"Rewarded are the Ridiculed" Matthew 5:10-12 Sunday Morning Worship Service

Matthew five, a long passage by my standards, verses ten through twelve.

Matthew five, verse ten, 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.

And this is a you know a nation that supposedly has religious freedom, but it's also not really allowed for Muslims to convert to Christianity.

And over his more than two years in this village, there was a man there who started to be interested in what our missionary was doing there, started to come by his house to talk about what he was doing there, to help him with the language is how it started, and then it became questions about the Bible, and eventually this person started showing an interest in following Christ, and he became somewhat of a secret convert.

But the secrecy behind it didn't last long as rumors begin to spread, and so the village chief decided to get to the bottom of it.

He decided to order a wedding for this man to marry a Muslim.

Knowing that Christians would be reluctant to do such a thing, he thought this would out the guy.

The guy had already had a wife and already had children, but in this culture that was not a hindrance.

And so a wedding was ordered, and the groom shows up, and the village chief asks him if he's going to go through with a wedding, and he kind of wavered and said he was kind of under the direction of the chief.

And the chief asked him if he was a Christian, and he he said that he was a follower of Esau, which Esau is the you know the word in that uh language and culture for Jesus, but the expression follower of Esau is an expression that could be um you know something a Muslim might even say, because Jesus is in the Quran and you're following the teachings of one of the prophets and all that.

Eventually the chief grew tired of word games and ordered the man imprisoned and transferred to the capital for uh more investigation.

Nobody knows what happened to the guy.

I mean, it's possible that he was beaten to death.

That happens often in that country.

It's possible he was released and went his own way, probably fleeing the country to another country.

That was very common for Christians to do.

I tell you that one story just because it involves one of our missionaries, but stories like that are ubiquitous.

They're all over the world.

The world persecutes Christians to such an extreme degree.

There was a recent study by the Pew Research Center, it was reported in both Newsweek and The Economist, that said that Christianity, Christians are the most persecuted group in the world right now.

In some places, persecution is sponsored by the government.

Think of North Korea, Vietnam, India, Saudi Arabia, Iran.

Those nations, persecution happens at the hands of government agents, people who are acting with badges, with credentials, in keeping with the law and the authority of the government, they persecute Christians.

In some places, Christians are persecuted from terrorist groups, like in Nigeria or in Iraq.

In some places, it's village leaders, like Central Africa.

In some places, it's just the population.

And that takes different forms.

You know, they they won't rent houses to Christians or let Christians and their kids play in sports teams or let them go to these schools or those schools.

That's places like Italy or even the Philippines where that happens, where believers are not really allowed to integrate into society.

In some places, persecution seems to work.

It drives the church almost to extinction.

You think of a place like Syria, just in the last two decades, the Christian population went from 40% maybe of Syria down to less than 10%, or a place like Lebanon with a similar decline, or Jordan, where Christians are still severely persecuted, or Iraq, where Christians went from being, you know, a somewhat notable presence in the population to almost completely eradicated, statistically insignificant.

You know, the Lord knows the name of every Christian that's there, of course, but it's on a number scale.

There used to be a presence of Christians in Iraq, and now there's not.

That all changed in July 2014, by the way.

It's not an abstract date.

These aren't abstract stories here.

It was July 2014, where the government of Central Iraq uh imposed a tax on Christians.

They gave them three choices.

You can convert to Christianity, you can forfeit ever, sorry, invert to Islam, or you can forfeit all your possessions to the government as a Christian tax, or you can be executed.

And then overnight, Christians were forced to flee.

It was July 18th, 2014, by the way, when this was enacted.

Christians in Mosul and other areas of central Iraq woke up on one particular morning, Friday, July 18th, and they found their houses spray painted with the letter N, their cars tagged the letter N so they couldn't drive away in their cars without being obvious for Christians.

And by the way, for Nazarene, you don't call Christians there Christians, they call them uh followers of the Nazarite or Nazarenes.

It's very interesting to me, even just talking about this, that that's how Jesus was persecuted.

Remember, he was labeled a Nazarene.

They meant it as an insult.

Get anything good from Nazareth?

That's still happening in the Middle East today.

Christians were given that morning to decide are they going to try to escape?

And they were stopped at checkpoints and their goods were confiscated, of course.

Some of them were put to death.

Some people feigned conversions to try to escape.

And so overnight, that next Sunday, July 20th, 2014, was the first Sunday in probably 1700 years where there wasn't an open church in Mosul.

This is not abstract.

