The Happiness Project: Persecuted

Word now. If you would find your bulletin or look on the screen, we're going to read aloud from Matthew chapter five verses one through 12. So, let the people of God read the word of God.

Now, when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on the mountain and after he sat down, his disciples came to him and he 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 will be comforted. Blessed are the gentle, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. Blessed are those who have been persecuted for 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. — Matthew 5:1-12

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Yeah, I did juke you. If you were here last week, I was like, hey, we're finishing up the sermon on the mount and some of you maybe thought we're going to start something new today. When I was a kid, we used to do this thing in a snowball fight where you take two snowballs. You toss the one with the left hand and you peg them with the right one. Gotcha. We're back in the sermon on the mount. We're going to finish up today for real and we're going to finish up with the last of the beatitudes—or as I've been calling the beautitudes. I'll explain that more in a second. I'll explain why we have circled back to this at the end of this whole series.

But first, the elephant in the room. Does this passage even apply to us today? Do we need to even be talking about this today? I mean, if you spend any time around the church, around God's word, you know that this is our family history. The history of Scripture is filled with stories of persecution. This last bit—blessed are the persecuted. The Israelite people in bondage in Egypt, persecuted by the Egyptians and Pharaoh made them make bricks without straw. David, persecuted by Saul. Even though he was serving him, Saul was regularly looking at ways to discredit and attack David. We think about the people of Israel in exile both in Assyria and then in Babylon and what it meant to be a remnant community. Lots of the last third of your Old Testament is about people experiencing persecution.

We think about, of course, Jesus. Jesus's life is the most famous persecution story there is—from his birth until he was finally put to death by the Roman government. Think about the 12 disciples. Eleven out of 12 disciples died for their faith. Only one lived to old age—that was John. He was exiled on the island of Patmos. That's where he wrote the book of Revelation. And in that book, if you look through, you'll see the word Babylon throughout that book. Now Babylon was not a power at that time. It was a euphemism for Rome and he's talking in very explicit terms in there about the persecution the early church faced at the hands of the Roman government.

That's our history. It cost them everything to follow God. The first century church—Roman coins had a graven image of Caesar Augustus on them and a little inscription, Divi Filius, which means son of God. There was a myth that Augustus had promoted within the Roman Empire that he was the son of Apollo, that his mother fell asleep in the temple of Apollo and a snake came upon her, and hence, here comes Caesar Augustus. Do you understand then the phrase "Jesus is Lord" was a rival concept? Who is the real Caesar? Is it Caesar Augustus or is it Jesus? Christians who made that profession—"Jesus is Lord"—paid for that profession in blood.

This is our family history. It cost them everything to follow Christ. The persecution of the early church—Tertullian, the North African bishop, writes about this in the second and third century. He says, "The blood of the martyrs has become the seedbed of the gospel." Now here's something you need to know. The word martyr in Greek simply means witness. There was something about the witness, the martyrdom, people laying down their lives for the cause of Christ that became a billboard to people that Jesus is real. This is not made up. And so Christianity spread like crazy during the second and third centuries. It cost them everything to follow Christ and that's our history.

That's also some people's present. You probably are aware of some of this, but 75% of the world's population lives under severe religious restriction where either the government or social pressure says it is not okay to be a Christian. In over 60 countries in the world, Christianity is illegal. Tertullian could be saying the same words today as in the second and third centuries. The seed, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the gospel. Because on average, 322 Christians are killed every month worldwide for their faith, still in the present. 214 churches are destroyed every month. There are over 770 acts of violence against Christians—not deaths, but violence like forced marriage, destruction of property, beatings—not to mention all the ones that aren't reported. In the history of the church, it's estimated that 43 million people have given their lives for the cost of Christ. It's costing them everything to follow Christ.

Does This Apply to Us?

