I wanna tell you something. I did a couple of weeks ago. I don't know if it was a good idea or not, but if, if you have been part of our church for a while, you know, last year I, I got into the, the...
I wanna tell you something. I did a couple of weeks ago. I don't know if it was a good idea or not, but if, if you have been part of our church for a while, you know, last year I, I got into the, the habits or really a discipline for me of, of running. And I don't know why because I hate running, but I made a personal goal during one of my coaching conversations with Sean, our lead passer was just up here and I think it's, cuz I, I didn't have one in the meeting. And so he was like, you know, what's a personal goal. And I was like running, you know? And so I, last year I did a 5k. Then I did a 10 K and so a couple of weeks ago, guys, it's crazy.
A couple weeks ago, I signed up for a half marathon. I'm gonna run this year and don't clap yet cuz you, I don't know if I'm gonna make it. Because the, the farthest I've ever run so far in my running career is 6.1 miles. That's the farthest I've ever run or, or 6.2 miles. And a half marathon is 13.1 miles, 13.1 miles. And so I'm gonna be running of that race in, in October. I'm excited, I'm nervous, but it's a good challenge for me physically. It's a good challenge mentally. It it's a good challenge. But you just know 13.1 is gonna be more difficult than 6.2. And running long distances. You just know it. I mean, it's just tough. It just, you know, running a long distance. Isn't the easiest thing to do. So I'm just curious, both campuses participate here.
How many of you have ever run a half marathon? How many? Okay. All right. So at Fred, let's just say there's 20 or 25 of you. That's probably more than what I thought. How many of you have ever run a full marathon? Okay. Wow. Way more than I thought here. Fred. Wow. Good job guys. Okay. Yeah. Well done. You statistically speaking in, in America only about a half percent, a half percent of our country has ever started and finished marathon. And, and the reason why that number is so low is because running 26 miles is tough. It's not easy. And here's one we think about, if I just said to you this morning, guys, I'm gonna be running a half, you know, in October. And I could really use your help. How many of you would be willing to come out and cheer me on at the race?
So I'm gonna need some of you at the start line. I'm gonna need some of you like halfway point. And then I want, I'm gonna need some of you like that last half mile. Some of you like me enough. And, and you've got some time, you'd be like, you know what? Yeah, we could do that. You know, and my race is gonna be from Fort Collins to Loveland. So you might be like, you know, okay, we could take 30 minutes, drive up there. We could cheer Matt on for 10 minutes, you know, and then get back in the car and get back with our day. Not, not too crazy, but what if I got up here and I was like, Hey guys, I'm gonna be running this half. And here's what I need from you. I need some of you to run it with me.
Now, all of a sudden you don't have free time. You're like, what's the date? And I'm like, October 1st, you're like book something for October 1st. You know, all of a sudden you're not quite as available. And the reason why, and come on, we get this kind of common sense because you know, the level of commitment is different from watching a half to running a half. You know, the pain is different from watching somebody else run a half and you running a half. And here's what I'd argue. And the context of your relationship with Jesus is very similar. Following Jesus is much different than just spectating him. Following him will be much more painful than just watching other people follow him. It's not always easy. I love what Jeff said. You know, the, it's not about the easy life. It's about the meaningful life. Really what we're saying is, you know, if it's not about easy, then it's a little bit more about being harder, more difficult, more strenuous.
There's something healthy though in that tension. So if you ever Bible's Matthew chapter five, we're gonna finish up our series. Jesus manifesto. We've been, we've been working through the first eight statements that Jesus teaches. He's in Matthew chapter five. It's just like opening sermons. One of those most famous sermons, Jesus on this hillside. And he's kind of given out like the foundation of what, you know, he's gonna be kind of leaning into and teaching on over the next couple of years. And so he's got these eight statements we call 'em the be attitudes. And these are, are statements that Jesus is saying, look in my kingdom, if you're gonna live in my kingdom, then this is what it looks like. This is what we're gonna be encouraging you to do. And he starts every one of these be attitudes with the word bless. So you're gonna be blessed.
