Blessing Inside the Persecution

This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Sermon on the Mount” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, November 10, 1985.

Sermon transcript

said, Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” Let us pray. Our Father, your goodness is underlined by the fact that your word is ours. You have given it to us that by it we might come to you. Lord, at this time We ask for the full benediction of that word and the full implementation of those things we might expect from it. And Lord, may we be pleasing to you in that we render obedience to that word as is right, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

We have been looking at the Beatitudes. We have divided the Beatitudes. You will recall taking a look at Matthew chapter 5. We have numbered the Beatitudes as being seven in number. We have then the division of the Beatitudes, four in the first section and then finally the last three. We have completed our study of those first four Beatitudes. That study has taken us through the Beatitude which says, “‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.’” The question we have before us this morning, before we go on to consider the next three Beatitudes, is this. Once more, what can we say the first four Beatitudes are all about?

They are about this. Jesus is speaking to those who are looking expectantly for the coming of the kingdom. He speaks to those who look to him now. through whom that kingdom is being realized, and he speaks to them in such a way as to describe them as the object of the world’s scorn, abuse, and even hatred. Therefore, when Jesus speaks to those who are looking expectantly for the kingdom of heaven as being the poor in spirit, They are indeed the poor in spirit due to the fact that there are those in the world who are rich in spirit. In fact, those who are rich in spirit presently are the cause of the present poverty of those who are poor in spirit.

Similarly, we can understand the second beatitude. it pertaining to those who mourn. Why do they mourn? Because of those who laugh. They then, being the ones described by Jesus as waiting for the appearance of the kingdom, as fighting with God and God’s kingdom, have become the object of the world’s ridicule. those then who mourn do so because of those presently who laugh. And what might we say about the meek? Those who are described as the meek are in fact meek because of those who are not. They are the victims of those who are not meek, those who in their spirit say, I want it all for myself, and I want it now.

And in their pursuit of the things of this world, they have made those who wait for the vindication of God’s kingdom the victims. Coming to the fourth beatitude, what is in view when Jesus speaks of those who are waiting for the kingdom as those who hunger and thirst? Those who hunger and thirst are awaiting God’s intervention. They are awaiting the fullness of His righteous reign. They wait, hungering and thirsting because of those in the world who neither hunger nor thirst, but presently are full and well satisfied. The focus, then, of these first four Beatitudes is the persecution of the world. Visited upon those who trust God and wait for him. Now, this certainly is in keeping with what we find elsewhere in the New Testament. You might know in Matthew chapter ten. as Jesus speaks to his disciples, as he sends them out to preach in the cities and towns of Israel.

He tells them in verse twenty-two, And you will be hated by all on account of my name. But it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved. You will be hated by all because of my name.” There’s that powerful passage in John’s Gospel, the fifteenth chapter. In the 18th verse of that chapter, Jesus speaks these words, “‘If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, I chose you out of the world. Therefore, the world hates you.

Remember the word that I said to you, a slave is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they would keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for my name’s sake, because they do not know the The testimony continues.

We turn to the fourteenth chapter of Acts, and Paul is on his first missionary journey. He has been stoned and thrown out of town by those who oppose the gospel. Then you have been making this magnificent statement in the twenty-second verse of that fourteen chapter of Acts, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith. Paul said, through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. once more, and the world’s opposition.

But lest you think that this is a message for apostles and missionaries and preachers only, you can take a look at 2 Timothy 3.12. For there Paul says this, making reference to the condition of all who would follow Christ, and indeed all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Referring, of course, to the opposition of the world today. I just lost my water. I’ll try not to run dry.

The theme, then, of the first four Beatitudes, the opposition of the world to Christ, to the kingdom which he declares, and those who have found their repose in it. But these first four Beatitudes are magnificent in their scope. For in them, along with this message of opposition and suffering, there comes what we might call the beautiful irony of God’s saving For it’s precisely in the circumstance of affliction and suffering that Jesus pronounces the blessing, and that’s the magnificence of the beatitude. In the midst of the trial, in the midst of the pain, while the affliction is current, There comes this pronouncement, this declaration, this intrusion of God’s blessing to those who trust in Him. Here is the beautiful irony of God’s saving power, blessing in the midst of affliction.

And what might that blessing be? What is its content? We can speak of the blessing, and this is substance, you say. We can voice the word and not comprehend what Jesus is speaking of here. What is the context of the blessing? Is it just a feeling of elation? Is it, as someone has recently suggested, a sort of giddy happiness? No. It’s so much grander than that.

For the blessing which Jesus has in mind here is nothing less than the presence of God. You realize, I’m sure you understand, the significance of Matthew’s insistence that we see Jesus as humanity, God with us. In the midst of the extremities, there comes in an unprecedented way, more so than ever the very presence of God, and he in the midst of that distress sanctified unto us our deepest distress, agony, and pain. Now, in the Old Testament, there are a number of pictures of this wonderful, beautiful, presence of affliction, the people of God undergoing that affliction, and God pledging himself to be with them in it, that they might not be overcome, that they might be sustained, not in their own power, but by the one who has the power to sustain them in all things. Have you ever read and been overcome by the complexity of that passage. It’s one of the most bizarre of the Old Testament.