And so the question really is for us, and this is the elephant I want to address. Does this matter to us or does it apply to us? I mean, what about us in the land of the free and the home of the brave, right? Does this passage apply to us? The answer is yes. As we've worked our way through the Beatitudes, I've saved this one to the end. I've called them the Beautitudes because Jesus gives us these attitudes that you must have to be a Christian. This is the description of a beautiful life, and Jesus says, yes, even this—even persecution—is part of what he says is a beautiful life. Now, how can that be? This is not just for them out there or them in the past, but this is for us, and I want to think with you about this this morning.

Here's how I'm going to divide up our time. We're going to look at this: Persecution—it's inevitable. It's an indicator and it's an invitation. Three "I"s, right? Like a great Sunday where everything lines up perfectly for me.

Persecution Is Inevitable

Persecution is inevitable. Now, what does that mean? There's a passage in Second Timothy that says this:

All who would live in a godly way in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. — 2 Timothy

Now, whether that's physical, whether that's actually fatal like for many Christians in the world today, or it's social, it's emotional—being identified with Jesus. We're told this will cost you something. It is inevitable.

Now, what do I mean by social and what do I mean by emotional? You probably know, but let me just fill this out. I mean losing friends because you identify yourself with Jesus, being passed over for a promotion because you identify yourself with Jesus, other people thinking you are narrow-minded and stupid because you identify yourself with Jesus, being the object of jokes because you identify yourself with Jesus, being passed over for dates because you identify yourself with Jesus.

You know, and that word from Second Timothy comes from somebody who knows. Paul tells us in Second Corinthians:

Shipwrecked, beaten, left for dead, exiled, in constant danger, in prison, not to mention being mocked and thought of as a fool. — 2 Corinthians

Jesus told us. He told his kids, "Hey, this is inevitable. If they hate me, they will hate you."

So here's the question for us: Has it cost you anything to be a Christian? Now, I'm not talking about salvation. Salvation is free. Salvation is completely paid for by Jesus, but I'm talking about the day-in, day-out being identified with Jesus. Has it cost you anything to be identified with him, to be seen with him, to be known as one of his?

While I gave a lot of examples at the beginning of the sermon about people who suffered physical injury, the reality is that the tongue is the most often used weapon. It's the weapon of choice against Christians, and Jesus says that to us here. He doesn't say beatings and being stoned to death. He says here: reviled, mocked, right? Made fun of, false accusations, insults.

So, yes, Virginia, this is about us. This is about us. It's about Raleigh, North Carolina. And that's probably the most likely form of persecution we will face in this lifetime. Damage to our reputation, loss of friends, people thinking worse of you, being excluded, people thinking you're a fool, being talked about behind your back.

And of course, I'm not saying, "Hey, you need to go look for this this week." There is a weird branch of the Christian family that sometimes is like, "Hey, I need to do stuff so I get persecuted, as if that's a badge of honor." We're not going looking for this, but are we honest? Are we honest with ourselves that actually this is kind of part of the deal? To be a Christian, this is part of the deal. Are we surprised by it? Do we run from it?

And here's the real question—let me push this one step further. Do we tell our kids that? Do we tell our kids about that?

Do we tell the next generation that persecution, suffering because you love Jesus is actually part of the deal? I'm not sure we do. I remember when we were brand new married, Susan and I, no kids yet, couldn't even imagine how many kids we'd eventually have, right? We have six. So we're at this little church in New Jersey and I remember the associate pastor was a real piece of work. I love this guy. He gets up in front of the congregation. He always had crazy stories and he tells about taking his kids to go to the zoo last week. He's like, yeah, we went to the zoo. It was great. We went to the cat house. We saw the lion and I turned to my kids and I said, hey, you know, your Christian forefathers were fed to them. And I'm about choked. I'm like in the middle of the story like, what? You did that? You can't do that. But I mean, he had a point. Whether you think that's good parenting or bad parenting, that's up to you this morning. But he told them the truth. And I'm not sure we always tell our kids that. This is part of the deal. Jesus tells his kids that. If they hate me, they will hate you.