You know, if you do this and there's gonna be a reward, if you do this, which is why you're gonna be blessed in all of these statements, they kind of, they bring this tension because they, they kind of push back against kind of our culture in the world. I mean, Jesus, oftentimes he associates the Christian life as like an it's kind of upside down. It's gonna go against the grain of, of what the world would say. And this is kind of the tension that Jesus will lean into. He's always talking about his kingdom. He's, you know, my kingdom, you know, the world does it like this and Jesus goes, but in my kingdom, this is what it looks like. And it always seems to be on the opposite side of, of naturally where we would like to be. And, and today is no is no different.
In fact this is gonna be the last be attitude that we're gonna be talking about today. And I think it's the heaviest. I think it's the weightiest, it's the one we, we don't like to talk about it. It's the one that doesn't get much play. And yet it, it very well may be the one that Jesus wanted to lean into the most. And so here's what Jesus says. This is Matthew chapter five, starting in verse 10. Jesus goes, look blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. So blessed are those who, who are persecuted. Why? Well, because of their commitment for God, their pursuit of God, it, it, it, it, it provokes a reaction from, from another group of people or somebody else that they don't like your pursuit of righteousness. We talked about righteousness a couple of weeks ago.
That's our pursuit to become more like Jesus. And so Jesus says, look blessed are those who are gonna find themselves in some difficult situations because of their pursuit or love for me, he keeps going verse 11, blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me rejoice and be glad, because great as your reward in heaven for in the same way, they persecuted the prophets who were before you. So Jesus says, look, this is nothing new. This has been going on for a while. But if you pursue me, if you follow me, if you run the race, you just gotta know you're gonna run into some situations where they're gonna be some people that are not going to be happy with you in your pursuit to become more like Christ. Now, two things about this scripture.
I wanna give you real quick. That's good for us to, to know, is to kind of build the foundation. As we talk about the topic of persecution, first in Jewish tradition, to say something important, anything, anytime you had to say something important, you, you would say it twice. You would repeat yourself. And that's exactly what Jesus does here in those couple of verses. I just mentioned Jesus. You know, he says, you're blessed when you're persecuted. And then he says, you're blessed when you're persecuted. This is the only double blessed the attitude. It's the only one that gets to, you know, gets repeated. Meaning it's an important one, meaning we should lean in and listen. He said it once we lean in, but then he said it again because there's something there that he doesn't want us to miss. Second. It's important for us to understand what persecution is and what it isn't.
Now Jesus gives us some parameters. He says, persecution. The one that he's talking about here, this has caused it because of your pursuit or my pursuit of righteousness. So here would be my working definition. Any hostility experience, as a result of identifying with Jesus, any hostility that you come against because you are following Jesus because you believe Jesus is who he says he is. And you believe Jesus died for your sins. And you believe that Jesus is the source of your salvation. It's persecution due to pursuing Jesus. And, and this is important conversation for us. And it's good for us to lead in here because in the west where we live, I mean, we can easily believe that any suffering or hostility we experience is persecution, but that's not actually true. Check it. If someone is rude to you because your political belief, because of your political beliefs or dismisses you, because you know, if something you believe poli politically, that's not persecution.
It's not. If, if you're passed over for a job because someone else is more qualified than you, it's not because of persecution. Okay? I'm a Christian life is so hard. No, you're just not good at your job. Okay? That's not persecution. paying high gas prices is not persecution. I know it feels like it, but it's not being a Christian is so tough. I gotta pay $5 a gallon. Everybody's paying $5 a gallon. All right. It's not persecution. If you get in an argument with someone on social media, not persecution, okay? It's not persecution last week. I . I started the message out hard. In fact, if you didn't see last week, you should go watch it. Because last week we talked about blessed are the peacemaker. It's very interesting in our faith. You know, we, we have one week, we talk about being a peacemaker.
And then the next week we talk about blessed are those who are persecuted. You see the tension of our faith. We're called to make things better. And yet in our pursuit to make things better, there's gonna be people that are gonna be upset. But last week I came out strong at the beginning of the message. I talked about people who like to eat hard, boiled eggs, because I think there's two kinds of people in this world. There's Christians. And then people who eat hard, boiled eggs. And I came out hard. Okay. I came out hard and I was making a lot of jokes. And, and I, and I told you, I think, I just think it's extremely disgusting. People who eat hard, boiled eggs, it just there's something about that texture. And then the, just the, and all that kind of stuff going on. It's disgusting. And I've never been persecuted more for my faith than this past week, because several of you, several of you sent me pictures in videos of you eating hard, boiled eggs one lady in our church called it a protein ball. No, no, no, no.
