"The Upside Down Kingdom, Part 2" Sunday Evening Worship Service

It's been a great joy to be with you today.

I'm so glad that we were able to look together into the Word of God this morning and and now to be able to do this with you again.

I only wish we had more time together where we could dig down deeper and trace out some of these master themes more carefully, but I'm grateful for the time that we do have.

So what I want to do tonight is in many ways finish what we began looking at this morning.

So if you would please take your Bible and turn with me to Matthew chapter 5.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

We're looking at the Beatitudes, which have been well identified as attitudes that ought to be.

And the very name emphasizes the heart that Jesus came to establish a heart religion in his kingdom.

And I want to begin by reading these verses.

I'm going to start again in verse one, but tonight our focus is upon verses 7 through 12, Matthew chapter 5, beginning in verse 1, and the title of this message is again The Upside Down Kingdom.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

This is part two.

After he sat down, his disciples came to him, opened his mouth, and began to teach them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

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

Blessed are the gentle, or as we said this morning, the lowly, for they shall inherit the earth.

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

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

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

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

Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness.

For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.

Rejoice and be glad.

For your reward in heaven is great.

For in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Those in whom this king has set up his royal residence and carries out his administration in their lives.

We are all born outside of the kingdom of God.

We are all born as those a part of the kingdoms of this world.

And there must come a time in each one of our lives when we take that step of faith and we enter through the narrow gate and leave the world behind and enter into the kingdom of God.

And Jesus in these beatitudes is setting the distinctives of those who have entered into his kingdom.

As we said this morning, the first four beatitudes in reality help us define what is saving faith.

What is real repentance?

What is it to enter through the narrow gate and step onto the narrow path that leads to life?

It is so discriminating here and it is so distinctive that that is why it is referred to as the narrow gate.

It's not a broad gate where you can just be a part of a crowd and just be swept up and ushered through the gate.

No, it's a narrow gate that you must search for it and you must look for it, otherwise you will miss it.

And it takes very careful steps as you would come through the narrow gate.

That's why the disciples said in Luke's version of this, are there just a few who are being saved?

Because they understood how non-negotiable this was.

As we look at these beatitudes, this is not a multiple choice where you can pick three out of the eight that fit you or fit your fancy.

No, it's all or nothing.

It's all eight, or you may have none of them.

These are like links in a chain, and it only requires one link in a chain to break, and the entire chain is broken.

And there is an order with which the Lord has put this together.

This is not like an omelet where these are just all thrown into the mix, and we just Matthew has recorded these in a haphazard fashion, or Jesus has delivered these without any intentionality about the sequence.

No, with infinite genius and with stunning brilliance, in such a few economy of words, Jesus lays out here what is in reality Christianity 101.

This is Christianity in its most seed form.

This is the seed that will seeds that will grow into the entire forest of the full counsel of God, of all that Jesus will teach during the three years of his earthly ministry.

No, here compactly worded is the essence of the one who is a disciple of Jesus Christ.

We noted this morning that the first four really mark the entrance into the kingdom.

That first you must be poor in spirit.

In my hands, no price I bring, simply to thy cross I cling, that I have nothing to contribute to my salvation, nothing whatsoever.

It is all of grace, it is all of God.

We saw that we must mourn if we are to be comforted.

If the weight of sin is to be removed from us, there must be a mourning over that sin.

And there must be repentance, not just intellectually, but even emotionally, because Jesus is targeting the heart, those who are poor in spirit, the inner person, and those who mourn in their heart.

Blessed are the gentle, those who are lowly of heart, and those who hunger and thirst in their heart.

And so it is so obvious, a blind man could see this, that Jesus is accentuating and emphasizing that everything begins with the heart.

He wants the hearts of his disciples, because if he has the heart, he has everything.

If he has the heart, he has the fountain from which the life flows.

If he has the heart, we would say he has the rudder of the ship that will direct the path of our words and our actions.

And so tonight we come to the last four.

And the last four become the evidence, the outward ongoing day by day evidence of the one who has entered through the narrow gate.

