June 9, 2002

Service Theme – "Our God is With Us"

Matthew 5:10-12

Poor Pitiful Me!

1. Introduction

1. Illustration – We’ve all heard stories about Christians being persecuted all over the world. In northern Africa, children of Christians are being sold into slavery by Muslims. In China, pastors and other church leaders and members have been thrown into prison by the government over a period of decades. In Indonesia, new converts to Christianity are imprisoned and tortured by family members until they renounce their new faith. Tertullian, a powerful defender of the faith for most of his life, who was born in the late second century, wrote that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.
2. Context – Persecution has been a challenge throughout the entire history of the Church. It has taken many forms and has ranged from being extremely severe to being merely troublesome. But what’s the point of being persecuted? What’s the point of suffering like that? What’s the point of being picked on and harassed and even killed? What good does it do us? Jesus gives us a bit of a clue in Matthew 5:10-12 when He says,

1. Scripture Passage

1. Matthew 5:10-12 – "Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ¹¹Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. ¹² Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

1. Why Me?!

1. You know, all of us have experienced persecution in some form or another. A lot of it has happened when we were kids, or will happen to those of you who are kids. Children of all ages can be especially cruel. They’ll pick on you for any physical or mental or emotional defect or difference mercilessly. A lot of persecution happens when we’re adults as we try to live our faith in a decidedly non-Christian workforce. We get identified as a bunch of tee-totaling hypocrites who just look down our noses at everyone else, and then our co-workers do everything they can to try to make us mess up. But so much of the time we bring this kind of persecution on ourselves because we aren’t really living our faith at work.
2. There is a critical question we’ve got to ask here – how do these kinds of persecution measure up to what Jesus said? Do they qualify for heavenly blessing? Well, Jesus did give a couple of qualifiers for receiving the eternal blessing. First, He said in verse ten, "Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness." Because of righteousness. I think so often we’re persecuted because of self-righteousness, because whether or not we realize it we come across like we do think we’re better than everybody else is. But Jesus is saying that the blessing of intimate relationship with the Father in the face of persecution takes place when that persecution is caused by our relationship with the Father. Do you understand what I’m saying? Think of it like an equation: intimate relationship with the Father causes persecution, which brings even more intimate relationship with Him. When we walk in relationship with God according to His will and His commandments, and not according to our own understanding of Him, we will be persecuted because of righteousness. If we don’t walk in relationship with God according to His will and His commandments, and do walk according to our own understanding of Him, we probably will be persecuted, but we’ll bring it on ourselves.
3. Then, in verse eleven, Jesus adds, "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me." Again, the key is found in the last few words – "because of me." I’ve been insulted and persecuted and have had all kinds of false things said about me because I was being a jerk or because of my size or because of the consequences of my birth defects. Some of it was my fault, and some was just because someone wanted to make themselves feel better by putting me down. Has this stuff hurt? You bet! But it doesn’t qualify under Jesus’ criteria. The bottom line issue for us to be blessed because of persecution is whether or not the persecution is because of Jesus. That’s it. If we are persecuted because of our close, personal and faithful relationship with Jesus Christ, we will receive eternal rewards and the possibility of an even closer relationship with Him if we choose. Jesus tells us in verse twelve to rejoice and be glad because we’ll be receiving great rewards in heaven. But whether or not we make it that far depends on how we react to the persecution.
4. We can choose to allow the persecution to make us either bitter or better. Persecution can drive us either away from God or toward Him. When we allow the persecution we suffer because of Jesus to drive us closer to Him, we become more like Him. Paul explains how this works in Romans 5:3-5. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; ⁴ perseverance, character; and character, hope. ⁵ And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. Growing closer to Jesus and becoming more like Him in the midst of persecution is a choice, and it’s the only way we can receive eternal blessings in the midst of persecution.
5. Illustration - The February 1991 Reader's Digest holds these words: Vaclav Havel, the Czech poet/President, spoke these words from his years of suffering oppression and persecution: I am not an optimist, because I am not sure that everything ends well. Nor am I a pessimist, because I am not sure everything ends badly. I just carry hope in my heart.... Life without hope is an empty, boring and useless life. I cannot imagine that I could strive for something if I did not carry hope in me. I am thankful to God for this gift. It is as big a gift as life itself. We have the most powerful reason in the world to have hope in persecution: our relationship with Jesus Christ. Let’s start allowing Him to change us through persecution.

