Matthew chapter 5 beginning in verse 10. This is God's word. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be very glad because great is your reward in heaven for in this manner they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Father in heaven as we come to this passage of Scripture open our hearts and minds and teach us in Jesus name. Amen. So the first seven beatitudes are descriptive of the Christian person. In other words if you're a Christian you would be or you will be poor in spirit, mourning for your sin. You'll be meek or gentle with others because you're aware of the poverty of your spirit and your own sin so you will not see yourself as superior to other people. As a result you will hunger and thirst for righteousness which is to say that you'll have a strong desire for the righteous one Jesus Christ. You'll desire to be like him and to be with him. Because of this you'll be a merciful person not a judgmental person. I remember hearing from one minister years ago, can't recall his name right now but he was fond of saying cheer up you're worse than you think. So all of because that's true you'll be a merciful person. In your pure in heart because your desire is for Christ alone you have no other gods. Nothing else is first and foremost in your heart and mind. And you'll be a peacemaker. In other words you'll be quick to reconcile people with each other but more even more importantly primarily between God and people. And if anyone is like these Beatitudes then they are like Jesus and they will suffer at some point some sort of persecution. Jesus elaborated in John 15 he said if the world hates you you know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world the world would love you as its own but because you were not of the world since I chose you out of the world the world therefore hates you. Remember the word that I said to you a servant is not greater than his master if they persecuted me they will also persecute you if they kept my words they will keep yours also but all these things they will do to you for my namesake because they do not know him who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them they would not have sin but now they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates me hates my father also. In his first letter in 313 John says do not marvel my brothers if the world hates you. Now what does all this mean? Persecution is not suffering for wrongdoing. Peter makes that clear in chapter 2 he says what credit of his first letter what credit is it if you sin and suffer for it but if you do good and suffer for it and you endure it's a gracious thing in the sight of God. Now there are many reasons that we might suffer that really have nothing to do with what Jesus is teaching. Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones in his commentary on this beatitude explains he said listen being persecuted because you're objectionable as a person is not what Jesus is talking about here. For being unwise and suffering mild persecution because of your own folly is not what Jesus means. In other words you might suffer for being difficult or high maintenance although if you're high maintenance you're probably causing other people to suffer. Being persecuted because you are offensive is sometimes if not most the time most of the time for righteousness sake. It is also according to Dr. Lloyd-Jones it also doesn't mean necessarily that when you suffer for a cause even a good cause that you are suffering for righteousness sake. In other words you might start off representing a cause in the name of Christ but soon at some point the cause becomes more important to you than Christ so you aren't suffering for Christ you're suffering for the cause and that's not a bad thing necessarily but it's not what Jesus is talking about. Then the obvious which we already saw in 1 Peter 1 or 1 Peter 2 suffering for wrongdoing. Almost all persecution as I said before is related to witnessing and that goes back into the Old Testament as well you remember Moses and the people with him suffered because God had called them to leave Egypt and he went and confronted Pharaoh and Pharaoh initially allowed them to leave but then changed his mind and they suffered for it they were up against the Red Sea and God parted it and they went through but there was a lot of suffering because of their desire to follow the Lord. Remember when they were responsible for building things in Egypt and they lessened the amount of straw that they would give them to make bricks which made the work even harder. Maybe you'll remember in the book of Daniel the three friends of Daniel Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego they worshiped God and they were called not to they were called to bend the knee before the idol that the king had made and they didn't do it and the king was incensed and he brought them before him and he said listen I'll give you one more chance in paraphrasing worship the idol or we will throw you in the furnace. What was their response? They said we know that God is able to save us even if you throw us in the furnace but whether he does or not we will not bow to the idol. They threw him in the furnace the Lord saved them and the king declared that their God is God. So from the beginning witnessing and persecution have been related. Jesus says as much excuse me when he first sent out the disciples he says Matthew chapter 10 verse 16 behold I'm sending you out of sheep in the midst of wolves so be wise as serpent and innocent as does beware of men for they will deliver you over to the courts and flog you in their synagogues you'll be dragged before governors for in Kings for my sake to bear witness before them and the Gentiles when they deliver you over do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say for you you are to say what will be given to you in that