Now, lest there be any misunderstanding, the first four not only distinguish that moment when we entered through the narrow gate, but these first four are an ongoing, continuing, distinguishing mark in our lives, even poor in spirit.

Our testimony is that of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, 9 and 10.

I am what I am by the grace of God.

In John 15, verse 5, Jesus said, Apart from me you can do nothing.

John 15:5

We continue to be totally, completely dependent upon the grace of God to enable us to live the Christian life.

And we are to continue to be repenters for the entirety of our Christian life.

And to be those who mourn over our sin, even as Christians.

We are not to be stoics.

We're not to be heartless.

We are not to be emotionless.

There should be a great disturbance within us when we do sin.

David prayed at the end of Psalm 139, see if there be any hurtful way in me.

And what is a hurtful way in us is the recognition that what we have done has been hurtful to the Lord.

And so these first four beatitudes, I want to say again, mark not only our entrance into the kingdom, but they also pave the narrow path upon which we walk, and they are the guardrails on both sides of the narrow path that alone leads to life.

But as we come now to verse 7, we now come to the second set of the Beatitudes.

And these stand on the shoulders of the first four.

These now reach higher.

These now become an extension of the first four.

These now lead down the narrow path and should mark the way that we live.

But more than that, not just the way we live, but what we are, our character, our inner person, our being.

So he begins in verse seven, if I could just continue with this outline, this fifth beatitude in verse seven, a merciful spirit.

This is a distinguishing mark of the one who has now stepped into the kingdom.

You will be a very merciful person.

Mercy refers here to the one who shows mercy.

Merciful means that you are a person who shows mercy.

More specifically, that you feel compassion for those who are hurting or who are destitute.

You desire not to isolate yourself or to be separated from people who are in need.

You are drawn to such a person, and in your innermost being, you feel pity towards those in need, and you desire to show kindness to those who are down and out.

The fact of the matter is, this is produced by the Holy Spirit in our lives.

The fruit of the Spirit is love.

Very first distinguishing mark.

This is not something that we just crank up.

This is something that is produced in us by an inward work of grace.

Philippians 2 verse 13.

Philippians 2:13

For it is God who is at work within you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

This is something that God produces in his disciples.

It is a supernatural work of sanctification that those of us who are previously selfish and self-centered have come to the place of self-denial and begin to look outward to others in a desire to give relief and help to those who are in time of difficulty.

And the reason for this is the one who receives mercy from the Lord is the one who shows mercy to others.

Let me say that again.

The one who receives mercy from the Lord realizes what a debtor you are to God and to others.

And you become tender-hearted towards others and reach out to them and want to help them and show mercy to them, knowing that there is nothing that is going to come back to you.

This is all in your heart and mine, a one-way street of your giving to them.

And perhaps the best illustration of this in Scripture is found in Luke chapter 10.

Luke 10 · chapter mention

If you would like to turn to Luke chapter 10 with me, it's the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Luke 10 · chapter mention

And in Luke chapter 10, and beginning in verse 25, a lawyer stood up and put him to the test.

Luke 10 · chapter mention

Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?

And Jesus said, What is written in the law?

How does it read to you?

Well, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, etc.

And you, Jesus said, You've answered correctly.

But the lawyer looking for a loophole says, Well, who is my neighbor?

thinking, well, nobody lives next door to me.

I'm out in the country.

And so Jesus gives now this parable of the Good Samaritan, which becomes an extraordinary picture of what it is to show mercy.

Verse 30, Jesus replied and said, A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho.

It's down in topography.

It descends down and fell among robbers.

They were common in that day on the road to Jericho, hiding behind the next curve in the road.

And they stripped him and beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.

And by chance, as Jesus tells this parable, there's a twinkle in his eye.

Nothing is by chance.

And by chance, a priest.

And as soon as Jesus says this, a priest, if anyone would show by example how to conduct themselves and how to live, it would be this priest.

And the priest was going down on that road.

Of course, at this time, Israel, as I said this morning, was live, was an apostate nation living in utter unbelief towards God and towards his Son, Jesus Christ.

And so this priest is a part of the system.

And a priest was going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.

He just tried to avoid, not make any eye contact, pretend as though he doesn't see him.