This is something that happens in the world right now.

Right now.

It can seem distant to Americans, of course, because that's not what necessarily we go through or we experience.

And so I'm just giving you those kind of stats and those numbers to let you know that's normal for Christians around the world.

Of course, those countries wouldn't say they're persecuting Christians for being Christians.

You know, in Iraq, they would never say, oh, we're persecuting these people because they're Christians.

No, they would say they're being punished because they're not paying their tax.

Of course, they're being taxed because they're Christians.

Other countries operate that way as well.

You know, India passed a law not too long ago, maybe five or six years ago, that declared that Indian DNA has Hinduism in it.

And it seems kind of like a funny thing to say, or like, how does religion make it your DNA?

But understand like the worldview that's behind it.

It's another way of saying that to be truly Indian is to be Hindu.

If you're not a Hindi, then you can't really be an Indian.

Or in Bhutan.

In Bhutan, it stands for the name Bhutan is Kingdom of Buddha.

Bhutan says they have religious freedom.

You know, if you go to their national website or their Wikipedia page, you know, Bhutan prides itself in the happiest country in the world.

Of course they have religious freedom.

But they say, hey, we would never persecute anybody for their religion, but we do have a law because our ground is sacred, Kingdom of Buddha.

We have a law against being part of any religion that buries the dead.

So we would never beat Christians for being Christians, but we would beat Christians for being part of a religion that buries the dead.

That is the typical way the world works.

And that's exactly what happened with Jesus.

Remember the scribes and the Pharisees and the Jewish leaders and the chief priests, they would never say they're going to arrest a rabbi.

They would never say we're going to beat a rabbi and turn him over to the Roman government for execution.

They would never do that to a Jewish rabbi, of course not.

But here's the guy who said, Don't pay taxes to Caesar, they alleged.

Well, it's our duty to turn him over.

That's the way persecution works.

Why do people persecute Christians?

I mean, the answer is complicated, depends on the culture, I'm sure.

In some places, Christians are viewed as a threat to power.

Think of a place like North Korea.

You know, Christians are bringing in outside influence, and and it's it could topple the government if that kind of news spreads.

That's likely what happens in China.

It's a way to suppress information because information is power, and so Christians are persecuted there.

In some places, Christians are persecuted because they go against tradition.

You know, it's not our our country's tradition to be that way.

Think of a place like Bhutan or India.

It's against who we are as a people.

But I think the real reason Christians are persecuted is the ninth commandment.

You know, Christians are truth tellers.

They speak the truth.

They speak the truth about man and man's relationship to God.

They speak the truth about sexual immorality, they speak the truth about covetousness, they speak the truth about the meaning of life.

And that's what the world can't tolerate.

Christianity begins by declaring that people have no moral capital on their own.

They're spiritually bankrupt.

They have no justification to go to heaven when they die.

They're spiritual beggars.

If you were to die and stand before God and ask, God were to ask why you should be allowed into heaven, Christianity begins by saying, you have no answer to that question.

There is nothing in you that would allow you to enter heaven.

Oh, that's the truth that the world cannot tolerate.

And God, if he or she exists, would recognize your basic goodness and allow you into heaven.

That's the way the American culture functions.

And so for a Christian to come along and say, no, you're not good.

You're not basically a good person.

That brings the ire of society on you.

And of course, society doesn't go after you for speaking about sin.

Society goes after you for not being accepting of whatever sins they like.

They would never persecute you for being a Christian, of course.

But they would for you not accepting them as they are.

That's the reality.

In other countries, it may not be, you know, the power, the truth, perception comes more into play about their own religions.

You know, their whole whole countries have this whole religious identity.

You know, they are historically Catholic.

They believe that you can garner positive merit, gar garner, you know, grace or righteousness or or virtue through your sacramental system.

You do these things that merits you something.

And here comes the Christian who says that merits you nothing.

Because salvation comes through faith alone.

It's grace, not works.

And that produces a negative response in many cultures and countries in the world.

It's a ninth commandment issue.

Christians speak the truth to people.

They're truth tellers, and truth has consequences, and often that consequence is persecution.

That's what's happening in the Beatitudes, by the way, and I want you to see that.

That's the progress of the Beatitudes.

I've said this the last several weeks.

The Beatitudes are not haphazardly ordered, they're not scattered together.

There's a trajectory and there is movement in the Beatitudes.

It starts with you being a beggar, you being spiritually bankrupt, you being mourning over your spiritual condition.

