Sermon: Those Who Are Persecuted

Commiting Ourselves to a Faithful Creator
#1677
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Given 22-Oct-22; 84 minutes

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We coddled Westerners tend to think of persecution (when they think about it at all) as an ancient practice. Something that happened BC or maybe in the middle Ages or the Dark Ages when people were less enlightened. They think of pagans hounding early Christians and dragging them into the arena for sport, put them in front of lions, or lighting them on fire—all those terrible things that they did. Or perhaps they think of the Inquisition dragging people off to be tortured so that they can get spurious confessions out of them, out of apostates, out of Jews, out of whoever they did not like.

But with the explosion of worldwide terrorism over the past (I do not know how far back you want to go, probably back into the 70s at least with the Olympic terrorism there in Munich), people more readily associate persecution with things like Islamic jihad and radical Muslims using terrorism and Sharia law to persecute not just Jews and Christians but anyone who does not bow the knee to Allah or make them say the right words about Mohammed. And so they will persecute or kill just about anyone who follows a religion other than Islam. And it even gets worse than that. They will persecute even other Muslims who do not specifically adhere to their particular creed.

But persecution for religious reasons is indeed still a worldwide phenomenon. On the Internet, one can go to www.persecution.com (it is a real place, the website of the Voice of the Martyrs), and you can read all about of the extent of modern religious persecution. You will find there under the tab "Stories" that they catalog accounts of persecution from all over the globe. It mostly occurs in Muslim countries, but it is everywhere.

One such story is the three Indian Christians who faced murder charges from animus in their community after praying for a church member who later died. They thought that they were praying against whoever it was, the church member, and killed him. Or you could read about the Malaysian pastor who was forced off the road and abducted by black-clothed men in black SUVs (sounds like some script for a screenplay or something). Or we could also read about the story of the Kenyan school teachers who died at the hands of Al Shabaab militants in a grenade attack because the Al Shabaab, or whatever they are, found out that these school teachers had shared their faith with their students. They had actually come across the border from, maybe Somalia but I cannot remember exactly which country it was, to go into Kenya to do this.

Most of what we call the most dangerous countries for Christians in this age are Islamic as we would expect, but actually the most dangerous nation in the world for nearly two decades for Christians is North Korea. It has held that not very good association (or whatever) for at least 17 years. If you are discovered as a Christian in North Korea, it is an automatic or even instantaneous death sentence. I guess the police have a shoot to kill for Christians if they want to. Sometimes though the guilty party receives a lifetime sentence at a labor camp, which actually is a death camp because they never release them. And what is worse is that if you as a Christian are taken and put in one of these labor camps, your whole family is also assigned to a labor camp. And it also is the case that if the police shoot you for being a Christian, they will shoot your whole family as well. It is just whatever you get for your crime of being a Christian, they mete upon your whole family.

After North Korea, the top 10 most persecuting nations are Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, Pakistan, Eritrea, Yemen, Iran, Nigeria, and India. All of these countries, except Eritrea which is mostly Christian, and India which is predominantly Hindu, are Islamic nations. So be very careful if you have to go into any of those Islamic nations.

But we should not fool ourselves to think that Western nations do not persecute for religious reasons. Those who study it, here and abroad, define persecution of Christians (notice, persecution of Christians, not just plain old persecution), as any hostility experienced as a result of identification with Christ. Now, the important words are any hostility. So it does not have to be death, does not have to be torture, it could be any kind of hostile action. Thus, persecution for one's religious beliefs does not happen just in faraway countries. We can be persecuted right here in the good old US of A and people are actually being persecuted for their religious beliefs here.

Now it has not reached the depths of violence like beheadings or hangings. There are very few home or church burnings, although they do happen every once in a while. There is not typically mass murder for being a Christian. But the phenomenon of persecution of Christians is growing as traditional Christians face increasing intolerance from their governments and from their fellow citizens. There have been many occasions where Christians have to suffer things like fines or dragged through lawsuits, they lose their jobs, they are deprived of certain rights, they are shown a great deal of disdain, and many other things. Those would all fit under the definition that I gave you earlier of any hostility experienced as a result of identification with Christ.

We can see it in politics in far Left politicians and their supporters doing their best to erase God from the government and from culture. We can see it on social media, where the far Left, again, is mostly responsible for this sort of thing, but cancellation on social media and trying to cancel in the whole culture. They do this to pro-life and pro-marriage advocates a lot, but they are doing it to anybody who supports any kind of conservative cause, whether it is political or religious. And frequently there are harsh and mocking denunciations of traditional beliefs and believers.

So we do face a lot of hostility out there. Thankfully, it has not come too close, but it could at any time.

