Happy are the Persecuted
Matthew 5:10-12
1. A Peacemaker is one who seeks to bring people to true peace by showing them the way to righteous. That means being right. Right with Christ, right doctrinally.
2. The natural result of being a Peacemaker is conflict and persecution in varying degrees. To the one he helps bring to Christ and salvation he is a true friend. To the one who does not respond to his efforts he is a trouble maker.
3. True happiness comes from knowing Christ as ones saviour and being in fellowship...living as God directs.
4. The person who is truly a peacemaker is in conflict with others for several reasons:
a. He is perceived to be a trouble maker. The philosophy of the world is to deny the truth. To hide sin, to cover up problems
b. He is perceived to have a "I'm better than you" attitude. Because a peacemaker tries to do what is right, it shows up those that are wrong.
c. He is perceived to be too narrow minded. World wants get latitude to do as it pleases and does not want what they do questioned.
d. The truth of the matter is it is the truth that is in conflict with error. We talk about the oppressed minorities, well the peacemaker who lives for the Lord is in the minority.
e. It is no fun to be a peacemaker, to be at odds with other people.
Yet, God has provided a place of sanctuary it is called the local church. It is the place where peacemakers come together to fellowship, and encourage one another.
They have a common bond in Christ. They love the truth and seek to find it in Bible study, Sunday School and the preaching of the Bible. It is a place of refuge. Sometimes even within the church there are those who oppose the peacemaker, the one who takes a stand for truth and what is right. Everyone in a church is not always a peacemaker, every Christian is not always a peacemaker. This at times causes tension in the church family. That is why it is so important for each person to be a Bible reader and one who is seeking God. Unbelievers know little about love, of being a Christian companion, of being a friend, seeking as a brother to help one another, having a spirit of mercy. It knows nothing of purity and of true peace.
5. There are three distinct features in this the last Beatitude. Persecution, Promise and Posture.
I. PERSECUTION:
A. There is a double blessing for the persecuted.
1. Verse 10. "Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousness sake."
2. Verse 11. "Blessed are you when men revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake."
3. Those that are persecuted need a double blessing.
B. WHO WILL BE PERSECUTED?
1. II TIMOTHY 3:12 Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
2. Notice that it does not say all Christians will suffer persecutions. Those that "live godly in Christ." The secret Christian, the compromising, or the Christian who is not a peacemaker will rarely or never be persecuted.
3. To whatever a degree a person lives the first seven Beatitudes, will determine how much he will experience the eighth. If he is: Poor in spirit: The world can't stand him, because it lives in pride and self-promotion.
Mourns and is repentant over sin: The world thinks him a fool, to not live it up. Meek: The world runs over him and makes him a victim. Hungers and thirst after righteousness: Religious fanatic. Too narrow minded. Merciful: The world laughs, to be merciful is to seek the warfare of others first. Unbelievers seek their own welfare first, the put themselves first. An attitude of "what will it get for me". Pure in Heart: He seeks to serve the Lord and live a pure life, the world seeks to sin and gratify the lusts of its flesh.
Peacemaker: He tries to help others find true lasting and eternal peace, yet the world seeks peace in going down the board road that Jesus says leads to distraction.
4. Gal 4:29 "But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now."
5. We are all aware of the Holocaust, and the murder of six million Jews.
Are you aware that it is estimated by historians that over 40 million Christians have been killed for their belief in Christ since the early church.
a. The first murder was caused because Abel's brother Cain, could not tolerate his righteousness in obeying God. So he murdered him. Gen 4:8
b. God first in Heb 11:32-35, speaks of those who had great victories in serving the Lord. However, Heb 11:36-40 speaks of those who suffered greatly, many gave their lives for their faith in God. The unbelieving Jews, murdered the prophets of God, because they hated being told they were living in sin.
They could not murder God, so they murder His messenger. It has always been the religious lost who have been the greatest persecutors of those that follow the Lord. Acts 7:52-53.
"Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers: Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it." This is the motivation of those that persecute: They do not want to hear the truth, so the try and silence them that are messengers of truth.
John 3:19 "And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather that light, because their deeds were evil, For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, list his deeds be reproved. He that cometh to the truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God."
C. It is not unusual for those who live for the Lord to suffer for it. Phil 1:29, "For unto you it is given in behalf of Christ, not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake" Phil 1:28 says, " in nothing be terrified by your adversaries, which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation."
These verses teach two things:
1. Those that are persecuted for the sake of Christ should understand that it is because of Christ they suffer. It is great evidence of their salvation. It is great evidence of their standing for the truth, of being a peacemaker and living for the Lord.
2. Those that persecute the ones who follow the Lord and try to live as God directs, by their persecution of the saints of God show they do not know God. They breed contempt for the righteous, they try to destroy the messenger of truth, because when the truth is told it exposes the sin and hypocrisy in their lives. 1 Thess 2:15, "Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men:
16 Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins always: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost."
D. I can not close this message without mentioning the promise of God to those who live for Him. Romans 8:35, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
1 Cor 4:12-14, "And labour, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it: Being defamed, we intreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day. I write not these things to shame you, but as my beloved sons I warn you."
2 Cor 4:6-9, "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;"
CONCLUSION:
We should take heart in the face of persecution; James 1:2, says to rejoice when the trials come. There is also a warning to examine our selves in light of these truths. Ill us: Was in a SS class in Panama City, Fla. The lesson was on persecution: They concluded that Christians today do not suffer persecution except in foreign countries with pagan or communist governments. Do you see the problem with their conclusion? It is not Biblical. Persecution comes to those who live for the Lord, and not necessarily because they live in a country with an ungodly government.
The members of that men's Sunday School were not suffering any persecution by their own testimony. Do you wonder why? God says ALL that live godly in Christ Jesus WILL suffer persecution