Okay. Look, it's not persecution. You wanna know why? Because eating a hard, bold eggs has nothing to do with pursuing Jesus, right? It's not. And here's what we do. A lot of times in the context of all cultural, we'll pick a topic that has nothing to do with your salvation, but you've gotta really, you know, you really believe in it. And so you grab it and all of a sudden now you make it essential for your faith and it's not. And then some people start poking at that thing. And some people start coming at you about that thing and you call it persecution. Well, I, you know, and you kind of find your way to this corner. It's like, oh, you know, I'm being persecuted for your FA you know, my faith. And I'm just telling you, I'm watching you and I'm going, no, you're not hard.
Boiled eggs has nothing to do with Jesus. Some of the things that you're kind of getting out there and you're just taking some heat from has nothing to do with you becoming more righteous, has nothing to do with you becoming more like the one who you're following the, those aren't topics that he stood on. Now you might, you might have come to a belief because of your Christian faith and what, and what you believe that Jesus is calling you to do, but you're making those things the most important things and they're not. And so we've gotta be careful that we don't kind of, you know, put ourselves in the corner. Here's the other thing, I see this a lot in the context of Christian culture and persecution. You know, last week we talked about being a peacemaker. We talked about how you, you have beliefs.
And I have beliefs. I mean, there are things that I believe are true that I know will cause tension in the culture and in which we live, I get it, but that's not an excuse, right? I mean, we can't be drawing lines and there's people on the other side of our beliefs, what Jesus said last week was you, you are, listen, if you're a follower of him, you have been called to cross those lines and to be close to those people and to lead with love and relationships with those people doesn't mean you have to change your beliefs, but you can't use your beliefs as an excuse, not to be close. You know, what's happened in our culture. There are too many Christians who, who will view persecution like this, a line has been drawn and the sinners are over there. And I'm over here with my people and my beliefs.
And I refuse to cross the line and love those people. And then those people get frustrated with the church. Those people go see, this is why I don't like Christians because, and they go through and here's the deal, you know what? They're right. They're rights. And so they start throwing rocks, you know, over at the church and we start getting hit and you're like, oh Jesus, I'm suffering for you. No, you're not. No, you're not. No, no, no. They wouldn't have to throw rocks. If you'd be closer to 'em they just hand 'em to you. You know what I'm saying? And so look, we gotta be careful that we don't start drawing lines and going, I'm not gonna serve people who aren't like me. And I'm not gonna love people who are not. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is your pursuit of Jesus.
If anything, it's because you're so close to people and you're loving people who aren't like you, that if that causes tension, then we can talk about persecution. But until you're there, this is not what Jesus is talking about about us and them. And, well, I believe this. And so I'm just not gonna be close to you or I'm just gonna, every time I get with you, I'm just gonna tell you you're wrong and I'm right. And this, this is not what Jesus called us to. Jesus says, in your pursuit of living like Jesus, you're gonna run into some people who aren't gonna like, aren't gonna like what you're all about. And when it happens, you are blessed. You are blessed. And this is a major theme, a major theme of the new Testament. Even last week, I read this verse verse Matthew chapter five, verse 44.
But I tell you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. I mean, Jesus just leans in. He goes, look, it's gonna happen. Sounds like it's gonna happen. So when it happen, just be ready, be prepared. Even you're gonna pray for those people it's happening today. You know, some of the stats that are going around that, you know, I'm, I'm sure this isn't exactly right, but it's closed. But somewhere around 340 million Christians today are living in places where they experience high level persecution, meaning they can't even do what we're doing this morning. They can't even gather together because it's illegal or because they'll be arrested or because even their life might be on the line. I mean, that's, that's the population of the United States. We're talking about one in eight Christians worldwide. There's Christians all over the world that are living under extreme persecution simply because they believe in Jesus.