It moves from there to you looking at God with the eyes of your heart and desiring a righteousness that's not yours.

You surrender to the Lord.

That's conversion in the Beatitudes.

You give up trying to make your own way to heaven.

You give up holding on to your own sacramental system, you surrender that fight and you surrender to the Lord.

From there, you turn outward.

Your heart attitude now has this desire for purity in how you live, of mercy towards others.

That's what's happening in your life.

You become the kind of person that will walk two miles with your enemy instead of just one, who loves your enemy, who prays for them.

But that's not going to get you persecuted.

What gets you persecuted is the second to last beatitude.

That you want to be a peacemaker, that you open your mouth to a world that is at war with God and you tell them how they can find peace with God.

That's what gets you persecution.

You mourning over your sin might be a spectacle to them.

You being a person who lives for purity, that might aggravate them.

But you telling them to turn from their sin and be reconciled to God is what will get you persecuted.

And that's why the beatitudes in this sense have come full circle.

You're back to the kingdom of God again.

You're back to being a mouthpiece for what it takes to be saved.

Somebody explained to you the first beatitude, and you mourned over your sin.

Now you're living out the last beatitude, and it finds you in a world of conflict.

A world of conflict.

There's a certain movement in these beatitudes.

This is the first beatitude.

It's the last one, but it is the only one.

It's the first one that is not about your internal attitude.

This one is not dependent upon an inner state of being here.

This is not an inner disposition.

All the other beatitudes were inner dispositions.

Not this one.

This one is outside of you.

It is other people acting on you.

It's not about your heart.

Your heart's what got you into this mess.

Your heart led you here.

This final beatitude is not about your heart.

This final beatitude is about everybody acting on you because of those that went before it.

It's a movement from virtues to vexation.

You're living with a certain kind of virtue in your life, a certain disposition, and now you're getting a certain discipline and vexation from the world.

The beatitudes are inward, upward, and then outward.

In your heart, eyes to God, and in the world turning on you.

This is what Paul means in 2 Timothy 3, verse 12.

2 Timothy 3:12

Indeed, all who desire to lead a godly life will be persecuted.

There's a certain inevitability to it.

There's a certain inevitability to it.

So you might think, Man, I don't see this kind of persecution in my life.

It's the same then kind of litness test as all the other Beatitudes.

You think, I don't know if I've ever mourned over my sin.

Then it's worth asking, are you aware of your sin?

Have you come to a right relationship with God where you're aware of your standing before him?

If not, that's why you haven't mourned over your sin.

You're not aware of it.

You haven't come to terms with it.

It's right to question your relationship with God when you see these beatitudes not line up with your life.

I mean, these beatitudes are not the signs of like a super Christian for 5%.

I've heard people say that.

These beatitudes are like just the 5% crowd, the really mature Christian.

You get saved without these beatitudes, and then you get to a point in your life where you're like, really live out the beatitudes, and that's the movement from salvation to discipleship kind of nonsense.

No, it's not true.

These are the dispositions that there's an inevitability to it.

These are the dispositions that would inevitably mark a believer.

So if you've never mourned over your sin, it's worth asking.

Have you come to faith?

If you don't hunger and thirst for righteousness, it's worth asking, do you know who God is?

If you don't desire to lead a pure life, are you walking in darkness?

And if you're walking in darkness and you say you're walking in the light, you are a liar and the truth is not in you.

And now we're to the last one.

You say, I don't, nobody is ever upset with me, nobody has ever persecuted me.

Well, why are you being persecuted in this beatitude?

Go to the one before.

You're being persecuted because you're telling people how to be reconciled to God.

So if you're wondering, have people ever opposed me because of the gospel?

Taking go in your mind back to the last person you shared the gospel with.

How did they respond?

And if you're back at, well, I I don't really share the gospel with people.

Then there should be some sobering introspection that happens in your life.

I want to look at what these three verses say about persecution.

First, it describes the method of persecution, the method of persecution.

Persecution is repeated here in verses 10, and then down in verse 11, uh, and then the third time in verse 12, that's three times in these three verses.

It's the repeated word here, so it's a key word to understand.

The word itself means to be driven away.

That's the method of persecution.

It's not um the word in Greek means a little bit different than it comes across in English, and English persecution is it's kind of a broad term.

You know, that's that's not what's happening here in the Greek.

It's a very specific term in the Greek.

It means to be driven away.

This is different than we often think of persecution, you know.

Somebody not liking your social media post is not persecution.

They're like, oh, I put a funny Christian meme up, and only one person liked it.