We see a great deal of religious persecution in our educational system, in academia, both in public schools and in colleges and universities. Christians and conservative Jews too are demeaned and targeted for their beliefs when they are scheduled to speak at campuses. Sometimes they get shouted down, sometimes they are strong enough to take it and shout back. It is sometimes interesting to watch this because there is vitriol and a lot of emotion on one side.

And on the conservative side, there is a lot of calm and reason, and very, very infrequently is there any kind of shouting. But I was kind of exaggerating earlier because they do not usually shout back. They give reasoned responses and oftentimes the reasoned responses are quite adequate in getting the point across, because it is amazing how illogical the far Left is. And you put a little reason in there and they are left just stumbling and bumbling about because they cannot answer it with any kind of logical response. So they usually end up shouting again and hurling denunciations and coarse language back at the person who just just shamed them in front of the world.

But these kind of people, conservative Christians and Jews, are routinely called things like hateful and bigoted and privileged. That is a bad word in the social justice arena right now. Christian colleges are threatened with losing their accreditation if they do not conform to secular ideology. Christian student groups have been disbanded and disallowed. In the news recently, one teacher was suspended for giving a Bible to a student. A football coach in Washington State was placed on leave for leading a prayer on the field after a football game. He took it through the courts and he was later exonerated. I do not know if he actually took the job back, even though the court said that he could have it back. I do not know if you would want to live in that kind of an atmosphere anymore, even if you won the court case.

I mean, it is kind of amazing. With tolerance as one of the great watchwords of the times, one would think that society would be becoming more tolerant of people's differences and choices. But actually the reverse is true. These groups that are shouting for tolerance actually want tolerance for themselves, but for no one else. The far Left and secularists and the social justice crowd and all their fellow travelers looking out there and believing that things are not changing fast enough have decided to take to the streets. We see that in various places around the country like in Portland and various other places, and so in the streets they have become less tolerant, more strident, more demanding. And you can bet that with all this festering it is just going to lead to more persecution.

Sadly, we in the West are not as enlightened as we claim to be. In fact, society is increasingly returning to caveman tactics and brute violence, and the reason for that is they have got nothing to stand on in terms of ideas. And so the only thing left to them are things like taking to the streets, rioting, murdering, abducting, and doing those things to try to impress their ideology on others.

So Jesus' blessing in Matthew 5:10, "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake" is timely. We are coming to a time in this world's history when this sort of thing is ramping up. Really it is always current because His elect are always on the wrong side of the world's cultures and its beliefs and goals. They would call us today "on the wrong side of history." That history, that the ideas and evolution are taking mankind in one particular direction—we are getting better—and we though are holding on to remnants of tradition that are—well, what were those words that I mentioned last time, a few minutes earlier—those old traditional Christian ideas are hateful, bigoted, and privileged. So they consider us to be unworthy of the future. They are moving toward.

And if you take that idea far enough, well, what is the logical conclusion? That we should be gotten rid of. That we should be contained somewhere. That our voices should be stopped. And so the result is persecution.

We cannot fully escape the hostility of a world at enmity with God if we truly believe and practice the things that God has given us. It is impossible. That is what Romans says, "The carnal mind is enmity with God." And so a society full of people who are hostile to God, will be hostile to Him and His way, and all of those who follow it. So we cannot escape it. So His beatitude in Matthew 5:10 on persecution provides not just notice that it is going to be there, that we are going to have to face it at some point, but it provides encouragement and hope as we attempt to live His way in a hostile world.

Let us go ahead and read it. I already quoted it to you, but it is good to repeat these sorts of things. Actually, I want to read verses 10-12 because 11 and 12 are what we call elucidations of the particular beatitude.

Matthew 5:10-12 "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile you and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

He says what I have been saying: That there is a long record of persecution against God's people. It has gone way way back in history, it goes back all the way to Cain and Abel if you think about it that way. And so it is something that must be expected. The first two people born on this earth were of opposite beliefs and it ended in persecution and martyrdom. It just shows you the way it is going to be and the way it is.

You cannot get around it because God's way is so different. It is so opposite from the way the world wants to go. God preaches love. God preaches care. God preaches being patient. But human nature goes just the opposite. Human nature wants to hate, it wants competition, it wants getting the best of other people. And so there is going to be a very rough intersection of the two and oftentimes it is going to come out as violence. Violence of word, violence in terms of physical harm, and sometimes even death.

So we need to understand that this is part and parcel of the Christian life, but it is not something to be worried about. And this is something that will get to within the bounds of the sermon.

This final beatitude in verse 10 flows naturally from the previous one in verse 9, which is "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." Consider this: That making peace is such a desirable and necessary attitude and behavior begs the existence of opposition. That is, God wants us to be peacemakers because there is a lot of opposition out there. People are not going to be glad of us bringing Christianity into their lives—true Christianity. They are not going to be glad that we do a lot of things that we do and be buddy-buddy with us.