hour for it is not you who speaks but the deliver the spirit of your father speaking through you brother will deliver brother over to death father his child and children will rise against parents and have them put to death and you will be hated by all for my name's sake but the one who endures to the end will be saved now this next verse is important because some people in an effort to show that they're true Christians seek out persecution but this is a command strictly against that verse 23 says when they persecute you in one town flee to the next for truly I will say I say to you you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes so we're not supposed to seek out persecution avoided if you can but it will come if we are witnesses from for Christ in first Peter chapter 3 if you suffer for righteousness sake you are blessed to not be afraid of the their terror do not be troubled but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts always be ready to give an answer to every man who asked you to give a reason for the hope that is in you with gentleness and fear have a good conscience so that even when evil doers speak evil of you and falsely accuse your good conduct in Christ they may be ashamed for it is better but is the will of God for you to suffer for doing good than for doing evil in Luke 21 verse 12 said before all this they will lay hands on you and persecute you delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons and you'll be brought before the kings and governors for my name's sake this will be your opportunity to bear witness Romans 12 bless those who persecute you bless and do not curse them all of the scripture passages that talk about persecution at least the vast majority of them the ones that we've read talk about persecution as a result of your willingness to tell other people about the gospel so you have to ask yourself I've never experienced any sort of persecution at all and that's partly because you live in Canada and Canada historically has been a more Christian nation than many although it's becoming less and less so and some persecution is taking place on our in our country some people are being denied admittance to school because medical school because they will not approve of abortion one Christian seminary was denied accreditation for that fact even though they've been accredited for years see Christians have a different worldview than the rest of humanity or at least we should what is important to us should be Jesus and his kingdom do not be conformed to the world but be transferred by the renewal of your mind Romans 12 to and then first John to do not love the world or the things in the world if anyone loves the world the love of the Father is not in him for all that is in the world the desires of the flesh the desires of eyes and the pride and possessions are not from the father but from the world and the world is passing away along with his desires whoever does the will of God abides forever and what I want you to notice here we've talked about this before is that these are the same three temptations that Adam and Eve were faced with in the garden the serpent said to Eve you surely will not die if you eat the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden she said when she saw that it was a delight of the eyes desirable for food and and desirable to make one wise she took an eight so did she disobeyed God for the same three reasons that we see here in first John 2 and those are the same three temptations that Jesus faced in the wilderness when he was tempted by the devil remember he was told to turn the stones into bread because he hadn't eaten in 40 days and he was told to throw himself off of a high precipice and in every case he quoted the Word of God and told the devil to leave him now we might think well you know it's easy for the disciples to tell us to rejoice in persecution but did they experience it themselves well the scriptures are full of examples one is in Acts chapter 7 where Stephen was stoned to death for preaching a sermon about Jesus when they heard these things they were enraged they ground their teeth at him but he full of the Holy Spirit gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God and he said behold I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God but they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him they cast him out of the city and stoned him and the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul Saul's also Paul as they were stoning Stephen he called out Lord Jesus received my spirit in falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice Lord do not hold this sin against them when he had said this he fell asleep the same Saul became a Christian and he was witnessing before the authorities and he said I persecuted this way meaning Christians to death binding and delivering them to prison both men and women you can see in the service folder the passage from chapter 11 of Hebrews now this is often called the faith chapter and we read about Abraham and Moses and and Sarah and Rahab and all the people for whom it turned out really well but usually we stop before we get to verse 35 women received back their dead by resurrection some were tortured refusing to accept release so they might rise again to a better life others suffered mocking and flogging and even chains and imprisonment they were stoned they were sawn in two they were killed with the sword they went about in skins of sheep and goats destitute afflicted and mistreated of whom the world was not worthy wandering about in deserts and mountains and in dens and caves of the earth so the writer of Hebrews was already very well aware of the affliction and the persecution that Christians in the early years were undergoing because of their faith and of their witness the apostles themselves all died except for John proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus from the dead now John survived tradition tells us even though he was boiled somehow he lived through it but all of the other disciples all of the other disciples died some in horrific ways one history says one disciple was flayed flayed and all they had to do any of these disciples all they had to do when confronted with their faith was to say I was lying I didn't mean it it's not true but none of them did they all held fast to their story to their belief that Jesus Christ rose from the dead because they saw him and they knew it was true Chuck Colson of Watergate fame some of you are old enough to remember Watergate said that when he read about the disciples he knew the resurrection was true he said because these men went their whole life under adverse conditions under beatings and floggings and and misery and ultimately horrible deaths and all they had to do is deny that Jesus rose from the dead he said in the Watergate scandal 12 men who had everything to gain by keeping a lie couldn't keep it for a week he said so he knew that these men would not be able to keep a lie for 40 years or more throughout the history of the church men and women have been persecuted and some executed for their witness I'll just mention a couple one is Jan Hus who was born in what is now the Czech Republic he preached the gospel against the abuses of the Roman Catholic Church at the time who's called for a higher level of morality among the priests financial abuses sexual immorality and drunkenness were common among the priests in Europe at the time he called for preaching and Bible reading and the common language and for all Christians to receive full communion at the time laypersons only received the bread and only a priest were allowed to revive receive the wine he opposed the sale of indulgences these were documents of personal forgiveness from the Pope that were sold for exorbitant prices at times to raise funds for the crusade so how that would work is you have relatives who have died and you want to make sure that they get out of purgatory and get to go to heaven and so the Pope supposedly has is the one who can make that happen if you paid a price then their soul would be released and you could even do it for yourself they were called indulgences so that if you were going to have a particular party or whatever and you knew that you're going to be involved in immorality you could pay to have that covered who's also opposed the relatively new doctrine of papal infallibility when papal degrees contradict to the Bible he asserted the primacy of scriptures over church leaders and councils now for all of this all of these things that sound very reasonable that we would agree with he was burned at the stake John Wycliffe you may remember or you may have heard of Wycliffe Bible translators was condemned by the Catholic Church as a heretics heretic because of his efforts to have the Bible translated into the language of the people now listen to this they condemned him but the one account says he had the good sense to die before they were able to arrest him but he was already dead so they dug him up and burned his body along with his writings William Tyndale had a passion to translate the Bible into the English language this was forbidden by the church at the time and Tyndale was strangled and burned at the stake his last words were oh Lord open the eyes of the King of England and his prayer was answered in 1539 when King Henry the 8th allowed the Bible in every parish church in England and the King James Bible was published in 1611 there are many more too many to name and many who to us are nameless and have suffered the church has suffered greatly in China and there are two examples that have made the news I hope I say this right some of our Chinese friends can wince probably hit my pronunciation Reverend John Sang Kang Chow was arrested and sentenced to seven years in prison while coming back from a missionary trip to Myanmar and once he came back to his southern Hunan province he was not allowed legal documentation in the country and unable to access the most basic services because he doesn't have an ID the people's intermediate court in the southwestern city of Chengdu said pastor Wang Yi was also convicted of illegal business operations and fined and had his personal assets seized and sentenced to nine years in prison Christians in the Middle East are in danger many places in the world being a Christians mean you will suffer financially emotionally and physically and may even be put to death and again so much of this persecution is related to witnessing telling people about the gospel of Jesus Christ and possibly one of the reason that we do not suffer yet is because we are not witnessing yet but remember Jesus lived the life that we should have lived he lived the perfect sinless life in our place and he died the death we deserve to die having all of our sin put on him so that we wouldn't have to pay for it and then he rose from the dead and is seated at the right hand of God the Father where he makes intercession for us we should be able to tell other people about Christ if we believe if it means what it should mean to us we should be able to tell others about Jesus if you're not able to if you haven't up till now pray that you will and if you can't find it in your heart to tell anybody about Christ then you have to ask yourself am I a Christian or have I just gone to church all my life because there's a difference I pray that we will be a church that we will be people who willingly faithfully tell other people about Jesus let's pray father thank you for your word thank you that we can trust it and believe it and that if we do suffer any sort of persecution that you will be honored by it and your word says that our reward in heaven will be great Jesus name we pray amen we're going to