Go to the other side of the road, and it shows the utter bankruptcy of religion in Israel at this time.

And then in verse 32, likewise, a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, pass by on the other side.

These who claimed to be in the kingdom, but were not in the kingdom, gave evidence that they were not in the kingdom of heaven.

In this parable, by the way, they have, they are cold-hearted.

They have no empathy.

They show zero mercy to this man who is beaten and left for half dead on the side of the road.

No one in the kingdom of heaven would be so steely in their heart.

Verse 33, but a Samaritan, as soon as Jesus says a Samaritan, they were the half-breeds.

They were those who are half Jewish, half Assyrian.

They were on the other side of the tracks.

Jews would not even travel through their territory lest they be contaminated by any exposure to a Samaritan.

But a Samaritan who was on a journey came upon him.

And when he saw him, rather than doing what the Levi and the Samaritan did, he felt compassion.

And the reason he felt compassion is he has a new heart.

His heart of stone has been removed, and a heart of flesh has been put within him.

And he has a desire to show mercy as he has been made the recipient and the object of the mercy of the Lord.

He felt compassion.

And the word compassion in the original language means to feel it in the bowels.

We would say down in the heart.

But your bowels are even deeper physiologically than the heart.

And we would say today, I just felt it in the pit of my stomach.

He felt something in the very epicenter of his being, in the pit of his stomach, in the depth of his soul, down in his bowels, in his intestines.

He felt compassion and came to him.

He was mercy and action.

And he put him on his own beast and brought him to an inn and took care of him.

This is a merciful person.

He is giving every evidence of being a genuine believer and someone who is truly in the kingdom of heaven.

Verse 35, on the next day he took out two deneri and gave them to the innkeeper.

This is sacrificial love.

This is getting involved.

That this is more than just throwing money at the problem.

That this is rolling up the sleeves and stepping in to be the solution to this problem.

And said, take care of him, and whatever more you spend, when I return, I will repay you at every level that this Samaritan is demonstrating mercy.

Verse 38.

Jesus then turns the tables on the lawyer.

The lawyer is the one who's used to doing the interrogation.

Jesus now poses the question to the lawyer which one of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robber's hands?

And the lawyer said, verse 37, please note what he said the one who showed mercy toward him.

Jesus said, Go and do the same.

This is just black and white, obvious what it is to be a citizen of the kingdom of heaven.

As needs are brought across your path, as you become aware of situations that depending upon the extremity of that situation, there is something that you feel down inside of you, a mercy and a compassion and a sacrificial love by which you know you must step in and be a part of the solution.

This is the evidence of the one who's poor in spirit.

This is the evidence of the one who has mourned over his or her own sin.

You are a very merciful person because you have seen yourself to be one who has received the mercy of God.

And so in verse 7, Jesus concludes this beatitude and he says, Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

What does that mean?

They shall receive mercy.

First, you receive mercy from the Lord when you walk through the narrow gate by faith and repentance.

And now, as you're in the kingdom, you feel compelled with a heart that has been melted down by the grace of God, you now show mercy to others.

You become one who is looking to see how you can serve others and meet needs in the lives of others.

But this is saying you who have received mercy are merciful and show mercy, but as you show mercy, you shall receive mercy.

And what this means is the more that you show mercy to others, it will come back to you.

The Lord will show greater expressions of mercy to you.

And as long as you're in Luke, I'm assuming you went to Luke 10 with me, turn back to Luke 6, and I just want us to see this.

In Luke 6, Jesus talks about loving your enemies, giving to others who cannot even pay back what you have given to them.

In fact, he says, it's hard to know where to even start this.

Verse 32, if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?

For even sinners love those who love them?

If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you?

For even sinners, even unconverted people are nice to people who are nice to them.

Verse 34, if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you?

Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount.

But love your enemies and do good and lend.

And that becomes really synonymous with showing mercy to others, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.

Be merciful, just as your father is merciful.

Now look at verse 8.

I've always heard this in churches in my past in my Christian life for giving campaigns.

If you will just give your money to the Lord, it'll come back to you many times over, it'll be shaken down, pressed together, come back multiple fold.

