Pastor David concludes his 8 part series on the Beatitudes with arguably the most challenging one: “Blessed are the Persecuted”. 

<p>Pastor David concludes his 8 part series on the Beatitudes with arguably the most challenging one: “Blessed are the Persecuted”. </p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Hillside O’Malley SDA Church

The Beatitudes

David Shin

Blessed are the Poor in Spirit

Blessed Are They that Mourn

Blessed are the Meek

Blessed are Those Who Hunger for Righteousness

Blessed Are the Merciful

Blessed are the Pure in Heart

Blessed are the Peacemakers

Blessed Are the Persecuted

Today we conclude our eight-part series of messages from the Beatitudes, and we come to our last Beatitude today.

Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount, and He began by giving a series of 8 blessings, and I want to stop and do a brief review.

Scholars have come to the conclusion that this describes a progression in the Christian experience, a growing from grace to grace, faith to faith, from glory to glory, and they have observed that the first rung on the ladder, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, and the last rung on the ladder, blessed are the persecuted, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, they have the same promise.

So it doesn't matter if you've just become a Christian today or you've been a Christian for 50 years, you are just as saved the moment that you accept Jesus as a long-time Christian.

So the point of the Beatitudes is just get on the ladder.

If you get on the ladder, you have the assurance of salvation and as long as you are alive, you'll be growing in grace, becoming more and more like Jesus, and wherever you may be if you trust in Jesus, you are saved.

So this is a process, this is a journey of growing as a Christian.

The Beatitudes can also be looked at in 2 sets of 4 as well.

The first set of 4 ends with, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

The second set of 4, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness.

We realize our need and we go from emptiness to where God fills us with His righteousness.

He makes us more like Jesus throughout this process of grace and mercy.

So we come to today's beatitude, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

I want to read this quotation from John Stott.

He says, it may seem strange that Jesus should pass from peacemaking to persecution.

Remember the beatitude just before this, blessed are the peacemakers, from the work of reconciliation to the experience of a hostility.

Yet, however hard we may try to make peace with some people, they refuse to live at peace with us.

Not all attempts at reconciliation succeed.

Persecution is simply the clash between 2 irreconcilable value systems.

So this is the eighth rung on the ladder.

It is the highest place that we can be in our experience with Jesus of growing in grace.

Now, if you're like me, I'm thinking, the highest place?

Blessed are the persecuted, and Jesus goes on expounding on this, and I think of this quotation from the book Desire of Ages where she writes, "'Of all the gifts that heaven can bestow upon men, fellowship with Christ in His suffering is the most weighty trust and the highest honor." Remember, Jesus pointed to John the Baptist, and He said, "'Of all those born, there is none greater than John the Baptist." I want us to process that because John the Baptist does not have any book in the biblical canon.

He did not see the 10 Commandments given to him made of stone on Mount Sinai.

He was not translated without seeing death.

There are many great prophets, but Jesus looks and points at John the Baptist and says, he is the greatest prophet, and I want you to think about the life of John.

He lived his whole life for 1 purpose, to point to the Messiah, and he died in his 30s as a martyr.

Of all the gifts that heaven can bestow, fellowship with Christ in His suffering is the greatest and the highest honor.

Jesus talks about persecution when He said in John 15, verse 20, "'Remember the words I spoke to you, no servant is greater than his master.

If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you also.'" In his book, The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer says this about suffering, Suffering then is the badge of true discipleship.

Discipleship means allegiance to the suffering Christ, and it is therefore not at all surprising that Christians should be called upon to suffer.

In fact, it is a joy and token of His grace." Now this is something that we don't like to talk a lot about.

It seems like today we have a consumer gospel.

Drive a nice car, live in a nice house, have 2.5 kids, live in the suburbs, retire and have a nice 401K.

I mean, there's nothing wrong with that, but the reality is this is a part of following Jesus and Paul goes on by saying, yes, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall, didn't say maybe, shall suffer persecution.

He goes on, unto you it is given in behalf of Christ not only to believe on Him, but also to suffer for His sake.

This is the highest place, the highest honor that we can assume as a Christian to be persecuted for righteousness sake.

And in Revelation 14, verse 4, it says that we as Christians follow the Lamb wherever He goes.

We are following the Lamb wherever He goes.

Now, I want to clarify this because Jesus said, "'Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake." This is not talking about being persecuted for being obnoxious and rude.

Some people may argue we deserve that type of persecution.

But this is talking about being persecuted for being like Jesus, being persecuted for doing the right thing, being persecuted for being loving, for being honest, for being Kind.

Blessed are you when you are persecuted for righteousness sake." And this beatitude Jesus ends with and he wants us to understand it a little bit more and this is what is known as the double beatitude.

In other words, Jesus says, you know what, let me dwell on this a little bit more.

So he repeats this beatitude and expounds on it.

The other ones he hits just once, but this beatitude he enunciates and elaborates.

Here it is again, Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake." This beatitude is repeated, it's elaborated on, and another interesting thing about this beatitude is that all of the Beatitudes are in the third person.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.

And this 1 begins in the third person as well.

You can see it there, blessed are they, that's third person, which are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

But then he wants to expound on it a little more, so he switches to the second person.

Now I don't know about you, but when I hear they, it sounds kind of removed, right?

And in the Sermon on the Mount, they're like, oh yeah, they are persecuted.

But Jesus says, let me bring this home to you.

Blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.

Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you." Now I want to look at this last verse on the screen because Jesus tells us what our reaction is to be like when we're persecuted.

Do you see that up there, that last part?

All right, so when you're persecuted and people say all types of things falsely about you because you're doing the right thing, Jesus says, rejoice and be exceedingly glad, extremely glad, exorbitantly glad, Glad to the nth degree glad.

I don't know about you, but when I'm persecuted, I am sullen.

This is so strange when you're reading this because it defies all natural human nature.

I mean, it could have even said, you know, be at peace or be neutral.

But this is like, you're persecuted and you're like, oh, wonderful!

And in Luke's account of the beatitudes, specifically this 1, he elaborates even more.

Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil because of the Son of Man, rejoice in that day." And what does it say?

They got the Toyota car and they jump up.

Leap for joy because great is your reward in heaven, for that is how their fathers treated the prophets." What a strange beatitude.

Jesus elaborates on why we should rejoice.

It's in that beatitude, rejoice, and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven." When we are persecuted, Jesus calls us to focus on the future, to project into the promise of the reality that God has in store for us.

In his book, Daniel Gilbert, who is a psychologist that is a professor at Harvard University.

He wrote a best-selling book called Stumbling on Happiness.

And in his book, he talks about a gentleman, gives the account of Phineas Gage, who in 1848 was working as a manager of a railroad company.

He was working with dynamite, and he was working with this steel pipe, packing dynamite, and as chance would have it, he was packing that dynamite with that steel pipe and a spark caused that dynamite to explode and that 3 and a half foot metal pipe was launched into the air as a projectile and it caught Phineas Gage right here in the cheek and exited at the top.

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Series

The Beatitudes

Blessed Are the Persecuted

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Encounters With Jesus

Jesus’ Encounter with John the Baptist

35m

Living in the Day of Atonement

1h 1m

The Real Truth about the Coming Tribulation

28m

These Things We Know

These Things We Know: God is the Promise Keeper Part 2

1h 3m

Plenary

Overcoming Trials

54m

Joy in Persecution

24m

Be Ye Transformed

45m

Plenary

Kia Kaha

59m

Now Converted: Lessons from the Life of Peter

Lessons from the Life of Peter 1

52m

Hebrews 11- Faith

06 The Faith of Abraham Part 2

43m

No Trial Wasted

39m

Sound Doctrine