No, more often than not, it is going to rub people the wrong way because it is so different from their hostile human nature and its desires. So there is going to be friction and it settles upon the Christian to be the peacemaker. And if we can be peacemakers then, that then greases the wheels, that eases the way for us.

We have to become very skilled at being peacemakers because this attitude of persecution is always going to be out there. Even if it is, I do not want to use the word benign, but even if it is not at its fullest height or extent, there is going to be some kind of opposition there. So we have to be peacemakers. And thus Jesus says, "Yeah, there will be persecution," and if you are good peacemakers, maybe you can avoid the persecution a lot of the times.

So Jesus makes it plain that opposition at times will be considerable. We can consider the juxtaposition of these two beatitudes and conclude two things. 1) His way will always face antagonism in the world, and 2) His disciples will not always succeed in forging peaceful relationships. As much as they try to be peacemakers, it is not 100% that they will actually make peace. There will come a time when the opposition is strong enough or vitriolic enough that any efforts at making peace will fail. And so what do you do? That means you have to face persecution. You cannot avoid it, it is coming. What strategies do you take to endure the persecution, no matter how hard or harsh it is?

So we will as Christ's disciples suffer varying levels of persecution from outsiders. Whether it is from individuals that we know, or maybe just people who we meet on the street, or whether it is rival groups who call themselves Christians. Or it does not even have to be Christian groups. It could be people of different faiths, as it were, as a rival to the true church and whatever society it may be. Or it could be established authorities like governments that will persecute. We can look through history and see all of these types of things—individuals, other faiths, and governments. They all at one time or another have persecuted the true church. So we have to be aware of those things and be ready.

Now the reward, as Jesus says here in verse 10, for successfully enduring persecution with the right attitude, without retaliating, without recanting, without compromising, is an owner's stake in the Kingdom of God. Have you ever thought of it that way? He says, "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." It is yours, you own it, you possess it. And that is exactly what it is because we, if you think of the analogy of ruling with Christ as kings and priests, then we own the Kingdom. It is ours, it is His, it is God's obviously, but as sons of God, it is ours too. So you are an owner.

It is very interesting that one of the ideas that surfaced in the language is ownership of something. You know, you do something wrong, they will say, he needs to own that. Or if he makes a bold statement, well, he should own that and explain himself and move forward or you have got to own your mistakes. That sort of thing. Well, we need to own the Kingdom of God. That means we need to put our all into it. We must accept it as our own and do everything that we can to make sure that we live up to it.

So that is what Jesus ends the Beatitudes with. That if you have these attitudes and if you live the right way and you suffer persecution, you own the Kingdom. You are an owner. You put your all into it. You have helped build it, if only in yourself. And you know what? He started the Beatitudes in that way too. Verse 3, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." This idea of ownership has gone all the way through these beatitudes. And if we have these attitudes, we have these reactions, we live the way of God, then we have shown that we own the Kingdom, that we belong there. And God is happy to give it to us, give us our part in it.

Now, the word "persecuted" in verse 10 is the Greek dioko. It is Strong's 1377 and it is found 45 times in the New Testament. It is a very interesting word. It has an underlying sense of rapid motion, of moving quickly, of swift and purposeful movement toward something. Thus, it has the basic meaning of "to pursue" or "to follow." Let us go to Luke 17 just to see this.

Luke 17:23 [Jesus is speaking] "They will say to you, 'Look here!' or 'Look there!' Do not go after them or follow them."

The word follow here is dioko. So He is saying in this case, do not rush to go after or pursue people who tell you that Jesus is here or there. Do not eagerly go looking for it because He is not there. It is just a waste of time. It can have a zealous sense, a good zealous sense, this dioko. It means to follow eagerly in this case or to endeavor earnestly to acquire. So to be zealous about pursuing something, pursuing some line of thought or pursuing an attitude or pursuing a certain thing that is good. Let us look at a couple of these.

Romans 9:30-31 What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith; but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness.

So, he is saying one group did not pursue eagerly, but they received it. Another group actually did pursue eagerly and wanted to understand and fulfill it, but they did not get it. They were doing it for the wrong reasons, obviously.

Romans 12:13 [Paul is telling us how we should act as Christians] . . . distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality.

It is that word given or given to that is dioko. That we are pursuing or endeavoring earnestly to give people hospitality.

Let us go to another one. I Corinthians 14, verse 1. This is an interesting one. Same word that is translated persecuted in Matthew 5:10.

I Corinthians 14:1 Pursue love [pursue agape].

It is that same idea of motion toward, swift motion toward.

How about another one?

I Thessalonians 5:15 [Paul says] See that no one renders evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good, both for yourselves and for all.

So, this is the same zealous, earnest desire moving forward to, in this case, acquire something that is good.

Here is the final one.

Philippians 3:12 [Paul writes] Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.