That's not even in the context.

What this, let me read verse 38.

Give.

Give what?

Give mercy.

That's in the context.

Give mercy, and it will be given to you.

What will be given to you?

Mercy will be extended to you.

They will pour into your lap a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over.

For by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you in return.

What Jesus is saying here is exactly what he is saying in the fifth Beatitude, that if you're merciful to others, there will be mercy given to you from God, channeled through others.

And this is a challenging word to inherently selfish people, that we must hold with an open hand what has been put in it and to share it with others who are in need.

I don't know about you, this challenges me.

I see evidences of it in my life, but there needs to be more evidences of this in my life.

But if there were no evidences of this, I would have to call into question the validity of my conversion.

Because this is a defining essential mark of the one who's in the kingdom of heaven.

Is that you show mercy.

You're a merciful person.

A selfish Christian is an oxymoron.

An unmerciful believer is a contradiction in terms.

Well, let's move on to the next beatitude.

Come back to Matthew chapter 5, if you would.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

And in verse 8, we see the sixth beatitude, and the profundity of this is in the simplicity of this.

It seems so simple, but it's like getting your arms around the Atlantic Ocean.

There is a depth and a breadth here and a height that is very overwhelming.

But in verse 8 he says, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Here again, the emphasis is upon the heart, not pure in speech, not pure in works or deeds, but pure in heart, knowing if the fountain is pure, what flows out of the fountain will be pure.

And so Jesus isolates again the heart and emphasizes the heart.

And the heart here, referring to all that you are on the inside, mind, affections, and attitudes and disposition.

And this heart is a new heart that is given in the new birth.

Old polluted hearts are not pure.

Old polluted hearts are contaminated with the carnality of the flesh.

And this presupposes that there has been a new heart that has been given in the new birth.

It's Ezekiel 36, taking out the heart of stone that was hardened and resistant to God, unresponsive to the things of God, dead, no life in the heart of stone.

And God performs really a heart transplant, and he takes out the heart of stone and he washes the inside of the soul where the heart of stone had been, and he now implants a new heart, a heart of flesh.

A heart of flesh is a living heart.

It is alive unto God.

It has a pulse.

It has love for God.

It has love for others.

It is a heart that is pure.

It is no longer dominated by sin, as Romans 6 tells us.

It's a new heart that now has a new desire for God and the things of God and to obey God.

And it is this heart that is pure and unmixed and undefiled.

It's not perfect, but it's pure.

And the religion of the Pharisees had completely bypassed the heart.

If you would look later in this very same chapter in Matthew 5 and verse 21, you have heard that the ancients were told, you shall not commit murder.

And whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.

But I say to you, and Jesus now gives the true interpretation of this commandment, you shall not commit murder.

It's not a new interpretation.

It is the same interpretation as when it was given to Moses long ago.

But it stresses the heart.

But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother, that's a sin of the heart, shall be guilty before the court.

And whoever says to his brother, you good for nothing, shall be guilty before the Supreme Court, and whoever says, You fool, shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.

You know what you call a hellfire brimstone preacher?

A Bible preacher.

Someone who preaches like Jesus, who had more to say about hell than anyone else in the Bible, who had more to say about hell than he did about heaven.

We need more preaching on hell.

Jesus preached on hell.

And he said, if your heart that is so full of anger and resentment and bitterness towards others, if you continue with that heart, you're going to hell forever.

Because it is clearly evident you have never received a new heart.

It is evident you have never entered through the narrow gate.

And this is what a believer does.

The next verse.

If you are presenting your offering at the altar and you remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go.

First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.

Make friends quickly.

That's what someone who is pure in heart does.

And look at verse 27.

You have heard that it was said, You shall not commit adultery.

And the Pharisees and those in Israel were so smug that they were right with God because there had not been the outward act of adultery in many cases.

Verse 28, Jesus said, But I say to you, and he now brings the right interpretation of this commandment, which is a lightning bolt struck out of heaven that hits the heart.

That everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

And so verse 29, he calls for radical steps of repentance.

If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you.

It is better to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.