And yet here's the cool thing about the history of our faith. In times when the church has been persecuted, the most, we've also grown the most Paul writing to Timothy. This is second Timothy chapter three, verse 10. Look what Paul says. Here he goes. You however know all about my teaching teachings, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love endurance. When we like that list, don't we it's a good list, Paul, but he doesn't stop there. Verse 11. You also know Timothy about my persecutions and my sufferings. What kinds of things happened to me in Antioch and econ and Lera and the persecutions I endured yet? The Lord rescued me from all of them. Verse 12. In fact, everyone, everyone means you in me, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ, Jesus will be persecuted. Aren't you glad you came to church. You know what I'm saying?
Everyone, a, everyone who believes that Jesus is the son of God. If you follow him, you will be at some point, it sounds like persecuted for your faith so much. So, I mean, Paul leans in before that he's like Timothy, you remember when I was at that one town, in fact, you know, Lera is, is Timothy's hometown. And when Paul was there in his first min you know, missionary journey, he was preaching the gospel and it was making some other people frustrated. And so these other people kind of showed up in town and got the crowd riled up. And they were like, you know what? You should do. You should kill that guy. And they were like, yeah, let's do that. So they dragged Paul out of the town and they start and they stone him. They started throwing rocks at him and they don't stop until they think he's dead.
And then here's what the, the story goes. And then they, the crowd leaves and then disciples show up and, and the Bible is just like, and then it just says, and then Paul stood up then Paul stood up and he went on the next city. In fact, he'll go back and revisit the visit that city on his second missionary journey too. Wouldn't that be something, you know, people there are like, didn't we stone that guy, you know what I mean? And so, and so Paul leans in, he goes to Timothy, you know, you know, my journey, there's faith and there's patience. And Timothy's like, yeah, I got it. He goes, but there's also persecution. Isn't there Timothy. And Timothy's like, yeah. I, I mean, he might have been there. I mean, he is like, yeah, I saw that. Yeah. Hey, you know, they photo rocks at you sometimes Timothy.
Tim's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's just part of our faith persecution. Suffering's a major theme for the writers of the new Testament. Why? Because they're in the midst of it. They're in the midst of it. And unfortunately though, you know, in the context of where we live, it kind of feels like a lost concept cuz we don't spend a lot of time thinking about or talking about persecution. One, it's not a warm topic to talk about. And two, if we're honest, we just don't deal with it a whole lot. Like other Christians do around the world. But Jesus makes it clear that following him will cost you something. And because of that, people might choose not to follow him. I mean, think about the tension if in, in your faith, for those of you that are here this morning, that if, if we did live in a place where it was illegal to be a Christian or if what we are doing right now could cost you a a night or a week in jail or even worse, maybe your life, how many of you would be here?
Think about it. Think about the Christians who around the world that have to make those decisions. I mean, what does it look like for us to be a Christian in the midst of a place where it's illegal to be a Christian and what, what does that look like for the rhythms of pursuing Jesus? What are we gonna do? And what are we not going to do? And the new Testament, I mean, people reacted to Jesus with extreme reactions. They either, you know, wanted to give their life and, and follow him to, to their own death or they wanted to kill him. He just provoked these extreme reactions because if Jesus is who he says, he is, you have to either center your whole life on him. Or if he's not, then he is someone to hate and avoid at all cost. It's almost like no other, you know, response to work either.
He's absolutely either Jesus, you know, he's just absolutely crazy. Or he is infinitely wonderful. And the world is full of people who say they believe in Jesus, but if they were honest, it hasn't really like revolutionized their life because Jesus has, you know, he hasn't really got a grasp of their whole life and their whole heart and their whole mind. They're still just kind of on the sideline. Spectating watching others run the race. But there are some who have jumped in, who are running the half marathon in the full marathon of life and they're just in it. And you can just see the struggle and you can see the sweat and there's moments. They almost look like they're about to give up. And yet they keep their eye on the prize. They know it's gonna be worth it. So they keep moving forward and to become a Christian, you're gonna have to, you know, have the courage to do, do something, you know, in the context of following Jesus, that won't always be easy.
