Today concludes the study of the Beatitudes. Tomorrow I will get back to my original plan of writing my first impressions as I journal my way through the book of Matthew.
As we have looked at these core values of the Kingdom Jesus taught in the Beatitudes, we found that the Kingdom of God is truly radical. Values in the Kingdom of God are not at all like values of the world. Things the world values highly –money, power, prestige, fame –these things are nothing in God’s Kingdom –and things we don’t tend to value –things like brokenness, sorrow, humility, meekness, hunger for God –these things are worth more than the whole world. And today we come to the logical conclusion to where living these Kingdom values will lead us.
Matthew 5:10-12.
“Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil things against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
First let’s look at this in a general sense, a kind of overview, and get the obvious meaning. The first thing we should see is the reality of persecution. It goes without saying that Jesus is utterly honest, and it is fitting that he conclude this little section of teaching on Kingdom values by saying up front that if you obey these teachings, if you follow Jesus, there is going to be a cost; you will be persecuted. You notice that Jesus did not say if you are persecuted, He said when you are persecuted. In doing this, He is saying, “Pay attention here. Understand this. If you truly follow me, this is what it will mean: you will experience persecution.”
Now, we might wonder why anyone would follow Him if He tells us up front that we are going to be persecuted. That doesn’t seem to be a real great attraction point. It doesn’t seem like it would be the most effective way to present the Gospel to the unsaved. “Come to Jesus and be persecuted.” So, where is the attraction? At least in part, the attraction is in a right relationship with God -through Jesus we receive forgiveness, we receive mercy, we receive freedom from all the guilt and baggage and bondage. The benefits of being in right relationship with God outweigh the fact that we will be misunderstood and taunted and persecuted. So at first glance, my first reaction to this beatitude is to say that we come to Jesus despite knowing that persecution will result. The blessings are in the other things, and we are willing to put up with persecution in order to have the blessings. That makes sense to me. I truly believe that the benefits of being in right relationship with God do, indeed, far outweigh the drawback of being persecuted.
But, here is the kicker: verse 12 puts a kink in my whole idea by saying, “rejoice and be glad.” Some translations say, “…be exceeding glad.” This in the context of being persecuted. Be outrageously glad.
Let me give an illustration of the kind of gladness Jesus is talking about here. I’m a football fan, so I’ll use an illustration from football. Let’s imagine that it is opening day –the first game of the season. Your favorite team is receiving the kickoff –and on the very first kick of the very first game of the season, the receiver catches the ball and starts running up the middle of the field, gets a few key blocks, skirts to the outside and runs the length of the field for a touchdown. What a great way to start a new season. This gives you hope. This is exciting. This makes you happy. You are probably cheering out loud. But that’s not quite the kind of rejoicing Jesus is talking about. The kind of rejoicing Jesus is talking about is what happens when it is the closing moments of the championship game, and the opposing team just scores. They are up by four points, so a field goal won’t do. There are only 3 seconds left on the clock, and they kick a little squib kick that is almost impossible to handle. Your receiver picks it up as the time runs out. This is the final play of the game. The whole season comes down to this one moment. And against all odds, your guy breaks a couple of tackles and gets a couple good blocks and all of a sudden is headed for the endzone. He scores. You win. I promise you that in this scenario, there would be much rejoicing in the home town. That is the kind of rejoicing, that is the kind of gladness Jesus says we should feel when we are persecuted for His sake. Not just, “that was nice” kind of gladness, but outrageous –we are the champions kind of gladness.
For those of you who are not football fans, let me explain it another way. Every once in a while, McDonalds has one of its little games where you peel off the stickers that come on your food packaging. If you get certain stickers, you win prizes. There are all kinds of prizes. Most of them are food things like hamburgers and milkshakes. But supposedly, some of the prizes are big prizes like cars and trucks and big money prizes like a million bucks. Now, if I happen to be eating there when they have these games, I always peel off the stickers to see if I’ve won anything. You do the same thing, I'm sure. Once in a while I might win a breakfast sandwich or a small order of fries. And you know what? I like winning things. It makes me happy to win something –even something small like an order of fries. But you can imagine that I would be happier still to win the million bucks, right? When I win the French fries, I’m happy, but it’s not like I get up from the table and started running around the restaurant yelling “I won, I won!” You understand what I’m saying, right? There is happy, and then there is really, really happy. Jesus used a word here which means the really, really, get excited and shout for joy kind of happy when he said we should be happy about being persecuted for righteousness sake.
But that seems like an unreal expectation, so maybe we should try to understand what persecution for righteousness is and what it isn’t. Sometimes, we get a little confused and think it means being persecuted or criticized or taunted or mistreated for being religious. Being religious and being righteous are not necessarily the same thing. There are times when Believers are rejected because, frankly, we can be insulting and arrogant and rude and shallow. Don’t get all happy about being persecuted for being obnoxious. You don’t get blessed for being rude and petty and spiteful. Sarah and I were once in a situation where we visiting at a non-Christian’s home. It was a party kind of thing, and there was another Christian family there as well. When the host offered us a beer, this other Christian went into this very pious explanation of why, as Christians, we don’t drink and we don’t do the kinds of things other people do, and how God has saved us from that sort of thing and how we are such better people and all now. Not surprisingly, everybody there gave him the cold shoulder for the rest of the evening. Later on, I overheard him telling some other Christians how he had been persecuted for the sake of Christ. Well, he wasn’t being persecuted for righteousness; I don’t even think he was being persecuted for the cause of Jesus at all. He was simply being ignored because he had been insulting and arrogant and rude and obnoxious. That is never how Jesus treated others and it is not the behavior He wants from us. This blessing does not apply to persecution we bring on our selves through bad behavior.
In fact, this blessing does not even apply to those times when our Christian convictions lead us to champion political causes for which we might experience rejection or persecution –even if they are righteous causes. For instance, some Christians are involved in environmental issues. Many Christians are opposed to the funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. Many Christians are involved in the Right to Life movement. Many Christians are involved and should be involved in all sorts of political issues. But experiencing rejection because of a cause is not the same thing as persecution for righteousness. Chances are when you are persecuted for a cause it is not necessarily because you are living a holy life, it is simply that other people have a different opinion about your cause. So, even if it is a righteous cause, even if being involved is the right thing to do, it is not exactly what Jesus is talking about when He says, “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness.”
So, what is it that Jesus meant when he said blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness? I think it is safe to assume that this Beatitude comes at the end, as a conclusion to the Beatitudes because it is the logical place we will end up if we truly grab hold of and understand and live the Kingdom principles Jesus gives us in the Beatitudes. So, I think the righteousness Jesus is talking about is defined by the Beatitudes themselves.
Blessed are you when you are persecuted for understanding and living with the conviction that you are spiritually bankrupt, that you have no righteousness of your own and have a desperate need of a Savior. Blessed are you when men taunt you and make fun of you for your willingness to let down the mask and quit pretending that everything is all right when it’s not - for admitting the guilt of your sin and grieving over it. Blessed are you when men take advantage of you and misuse you because you are unwilling to demand your own rights and instead are willing to submit all of your rights, all of your abilities and all of your resources to God. Blessed are you when people see your merciful character as a sign of weakness and mistreat you. Blessed are you when you are persecuted because you love God with a passion and are not willing to live a life of compromise. Blessed are you when you are lovingly willing to confront the real issues in life with God’s truth, even when it is uncomfortable, even when it leads to rejection and hostility. Blessed are you when you are persecuted, as you certainly will be, for living these Kingdom principles in real life.
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