Philippians 3:14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

That "press on" and "press toward" are both dioko, meaning that he zealously or earnestly was moving forward toward the goal, toward the Kingdom of God, toward the first resurrection.

But this is where things can get off the rails in terms of dioko and go to something that is not good because there can be zeal in pursuing what you consider to be a good thing that actually turns into a bad thing. And that is the idea of persecution. This zealous sense can also imply to "pursue with malignity, to persecute, to inflict suffering upon. And that is clearly the meaning in the beatitude. Christ is talking about something bad, that you are being persecuted for righteousness' sake. He also uses it in Matthew 5:44 where He says, "But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, and do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you." The same word. So, He is clearly talking about the negative sense of dioko.

Now, if we look back to the beatitude there and the elaborations in verses 11 and 12 on it, we can see the various kinds of things that He means about what He is talking about in terms of being persecuted. He says here, "Blessed are you when they revile you." That has to do with speech. This is false accusations. This would be saying bad things about you, using bad language against you, any kind of demeaning speech toward a person. He also says they are speaking "all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake." So He considers this to be persecution as well.

His inclusion in verse 12 where He says, "For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you," also allows us to go back into the Old Testament and see the ways in which they persecuted the prophets and include all those things to under the bigger banner of persecution. And that makes us include many more harsh behaviors toward Christians, including torture and murder and ultimately martyrdom, if you will, to the list of forms of Christian persecution. We have an idea in the time just after Christ's death of how this should be looked at and that is in the persecutions of Saul of Tarsus.

Let us go there in Acts the eighth chapter. We do not want to spend a lot of time harping on Paul's sins here before he was converted. But we can get an idea to get a little picture of the extent to the persecutions that Jesus is talking talking about. In chapter 7, we have Stephen's address and then of course, at the end of the chapter he is killed, he is martyred, and his final words there in verse 60. "Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, 'Lord, do not charge them with this sin.' And when he said this, he fell asleep." He died.

Acts 8:1 Now Saul was consenting to his death.

Saul was involved in all of this. We know that from verse 58 in chapter 7, "the witnesses [to Stephen's death] laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul." Clearly, this is pointing to the fact that Saul was a ringleader in encouraging the people to stone Stephen. So it did reach to the point of murder. Let us go on.

Acts 8:1 At that time, a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered.

This this scattering of the church, which is also a form of persecution, scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.

Acts 8:3 As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering every house, and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison.

And so making havoc, causing a great deal of consternation and chaos, and also entering into people's houses and dragging them off to jail, is another form of persecution.

Acts 9:1-2 Then Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any who were of the Way, whether men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

Here he was getting official sanction from the authorities in Jerusalem to hunt people down a long way off, as far as Damascus, and then bringing them in chains back to Jerusalem. So the things that Saul did were considerable and it is understandable that the members of the early church were wary of him because of how aggressive he was in persecuting the church.

So we can conclude from all this that persecution runs along a wide range of hostile actions. From saying mean and false things about us, to shunning us in the community, to stigmatizing us, to denying us rights and freedoms, to exile, to burning our homes and businesses, to imprisonment and injury and torture, and finally to death. Truly man's inhumanity to other men is limited only by the bounds of human imagination. Reading history, some of the books of the martyrs and those sorts of things, is really quite an education if you can stomach it. But we can just, as a general conclusion, say that mankind excels in the ways of sadistic treatment of their fellow human beings.

However, back to Matthew 5, we need to notice that Jesus does not speak of general persecution and harm. He specifically says "persecution for righteousness' sake." Now, someone could be associated with the church and suffer persecution but their life would show that they were not necessarily suffering it for righteousness' sake. That is entirely different. There are hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands or maybe millions of Christians and Jews and devotees of other religions who suffer persecution right now, which is regrettable and should never happen.

But Christ speaks of the blessed happiness of those who suffer persecution because they are doing what is right. That is a very different animal, suffering persecution because they are doing what is right. Specifically, living out what Scripture reveals as right and true and good. We might put it as "right doing according to God's instruction." There are a lot of Christians in the world who suffer persecution, but they do not follow God's law. They do not actually do what is right. They may have had an altar call and call themselves Christian, but they have never really done the righteousness of God. Their persecution is just by identity, just by association, and that is sad to say, but it does not come under what is being said in the beatitude. This is a specific persecution for doing good, for being like Jesus, for living the life of God in the world of true godliness.

Now, this raises stakes for us because we want to be worthy of suffering persecution for righteousness' sake. But it raises the stakes for us because we want, if we are a true Christian, we have been truly called, and we have a great desire to please God, we want to do what is right. We desire to take the instructions that we see in God's Word and put it into practice. But it also carries this risk, that if we actually do succeed in behaving like Christ, the world is going to hate us. Remember in his Passover message, Jesus said to His disciples there, "Do not be surprised if the world hates you because it hated Me first." If you act like Me, they are going to act towards you like they did to Me. They are going to try to kill you, they are going to try to shut you up, and you are going to have to suffer for Christ.