Persecution.

No.

Persecution, the biblical word here means to be driven away.

Driven away from your friends, driven away from your family, driven away from your work.

That's what this word means.

It's not a completely unique word.

It's used elsewhere.

It's used in the Old Testament to describe what happened to the prophets.

You think of Elijah, was driven away.

Elijah was driven into hiding by Ahab.

You remember this?

Elijah runs across Obadiah, another prophet, and Obadiah tells Elijah, hey, Ahab, he will look for you.

This is 1 Kings 18, like around verse 10.

He will look for you anywhere, in any kingdom of the earth.

He will come find you, Elijah.

You're not safe anywhere.

That's what it means to be driven away.

People turn against you and will chase you wherever.

This is what Paul was doing to Christians in the book of Acts.

Remember?

He was on his way to Damascus when the Lord appeared to him.

Why was Paul going to Damascus?

Because that's where Christians had fled.

He was going to persecute Christians in Damascus.

How did Christians get to Damascus?

Well, they were in Jerusalem and they were persecuted there and they fled to Damascus.

And so Paul is chasing them.

He's hounding them.

That's this word.

It is pursuing someone to drive them further away.

So it is not passive.

Persecution is not passive.

Persecution is personal.

It's directive.

It's targeted.

That's what this word means.

You know, somebody on the sidewalk yelling at cars with Jesus fish on them, that's not persecution.

That's not this persecution.

This persecution is personal.

It's probably from a person who knows your name, who knows your family, and who doesn't want anything to do with you anymore.

The verb here for persecute is in the perfect tense here, which is something that happened in the past and it keeps happening now.

And so when Jesus is saying, blessed are the persecuted, he's talking to people who are gonna be reading this that are being persecuted while they're listening to this.

While they're listening to this.

That's what's going on.

And Jesus says, Blessed are the persecuted, blessed, happy are you when you're being driven away.

Well, there's a second method, it's more specific than just driven away.

The driving away here, it's interesting to me that Jesus describes it happening with words in verse 11.

And I say that's interesting because, you know, I told you stories about Iraq and about the kind of persecution that happens in Bataan or India where churches get burned down and believers get beaten in Bataan regularly, or those kind of things, and you think, well, that's not really what's happening in our country.

It's hard for me to relate to this.

But Jesus here doesn't go to beatings yet.

He doesn't go to imprisonment yet.

He's going to talk about beatings and imprisonment later, but here his first example in the Beatitudes of persecution is verbal.

It's people who are going after you with their mouths.

That's how they're driving you away.

They're saying false things about you.

There's three words down in verse 11 that's happening.

You're persecuted through reviling, through uttering all kinds of evil falsely.

Those are the three descriptions there.

People are driving you away by reviling you.

That word revile just means to shame.

People are saying things to you that are shameful.

They're heaping shame on you.

They're saying things about you to others and to people that know you that are designed to make you ashamed of the gospel.

Paul goes through this, of course.

This is what he says in Romans 1.

Even though people say that, he says, I am not ashamed of the gospel.

Here that word is used in an active sense.

They are saying things against you to make you ashamed.

To make you ashamed.

Now remember, the why are they shaming you?

They're upset with you because of the gospel, but they wouldn't say, Oh, I'm persecuting you, I'm saying these things to bring shame on you because of Jesus.

They will say rather other things.

And I just think of the American culture right now.

They're not going to say, Oh, I'm upset with you because you go to church on Sundays or because you read your Bible.

They would say, I'm upset with you because you're not accepting of the gender identity of my son, or you're not accepting of the validity of the marriage of this person that I love, and that's why I can't tolerate you, you you, you bigot and closed minded person.

So that's the language that's used.

It becomes more about a secondary or tertiary issue than it is about the person and work.

Of Jesus Christ, of course.

So they heap shame on you.

Not necessarily about the gospel, although that's what's motivating it, but rather about the other issues.

The other, and that's what they did to Jesus too, remember?

And why did they finally persecute and sentence Jesus to death?

It had nothing to do with him being the sin-bearing atoning of him being the Lamb of God slain before the foundation of time, now incarnate among us.

That's not where they put him to death.

They put him to death because it said, he said, don't pay taxes to Caesar.

Which, by the way, is not even what he said.

They were heaping shame on him.

They were speaking all kinds of evil against him.

They were saying wicked things about him.

And all those things were false, it says in verse 11.

They were saying false things, and that's the word for slander.

They're slander you.

