you hear that there's something that's gotta go off inside of you, it's like amen, michael Cain's preaching, go be like Batman, endure the dark.

What's the choice that Batman can make?

Batman can make the choice to put aside selfishness and the pursuit of comfort, the call of ease and convenience.

Batman can make the difficult choice to sacrifice, to be selfless, for the greater good, for the big picture.

Batman can choose to endure the dark for the light that is to come.

Be like Batman, endure the dark.

Don't be selfish.

Choose sacrificial selflessness.

Do what is right because it's right.

Don't give in to the weight and the pressure of evil.

Evil will not quit if good gives up.

Be like Batman and endure the dark.

The second story comes out of Luke 17.

You're like that's better, we like that more.

Already.

In Luke 17, jesus is telling a story, and he's telling a story in response to the religious leaders, the Pharisees, who have asked him when the kingdom of God would come.

He says to them the kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed.

No, or will they say, look, here it is, we're there, for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.

And then Jesus launches into this end times, second coming of Christ discourse and he begins to talk about the days of Noah and how it will be at the end of time, just like it was in the days of Noah, where people are eating and sleeping and they're drinking and they're buying and they're selling and they're doing what is right in their own eyes.

They're doing whatever their heart desires.

Jesus says that's what it's gonna be like at the end.

And then he says this he starts talking about lot and Sodom and judgment and how that day the good are gonna be preserved but the wicked will be judged.

And then Jesus says this remember Lot's wife, remember Lot's wife, endure the dark and remember Lot's wife.

Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.

If you know the story of Lot's wife, sodom was being judged and Lot and his family had made their home in Sodom and they were delivered from Sodom and there was one command that was given don't look back.

And as they're being led away from their home, leaving behind years of building and fixing and dreaming and years of comfort and security, as they're walking away from all that towards a future that God had in mind, lot's wife turned back.

John Eldridge wrote a book called Resilient and then he talks about this story.

In that book he said Lot's wife's problem was that she had a divided heart and a divided allegiance.

And for those of us who were followers of Jesus in the room, what's gonna happen in life is that when you go through the dark, when you experience difficulty, when you experience pain, the temptation of your flesh, the desire of what's going on on the inside of you at some point in time, is gonna be to look back, to remember back when, when it used to be better, when things used to be easier, when following Jesus wasn't so hard.

When that day comes, don't look back.

Jesus gave his life to set you free from your sin.

Jesus has covered your guilt.

Jesus has redeemed your shame.

Jesus has given you a way forward.

Jesus has promised you a hope and a future.

The kingdom of heaven belongs to you.

You've got a great reward there.

When you walk through the dark, you're in good company.

You're in good company.

Do not look back.

For Jesus' followers, the only way forward is forward.

There's nothing worth turning back for.

Maybe that's where you're at today.

Things were easier before you decided to be serious about your faith.

Don't look back.

The only way forward is forward.

You didn't experience all this adversity and all these obstacles when you weren't so committed to following Christ.

There wasn't so much relational tension when you're just doing whatever you wanted to do and going where you ever you wanted to go.

Don't look back.

Remember lots, wife.

No divided hearts, no divided allegiance.

Let's follow fully after Christ.

Endure the dark for the sake of the light.

Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep him.

Jesus' life ended at the cross.

Three days later there was a resurrection.

We surrender our life to identify with the death of Christ on the cross and by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Resurrection is in our future.

Don't try to preserve your life here and now.

Lay down your life for Jesus' sake and let him preserve your life into eternity.

Father, my prayer for us in this room is that you would give us the strength, the grace, the compassion, the mercy, the power of the spirit to endure the darkness.

And, father, as I look around today, I know there's some darkness in some of the lives.

With my brothers and sisters in this room this morning, father, I pray for the strength to persevere.

I pray for the resilience to hold on.

I pray for your grace to be sufficient for our weakness and, father, I pray that in our weakness we'll find our strength in you.

Father, we pray that all the days of our lives would be characterized by faithfulness to Jesus, so that at the end of our life, god, the life we have built, will not be a life that makes much of our name, but will be a life that looks like the love of Christ, so that people will see our good deeds and give glory to our Father in heaven.

We love you.

We thank you in Jesus' name.

Amen, as we respond in singing this morning.

If you need to give your life to Christ, we'd love to have that conversation with you.

If you need to join the church, you need to pray.

You just need to take a moment and reflect on what we've said and learned this morning.

This is a moment for you to respond as the spirit leads.

Let's stand and worship together.