Persecution as an Indicator

Persecution is also an indicator. It indicates something. It can be an indication that your faith is real or it can be an indication of other things. So notice what Jesus says in this beatitude. He doesn't say, "Blessed are you who are persecuted." What does he say? He says, "Blessed are those who've been persecuted because of righteousness." He doesn't say, "Blessed are those who've been persecuted for the sake of self-righteousness." Right? A lot of people would say, oh yeah, the church is good at that one, right? The self-righteous.

Now he says, "Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you. Why? Because of me." Right? The crucified, resurrected savior. That's the only place that Jesus gives us full permission to be offensive. It's the only thing that he's like, you got permission to be offensive around this one. And let's be honest, the cross of Christ is very offensive.

The cross of Christ, like I said last week, to say that there is one way to salvation and that to tell somebody else you're wrong, to tell someone else like this is the only way, that's extremely offensive to people. Let's think about our context. To tell nice moral people in a nice moral city that like your righteousness, your good things that you're about, all the ways you recycle and you take care of other people and you're a good person—that's like filthy rags. Offensive. To tell people who are nice moral people, your niceness and morality is not good enough. You need the dying savior for you. You need the blood. Offensive. Right? I mean, the cross is plenty offensive. We're told it's like a stumbling block. It makes people fall. And this is the only cause that we're given permission from our savior. The only thing that we're given like a-okay to be offensive about is allowing the cross, allowing the risen, resurrected Jesus, the one way, for that to be the offense.

And we're told in scripture too that when he is allowed to be seen, when he is demonstrated, when the gospel—when the crucified, resurrected Jesus is what people see of your life—that's gonna be an aroma to them. It's either gonna be like fresh baked bread where they're like, I want me some of that, or it's gonna be like dog poop on the shoe. You've been stuck in a car with somebody with dog poop on the shoe before. Right? You're like, get me out of here. But we're told that's gonna be the offense. That's what's gonna be offensive. So again, persecution is an indicator. It can be an indicator that your faith is real or it can be an indicator that there is something wrong.

So let's look at a couple of ways that it can be an indicator. First, indicator number one: if you never experience any pushback for your faith, any persecution of any kind, that's an indicator. It's an indicator that something is not right. Something is off. That the gospel of Jesus is not what people are seeing in you or hearing from you or understanding of your life—that the scratch and sniff test on you doesn't reveal Jesus. Do people know that you love Jesus? Do they know that you're a person who's like, hey, the Bible, this is my authority in my life. Do they know that you identify yourself with Jesus?

So let me tell you a story and I hope this doesn't cause anybody to stumble. I do occasionally like to drink bourbon. Okay? Somebody gave me a really nice bottle of bourbon one time and my dad was in town and I was like, oh, I'd love to share this with my dad. And so Dad's over and he's never really had bourbon before and so we poured just a little bit in a cup and I'm like, here, try it. He makes this face, right? He's like, ugh.

He does that, tastes it again—ugh, more water, right? So he pours a little more water in, and a couple minutes later, another sip, the face again. A little more water, and this goes on and on until at the end, he's basically got water with a little bit of bourbon flavoring. And he didn't even finish it. I was like, why did I even share this with you?

But that's what the world wants from the church, right? For us to add just a lot more water till it's something domesticated and different and not offensive. Something other than what it is. A Christianity without a cross. A Christianity that's like, "Oh, love your neighbor." We like that. We agree with that one. Don't judge—as Danny preached on several weeks ago—you know, we like that one. We don't want the stuff in there about a savior. We don't want the stuff about, "I'm a sinner who needs to come and confess my sins and fall at the feet of Jesus and say, I got nothing but you." Right? Exclusive truth, exclusive obedience, exclusive love—no thank you.

And often, I find that Christians are all too happy to comply with that. We want to fit in. I mean, gosh, guys, I know I seem like a jerk, but I like, I want to fit in too. I don't just enjoy being out there. All of us want to fit in. All of us want to be liked. And all too often, I think Christians are very happy to domesticate the faith, and we don't even always realize we're doing it.