That's how they persecute you, is through slandering.

They don't just say evil, shameful things about you, but those things aren't in fact true.

So they say, I'm I'm rejecting you because you don't love me, or I'm rejecting you because you don't love my son or my daughter.

That's what they say.

And the truth is that you do love their son or their daughter.

You love them enough to tell them the truth.

That's what I said earlier.

It all goes back to the ninth commandment.

That you won't lie.

You won't say something untrue just to demonstrate a false kind of love to people.

No, you're you're a truth teller.

And you show your love by speaking the truth.

You show your love by having the courage to say the world says this, but I say that because that's true.

And they say that's hatred.

It's slander to you.

It's not even true.

And we, of course, hear this right now in the context of marriage or in the context of gender, but it's not just confined to those two things.

It's not just marriage and gender.

It's about every category of sin in somebody's life.

It's most on the front right now with marriage and gender that you're not going to call a, you know, a guy a girl or a girl a guy.

You're just not going to do that because you speak the truth and they say, oh, that's unloving and non-affirming and harmful.

And of course it is loving.

But set that aside.

It's not just that one issue.

It's your friend who steals.

You'll tell him that it's wrong.

It's your friend who's a drunkard, and you tell him that's that's that's wicked, that's sin against God.

It's your friend who's obnoxious to his children, to his wife, and you will confront that.

And they'll say, You you're closed-minded, you're holier than thou.

That's what you are.

You know, you your friends used to swear and cuss, and you were one of them, and you talked like they did, and then you come to faith and you don't talk like that, and they say, You can't, we don't want to spend time with you anymore because you're holier than than thou.

Like you're, you know, a goody two-shoes kind of guy.

They'll say things that aren't true about you.

They slander you.

So it seems weird to talk like that when the earlier I'm talking about, you know, driving Christians out of town or killing them unless they surrender all their property, and you think, yeah, I lost a few friends over this.

But that's where Jesus goes in this beatitude.

He goes right to people slandering you.

That's the method of the persecution.

After the method becomes the motive.

Why are people persecuting you?

You know, not all suffering is persecution, of course.

You know that, right?

You might suffer, that doesn't necessarily make a persecution.

You know, you get a speeding ticket on your way home from church.

That's not persecution.

You're like, yeah, but I was coming home from church.

If I stayed home and watched football this morning, I wouldn't have got the speeding ticket.

Ergo, persecution.

No, sometimes you suffer because you're wicked.

This is 1 Peter 4, verse 15.

1 Peter 4:15

Let none of you suffer as a murderer or as a thief or as an evildoer, and you think, oh, I'm good there.

I'm not a murderer, I'm not a thief, I'm not an evildoer, therefore my suffering is persecution.

Peter has a fourth word in his list, though.

Let none of you suffer as a murderer, as a thief, as an evildoer, or as a busybody, as a meddler.

That's a word that means you stick your nose in other people's business and then you open your mouth about it.

You shouldn't suffer for that.

If people don't like you because you gossip, that's not persecution.

Yeah, but I'm just telling all my friends the truth about that person.

It's not gossip, it's true.

No, that's gossip.

And the people don't like you because you're a gossip, because you can't keep your mouth shut.

That's not persecution.

That's you getting what you deserve.

Yet, Peter says, if anyone suffers as a Christian, he should not be ashamed.

There's that word again.

But let him glorify God in that name.

So this is the motive of persecution.

First motive is the rejection of righteousness.

People persecute you because they reject righteousness.

It does seem odd, doesn't it?

Why would somebody persecute a righteous person?

You know, if you have the house next door to you is for sale, you've got ten applicants, and nine of them are no-gooders, and one of them is a righteous dude, you'd say, I'd want the righteous dude to live next door to me.

And yeah, people might say that.

They might say that, but then the more the practice of it is a little bit different than you expected.

You know, everybody's happy with Ned Flanders as a neighbor until he opens his mouth and shares the gospel.

Makes people feel guilty.

This is what Proverbs 29, verse 27 says.

Proverbs 29:27

An unjust man is an abomination to the righteous.

So you're a righteous person, the unjust guy is an abomination to you, but Proverbs 29 says the reciprocal is also true.

It goes on to say, the one whose way is straight is an abomination to the wicked.

The wicked person looks at your straight, narrow life and thinks you're the abomination.

Holy living upsets holy lives.

If you're leading a holy life, it troubles those around you.

And again, you can use different kinds of examples of this.

You know, say you're a drunkard or a drug user.

