Persecuted and Rejoice? Matthew 5:10-12

What does it mean to be persecuted?  Join Rev. Dr. Aimee Copley Mulder in the completion of this discussion about the final Beatitudes in Matthew 5:10-12.  How can we rejoice in the face of persecution?

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:03

All glory to God. It's time to get into God's word with Amy Copley Mulder. Join me.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

All the glory to God. Take three because I messed up the words last time.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Doesn't matter if you're rich or poor, doesn't matter if you're young or wise. All that matters is you answer the door when Jesus comes to change your life. And it's about time we give it up to God. All the glory to God. And let's give all the glory to God. And to God, let's give all the glory because He gives us His life in that summer. So it's done. It's about time give it up. So let's give all the glory to God.

SPEAKER_03 2:32

And we are continuing our reflection on the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus gave us the Beatitudes and said everything was blessed that doesn't make any sense that it would be blessed. Like you are blessed when you are meek. You are blessed when you're hungry and thirsty for righteousness. You are blessed when no one listens to you. And today's verses, as we finish up the Beatitudes, Matthew 5, 10 through 12, are basically a lot of that reversal situation. We shouldn't consider it blessed. And Jesus almost doubles down when he talks about this. So starting, continuing in Matthew 5, verse 10 blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people 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 in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. So these blessings that we receive from Jesus, blessed when you are persecuted, not saying if Jesus is likening the people listening there and his disciples and us as like the prophets. I mean, and I don't know how much Old Testament you've gotten into, but I've been recently looking in. And do you know that when you had the prophets over for dinner, the prophets would always say something like, you need to check this, you need to stop this, I see your sins. I mean, they were not good party guests. They would ruin the party and tell you everything. And a lot of times the prophets were on the run from um religious leaders or from people, or nobody even knew what they were doing or why they were doing. I mean, how weird would it be to be in the family of Ezekiel while he's eaten the scroll? It's just weird. So the the call of God and what Jesus is saying is if you follow me completely, if you claim my name, if you say you're a little Christ, a Christian, I mean, that's not what Jesus says. That was the name we gave, but like if you put Jesus central, these were people who were following after this miracle-working guy that were wondering, wondering, like, okay, what's this about? And then a lot of them were leaving everything to follow. So there was a cost that they had. And he's saying, you, if you keep going this way, if you keep being about loving your enemies, if you keep going this way, you will be persecuted. Think about this. It's when our commitment to God causes persecution. Now, the big word of the day is persecution. And that's a big conversation on what that really means. Now, when Jesus was talking, it was talking about you, you know, maybe being thrown out of the synagogue because you believe in this new, newfangled weirdo Jesus, and that's not good. Um, maybe it was persecution or imprisonment by the Roman government. Um, if you claim Jesus, this radical, there was a cost. You had to stand there. And as our culture has kept going, you know, people that claim Jesus completely and have a commitment to God, it could seem like that doesn't fit in. And I don't know if that's persecution or not. But when we have something that we know to be true, that persecution can drive us closer to God. And what Jesus says, listen, even when you are reviled and reviled, so when you're persecuted, when you're talked about about, when maybe you're not given a pro promotion at work, when you lose friendships because you've gotten a little too committed to God, when there's struggles in your relationships because you're trying to pray more or put Christ central, and that means you don't do certain things or you do do certain things, you know, going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to a hockey game makes you a hockey player. But there is a moment when we have to declare what we're committed to, what's central in our life, what we hold fast to. And what Jesus is saying is count yourselves blessed every time somebody speaks lies about you because they don't like what Jesus says. Count yourself blessed when you have been trying to live your life a certain way, and that truth is too close for comfort and people are uncomfortable. He's not saying just accept that. He's saying be glad, be happy, rejoice, and give a cheer because your company that keeps when you really follow hard after God are these prophets who were following God and completely discounted and not listened to. And, you know, most of them died, except for Elijah, who got to go up in a fiery chariot. So maybe that's what God's preparing for you. Persecution is a hard thing to rejoice about. And sometimes in American culture, persecution is is not true persecution. People are like, well, that person disagreed with me. Well, I mean, welcome to life in the world. Um, somebody disagreeing with you is not a persecution. But someone spreading a lie about you because you're trying hard to follow after God, or someone even bringing a past thing and throwing it in your face. All of those things could be counted as persecution. As I've been out in the world talking to people and just trying to get to know people, in the last 15 years, I've been living in Muskegon and I am considering myself a Michigander, someone from Muskegon, but I it's hard to say that where are you from? I always say Houston, Texas. But I can't quite say I'm from Michigan, but that's where I've been living and it's where my kids are. And and whenever I would meet people, or whenever I still meet people today, I say, Well, I'm a pastor. And it's just sometimes I want to not tell them, not because I'm ashamed or anything, but because the whole conversation changes. It's like, oh, you're a pastor. You can see them do that mental rewind. Did I curse? Did I say things badly? And you know, you could tell they liked you a whole lot better before you said, Hey, I'm a pastor. But I don't know if I would consider that persecution. I think persecution right now is trying to hear the voice of God through all the noise, following that and people that you've loved, and I think persecution today has to do with trying to hear God's voice above all the noise. There's so much noise. And the challenge that I've been having, and I don't think this is beyond this discussion of persecution, is doing things or saying things or posting things that I think are very important for Christians to know. I mean, I don't lead very many people, but I consider myself a spiritual leader of my congregation and of my home. And as a spiritual leader, I just think I should be able to speak out on certain things. So some of the things I've spoken out on lately, um, I just think it's deplorable the way we're treating people that are black and brown who could may or may not be immigrants, but are just being racially profiled and put into put into detention