Say that to some man who's caught up in pornography.

If you don't repent, you're going to hell.

It's what Jesus says here.

It's a matter of the heart.

And if your right hand makes you stumble, you're going further than your eye.

Now your hand is someplace where your hand should not be.

It's unlawful for your hand to be upon another woman.

If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off, throw it from you, for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

So, what Jesus is calling for here is a pure heart.

And he's calling for radical repentance.

And what Jesus is saying is, you cannot be in my kingdom if there has not been a change of heart in the new birth.

And if you have had a new heart, you will exercise and take steps of radical repentance to deal with your heart.

You don't even need an accountability group.

You're just going to lie through your teeth to everybody else in that accountability group.

This is you and God.

Jesus is calling for purity, holiness of heart.

And he's rather intolerant of hypocrisy that tries to play all ends into the middle.

If you don't give evidence of a new heart, you're going to hell.

That there is an inseparable connection between the root and the fruit.

Wherever there is the root of regeneration, there will be the fruit of sanctification.

When you go through the narrow gate, there's only one path you can go down, and that is the narrow path.

There's a broad gate and a broad path, there's a narrow gate and a narrow path, and you cannot mix and match.

You cannot go through the narrow gate and then go down the broad path, and you cannot go through the broad gate and then go down the narrow path.

It's a narrow gate, narrow path, broad gate, broad path.

Do you want to know which gate you went through?

What path are you on?

Are you on the broad path where you can just live however you want to live and just weave all over the highway?

There are no guardrails, there's no defining boundaries.

You can just create your own morality, you can redefine the family, you can just be, you can believe anything about marriage, you can believe anything about the family unit.

You will be very happy on the broad path until the destruction comes.

But on the narrow path, you operate by the laws of the king who has laid out morality.

And Jesus is so emphatic, so dogmatic about this.

He says in verse 8, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

And what he is saying here, no holiness, no heaven.

Everyone who's going to heaven and will one day see God are those who have a pure heart.

This seeing of God is what Hebrews 12, verse 14 speaks of pursue holiness without which no man shall see the Lord.

Hebrews 12:14

If there is not a pursuit of holiness, a fight for holiness, a resistance of temptation, a fleeing from immorality, a putting on the full armor of God, of contending for godliness and disciplining yourself for godliness.

Those are the distinguishing marks of the one who is on the narrow path, who is headed for life.

And at the end of the narrow path is God.

And you will see God one day if you're on the narrow path.

But if you don't have a pure heart, it's very obvious you're on a broad path, and you'll see God, but you'll see God in hell.

And God will be in hell.

Unleashing his wrath upon rebels who love their sin, love their sin more than they love God, who love their lust more than they love God, who love this world more than they love God.

So this is actually a very serious beatitude.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they and they only will see God.

So you can know who is going to heaven to see God, there is a progressive sanctification that is taking place.

And again, this does not speak of the perfection of a person's life, but it does speak of the direction of a person's life.

That they are pursuing holiness and godliness.

And when they do sin, there is a mourning and a weeping and a grief because they are convicted of their sin.

So is your heart pure?

Is your soul clean?

Down in your heart where no one can see.

Down in your heart where only God can see.

Let's look at verse nine.

I need to press on.

You need to listen quicker.

That's the problem.

It's not me.

Verse nine, I want you to see.

A peacemaking soul.

A peacemaking soul.

Verse 9, blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

This actually becomes a part of having assurance of salvation.

These are the ones who are called sons of God.

All the sons of God, all the daughters of God are peacemakers.

To one extent or another.

They're not troublemakers, they're peacemakers.

And to be a peacemaker means that you reach out to others and seek to establish peace between them and other people, but most of all between them and God.

The greatest peacemaking work that there has ever been is to be a witness for Christ and to bear testimony of the Lord, to be a Spurgeon would call it, a soul winner.

As Solomon said, he who wins souls is wise.

That's what a peacemaker is.

You are bringing people into reconciliation with God.

Before people enter the kingdom, they are enemies of God.

I mean, Ephesians 2, Colossians 1.

It just makes that abundantly clear.

