Matthew 5:10–12

In 1730, Count Zinzendorf told the Moravians about the urgent need for missionaries to evangelize the slaves on the Virgin Islands. Leonard Dober listened to Zinzendorf’s appeal. As he pondered God’s calling, Dober felt excited about this opportunity to serve, but he also envisioned the severe persecution he would endure by selling himself into slavery to evangelize these people. He anticipated the horrible working conditions, but above all the degradation of slavery. No price was too high, he thought, when Jesus Christ endured persecution and died for him. So, Leonard Dober, at the age of eighteen, became the first Moravian missionary to the Virgin Island sugar plantation slaves. However, the source of his persecution did not come from the slave master’s whip, but from fellow Christians.

Dober found himself ridiculed, mocked, and chastened for his decision to go to the Virgin Islands. The Christians asked him incredulous questions about how he planned to live in the Virgin Islands or how he intended to minister to the slaves. The persecution climaxed when the Christians discovered that Dober planned to sell himself into slavery. As Dober endured this opposition, he thought that if he had proposed to travel as an ambassador of state, he would have been treated differently; but since he was a servant of Jesus Christ commissioned to preach the gospel, he was looked upon as a fool. Dober arrived in the Virgin Islands in the late 1730s, but he did not have to become a plantation slave. Instead he became a servant in the governor’s house. Soon he resigned his position, as he was concerned that this position was so superior to that of the slaves that it was detrimental to reaching them for Christ. He chose instead to live in a small mud hut where he could work one-on-one with the slaves. In three years his ministry grew to include 13,000 new converts.

Blessed Are the Persecuted

Matthew 5:10–12Blessed 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 utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Is this idea of Persecution that Jesus spoke of Outdated?

Has modern society become so tolerant that talk of persecution is outdated?

A Global Picture

2021 World Watch List (WWL), the latest annual accounting from Open Doors of the top 50 countries where Christians are the most persecuted for following Jesus.

Open Doors USA listed nations that show tain 309 million Christians living in places with very high or extreme levels of persecution, up from 260 million in last year’s list.

Open Doors has monitored Christian persecution worldwide since 1992. North Korea has ranked No. 1 for 20 years, since 2002 when the watch list began.

Where are Christians most persecuted today?

This year the top 10 worst persecutors are relatively unchanged. After North Korea is Afghanistan, followed by Somalia, Libya, Pakistan, Eritrea, Yemen, Iran, Nigeria, and India.

“Reports from counties in Henan and Jiangxi provinces say cameras with facial recognition software are now in all state-approved religious venues. Many of these cameras are reported to be installed next to standard CCTV cameras, but they link to the Public Security Bureau, meaning artificial intelligence can instantly connect with other government databases. The facial recognition software is linked to the ‘Social Credit System’ in China, which monitors the loyalty of citizens with regards to the tenets of communism.”

“China’s war on faith—a return to government as god—is back,”

Open Doors is known for favoring a more conservative estimate than other groups, who often tally martyrdoms at 100,000 a year.

Paul had Convictions About Sinful Nature and New Creation

Paul in 2 Timothy 3:12, “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” (Acts 14:22; John 15:20; Matthew 10:25.)

How could Paul make such a sweeping statement? “He makes it on the basis of a deep conviction about the nature of Christianity and the nature of the sinfulness of man. He is convinced that there is such a tension between the message and way of life of Christians on the one hand and the mindset and way of life of the world on the other that conflict is inevitable.

This conviction is rooted in the nature of fallen man and the nature of the new creation in Christ. Therefore it does not go out of date. It is still true today. Sooner or later a deeply God-centered Christian will be mistreated for the things he believes or the life he lives.

To one degree or another all who are serious about putting God first in your work and home and school and leisure will bump into some form of opposition sooner or later. And none of us knows when our freedoms may cease or when we may be called by God to go to a dangerous place or take a stand here that will cause many to dislike us.

Why the Persecutions Come

This is important because not all persecuted people are blessed.
So the righteousness longed for in verse 6 is given in the form of mercy, purity, and peacemaking. The result is persecution for this very righteousness.

Another way to define the righteousness is as Jesus said, ” “Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.” “

The righteousness that surpasses the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees (5:20)—always involves a relationship with Jesus. True righteousness is not done for its own sake. It is done for Jesus’ sake.

Why is Righteousness Persecuted?

If righteousness means. being merciful and pure and peaceable by relying on Jesus and living for his glory, why would anybody persecute that?

Luke 16:14–15., “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

Then comes the persecution, “The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they scoffed at him.” There is the persecution and part of its explanation: “they were lovers of money.” Jesus’ attitude toward money is an attack on their love of money.