That means that we have to be willing to take on this risk. If we are going to please God, we have to be willing to suffer the persecution that comes with it. And the more we act godly in this world, the more we behave as Christ would behave in this world, the more likely we will be persecuted. Because our actions, our words, everything that we do will stand in stark contrast to what every other person in this world is doing, who is of a carnal nature. And when that happens, the normal carnal human reaction is to beat down what is different. It is the tall nail that stands out that gets hit with the hammer. And so we have to think about this.

Now the apostle who was most concerned about this, I think, was the apostle Peter. I will give you one reason why he thought a lot about persecution. If you will, go with me to John the 21st chapter. We will just read verses 18 and 19. Jesus speaks to him here. He says,

John 21:18-19 "Most assuredly [usually when Jesus says "most assuredly" we are encouraged. In this case, Peter probably was not so encouraged], I say to you, when you were younger, you girded yourself and walked where you wished; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish." This He spoke [John writes], signifying by what death he would glorify God. And when He had spoken this, Jesus said to him, "Follow Me."

He says, "Peter, if you're willing to take on the tending of My sheep, the feeding of My sheep, then you're going to end up dying the way I did." That is essentially what He says. You may live a long time, you will be old when this happens, but at that point, someone else is going to take control of your life and take you to where you do not want to go, which is to persecution and death and martyrdom. So he says, are you willing to accept this? Follow Me. Okay, you just said you loved Me, you said you would take care of My sheep, but this is the price. This is the risk that you take for doing that.

Most of the time we try to show the way of God as something that is really great and wonderful, and it is! It is something to be desired. But if you do it right, then this risk becomes even stronger, even more likely.

And so Peter, as far as we know, had about 30 or so years to think about this, that Jesus had told him that he was going to die a martyr's death. He would die glorifying Him and he had to think about his approach. He had to consider how he would react to this situation when it came up. Do you imagine the stress that would put a person under?

In "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds," this is actually a big theme because Captain Pike had some sort of vision of the future and it showed him getting into the trouble Captain Pike did, that because he tried to save some children from an explosion, that he would end up a quadriplegic and not be able to do anything and soon die. And so the whole season, at least this first season that I have watched, is him considering this: Is there a way I can get out of this? is his first way of trying to work this out. Can I somehow avert this fate of mine that I saw in this vision? Well, maybe the first thing he thought of it really was, can I believe this vision? Is it actually true? And then he convinces himself, yeah, that is probably true. And then he says, how can I get out of it? And he is coming to the conclusion throughout the season (it will probably be carried into the next season) because that is the story of Captain Pike, that he needs to be worthy of the sacrifice, he needs to be worthy of the death that he is going to have to go through. And also, by the way, Captain Pike had 10 years for him to think about this.

The apostle Peter had 30 years or so to consider how he would approach the fact that he was going to have to die a martyr's death. So he actually, through his lengthy meditation on the subject, wrote his thoughts down for us. He provides us, especially in I Peter, with a lot of good spiritual advice about how we should consider this paradox of doing good, yet dying for it, or possibly dying for it. So we are going to be in I Peter for most of the rest of the sermon because, like I said, Peter gives us a lot to chew on. So let us go to I Peter 2. We are going to be reading three passages. We will take them one at a time in which Peter lays down his thoughts about persecution for righteousness' sake.

I Peter 2:18-25 Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh. For this is commendable, if because of conscience toward God one endures grief, suffering wrongfully. For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. For to this you were called [do you think he was thinking of himself? He was called to this], because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps:

"Who committed no sin, nor was guile found in His mouth"; who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

He addresses this passage to servants and I think that is a good thing to hang on to here—the idea of servants. We know that in this case he was applying it to actual servants. There was a lot of slavery going on in the Roman Empire and many of the people of the church were indeed slaves. And so they had to face conditions where they could have a good master and live peacefully. But there were times they had bad masters and they would be very quick to hit them. And the word beaten here in verse 20 actually means to strike with the fist. So, servants in that day and age could expect that if they did something that did not please their master, they would get a backhand or a fist or some sort of pretty harsh corporal punishment, if you will. So that is how it is in the first instance.

But there is also a spiritual way that we can look at this. And that is, we are all servants. We are all servants of Jesus Christ. And He is one of the, as it says in in verse 18, good and gentle kind of masters. But even with Christ, there are times that, even though we have a good Master, we face situations in which we are going to be persecuted, we are going to get beaten. For Him it is all part of our education and our growth that He allows us to go through this.

