#12 in the Sermon on the Mount series

I have put off writing about this Beatitude because it is uncomfortable to think about persecution as being part of God’s plan for me or my family. I would like to be able to subscribe to the belief that with enough faith, I can live a comfortable life without problems. This message of prosperity and comfort is the message of the TV preachers, but unfortunately, it is not the message of Jesus.

Jesus doesn’t promise unlimited blessings or comfort in this life. Jesus promises a cross, hardship and persecution. Continuing in the Sermon on the Mount he says:

Matthew 5:10–12 — 10 “Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. 12 “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Notice that Jesus puts some qualifiers in his statement. First we are only blessed if the accusations are false. Christians are called to live exemplary lives and any accusations of evil should have no truth to them. In my lifetime many highly visible leaders and teachers in the church have fallen into sin and have been publicly disgraced and ridiculed. This ridicule is not a cause for reward.

Secondly, the persecution that is blessed comes from accurately representing Jesus Christ. Notice the phrase at the end of verse 11, “because of me.” Many things have been done in the name of Christ of which Jesus does not approve; these are justly condemned. For example, much of the rhetoric of Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas is contrary to Scripture and as Paul would say, “their condemnation is just.” These folks misrepresent the name of Christ and any persecution they receive is not a cause for rejoicing nor will it be rewarded in Heaven.

Why would God allow persecution of those He loves? This is a difficult question in general and it may be impossible to answer why any particular instance of persecution is permitted. Yet Scripture does give us some clues as to why we may be called to suffer.

Later in this same discourse, Jesus tells us that we are to allow the light of the Gospel that is within us to shine so that men may “see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). In the history of the church, those who have borne unjust persecution for the sake of Christ have demonstrated the good works of which Jesus speaks.

Because we live in a fallen world, everyone, believer and unbeliever alike, has to endure hardship and trials. How we respond to those trials is an indication of where our faith and hope are placed. When a Christian is falsely accused as a result of his faith, God can use the Christian’s response as a testimony to his accusers and the spectators of God’s power to change lives. The blessing comes as a result of being used by God as a light to draw others to Jesus.

While we may wish to live a quiet life free from conflict and hassle, Jesus tells us here that our desire may not be in his plan. No healthy person looks for suffering, but we should not be surprised if we find ourselves in hardship as a result of our relationship with Jesus.

In John 16:33 Jesus tells us “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” We can be blessed as a result of persecution because Jesus has overcome the world. In Christ we are on the winning side.

“In general, I have used my farm carefully. It could be said, I think, that I have improved it more than I have damaged it.”

This was said in response to a failed attempt to build a pond on a slope on his farm. He goes on to say:

“And yet there is damage – to my place, and to me. I have carried out, before my own eyes and against my intention, a part of the modern tragedy: I have made a lasting flaw in the face of the earth, for no lasting good.”

Perhaps that faild pond project is a good image to show the damage caused by misrepresenting God through the mishandling of His word. This is the error of Pharisaism.

Jesus condemned the Pharisees for two types of errors in their handling of Scripture. The first error is to add to what God says. The Pharisees were notorious for taking the plain meaning of the text and adding to it as a guard against the breaking of a Scriptural command. One example of this that comes to mind is the Kosher laws. The Pharisees take the command “you shall not boil a kid in its mothers milk” (Exodus 23:19) and derirve rules prohibiting the mixing of meat and dairy products. I do not think that Moses (or God) had cheeseburgers in mind when he penned the command.

Yet the church is not free from this type of error. We can come up with rules about many apects of life in our culture that cannot be found in Scripture. The command to “keep oneself unstained by the world” (James 1:27) can be morphed into rules against movies, television, particular forms of music, etc. We need to be honest about our own tendency to add to Scripture.

The second error is the polar opposite, that is the error of making Scripture out to say less than it says. This is the error of finding reasons to make sin acceptable. Jesus said to the Pharisees in Matthew 23:23:

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others.”

We of the church can fall into similar error. We rail agains some forms of sin while accepting others. We rightly condemn sexual sin while allowing pride to run rampant in the church. We rightly condemn substance abuse while allowing gluttony in the church. The point is that we sometimes pick and choose what Scriptural principles we want to emphasise based on our own tendencies.

As leaders and parents, we must be careful that the good that we think were are doing is not really a harm. As Wendell Berry says, we may without intention cause a lasting flaw in those we lead. James 3:1 tells us that teachers will be held to a higher standard. We need to be careful to avoid the error of the Pharisees.

To avoid the error of the Pharisees and avoid unintentional damage, we must first be willing to submit to Scripture. We need to allow it to say what God intends it to say and not explain away the parts that make us feel uncomfortable. We also need to allow Scripture to inform our opinions and not the other way round.

We should not add to, nor should we subtract from Scripture. May God guide us as we seek truth.

Leaders, you need feedback. But most of us aren’t getting it. Why? Because feedback is scary.

Let me tell you the story on where this post is coming from.

LEARNING TO PRUNE

Last year I moved to Silicon Valley to start Garden City Church. This was the scariest move of faith I’ve ever made. With just three people committed to my dream, $3,000 in the church bank account, and a heart full of big vision, I moved my wife and three young sons to start this new adventure. Plenty of people told me I was crazy.