You're gonna have to choose a way that maybe you wouldn't even choose for yourself. Because if we're just honest, we would usually choose the easy way Bible talks about this Luke chapter nine, verse 23. And then he said to them all, this is Jesus talking. Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny. Meaning. There's a way that you'd like to go. And yet it's probably too easy. So you gotta deny yourself. You gotta take up your cross daily. That's not easy to do and then follow Jesus. So there's self denial. I mean, following Jesus means that you're gonna deny yourself, them. Some things that you might otherwise choose to do. And yet if you're gonna follow Jesus, there's gonna be moments. You're gonna have to embrace, you know, inconvenience and discomfort because follower Jesus are not promised a life of comfort and wealth. And yet that's a popular doctrine to teach.
Hey, if you follow Jesus, you'll be rich. You'll have no hardships. You know, it's called the prosperity gospel and you just, you just obey. And then Jesus is like a genie. You just ask him whatever you want and he'll do it. You want money? He'll give it to you. You want that car? You'll get it. You wanna live in that house. He'll he'll buy it for you. And yet you read the new Testament and none of these jokers are saying that, you know what they're saying? This is hard. This is to Paul. Is that what Paul just said? Dude, Timothy being a Christian is great. I'm driving in my Lamborghini to the synagogue.
No, he goes Timothy. They, they tried to kill me. They stone. They tried to stone me to death. Timothy, if you follow Jesus, Timothy, there's gonna be persecution. There's gonna be suffering in your story. They knew. I'm just telling you. They knew because of the suffering they were experienced. They knew that in tough times it was to their benefit because it would produce grit, passion, and perseverance of doing something for long periods of time. They knew it was gonna take grit to, to be a follower of Jesus. I was up at camp this week and, and I read into this, this verse, I was teaching to these high school kids up at camp by about 70, 80 high school kids up there. And we were really talking about, you know, this idea of grit because in our culture, because we don't experience a lot of persecution, we've gotten a little soft, we've gotten a little soft, you know?
And so we were in James and, and we, we were reading this verse. This is James chapter one, starting in verse two. Here's what James says. I mean, he's kind of framing this whole thing up about suffering and persecution. He says this, this is a crazy verse. This is a crazy verse. He says, considerate, pure joy. My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know, you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. You know that that when you get into tough situations, you listen, you should just consider pure joy. Cuz it's only gonna help you get grittier. It's only gonna help you. You know, when you get into more difficult times, when you get into more suffering and persecution, it's only gonna help you next time to make sure that you keep going and the trouble is. And the problem is, and that's why I said to these high school kids.
I said, you have no idea. You have no idea because your world has been sprinkled with magic. And here's what I said to him. I go, you know, I'm just like, Hey kids, , you have no idea, but this is true story. Years and years and years ago, when you would choose to watch TV and you wanted to change the channel. Now I'm old enough still for this. Okay? Cuz I was the remote control before there was remote control cuz my dad would be sitting on the couch way before, you know, way before you were here. You used to, I mean, when you were sitting there and you were thinking about, you know, I'm, I'm watching mash, but maybe I wanna watch rose or something. Right. And you're sitting on the couch, you had to think, do I, is it worth it? Is it worth it for me to get up and walk over there to the TV and actually turn this knob?
You know what I mean? What's happened over time. We we've sprinkled a little bit of magic in there. You don't even have to get off to, you know, the couch. Now you can just sit there and you can just take your remote and go boom. And you're done. And, and I was reading this pod or I was listening to this podcast a couple of weeks ago, talking about this idea of gritty. And what it was saying was in our culture, we, we sprinkled so much magic that we've taken out some of the easier reps of grit that build perseverance. I mean, some of you don't even vacuum your house anymore. You've got a robot for that.
It's not even, you know, it's like, it's not even a chore for your kids. Hey, you're you're you gotta vacuum the house. And all they do is walk over and hit a button and a vacuum. You know, there's a robot who does it. And what this whole podcast was saying was that that only works for so long because you know this, if you're breathing this morning, at some point, there won't be a robot. That's gonna fix all your problems. You're not always gonna have a remote control that when you don't like what you're watching, you just change the channel one day, you're gonna run into something that you're gonna have to work through. If not in your faith, just in the context of life. And what the whole thing was saying was we, we, we haven't worked out our gritty muscle, our perseverance muscle, and we've just got all this magic around us.