But here he says that there are times that we will even be made to suffer when we are doing good, when we are living right. And so how do we take it? Peter says, we should take it patiently. So, thinking back to Peter, considering how he approached this, he was remembering that he was a servant of Christ and he would need to be submissive to his Master in the fear of the Lord all the way to his death. He realized that his suffering for righteousness would garner him praise from God and like him, we are called to the same.

We have to kind of put ourselves in Peter's shoes here and understand that we are servants too and that He may allow us to go through anything if it is going to 1) help us to grow spiritually and 2) bring honor and glory to God. And maybe we could say 3) preach the gospel or make a witness. He has many reasons why He might allow us to go through things that we would not want to go through, negative things, bad things, but we are servants. We have to submit to what the Master allows.

So we can conclude then that all Christians are called to suffer in some way. It does not necessarily have to lead to martyrdom. But some sort of suffering is on the plate for all of us at one time or another.

Because we must all live the life of Christ, even though we are on our own path, we still have to act and live like Him following His example and that means we are going to come across situations and people in the course of that path that are going to try to block our way or beat us down. So he gives us the example of Christ to model ourselves upon. He says Jesus did not react in kind to His persecutors. Instead He took it patiently, He took it with endurance. He just remained steadfast and He kept going. He did not return fire, He did not return evil for evil. Instead, Peter says, "He committed Himself to God who judges righteously."

What does that mean that He committed himself to God? Well, it is pretty simple. He put the matter in God's hands, He just gave it over to God. That took a lot of stress off Him because He recognized that this was a situation that was bigger than Him, even as God in the flesh. And so Jesus said, "Okay Lord, you know what's going on (He knew what was going on too.), You are in total control of the situation. I'm just going to let You have it and make it work, make it go."

But He did take control (I am still talking about Jesus here) over what He could control and that was Himself. He especially took control of His conviction that God would not fail Him. We hear Him say, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" But, in a way, that kind of covers that internal trust and commitment that He had already given. He was fulfilling that prophecy in which those words were spoken. But it is not an expression of a lack of faith. It is a realization that for the first time God was not with Him because He had taken on the sins of the world. "Why have You forsaken Me?" It is like, "I've never felt this dirty. I've never felt this impure. I've never felt this weight of sin before. I've never felt so alone."

But He had still committed himself to that course. He had done that the night before while He was praying in the garden. "Whatever your will is, Father, I will do," He said. So He understood that even though He took on the sins of the world and died and laid in that grave for three days that God would come through for Him, that He would not fail Him. So He committed Himself to Him who judges righteously and He judged with justice in letting Him die. But He judged with equal righteousness that He should live because He had never sinned. He had paid the price, He deserved eternal life, and He was resurrected. So He trusted the Father to give Him the strength to bear it and to watch over Him while He was dead and to bring Him to life again. He committed Himself to Him who judges righteously.

Let us go to the next section. This is I Peter 3, verses 13-17. Peter says, after telling them to live as Christians, be a good brother, you know, show love and those sorts of things. He says,

I Peter 3:13-17 And who is he who will harm you if you become followers of what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake [directly links back to the beatitude], you are blessed. "And do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled." But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear, having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed. For it is better, if it is the will of God, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.

This passage begins with the assurance that most people, even in the world, would never think of harming someone for doing good. Those are the kind of people that this world tends to laud. They laud the Mother Teresa's and the Dalai Lama's of the world, whom they consider to be good. Yet persecution of the good happens oftentimes when the stress and chaos of the world get to be like it is now—very trying times. But he cautions us here by saying this in verse 13: That we should not live in fear of it, we should not live in fear of persecution. As Paul writes in Romans 8:31, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" That is what to have trust in.

So, his advice throughout this passage, actually throughout the whole book, is that we should just live righteously as God instructs us to do. And if we are persecuted for it we will be blessed for enduring it faithfully. We have to look at it with a positive attitude, that even if persecution comes, with it comes a greater blessing from God Himself. Maybe higher responsibility in the Kingdom, greater reward in that way. His advice that he gives us comes in two parts here.

First, we should sanctify the Lord God in our hearts. What does this mean, sanctify the Lord God in our hearts? It can mean two different things that are actually pretty much the same, but we can see that they are they are slightly different. Sanctifying the Lord God in our hearts is either to set Him apart in our hearts—when you sanctify something, you set set it apart, put it in its own category. Or it can mean that we should consider Him as holy.

Now, if I am going to put it in more modern terms, the sense of "this sanctify the Lord God in your hearts" is to acknowledge God in the core of our being that He is our everything. So I like the idea both of setting Him apart—He is in His own special category—and also as considering Him in that own special category, as holy, as absolutely pure, divine, special, you name it. And we could also probably connect this to Paul's frequent use of the phrase "all in all." That God is our all in all. When we do this, we see Him as supreme. He is sovereign. He is over all, He is governing everything, and nothing can happen without His notice or approval. We also by doing this, consider Him unfailingly righteous. That is, He is good. He always does everything that is right.