There's a huge movement right now to sort of take parts of the Bible that the culture doesn't like and say, "Well, let's not talk about those," or "let's reinterpret those with some new novel meanings that nobody's discovered for two thousand years." It's always been the property of people engaging with scripture to be like, "I don't like this." Most famously, Thomas Jefferson. I remember several years ago, I got to go to the Smithsonian and I saw the Jeffersonian Bible. Jefferson did not agree with and had a real hard time with miracles in scripture. So he went through a Bible and he edited out all the supernatural. He had the Bible re-edited and put back together with like nice sayings from Jesus, but no miracles. No miracles in any part of it.

And I feel like that, in an analogous way, is what we do. That's what the world pressures us to do. That's what we comply with doing. The world wants Christians to have a safe Christianity. And you know that you have a safe Christianity when it never costs you anything. But beware of this: a safe faith is half a faith.

I love how one writer puts this—and she's not writing necessarily about faith or scripture—but she says this: "To be human is to live by sunlight and moonlight with anxiety and delight, admitting limits and transcending them, falling down and rising up. To want a life with only half of these things is to want half a life."

Now, let me rip off that. Let me remix that one. The real Christian life, with a real Holy Spirit that calls us to big prayers and to trust God in moments of uncertainty, to live at the edge of our faith in face of fear, to move into this world with hope and belief, and to risk being misunderstood, and even not liked, and even excluded, and even hated because of the cross of Christ—that's what we're called to. But to want a life with only half of these things is to want half of a Christian life.

Jesus invites us to something that's not safe. And that's okay, because we have all these promises: "I'm with you always. I'm with you always. I'm with you always. I'll never, never, never forsake you." These aren't marching orders like, "See you later." No, it's "I'm with you"—and that "with" is one of the best words in the Bible. With us.

Persecution for the Wrong Reasons

There's another problem too. Indicator number two is persecution for all the other things besides Jesus, and you're familiar with this one. Christians cry persecution for being obnoxious. When we're obnoxious, okay? Let's just be honest about this. This is why I say this beatitude at the very end—because reading this at the beginning when we were going week by week through the beatitudes, we don't know what "righteousness sake" is until we get all the way through the Sermon on the Mount.

And Jesus helpfully here says two things, and he puts them side by side. This is Hebrew poetry. This is the way he talks.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake. Blessed are you who are persecuted because of me. — Matthew 5:10, 11

He's putting those parallels so we get it. What kind of righteousness? You, Jesus. Being identified with you.

Remember, the whole sermon has been about righteousness. At the beginning, Jesus says your righteousness needs to surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees. Otherwise, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. And this one says, persecuted for righteousness. Yours is the kingdom of heaven.

But being obnoxious about our faith, that's not persecution. Being obnoxious on social media, that's not persecution. You're just being a jerk. This is especially true with brand new baby Christians and brand new people to reformed theology. The young, restless, and rabid group, right? We are into reform theology. It's great. Love to talk about reformed theology. But we love to hit other people over the head with it and correct them all the time. Oh, you can't sing "Jesus loves you, loves me, this I know." That's not true for everybody. Give me a break. That's an over-application of reformed theology, but there's something about that which causes particularly young men to get very right about this and go to war. Suddenly I'm right and I'm out there to tell everybody else all the ways their theology is not quite right and that's my job. Everything's labeled a heresy. Everything's a heresy. No, no, no. The church of Jesus Christ, most Orthodox Christians, we agree about 99% of stuff. So not everything's a heresy. Those are indications that something's off.

Here's the indicator: If your family is really upset with you, if all your friends from high school or college that you used to hang out with all think you've become a theological jerk, that's not persecution. You may need to look inward. That's something else. But being persecuted is for righteousness sake—for righteousness sake and on account of Jesus.