You can put any sin in this, but it's so obvious with a drug user.

Let's just use that one.

So you do drugs, that's the normal pattern of your life.

You hang out with people that do, your friends do, you do.

And then at some point you get saved.

And you recognize that that's sin.

And you repent.

Now, long term you recognize you're gonna have new friends and new patterns of behavior and all that.

That's long term, but don't go to the long term, yeah.

Just stay a short term.

You come to faith.

What do you do next weekend?

You might miss your friends through a weekend.

What do you do the weekend after that?

Well, probably you might go out with your friends again and recognize that what they're doing is sinful, and you might have a war in your heart, and maybe you do it with them, maybe you don't, but you're fighting.

Over time, you're gonna be going out with them and you're not gonna be doing it anymore.

How are they gonna respond to you?

Like that's weird.

At first they might be, you know, what's what's Joe doing here?

Oh, Joe, why is it why isn't Joe doing what we're doing?

Oh, Joe found God.

Oh, okay, whatever.

I roll.

But over more time, your very presence there becomes uncomfortable to them.

Your very presence there and not doing what they're doing is offensive to them.

Just the fact that you're there bothers them now.

You used to be their friends, and now just your you breathing their air irks them.

Who do you think you are?

You used to be like us.

Do you think you're better than us, kind of language?

That has the effect of driving you away from them.

Now, every Christian will experience that.

Maybe not those who are raised in the church, maybe not those who grew up in the church and you know learn to follow Jesus from a young age.

Maybe they're spared that.

But if you get saved from outside the church, this is going to be your story.

That's why there's an inevitability to this.

And it's not that they don't like you, it's that they don't like your righteousness.

It's a rejection of righteousness.

And Jesus says that verse 10.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake.

I mean, that's what's happening here.

It is not about you, it's about your righteousness.

Your friends are going to be reoriented and they don't want you to be part of their world anymore.

And you're, of course, more than happy to be part of their world because you're sharing the gospel with them.

And that just leads to more of this.

That's the first motive of this, is the rejection of righteousness.

The second motive of this is to make you like Christ.

You know, so the world persecutes you because they reject righteousness.

But God sovereignly allows persecution to happen and directs it for your good, namely your sanctification.

This is Paul's point in Romans 8 that all things that are taking place are taking place for your good in God's glory.

And then Paul goes on to say, we're being slaughtered like sheep all day long.

Yet nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Persecution has a clarifying effect, it makes you figure out what side you're on.

Without persecution, you might be content to live in both worlds.

With persecution, you've got to either get on the boat or off the boat.

You can't be stretched indefinitely.

Persecution reminds you that they don't hate you.

It's that they hate Jesus.

Your friends might present you as, you know, intolerant and indifferent, but you recognize it's not you they're saying is intolerant.

It is Jesus.

They're upset with him.

And this is exactly what Jesus went through, by the way.

They rejected him, not because of what he was doing, being the savior of the world, but because of his righteousness.

They rejected him.

They said that he was an illegitimate child.

They said that he was a Samaritan.

That was a big-time insult back then.

They said that he was demon-possessed.

They said that he was a blasphemer.

They said that he was a drunkard.

They said that he was a glutton.

They said that he taught you shouldn't pay taxes.

None of those things were true.

He was not an illegitimate child.

He was not a Samaritan.

He was not demon-possessed.

He was not a blasphemer.

He was not a drunkard.

He was not a glutton.

And he never said, don't pay your taxes.

In fact, he said, pay your taxes.

The truth of it didn't matter.

They were lie after lie they told about him because they rejected who he was.

So when that same thing happens to you, it has a very immediate sanctifying effect.

The immediate sanctifying effect is people are treating you like they treated Jesus.

That conforms you to the image of Christ.

That's the pressure of the world working on you, folding and molding and shaping you so that you come out looking more like Jesus.

That's what's happening to you in persecution.

What they did to him, when they do it to you, it makes you like him.

And that is all of the Beatitudes, by the way.

All of them.

You go through this process and you come out looking more like Christ.

You come out looking more like Christ.

So that's the motive of persecution.

Thirdly, the mandate of persecution.

There is a mandate in the middle of persecution.

This is not just abstract talk here.

Jesus says it is inevitable, this will happen, but you're going to have a response to it.

The first response is that you're going to rejoice.

You're going to rejoice when this happens.

That's the command here.

That's the mandate.

You rejoice.

Now, all of the beatitudes are, I said earlier, the be happy attitudes, you know, do this to be happy in your attitude, the be happy attitudes kind of thing.