And more than that, God is an enemy of the unbeliever.

And there needs to be reconciliation between the two offended parties, God and the sinner.

And it speaks to the depth and the greatness of God's love that he extends love towards those who are his enemies.

It's not a shallow, sentimental love.

Mushy Valentine's Day card love.

It is God sending his son to die for rebels.

How great must the love of God be! But the peacemaker is the one who brings the message of peace.

You remember the parable that Jesus told in Luke chapter 14 that there is a king with 10,000 troops, and there is another king coming with 20,000 troops.

Luke 14 · chapter mention

And the king with 10,000 troops will be utterly annihilated if he does not send an emissary out to meet with the king who's coming with the 20,000 troops and to receive what Jesus says in that parable, accept the terms of peace.

And the terms of peace are in the gospel of peace.

And so the greatest peacemaking that you and I can do and perform and carry out is to bring the message of salvation in the cross of Jesus Christ to make peace between God and sinners.

God's done the work, but we're simply the messenger.

And if you share the gospel with your children, you're a peacemaker.

If you share the gospel with your grandchildren, you're a peacemaker.

If you share the gospel with someone at work who doesn't know the Lord, you're a peacemaker.

If you share the gospel with someone in your apartment complex and they are callous and uninterested, yet you continue to pray for them and reach out to them, you are a peacemaker.

Establishing, doing what you can to see that God would establish peace.

But then more than that, you are one who seeks to reconcile others with other believers.

There's so much that I want to say that time doesn't permit.

I think you have the idea.

It speaks also to our disposition and our nature that we need to be those who are kind and patient and looking for points of agreement to establish a connection with other people.

I know some Christians that when they meet someone, if they agree, if there's 50 areas of doctrine, they just immediately go to the one out of 50 area of doctrine they disagree with and just want to pick a fight.

They show up with their theological revolver cocked.

And they ought usually they come up to me after I preach.

That's not a peacemaker.

That's an arrogant arguer.

A peacemaker is someone who's meek and gentle and lowly in spirit, who has a teachable spirit and knows how to bring up a matter without being needlessly offensive.

So are you a peacemaker?

Do you help promote peace in this church?

Are you a bridge builder?

Are you a reconciler?

Do you look for ways to help mend broken relationships?

Do you share the gospel of Christ with others who are at enmity with God and are hostile towards God?

Do you seek to bring about that reconciliation?

The last thing I want you to see is in verse 10, a persecuted life.

And we need to understand the sequence here, the logical progression.

As we come to verse 10, where Jesus says, Blessed are those who have been persecuted, we need to understand why this fits here in what we would call the climactic position.

And the reason is if you live out the first seven, then the eighth will be true in your life.

If you live in this world as the first seven Beatitudes have just outlined, you will stand out like a bright star in a dark night.

You will be living in a counter-cultural way.

You will be living in a way that actually will provoke the world, especially if you're a peacemaker and try to share the peace of God in Christ with unbelievers.

It will all lead up to this bottom line.

And this bottom line was so important for Jesus to state in this sermon that you'll note all the others are just one verse apiece.

But when we come to this eighth and final, it's not just one verse, it's not just two verses, it's three verses.

This is like the anchor.

Beatitude.

There is an inevitability about the persecution that will come.

And it will obviously vary according to how visible you are, how vocal you are, it will depend on the environment in which you find yourself.

And that varies from even parts of the country.

That varies from nation to nation.

That varies from century to century.

So it's not a one-size-fits-all answer on this, but the fact remains: if you live out the reality of these beatitudes, you're going to catch flack for your faith.

And if you don't, to some extent, it would be cause for you to re-examine have I truly come through the narrow gate?

Have I truly left the kingdoms of this world?

And have I truly identified myself with the king?

Am I truly living in his kingdom?

If there's no conflict with the kingdoms of this world that I've left behind.

And the conflict is not initiated by us, the conflict is the reaction of the world against disciples and believers.

You won't have to go looking for trouble.

It'll find you.

So let's look at this very quickly.

Blessed are those who have been persecuted.

Nothing could sound more contradictory than this.

Happy are the harassed.