The Connection Between Peacemakers and the Persecuted

Think about how ironic this is. I made you read all the beatitudes this morning so you'd see this: the connection between number seven, blessed are the peacemakers, and number eight, blessed are those who are persecuted. This is hard. Can you think about this? Isn't it ironic that being people who are at peace with God, who've made their peace with God because of the cross, and who are about the shalom of the world—when you do that, the world declares war on you. There's a direct connection between these things.

If you have made peace with God and you are about shalom in this world, about other people knowing Jesus, about Matthew 28, all people coming to know him, about Matthew 25, caring for the least and the last—the world will hate you. The world will hate you. And it's ironic, but this is especially true if we want to hold out the whole Jesus and not part of him. If you follow the whole Jesus, people reject part of you. If you proclaim the whole Jesus, people will reject part of you. Christians will say, "You're too liberal for us." Others will say, "You're too conservative for us." But if we hold up what we see of Jesus in scripture, the world will hate us.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, during the rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany, wrote this:

It is not recognition but rejection that is the reward that Christians get from the world. There is always a cost to following Jesus.

And yes, salvation's free. But does it cost us something to follow him? John Stott said this: "You know, we shouldn't be surprised if anti-Christian hostility increases. We should be surprised if it doesn't." We're not going looking for it, but we shouldn't be surprised.

So the indicators are: What do you see in you?

Invitation to a Larger Story

Last is invitation—invitation to a larger story. I want you to know something profound in this beatitude. The language shifts and Jesus doesn't apologize for this beatitude. He doesn't say, "Gosh, you know, persecution for righteousness sake, guys, I'm really sorry. I wish it didn't have to be like this." What does he say? Rejoice and be glad. Isn't that bizarre language? He's saying there is something beautiful that can only be formed in you. There are good gifts that can only be given to you. There are graces that will appear in your life that only come this way. This is an invitation to a larger story that Jesus is inviting us to inhabit. It's an invitation first to a cruciform life.

Philippians says this. I always want to edit this verse. I used to love this verse and now I really thought about it.

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings. — Philippians 3:9-10

I'm like, yes. Do I want to know Christ? Yes, I do. Do I want to know him in the power of his resurrection? Yep. Do I want to know him in the fellowship of his sufferings? Survey says no. No, I don't want that. No, I don't want that.

One of my favorite preacher heroes—and I know it's a nerdy thing to say, preacher heroes—was this guy, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who was a pastor in London. He started his early career as a doctor, as a physician, and was extremely successful. He was assistant to the Royal Physician to the Crown in England. Lloyd-Jones obtained a medical degree from the University of London. He became a member of the Royal College of Physicians and he had made it in his career. He had money, he had fame, he had great reputation. And then for two years, he began to wrestle because he heard God knocking, calling him to pastoral ministry. After two years, he finally left his very lucrative career and his popularity and his friends in London and he went to an obscure little blue-collar town in Wales where he became the pastor. And it cost him so much. He lost so many of his friends. He was ridiculed by people who were close to him. People who'd been former business associates were like, "I got nothing for you, man. I don't even know who you are anymore."

Later on, toward the end of his life, he was interviewed about this transition. And the interviewer asked, "Was it worth it? When you lost your career, when you lost all the respect and fortune that came with it? In other words, did this cost you everything? Was it worth it?"

Lloyd-Jones replied, "I gave up nothing, and I gained everything."

Why did he say that? Being persecuted for righteousness' sake for him was the gateway into becoming like Christ in a way that nothing else can make happen. Nothing else calls us to a level of seriousness, a level of self-reflection, a level of being intentional about my speech, my behavior, my thought life. It sort of makes us say, "Yeah, man, I guess this is real."

Second, it's an invitation to a lasting reward. Notice the first and the last beatitude both have this language. For theirs is the kingdom of what? Did you notice? The kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven. I love the language of heaven here. It makes sense, doesn't it? What is Jesus doing in your life when you're identified with him and you have to pay a price for that? He is fitting you. He is conforming you for your real home. He's making you ready for your future home.