You have a wonderful beginning in which it seems as if Abraham is vindicated because he believes and trusts God, and then we are told it was counted to him for righteousness. But then you go on in that chapter and you read of how Abraham then prepared to offer a sacrifice to God, and he lays out the pieces of the sacrifice on the ground and running through them to keep the birds away so that they don’t eat them.

And as the night comes on, a deep sleep overtakes him, and he has this vision, and it’s a vision of a glowing furnace. But passing through the pieces of the sacrifice which Abraham has laid out and passing through that glowing furnace is a flaming torch. And this vision goes hand in hand with what God has just revealed to Abraham concerning his posterity, namely, the nation that comes forth from his loins will be in affliction. not to worry. Even though their affliction be as that glowing furnace, there’s the blazing torch, the presence of God himself in the midst of it, he identifying himself with his people that they might be sustained and brought through.

And there you find Isn’t it interesting that when God goes to set his people free, and we read about his preparation for that great work of redemption in Exodus chapter 3, the whole thing begins with the burning bush, the bush that is ablaze but not consumed.

What’s the meaning of the burning bush? It is the same as that glowing furnace and blazing torch. The bush itself is the people of God. And the bush is a picture of the affliction that the people of God are enduring. But out of the midst of the blazing bush there comes the voice of God, God present there, therefore the bush is not consumed.

And so it is for all who are waiting, for all who have waited for the coming of the kingdom of God, all those now who are turning to Jesus Christ. They, even though they are the poor in spirit, even though they are the ones who are weeping, the meek, hungering and thirsting, in the midst of their affliction, they are sustained by the very presence of God in Jesus Christ. And because of that, they are not consumed. Let me tell you, the very gate of hell cannot prevail against the people of God. See how ironic it becomes as you go on to the parallel passage in Matthew’s Gospel, verses 10 through 12, those verses paralleling the first four Beatitudes. You see how ironic the whole thing becomes.

In the midst of the affliction, because God is present with us there and we are promised we will not be concerned, Jesus says, Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad. Rejoice, earth, despite the pain and the distress. But is our suffering and our meditation upon the presence of God in Christ all that there is to our faith? Having run through the first four Beatitudes, have we arrived at the end? Jesus has three more for us. We’re not done until we’ve stayed the course of the whole seven.

And this is as it should be, because what kind of religion is it that is preoccupied with its suffering, or merely meditate as if in a personal and exclusivistic way upon the presence of God? What kind of religion is produced by such a view of the faith? A tragic religion, to be sure, one that is full of paranoia, one that is filled with the martyr complex, one that is truly a turning in upon itself, a contemplation of itself The danger that stalks the persecuted Church is nothing less than this, that the Church then would refuse its mission and turn in upon itself.

So here comes the fifth Beatitude. And the magnificence of this the attitude cannot be overestimated. Literally shatter. For you see what Jesus is doing is that he is setting up. The persecuted who have waited for God continue to trust in him, believe the gospel and embrace Rather than being turned in upon themselves, they, when they are abused and scorned and ridiculed, must turn outward. For it is in the circumstance of persecution that they are compelled to be merciful. And that’s so utterly contrary to the way of the world. Here’s the proof of the point. How do we know we stand within in the midst of the affliction that we find ourselves? Those who seek revenge. Those who wish to get even. Those who expect the pound of flesh. Were those even though we are suffering, are determined to be nothing less than what God has been Now, as I say, we cannot overestimate the significance of this reality. It is as if the very fullness of all that God expects of us is summed up in it.

And that is why I read to you the fullness of that session in Luke’s Gospel this morning that parallels the Sermon on the Mount. What verse is it in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew that stands out above all others? What statement? Isn’t it the last verse of chapter Therefore, you are perfect, even as your Heavenly Father is perfect. But did you notice the rendering that that verse gets in the Luke account? Chapter six, The parallel sentiment in Luke’s gospel reads this way. Be merciful, just as your Heavenly Father is merciful.

So it would seem that the perfection that Jesus has in mind in Matthew 5.48 is the mercy that he speaks of in Luke six, verse thirty-six.

This the attitude dealing with the merciful then cannot be overestimated in its importance by coming to this the attitude we have reached as it were the very heart of our religion. We, then, the persecuted, the afflicted, those who have stood with Christ despite all those things, as the world perpetrates these things and the attitudes and actions against us, are to persist in a spirit of mercy. And this is what makes our faith so thoroughly unique. One final word.

We spoke about the presence of God with us as the substance of the blessing in the First that in the midst of our affliction, God is present with us. Now you see that as I move from those first four Beatitudes to this fifth Beatitude, the blessing of which Christ seeks is concurrent with the mercy that the Beatitude expresses. The presence of God is mediated in the mercy that finds its expression in me.

Can there be blessing without mercy? Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Let’s pray. Challenges our Father with the fullness of our faith, though our lot be that of the persecuted Lord, we know we cannot draw in upon ourselves, but rather we must be turned outward even to those who are our persecutors. We must be merciful, determined to persist in that mercy which has been manifest by our God in Christ. Herein is the blessing of the presence of God apparent. It is also apparent that we belong to you, if we are merciful. Hear us, Lord. Constrain our hearts. Make us fresh and new in our obedience.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.