Blessed are the battered and bruised and bloodied and blasted.

What does the word persecuted mean?

The word literally, out of the original language, means to be put to flight.

To be driven away.

It means to be chased and pursued.

It means to be run out.

It means to be run out of circles of friends.

It may mean to be run out of family.

It may mean to be run out of your job.

It may mean to be run out of town.

You remember what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 10.

Matthew 10 · chapter mention

Jesus said that, do not think I came to bring to bring peace on the earth.

I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.

For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man's enemies will be the members of his household.

Those are strong words.

Very strong words.

But with much love and grace, Jesus is preparing them for the rocky road that lies ahead on the narrow path so that they would not be faint of heart and think, what is wrong with me?

Now there is this resistance from my old friends.

There is now this resistance from my parents or from my in-laws.

What is wrong with me?

There may be nothing wrong with you.

It may be the inevitability of living for the Lord.

Because you're rubbing the world the wrong way.

Blessed are those who have been persecuted, he says, for the sake of righteousness.

Now that's important because it should not be because you're just kind of an irritable person.

It shouldn't be because you've got your nose in the air.

It shouldn't be because you have a sanctimonious spirit about you.

No, it should be for the sake of righteousness.

And what that means is it is because you believe in the divine standard of righteous living.

That you live according to the divine standard of righteousness.

That you raise your children by this righteous standard.

That you teach and preach and bear witness of this righteous standard.

That you believe in right and wrong and black and white and good and evil as defined by the scripture, because you believe marriage is to be between a man and a woman, because you believe you only need to have two bathrooms, because you believe you were born of one of two genders, and you know exactly what you are.

If you stand up for the truth in this sinful and adulterous generation, you're gonna catch some flack.

There's gonna be some blowback.

And if not, you hadn't been flying your flag.

You've been a secret service disciple.

I don't really have time to go through Matthew 10 with you.

Let me just hit the mountain peaks.

Verse 16, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves.

Verse 17, beware of men, for they will hand you over to the courts.

Boy, that's coming.

Verse 22, you will be hated by all because of my name.

There's a verse to put on your refrigerator.

Verse 25, if they have called the head of the house Bilzebulb, that means Lord of the flies.

The flies went to the dung on the outside of town where all the excrement was taken from the clay pot, and all of those flies on the excrement, they call Jesus the Lord of the flies.

You're the Lord of the excrement.

And Jesus said, if they have called the head of the house Beelzebub, how much more?

Will they malign the members of his household?

Verse 28, do not fear those who kill the body because they will attempt to kill the body.

Verse 34, do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth.

I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.

He came to shake things up.

He came to shake up the status quo.

So this persecution is actually promised.

2 Timothy 3.12, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.

Still in there, still in the Bible.

Jesus said in John 15, verse 18, I'll never forget preaching this in Russia and seeing the tears just streaming down the faces of people in Russia.

John 15:18

If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you.

If you were of the world, the world would love its own, but you're not of the world.

I chose you out of the world.

Because of this, the world hates you.

If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.

And in John 16, they will make you outcast from the synagogue.

An hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God.

You know, in Acts 1, verse 8, when he said Jesus said, You shall be my witnesses, you know what that Greek word is for witness?

Acts 1:8

It comes into the English language as martyr.

Because if you were a martyr in the first century, there was a good chance, or excuse me, if you're a witness in the first century, there is a good chance you're going to be a martyr.

You're going to seal your testimony with your own blood.

In the front of my preaching Bible, some of you know this.

I keep a picture of John Rogers.

He is the first martyr burned at the stake by Bloody Mary.

February the 4th, 1555, Smithfield, London.

He wouldn't back down in his preaching of the truth.

And it cost him his life.

And what the real sin was, he finished Tyndale's Old Testament and pulling all that together so that you and I would have an English Bible that was done with such perfection that the King James Version took 85% of Tyndale and Roger's work and said it's perfect.

Committees upon committees cannot improve upon it one bit.

And Mary I of England put a target on his head.

You will be the first one who'll be shish kebobbed in this town.

And every time I go to London, that is the first place I go.