1. Dealing with Persecution

1. All this is good stuff, but what about those times when we’re so strung out because of persecution we’re barely surviving from day to day. There’s a part of the life of Elijah found in 1 Kings chapters 18 and 19 that can help us. We’re not going to read it right now, but you can later if you like. I’m thankful to an article I read by Ted Haggard that gave me some of these concepts. Elijah had just taken on all the prophets of Baal and defeated them soundly, proving God to be the true God and killing off all those false prophets. He had prayed and it started raining for the first time in three years. He had witnessed God’s amazing power. But when wicked queen Jezebel put him under a death sentence, he ran. 1 Kings 19:3-4 says, Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, ⁴ while he himself went a day’s journey into the desert. He came to a broom tree, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. "I have had enough, LORD," he said. "Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors." I can identify with Elijah, and I know you can too. Much of the time severe persecution comes after a great spiritual triumph, and we feel like packing it in. Instead, let’s learn from what God did to help Elijah.
2. First, God met Elijah’s physical needs. He was physically worn out and hadn’t been taking care of himself. When we’re feeling beaten down by persecution, we’ve got to take some time to meet our physical needs. We’ve got to eat right, get enough rest, and even get away for a day or so in order to recharge for what lies ahead. We tend to ignore them when we’re being thrashed on, so number one is taking care of our physical needs.
3. Second, God gave Elijah time to gain perspective. God sent Elijah on a forty-day journey into the wilderness to give him a chance to think about life and to put it into perspective. I can imagine that Elijah’s complaints seemed a bit lame after he had all that time to work through them. But then God gave Elijah even more opportunities to think things through. He asked Elijah the same question twice before He responded. We’ve got to take time to gain some perspective on our situation when we’re being persecuted. What’s God’s purpose in it? What perspective does He want us to take? Slowing down and gaining perspective on life is number two when we’re being persecuted.
4. Third, when Elijah was ready to give up his complaints, God gave him his marching orders. We can’t both talk and listen wholeheartedly at the same time. God met Elijah’s physical needs, gave him the time he needed to gain perspective, then when he was ready to quit fighting against God’s purposes God gave Elijah new purpose. When we’re ready to quit complaining about the persecution we’re suffering under, then God is able to give us new purpose by moving us on in His direction. Following the pattern of how Elijah was led in dealing with persecution will help us remember one constant that always holds true no matter what we’re facing – God is in control. That will never change. And it can help us stop saying "poor, pitiful me" when persecution hits. How can we be pitiful when God is in control?
5. Illustration - Gordon MacDonald, in Christ Followers in the Real World (Nashville: Oliver Nelson, 1989, 102-3) (as cited on Homiletics Online), writes, In her book, Life and Death in Shanghai, Nien Cheng writes of her experiences in a prison during the Chinese cultural revolution. In chapter after chapter, she describes the brutality of her captors as they attempted to break her will and force from her a confession of conspiracy against the government of the People's Republic of China. But she would not break, and she constantly affirmed her innocence. Mrs. Cheng was a widow, and she was separated from her only daughter (much later, Mrs. Cheng would learn she was dead). Apart from her faith - which was obviously of the real-world kind - she had nothing as a resource upon which to rely. At a key moment in her incarceration, Mrs. Cheng writes, she saw a tiny spider ("the creature was no bigger than a good sized pea") crawling up the side of the cell window. When it had climbed to the top, it began the intricate process of spinning a web: "It swung out and descended on a thin, silken thread spun from one end of its body. With a leap and a swing, it secured the end of the thread to another bar." This process, Mrs. Cheng recalls, happened over and over again until there was a frame upon which to build a web: "There was no hesitation, no mistake and no haste. It knew its job and was carrying it out with confidence." When the spider's task was complete, it "went to its center and settled there." Nien Cheng suggests what this meant to her: "I had just watched an architectural feat by an extremely skilled artist, and my mind was full of questions. Who had taught the spider how to make a web? Could it really have acquired the skill through evolution, or did God create the spider and endow it with the ability to make a web so that it could catch food and perpetuate its species?" And then she concludes: "For the moment, I knew I had just witnessed something that was extraordinarily beautiful and uplifting. Whether God had made the spider or not, I thanked him for what I had just seen. A miracle of life had been shown to me. It helped me to see that God was in control. Mao Zedong and his revolutionaries seemed much less menacing. I felt a renewal of hope and confidence." Just like Elijah and Nien Cheng, we too can be used by God for His glory in the midst of persecution.

1. Conclusion

1. Please bow your heads and close your eyes. Have you been feeling persecuted? The source of your persecution matters a lot. Are you being persecuted because of your faith in Jesus? Gain strength from drawing closer to Him. Are you being persecuted because of yourself, because of your failure to walk as Jesus did or because you’re trying to force your will on God? The altars are open. Let’s spend a few minutes in prayer asking God to cut through our logic and our emotions and whisper to our hearts where the persecution is coming from. And asking Him to forgive us where we need to be forgiven and to help us draw closer to Him in the midst of persecution.
2. Again, the altars are open. If you need God’s help in dealing with persecution in your life, whether brought on because of yourself or brought on because of Him, please come forward and ask Him for His help. He’s the only One who can help us make it through.