C.S. Lewis, probably more than anybody else, has written about this. He says, if you find that you have this longing for home that matches no place on Earth, it's because you're designed for a real one somewhere else. And there's something about suffering for the sake of Jesus that has a way of weaning us off the silly pleasures and entertainments and distractions of this life and makes us say, "Man, yeah, I'm made for something else. God is fitting me through this process for somewhere else with him."

Third, it's an invitation to intimacy with Christ. Persecution provides a door into intimacy. It provides a way into being like Christ. It also provides a door into intimacy with Christ, being close to him.

I want you to notice how Jesus personalizes this beatitude. At first, the first verse reads just like all the rest of them: "Blessed are those"—right, out there somewhere, those people. But then when he restates it, "Blessed are you." And I think Jesus shifts to a personal pronoun for a very explicit reason: my heart is connected to you when this happens to you. Not just abstract, no—you. You. I'm with you. I love you. I see what's happening to you. I know about you.

You see this particular connection in the book of Acts, chapter seven. Stephen, who's one of the first group of deacons set apart in the early church, is killed for his faith. Right about before he's about to die—they're going to take rocks and crush him to death with them—he looks up and sees a vision of Jesus. Here's what he says:

"Behold, I see the heavens open and the Son of Man, Jesus, standing at the right hand of God." — Acts 7

That testimony contains a really important detail. Normally, when we recite the Apostles' Creed in our church, we say this about Jesus: Where is Jesus right now? He is seated at the right hand of God the Father. What does the posture of sitting mean about Jesus? He's a king who's done his work and he is resting in the work that he's done. He is seated at the right hand. But here in this passage in Acts, you see Jesus standing. Why is Jesus standing?

Here's what lots of commentators say: Jesus is standing because—that's my boy down there. Like, I love him. I see. I know. This is why this is personalized. The same is true for us.

I want to particularly speak to you if you are a middle schooler or a high schooler sitting in this room. Middle school and high school—most adults would say some of the hardest years of my life. Always felt weird, always thought I looked weird, always felt like I wasn't fitting in. Hard time.

But if you identify yourself publicly as a Christian in middle school or high school—and not just an "I go to church" Christian, right? Not that kind of Christian where you tell a stranger what church you go to. But an "I know I love Jesus" Christian. Not like "I like to date Jesus" or "I sort of like Jesus's teaching," but no—"I love Jesus." If you are that kind of a Christian, this will come to you: ridicule, mockery, rejection, slander, persecution. It's incredibly hard. But I want you to know that Jesus stands. He's standing when that happens with you. That's my boy down there. That's my girl down there. I see and I know.

An Invitation to Esteemed Fellowship

Finally, it's an invitation to an esteemed fellowship. Look what we read here. When the world treats you as a nobody, you get assigned a place with the somebodies. You get assigned a place with the prophets. You're inducted into heaven's hall of fame.

This is what Eugene Peterson says:

Not only that, count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens. You can cheer even. For though they don't like it, I do. And all heaven applauds and know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble.

Those are good people to be identified with.

So this morning, has it cost you? What is it costing you? You know, the same passage we read a couple weeks ago that we all just like our hearts rise up in—where we talk about prayer. Where Jesus says, if our son asks for bread, we don't give him a stone. If he asks for fish, we don't give him a snake. God gives good gifts to his children, including this. Including this.

Let's go to the word together in prayer.

Father, we thank you for your word. There's nothing like your word. We thank you that you don't shy away from telling us what's really true and what's really hard. And yet, Lord, our hearts are resistant in many ways to this. We love comfort. We love ease. We love to be thought well of. And Lord, we thank you for the promises that are attached to this—that there are only some things we can get the hard way.

Father, we pray that we would be a congregation of people who more and more look like Jesus because we're so close to him. Father, we pray that you would help our next generation to surpass us in their zeal for Jesus and his kingdom. Father, we pray that they would outstrip the faith of their parents and their friends and our congregation. Lord, we pray for your glory and for our joy. We pray this in his name. Amen.