And then we just show up and we're going through life. And all of a sudden we hit something hard and we lose our minds. God, this is too hard. Whoa. Life is so hard. I'm telling you, it's destroying a generation. They've not flexed the, the grittiness of life. This is why I, you know, this is why I love this camp I was at because they make it tough for these kids. They're sleeping intense. There's no bathroom facilities. It's a porta potty. They gotta walk to shower. You know, they gotta walk a mile to take a shower. All these high school kids, they're like detoxing from, you know, from their, you know, they don't have their cell phone. They're like playing games. What's that? You know, what are these? It's like, that's a deck of cards, man. You've never seen these before, but
What are we doing right now? This is called a conversation in person. I know it's weird, but you know, I like it. That's why I love going on mission trips. I love it, office. You a different perspective. It's not easy. You gotta flex that. Grittiness, that perseverance at endurance. It's good for us. James says that. He says this next verse, let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete. Not lacking anything. It's good for you. It's good for you because we know that man, following Jesus, there will be seasons of life that are more difficult than others. All right. So here's the last thing, John, the Baptist. Now, if you grew up in church, you know the story of John, the Baptist, John, the Baptist, he he's, he, he comes first before Jesus John, the Baptist, his whole job was to prepare the way, you know, for Jesus.
He's out there preaching Jesus before Jesus was preaching Jesus. He's just out there going, Hey, there's a new kingdom coming. There's a new guy coming. He's gonna change everything. And you're gonna see, I mean, John, the Baptist, we call him John the Baptist because John baptized Jesus. When Jesus shows up to be baptized, John goes, man, I'm not worthy to baptize you, man. You're Jesus. You're the one I've been talking about. And John's out there, he's repping Jesus and he's confronting people and he's, you know, he's a, he's a crazy dude. He's a weird looking dude. He's just out there living a life of Jesus. And because of that, he lands in jail.
The dude who's in charge. Doesn't like him. And John's been saying some things about the marriage that he's in. Wasn't quite right. And John was calling his sinful. And so you know, this guy's wife didn't like that. And so she's obviously got influence with the most important guy cuz they're sleeping together. So anyways, that guy has John thrown in jail. Right? So look, look at this Matthew chapter 11, starting of verse two. I mean this guy, I mean he was all in his whole life has everything to do with Jesus. And when John who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he's in prison. Now hearing stories about Jesus, cuz Jesus has started his ministry, right? He did the sermon on the Mount. He's out there, healing, people, doing all kinds of stuff. Look what John did. John sent his disciples to ask him, now look at this question, verse three, Hey, are you the one who is to come?
Or should we expect someone else? This dude's been repping Jesus his whole life. But because he's like, you know, in, in a whole, in the ground because he is in jail, he sends some guys because here's what John's, you know, this is what he's wrestling with. Man. I've given my life to this guy. I've been out repping this guy. I didn't think if I obeyed what he asked me to do, I would be in jail. This is tough. And so then he is sitting there all by himself and he starts thinking, Hmm, I wonder if he's not the guy, because if he was the guy, why does he just come in here and bust me out? Why doesn't he just like pull a Ram move and get in here? I mean, if he's the king, if he's the son of God, if he's in charge of all things, surely he can come in here and get me out. Right? Hey, these circumstances, aren't going the way that I thought they would. And I'm, I'm a follower of Jesus. Well, so where is he? So the disciples go, you know, his John's followers are go find Jesus. And they're like, Hey Jesus, you remember John? He's like, yeah. Hey, so he's in jail. And he's wondering if you're Jesus,
Here's what Jesus says. Verse four, Jews replied go back and report to John. What you hear and see the blind receives sight and the lame walk and those who have leprosy are cleansed. The deaf here, the dead are raised. And the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Look at verse six. Again, that word blessed. So blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness and hang tough, John. Hmm. It would seem that Jesus understands. There's a cost of following of following him. Jesus doesn't rush in and bust John outta jail. What he tells John is John, don't give up on your faith. You keep moving forward, John, it's gonna be worth it. It's gonna be worth it. See John questioned, he questioned and you would too. And I wonder how many Christians around the world who heard the story of a guy who changed the world and had the power to change their life. And they jumped in and because of it, their life is more difficult now. And they're sitting there going, man, if he really is who he says, he is, then why am I in this position? Why isn't working out the way that I thought it would.