The reason is, because of the love of something evil or untrue and the need to justify that love. This is the root cause of persecution.

Jesus says, “You can’t serve two Gods!” It is part of his purity. It is true. It is essential to know if you are going to be saved. But it goes against the Pharisee’s love of money. So to justify themselves they put Jesus down. This is standard operating procedure for self-justification. And this is the root of all persecution.

A Life Devoted to Righteousness Will Be Persecuted

If you embrace temperance, your life will be a statement against the love of alcohol.If you live simply and happily, you will show the folly of luxury.

If you walk humbly with your God, you will expose the evil of pride.

If you are punctual and thorough in your dealings, you will lay open the inferiority of laziness and negligence.

And if you are spiritually minded, you will expose the worldly-mindedness of those around you.

There are really only two possible responses to a person living a righteous life

John 3:20–21.For every one who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does what is true comes to the light, that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been wrought in God. This one is doing the truth and coming to it and freely admitting that all good in us is accomplished by God.

The two options are persecution or conversion. Matthew 5:10 and 16.

What about all the unbelievers in my life who are neither converted nor persecuting, who are just civil, or even polite?

One reason might be is that your light is under a bushel. You are keeping the stumbling block of the cross well concealed (Galatians 5:11; 6:12–13). You don’t let your distinctive values show.

The other reason might be that you are letting them show and the people around you are moving toward one or the other of these two polls: persecution or conversion. Neither of these must happen immediately.

We should all examine ourselves to see if we are playing a kind of cowardly Christian incognito. And if so, we should repent and resolve to be more sincere in the expression of who we really are.

The Persecuted are Blessed

Verse 11: “Blessed, fortunate, are you when men revile you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad.”

At first, this appears to be a shocking piece of counsel. What can possibly justify the command to be glad when we are hated and mocked and tortured and killed? Jesus does have death in view here. This is what they did to the prophets (Matthew 23:30; 1 Kings 18:13; 19:10; Nehemiah 9:26; Jeremiah 26:23). This is what they would do to the disciples. So he says in Matthew 24:9, “Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and put you to death; and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake.”

How can on justify such counsel to people in pain? “Rejoice and be glad!”

This is either the talk of an insensitive, ivory tower theologian who has never known what it is to scream with pain, or this is the talk of one who has seen something and tasted something and knows something about a reality that most people have never tasted or glimpsed.

This is the Lord speaking, it is not some pastoral novice. And he says to his disciples, most of whom will drink the cup of martyrdom, “Rejoice and be glad” when you are persecuted, when you suffer.

He can say it because he knows beyond any shadow of a doubt that the reward of heaven will more than compensate for any suffering we must endure in the service of Christ.

What a great mystery there is here, the mystery of joy in the midst of agony; the mystery of gladness in misery and groaning. This mystery is contained in the miracle of faith, the assurance that heaven is a hundredfold compensation for every pain. To the degree that you believe what Jesus sees in heaven, to that degree you will be able to rejoice and be glad in suffering. “Rejoice and be glad, for great is your reward in heaven.”

Suffering’s Relationship to Reward in Heaven

Jesus words tell us that the suffering itself enlarges your reward in heaven. If the same reward in heaven could be obtained without suffering, would we not cry out against the uselessness of suffering rather than being glad to embrace it?

If nothing more comes of suffering than of not suffering, why would we be told to embrace it with joy?

Matthew 19:29 “And every one who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life 2

Corinthians 4:17–18,For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, because we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen.

He says that affliction “prepares” or “brings about” an eternal weight of glory.

God has seen fit to reveal his purpose not only to reward with exceeding joy the afflictions of his people, but to make those afflictions the means of working out that joy. Hodge

In other words, rejoice and be glad in the midst of suffering for righteousness and for Jesus, because that very suffering will receive a very great compensation and a very great reward. And the greater the suffering your faith endures, the greater the reward you will receive in heaven. So rejoice and be glad, for great is your reward in heaven!

Jesus desire for us is to have our hearts primarily in heaven, our hopes primarily in heaven, our longings primarily in heaven, our joy primarily in heaven. If that is not where our focus is, there is no basis for us to rejoice and be glad at the loss of our earthly joys.

There is no way we can rejoice and be glad when these things are taken from us if we have not loved heaven more than the things we lose down here on this earth?

Consider the prophets of old who were persecuted and killed for the cause of God and righteousness. Go to Hebrews 11:36–38 and read how by faith they suffered mocking and scourging, 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, ill-treated—of whom the world was not worthy!

We must do whatever it takes to get our heart in heaven and off the world. If we are not able to do this, then we will not be able to, “Rejoice and be glad in persecution, for great is your reward in heaven.”

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”—Jim Elliot, martyr