So that's true about all of them.

All of them are blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed.

But this last one isn't just blessed are you when you're persecuted.

That would be bad enough.

But Jesus then says you're supposed to rejoice.

Look at verse 12.

Rejoice.

That's a very demonstrative word, like jumping up and down, waving your hands, kind of rejoicing.

That's what the word means.

Like you're excited.

Not like the Presbyterian kind of rejoice in your heart where you're like, yay.

More like the Pentecostal kind of rejoice, you know?

Like that's this concept here.

Like you're, yeah.

That's the way you're supposed to be when you're being persecuted.

Which is kind of far-fetched, you know?

You come to a small group Monday night and you're like, I just got written up at work for talking about Jesus and everybody high fives, you know?

Yeah.

But that's what Jesus says.

Rejoice.

And it's not just externally, like, yay.

But then there's an internal attitude, and be glad.

Your inward disposition is happiness over what's happening to you.

That's the mandate here.

And why would you have that?

You're not just supposed to rejoice.

You have that because of the reward that's there.

This is all tied to the reward.

Rejoice and be glad, verse 12, for your reward in heaven is great.

That's back up in verse 10.

For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

The reward in heaven is great.

Even the language in verse 11, they're bringing all the slander against you on my account.

That's the account of Jesus, the you know who he is as a person who is filled with grace and mercy, filled with all rewards.

You're persecuted on his account.

They take from you, Jesus pays it back based upon his own treasury.

And then you die, and you're in the kingdom of heaven, not the kingdom of man, and there's more rewards for you there.

In fact, he says, Your reward will be great, it says in verse 12, for your reward is great in heaven.

It's great.

Not only do you have happiness, but you're rejoicing because your happiness is found in heaven.

Now you're happy in this world, that's the point of the Beatitudes, but the anchor of your happiness is not in this world.

The experience of it is in this world now through the persecution, but it's anchored in the next world.

That's the point.

In heaven, it is great for you.

In heaven, it's great.

Now, why is it great in heaven?

Well, as you're suffering in this world, Jesus is paying you in the next world.

That's the idea.

Uh here's a little illustration.

I don't know if all the details of this illustration will work, but bear with me, and I think it'll it'll make sense.

As it is, if you're in the military, pretend you get assigned to some like far-flung outpost in the middle of the desert.

It's a place that nobody wants to go, and so they'll give you triple pay for doing it, okay?

Like hardship pay.

For you going out to the middle of the sandy desert, you're guarding some like, you know, rocket launcher out there or who knows what, and that's where you'll be, and you'll be there for the next two years of your life, and you're getting paid triple for doing it.

So you go out there.

But while you're out there, I mean, everything you need is provided for you there.

You're fed there, you they have a little room for you to stay in, all your food is provided by the military.

There's no stores than 100 miles of you.

So even if you got your pay right there, you couldn't use it.

I mean, Amazon doesn't deliver out there.

It's like the only place in the world Amazon doesn't deliver.

You know, your wife is at home and she misses you, but she's getting triple pay, so she's, you know, there's pros and cons.

So the years go by, and you're just making bank.

Now you're frustrated living out there.

The wind blows and the sand hits your face and gets in every crevice in your house and sleeping bag and all that.

But you know what?

Triple pay.

And when you go home is when you can cash it in and you can finally spend what you've been paid over the last few years.

That's kind of what your life here on earth is like.

You're being persecuted for righteousness' sake.

But the Lord sees and is paying you from his account.

But you don't get to spend what he's paying you here in this life.

It wouldn't do any good.

The kind of currency the Lord pays you in is not accepted in this world.

But when you die and you go to heaven, that's where all of your payment is.

And the New Testament talks about this over and over, even in the Sermon on the Mount.

Store up for yourself treasure in heaven.

Not on earth where moth and rust and thieves can gank it, but in heaven where there aren't thieves.

Or even at the end of Matthew 5, where Jesus says, look, if you love people who love you back, you don't get rewarded.

So Jesus sees you love your best friend and you guys are friends and you like hanging out.

There's no reward there.

Christian fellowship is great.

But if you love somebody who's persecuting you, now Jesus sees that.

And he's like, okay, you love that person who's taking from you, and I give to you in the next life.

That's where your payment comes in.

It's a common New Testament teaching.

Peter says, listen, we left everything to follow you, Lord.

And Jesus says, You're going to get back in this life more through the church, of course.

In the next life, 10,000 times more.