And so even if we are suffering and dying, that is good, that is right, that is righteous because He never fails to do what is right and good. And, when we do this, when we acknowledge that He is our everything in the very core of our being, we are saying that we believe or are convicted that His promises are guaranteed. That even should we die that we will live again, that we will have eternal life, that we will have all the blessings of sonship in His Kingdom; and He does nothing to us that cannot be reversed in the resurrection. He will heal us, if you will, and all those other blessings that He gives us.

When we acknowledge in the core of our being that He is all in all, what this does is shift our thoughts and emotions off ourselves. Because when we get in situations like this, when human beings are suffering, 99% of their thoughts in a normal carnal human being is about their own life, their own health, their own pain, their own aspirations that will never be fulfilled. It is all selfish. "I'm going through so much!" But when we acknowledge God as greater and special and holy and pure and always right, then our mind focuses on Him and not on us. So it centers the very terrible situation on Him and not us.

The second thing that Peter says here is, "Be ready to defend the gospel in meekness and in fear, godly fear." And this point has two points of its own. Peter tells us that we should use the situation, even if we are in pain and suffering, to witness to others about the truth. He says, "Give a reasoned defense." I know that in times like that it is hard to think straight. But if you have been in the church for any length of time and you have been studying and you have been meditating on these things, you should be able to give a reasoned defense for why the gospel is true universally to everyone, as well as give a testimonial of why it is true specifically to you and what God has done for you.

Peter is saying, "Do not waste the situation, because by giving a ready answer, by giving a defense, an apology, if you will, in the old sense of the term, a defense of God's way of life, you bring glory and honor to God." And you should never pass up an opportunity to do that, to show the world that He is right. Make your suffering count for something. So do not let the opportunity to glorify Him and to preach the gospel slip by. This would have been especially true for Peter.

The second thing that he says here under this is that we, during this time, even though we are going through pain and our carnal nature is crying out for revenge to hit back, to retaliate, to do whatever we can, Peter says, "Be an example of Christian conduct, even under duress. Be kind, the exact opposite of your persecutor. Be gentle, be patient, be reasonable. Put them to shame by the way you act under their hostility."

And most of all (he does not say this but he puts it that we should fear, he says, "with meekness and fear,"), do not fear them. Yes, they may be cutting or you may have the first cut of a machete on your neck. Or they may be holding a gun or they may be doing whatever it is they do to make you suffer, but do not fear them. They are not worthy of your fear. This word is not the word for be in terror of or be in horror over or basically being afraid. This word that he is talking about means "reverential fear." Fear the One who should be feared, and that is God. If you fear Him, you will be doing the right things because you do not want to disappoint Him. Instead, fear God. He is the one we have to please and glorify.

So we have to, in a situation like this, do our very best and I know it will be very difficult. It is easy to say the words, but we must do our very best to uphold His and our dignity and strength in the face of hostility and persecution. We have to be like Stephen, who did not faint at the stoning. He looked up and said, "I see Jesus standing at the right hand of the Father!" What dignity and presence of mind because he feared Him and not those Jews that were throwing stones at him. Probably the best example that we have in the Bible outside of Jesus of how to approach persecution. Be strong, be a Christian, bring glory to God as well as you can, make spiritual lemonade out of that terrible situation.

I Peter 4:12-19 [he says] Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you [also referring back to the beatitude], for the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. On their part, He is blasphemed [those are your persecutors], but on your part, He is glorified.

But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or as a busybody in other people's matters. Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian [living righteously], let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter. For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God, and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? Now "If the righteous one is scarcely saved, where will the ungodly and the sinner appear?" Therefore, let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good, as to a faithful Creator.

Despite the awful circumstances when the normal reaction would be terror and horror, Peter concludes that God's elect should respond with joy. Wow, that is tough. But this is the culmination of about 30 years of thought, as one of God's apostles, about how you face persecution, how you go through persecution when you are doing good, but the world hates you.

We have a couple of examples in the New Testament of the apostles responding with joy when they were able to participate in Christ's sufferings. You might want to jot down Acts 5:41 and Acts 16:22-25 to look at later. But in both cases, they were exhilarated that they had been, in one case, called before the Sanhedrin and been able to go back home having preached the gospel. In another place, where they had been persecuted very severely (I think it was Paul and Silas, or maybe it was Paul and Barnabas in that case), but they were joyful. They had that real spiritual joy that they had been found worthy of going through similar things to what Christ had gone through.