I want to stand where they nailed or where they burned John Rogers to the stake.

Our forefathers knew what it was to be persecuted and not to budge and not to bow.

Jesus says at the end of verse 10, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

You want to know who's in the kingdom?

You want to know who's saved?

You want to know who's come through the narrow gate?

It's those who are persecuted in some degree.

For us in America, it's been kind of a free pass.

That pass is expired.

And those days are changing.

Rapidly before our very eyes.

Verse 11, I need to wrap this up.

Verse 11, we're gonna be serving breakfast here in a minute.

You didn't have to laugh that loud.

I get paid by the minute, okay?

So it's kind of a filibuster.

Verse 11, blessed are you when people insult you.

When's the last time you were insulted for your faith?

When's the last time you were slandered?

When's the last time you were mocked and belittled and scorned?

Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you.

They make false accusations, they assign evil motives to you, evil charges against you, and it's all because of me, Jesus says in verse 12, rejoice and be glad.

You just need to say, hallelujah.

Somebody recognized me as a believer.

Somebody recognized me as a follower of Jesus Christ.

I'm no longer just hiding in the shadows.

I have stepped out of the shadows, I'm out of the grandstands, I'm on the field, I've got a game jersey, I'm on the team.

I know I belong.

When I used to play football, I had a coach in practice.

If somebody really got hit hard, he'd go over to them, put his hand on their blood, and just wipe it all over their jersey.

And he goes, You get a game jersey when you get blood on your practice jersey.

No blood on your practice jersey, you don't get a game jersey.

You can go sit with the cheerleaders.

You can go sit with a band.

With Dan.

All the pretty boys.

But this is what Jesus is saying here, in essence.

You need to get a bloodied nose.

You need to get some blood on your game, Jersey.

Or I wonder if you're even on the team.

How come your jersey's so white?

How come your uniform has no dirt on it?

No blood on it.

Have you even been in the game?

Rejoice and be glad.

Here's why.

For your reward in heaven is great.

I don't have time to trace this out, but there is a greater reward for greater persecution.

Think about Stephen.

He is bearing witness for the Lord in front of the Sanhedrin, and they're gnashing their teeth at him, and they are about to stone him, and he looks up into the heavens, and he is allowed to see into the palace of heaven, and he sees the Lord Jesus Christ, and Jesus stands up in heaven?

How about that?

And it's communicating, son, if you stand up for me down here on this earth, I will stand up for you in heaven.

And so that should cause us.

I want the Lord to stand up for me.

He took the hits for me at the cross.

Surely I can take some hits for him down here.

That's Colossians 1, 24.

So rejoice and be glad.

For your reward in heaven is great.

For in the same way they persecuted the prophets who are before you.

You're in pretty good company.

You get maligned a little bit.

Somebody doesn't include you in the next little coffee club they they put together.

Listen, they killed the prophets.

You're in great company.

You're in Hebrews 11 company.

It says in Hebrews 11, they were thrown into lion's dens, slain by the sword, they were tortured, they were imprisoned, they were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were ill-treated, they were afflicted.

We didn't even come close to that.

But the mark of a true disciple who has come through the narrow gate, who has left the world behind, who has come on Christ's terms, who has a new heart, to one extent or the other, he'll be persecuted.

She'll be persecuted.

And if not, we need to wonder am I in the game?

The people know what side I'm on and what I believe.

These are challenging words.

They come from the lips of the greatest preacher who ever preached, the word incarnate, the one who is the truth, the Lord Jesus Christ.

We will not soften one bit the strong teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Because it takes strong teaching to produce a strong disciple.

So we want his strongest words to be embedded in us, and we want to live it out.

May God give us the grace, strengthening, sustaining grace, sanctifying grace to live out what we have looked at in these Beatitudes.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Father, thank you for this study tonight.

We understand these are strong words.

May your Holy Spirit bring them home to our hearts, challenge us, convict us, comfort us, meet us at every point of need in our lives.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us today.

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

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

Our service times and other church information is on our website at ibc.church.

If you want information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to tms.edu.

I hope this resource has been an encouragement to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with boldness.

May the Lord bless you.