That's this basic truth.

That's why you rejoice.

Some of this you're not in control of.

So when it happens to you, you're like, yes, next life.

I'm banking.

And there's this clarifying statement here, because you will be like the prophets, he says in verse 12.

They persecuted the prophets this way.

And that lets you know Jesus has a very realistic understanding of what you'll be going through.

That the high five thing might be hyperbole.

Because how did the prophets respond when they were persecuted?

You know, Elijah responded with boldness, right?

Obadiah says, hey, the king will hunt you down in any kingdom anywhere in the world, so don't even bother hiding.

Do you remember what Elijah said?

Oh, great, I'm not going to run anymore.

Let's go find the dude right now.

Goes nose to nose with him out on Mount Carmel.

Like Ahab, right here, showdown time.

And the massive crowd turns out.

I mean, that's boldness, right?

But what happens the next day?

Elijah quit and ran back to Egypt and hid in a cave.

He was done.

Or Jeremiah.

Jeremiah was persecuted and he was bold.

In Jeremiah 16, he's preaching fire, and then in Jeremiah 17, he quits.

He says, I resign.

I'm done, God.

They throw him in a pit and he's out.

But then the next chapter is like, alright, I can't really quit, I guess.

Ezekiel, you wonder if Ezekiel was even mentally stable, all that he went through.

Zechariah.

Put to death in the altar.

Abel, you're in the line of Abel.

When people persecute you, you're in the line of Abel, praise God.

And then you remember what happened to him.

That's why you rejoice.

You are in that line of people.

And you associate with them.

And you look forward to the next life where you receive your reward.

Revelation 1, verse 6.

Revelation 1:6

He has made you kings and priests of his kingdom.

You'll open your eyes in heaven and rejoice and be glad.

And so I say there's a clarifying effect here.

The clarifying effect of persecution is it makes you figure out whose side you're on.

Remember Elijah at Mount Carmel, nose to nose with King Ahab.

And he turns and talks to the crowd.

Hillside is filled with people.

And he shouts at the crowd and says, How long are you going to go limping between two opinions?

And it was literally the Hebrew is like bouncing from one branch to another.

How long are you going to prance between both of these camps?

If Yahweh is God, serve him.

If Baal is God, serve him, but make up your minds.

It is a very dangerous place to be, to be in church on a Sunday and not open your mouth Monday through Saturday.

Very dangerous.

Because you're hearing beatitudes like this.

You're saying, I just don't know if the reward will be worth it.

I don't know if the reward will be worth it.

To which Jesus says, you gotta sort this out.

You gotta figure out, are you in or out?

Are you all in with the beatitudes and saying, I believe by faith my reward is in heaven?

Or are we all in in this world and say, I just want to be well thought of by this world?

Can't I live in such a way that outsiders think I'm all right?

And you justify it by saying it's a witness thing, right?

I'm gonna live in a way the world thinks right of me to help my witness.

Blessed are you when people persecute you and say all kinds of evil things about you.

Slander you, lie about you for the name of Jesus Christ.

This is what they did to him, and he had a joy in it.

For the joy set before him, he endured the cross, scorning at shame, until he sat down at the right hand of God.

Lord, we're thankful for the gospel message that Christ, our Savior, led a sinless life, died a sinless man, and yet burdens and laden and imputed all of our sin on himself.

He's a sinless Lamb of God, yet he was slain for sin before the foundation of the world.

He ran the race marked before him, enduring the cross and scorning at shame.

There's that word shame again, Lord.

Help us follow his path that he marked out before us.

Help us run the race like him, live the life that he commanded us to live, following after our Savior.

I pray for anyone here this morning that has never, in a sense, determined which side they're on.

I pray that you'd use this promise of reward, reward seen in you, and seeing you face to face, reward seen and seeing our loved ones that have gone before us face to face, reward seeing in the kingdom and how we reign with you in the kingdom, being kings and priests in the kingdom.

Reward seen in the treasure we have there, the friends that will have there, you tell us in Matthew's gospel, that we'll be welcomed with open arms to those who have been made at peace with you through our words.

We long for that day, and I pray if there's anyone here today that has not determined which side they'd be on that today, they would make the decision to be all in with you, to believe in the reward in heaven, to believe that you died on the cross for our sins, rose from the grave, that this is not by works, nothing we can do.

That message would be acceptable.

But that it's all of grace through faith in Christ for your glory alone.

And we give you thanks for this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

And now, for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church or our current service times, go to ibc.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to tms.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.