It's what John thought he questioned. He doubted, but here's the cool thing. He never walked away. He kept following. And it's not a, like a kicks and giggles story for John because he never got outta jail. In fact, he'll get beheaded. And I'm sure that when he jumped in and you know, once the guy who's preparing away for Jesus, he didn't think that's how it was gonna work out and friends in our life. It really goes the way that we think it should. What I love about the history of our faith is that there are people who have served Jesus faithfully in the midst of incredible persecution. The original disciples, John is the only one who will die of old age. The rest of them will be martyred for the faith. Several of them will be crucified, just like Jesus. And on the way to their own crucifixion, they ask to be crucified upside down because they consider themselves not to be worthy, to be crucified like their savior. They got it. See if you were there 2000 years ago and you were a follower of the way, that's what they would call it. If you were a follower of Jesus and if you were there and you saw Jesus crucified,
You wouldn't be wondering if there would be suffering in your life because you just saw the guy who's in charge of the whole thing, nailed to a Roman cross. You would know if I jump in and if I follow this guy, what just happened to him very well may happen to me. And you know what changed it for them? Cuz that's scary. That's scary to think about, you know, what changed it for them? You know why they thought it was worth it all of a sudden, you know why persecution didn't hold the church back. You know why you're here 2000 years after Jesus was crucified. Because those guys who saw their savior die in one of the most painful ways, also had breakfast with them on the beach three days later. And then he said, oh, so they're suffering in this life, but there's also a life after this life.
Wow.
We're just not so afraid anymore. So you're telling me you're gonna follow with Jesus and you might die and they're going. Yeah,
But so what,
Because we just saw something, we can't
Forget.
It's too exciting. This thing is real. So it's worth it. And so in the context of our humanity, Jesus leans in and goes, don't forget, what's on the other side of this. It's heaven. It's eternity. It's spending the rest of your days, not just in this life, but after with Jesus, for eternity, Paul, I'll read this and then I'll pray. Paul would say like this Romans eight verse 18. He says, I consider man. When we think about it, I consider our present sufferings. They're not worth comparing with the glory. That will be revealed in
Us.
Paul goes, look, it's worth it, church. It's worth it. Whatever you face, whatever trials and hardships and suffering, whatever, you know, whatever persecution you're gonna face in this life, cuz you're out there repping Jesus and you're following him and you're pursuing righteousness and you're loving people that nobody else is gonna love. And you're standing firm in your beliefs.
Paul goes, it's worth it. It's worth it. And when they come at you, when they throw insults at you, Paul goes, it's worth it. When they throw rocks at you it's worth it because they did all of that to Jesus. And three days later that dude came back from the dead and that's the guy he says, blessed are those blessed are those who are gonna be persecuted for their faith, for their pursuit of righteousness. You know what? Their reward is, eternity with him. It's good stuff. Let me pray for you, father. I thank you for the reminder this morning, there will be challenges. There will be pain. There will be suffering in this life as we pursue to live. As you have called us to live. I think about the Christians around the world this morning, who do not have the freedom to do what we're doing to sing and to raise their hands, to openly carry a Bible, to get into the depth of the scriptures, to receive preaching.
They, they can't do it. And I pray that you would give 'em the strength and the energy that they wouldn't quit in their pursuit of you. In fact, they would even get to a place in their own faith that you would call us to pray for those who persecute us, that they may see the reward that is to come. And like John they'll have moments where they question, but I pray that also like that John, that they would keep their faith, even though it's not working out how they would choose for it to work out, that we would keep our eyes on the prize and keep our eyes on you, who will greet us at the finish line at the end of our race father. We thank you for Jesus. We thank you for the cross. We thank you that 2000 years ago, he beat death once and for all. So in the midst of hardships and persecution and suffering, we have nothing to be afraid of this morning. We love you. And it's in his name. We pray. Amen.
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