Peter says here that the reason we can rejoice is because God's Spirit rests upon us and our joy in trial, which is an example or which expresses our union with Christ, gives us a huge burst of faith and hope in God's good work in us. And when we feel that, when we feel that trust and conviction that God is with us by His Spirit, and we see Him working in our lives in such a huge way in allowing us to experience the ultimate in hostility from the world, that actually should make us feel good that were worthy, that He considers us worthy of doing that. So we can glorify God even when we are suffering for Him, for His sake.

Here, Peter advises committing our souls, our lives, to God by doing good. That is what Jesus did. Jesus went about doing good all the time. Even when He was on the cross, He was doing good. He was speaking good things to the thieves around Him. He asked God to forgive the people who killed Him. That is the kind of example we have to emulate.

The sense here in I Peter 4 is that when he says that we should commit our souls to Him in doing good as to a faithful Creator, is that we know God is our faithful Creator, both physically and spiritually, so we respond by being faithful to Him. He is a faithful God. He has called us, He has gone with us through our lives. He has brought us to this point. And so we should then respond to Him in faith by committing ourselves to Him, to His will, and cheerfully doing good, doing what is right, even in the deepest of our trials.

I know these are very high marks to reach. But I think Peter, over the years of thinking about this, decided that only the highest level of Christian response to God should be expressed as advice. You do not want middling advice that allows you to compromise. You want the person who is going through persecution for being righteous to have the highest goals, the highest aspirations of pleasing God. And so they may seem very hard to reach. "Oh, I could never do that. I'd be wetting my pants. I'd be doing all these things if these kinds of terrors and horrors were brought upon me."

Peter says, "No, you can do it. If you're all in, if you believe that God is your everything, and all of this is happening because He is with you and He is teaching you and He is bringing you into His Kingdom and wants you to go through this final trial, then you can do it!" You have what it takes. The very fact that you are doing that, experiencing that, means that He trusts you, He is your faithful Creator. He trusts you to give the best response, to preach the gospel in your life, to bring honor and glory to Him, and praise, even through, if it comes to it, your death. Just like Stephen did.

I think there is a no better example in the Bible than Paul and Silas in the Philippian's jail of how to approach such a thing as this. Let us go to Acts 16 and just see it in this form of a story. Actually, this is one of the places where they responded with joy.

Acts 16:16-30 Now it happened, as we went to prayer [there in Philippi], that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much profit by fortune-telling. This girl followed Paul and us, and cried out, saying, "These men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation." [very true!] And this she did for many days. [it started to frustrate Paul] Paul, greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, "I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her." And he came out of her that very hour.

But when her masters saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to the authorities. And they brought them to the magistrates and said, "These men, being Jews, exceedingly trouble our city; and they teach customs which are not lawful for us, being Romans, to receive or observe." Then the multitude rose up together against them, and the magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods. And when they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to keep them securely. Having received such a charge, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.

But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were open and everyone's chains were loosed. And the keeper of the prison, awaking from sleep and seeing the prison doors open, supposing the prisoners had fled, drew his sword and was about to kill himself. But Paul called with a loud voice, saying, "Do yourself no harm, for we are all here." Then he called for a light, ran in, and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. And he brought them out and said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"

Acts 16:34 [after baptizing him and his whole family] Now when he had brought them into his house, he set food before them; and he rejoiced, having believed in God with all his household.

So this was a direst of situations. They wanted blood, they wanted Paul and Silas' heads. But Paul and Silas did not face it like they were dead men. They faced it with calm. They faced it with fear of God, not fear of the people, or of the magistrates or the jailer. They were singing hymns and praying, they were acting like Christians, they were giving God glory. They were putting all their eggs in God's basket, as it were. They were not asking for mercy or pity, for leniency. They were using the situation for all it was worth to preach the gospel and to bring honor and glory to God. And they ended up converting a whole family. And who knows? Maybe they converted some of the prisoners. I do not know. They did not run.

But this is an excellent example of how we should be should we ever be brought into a situation of persecution for righteousness' sake.

Let us finish in Psalm 37.

Psalm 37:1-11 [David writes] Do not fret because of evildoers, nor be envious of the workers of iniquity. For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb. Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.

Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass. He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday. Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him.

Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass. Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; and do not fret—it only causes harm. For evildoers shall be cut off; but those who wait on the Lord, they shall inherit the earth.

For yet a little while and the wicked shall be no more; indeed, you will look carefully for his place, but it shall be no more. But the meek shall inherit the earth, and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.

Suffering persecution for faithfully living God's way is a very unpleasant circumstance to think about. Carnal thinking would conclude that the obvious situation is to hide from society, keeping God's way in secret out of fear, playing the hypocrite while we go into the world. But God's solution is to do the opposite. He wants us to live boldly—kindly though, and meekly—before the world as a witness, trusting God to support us, even when the world turns savagely against us.

If we fear God, and not man, committing ourselves wholly to Him, He will stand with us in those worst of times, and bless us with all the truly good things that we have desired.

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