camps, which look like a lot like concentration camps and they keep getting built, and children are being um housed in warehouses. And this is stuff I find deplorable. So as an American, I as a Christian, as a Christ follower, as someone that wants to put Christ central in my life, I have spoken out against that. I speak out against every war. My husband speaks out against every war. We think war is a horrible thing and we would like war to never happen. That doesn't mean that we don't appreciate or honor veterans who have sacrificed their life and their sanity. The freedoms that they fought for, they sacrificed for. That's a beautiful thing. Veterans are amazing. And I think there's a lot of honor in serving our country through military service. But I have to be honest, I don't want any of our military servicemen to go to war or to lose their life for war. Because there's always innocent people that get killed in a war, and there's always a mom or dad that gets killed in service. So those positions, those two positions I just mentioned, are positions that I have been very upfront about. I used to try very hard to do what I heard somebody say recently at a conference that if I can preach and they don't know my politics, then I've done a good job. Well, I don't mean to disagree, but I do. Because it isn't political to say that we value every human being as a person, as a created image of God. And we should call people, our leadership and our communities and our government and our religion to treat people with a standard of care and compassion that comes from being the people that love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, love our neighbor as ourselves, and love our enemies. We should love actively, physically, emotionally, with food, with care, with listening, anything we can do, we should love people. And I don't think that's a political stance. But if your politics don't line up with loving your neighbor and loving your enemies, we have to start thinking about what are some things to stand up for. Because it is a very convenient thing to say and to think, well, nobody should know what I think about this. I'm a pal should I should be palatable to all. Well, let's look at Jesus. If I'm trying to be just like Jesus, Jesus preached and everybody wanted to kill him afterwards. Paul had to leave towns over in a basket over the wall. And so here it is, here is our time. It is now could be time for us to speak out. So when Jesus is saying today, blessed are you when people persecute you for things, Jesus is talking about the cost it is to follow him. If we're really following Jesus, if we're putting Jesus Christ and his teachings in the center of our life, it should not look like the culture around us. If we are saying, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, love your neighbor for yourself, and love your enemies. If that is the crux of how I live my life, which is what I'm trying to do, that is not something. A life that is centered on those doesn't make sense in the world we live in. You're not looking out for yourself, you're actively in love. And there's another calling here when Jesus says all these things are blessed. All of the things that Jesus calls blessed in this beatitude list are things the world thinks is not important. You've never seen a newspaper article going, look at that person. They are so meek, they are so within themselves. Isn't that awesome? No, it's about power or money or status or or talent, or you know, it's look at me. And what Jesus says is, you are blessed when you are persecuted for my name. So sometimes we have to stand up. Sometimes we have to stand up and speak out when the least of these in our world are being persecuted. Jesus asks us to stand up for the least of these. So one of the things that I can do is speak out against injustices I see, or speak out when I see the least of these persecuted against. And because I have chosen to speak out against the specific things I have, there have been people that have known me my whole life that have said you're not following the law. Don't you believe in the Old Testament? Don't you see how your words are wrong? Now, I don't think that's necessarily persecution. But it has been incredibly surprising to me how many people feel free to tell me that I'm not living life the way that Jesus says I should live it, because I really believe that we should stand up for people that are in our country, that are the foreigners among us, and we should help anyone that is hurt or broken or in prison or sick. That is what our calling. And so, what has happened, what has happened to me, and I I do want to be very honest, this is not persecution, but what has happened is there's been a lot of criticism coming at me lately, and really the message has been you should simmer down with that opinion, you should not say that because as a pastor, you should not have any opinions, you need to be some sort of neutral party. And I have said, Lord, do I speak out about certain things? And in that conversation with God through prayer, God has continually shown up to me and said, You speak for the least, the lost, the looked over, the left out. And I am gonna continue to do that. And if doing that, if loving my neighbor by speaking out and going to protest and trying to make sure that every person is treated like a human being, if s um speaking out and and um going for the least of these is making sure that those attention centers on the border, with all those children with those horrific letters being treated and peeing in a bucket, then if that gets me some persecution or people saying I don't follow Christ, I'm just gonna do my best to quiet the noise and to listen to God's voice. Jesus says that we should rejoice when we get persecuted for claiming his name, for standing underneath his teachings, for being the best Christ followers we can. And I'm not sure if I'm rejoicing yet. But I would like to encourage you to do some reflection today as we leave these Beatitudes and join a lot of the a lot of the rest of the Sermon on the Mount next week. I would like to encourage you to quiet yourself before God and say, God, is there anybody persecuted I need to stand up for? And am I doing everything I can for the least of these? And if there's some persecution that comes my way, Jesus, I know that you will be with me because you have called us to be blessed and rejoice when our stances and our commitment and who we are in you brings arrows that come our way. May God's peace and grace and power go with you today. Join me here on Thursday. We're talking about the funky things that people say to preach your moms, and always next week is another part of our Sermon on the Mount. But through all of this, I just want to say whether you're being persecuted or left out, or whether you're having a hard time rejoicing in the hardship you're going through, all of that is being worked to the glory of God. Our God has amazing economy. He uses everything. So we can give all glory to God. This is Amy Coughlin Mulder, and join me and follow my show. All glory to God.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Take three because I messed up the words last time.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

Doesn't matter if you're young or alive. All that matters is you answer the door when Jesus comes to change your life. All the glory to God, and let's give all the glory to God, and to God, let's give all the glory because he gives us his life that sun. So it's uh it's about time we give it up. So let's give all the glory to God.