Garden City Church is now six months old. These past six months have been the most exciting, difficult, rewarding, busy, and thrilling six months of my life. I’ve poured my heart and soul into this church. I’ve given it everything I’ve got. We’re off to a great start as a church and we are already far beyond my hopes and expectations of where we would be half a year into our life as a church.

But, as in any church or organization, things aren’t perfect. There are changes that need to be made, branches that need to be pruned, sins that need to be confessed, data that needs to be processed, and courses that need to be corrected. And, as the lead guy, I’m the one most responsible for looking at reality, calling a spade a spade, and leading change and forward movement . . . .

Read the rest of the post: FEEDBACK IS SCARY—BUT YOU NEED IT

In my fog and stupor, as I poured the water over the tea leaves and oatmeal, the combined aromas provided a pleasurable moment. The smell of the white tea and maple brown sugar oatmeal was delightful. I am often moving too quickly to find enjoyment in such simple things, shame on me for this. I must be more observant moving forward.

As I experienced the aromas, I recognized that the aromas and my ability to enjoy them are both gifts from God. I read James 1:17 recently which says, “every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.”

I assume that those who claim there is no God would explain about how our DNA has evolved so that we associate smells with food which gives us sustenance so that we can keep our biological machine running. I am sure that research has been done on which part of the brain is stimulated by food smells and what chemicals the stimuli release into my body to trigger the enjoyment response. The biochemical process of enjoyment can be explained but does the understanding of the chemical and biological processes adequately answer the question “why?”

I assume that those who claim there is no God would think that my enjoyment of the aroma could be explained as nothing more than a programmed response to these stimuli. The question I ask is “who did the programming?” Is it just chance that we find enjoyment in the small things in life? Is my pleasure only a mechanical reaction to a mechanical process?

Or, could the enjoyment of aromas and other simple pleasures be clues that God provides to remind us of his existence and his goodness? Is this enjoyment a gift? I choose to believe it is.

There’s another world inside of me
That you may never see
There’re secrets in this life
That I can’t hide
Somewhere in this darkness
There’s a light that I can’t find
Maybe it’s too far away…
Or maybe I’m just blind…

What struck me about this lyric is the comparison with light and darkness. The Bible uses this same image in describing the light of the Gospel (Gospel means “good news”) shining in the darkness of the world. In Matthew 4:16 it says, “The people who were sitting in darkness saw a great Light, And those who were sitting in the land and shadow of death, Upon them a Light dawned.”

There are two problems identified which cause someone to not see the light. The first is blindness: “The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” (John 1:5). This is the starting point for all of humanity. We are all born in spiritual darkness. God shines the light of his love into that darkness and we have to choose our response to it. The difference between believers and unbelievers is that believers choose to respond to the light of the Gospel.

The second problem is willful blindness: “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil” (John 3:19). Some choose to reject Jesus Christ and remain in darkness. Often this rejection is in reaction to the behavior of some who claim to follow Jesus. I empathize with this reaction and would like to offer a response.

Even though believers have responded to the Light, Scripture teaches us that until death or rapture some of the darkness remains in us and we say and do things that are wrong. True believers do not think themselves better than unbelievers. Even the Apostle Paul, the writer of much of the New Testament, struggled with this. He writes, “For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want” (Romans 7:19).

The only difference is that believers have accepted the love and grace of Jesus Christ. If we are changed, it is a result of that love and grace changing us; we can claim no credit. While our motives may be improved sometimes our results are not. Some of the cruelest things ever said to me were said by believers. That is the icky truth.

My point is that believers still hurt people, say stupid things, struggle with addictions, act in selfishness and generally struggle with the same stuff the rest of humanity struggles with. This does not make the Gospel less true.

The fact that we are changed at all is testimony to the power of the Gospel.

If you are an unbeliever, I would ask you to consider Jesus based on what He said and did. He is the truth and the light. We believers are sometimes good reflectors and sometimes poor reflectors of his light. Please do not reject Christ because of our poor reflection of him.

I can tell you that life with Jesus, in spite of our failures, is good. Paul follows his lament about his own struggles with this statement, “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).

No condemnation, peace, forgiveness. Life is good (not perfect) in the light. Please join us. The Light wants to be found and is always available.

Right now we are in an age of religious complexity. The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart. The shallowness of our inner experience, the hollowness of our worship and that service imitation of the world which marks our promotional methods all testify that we, in this day, know God only imperfectly, and the peace of God scarcely at all.

Too often this describes churches still today. We have web-based calendars to keep track of our church activities. Our worship is louder and more rhythmic. Our preaching may be supported by the latest in multimedia technology. But better organization, louder music and flashier graphics do not mean that the Holy Spirit is operative and that the Word of God, Jesus himself is the focus.

When God revealed himself to Elijah, it was in the “gentle blowing” (NASB) or the “still small voice” (KJV).

Can we pause all the activity, take a deep breath and listen for that gentle blowing?

I find it interesting that Matthew not only mentions four women in the genealogy (strange in a male dominated culture), he mentions four women with sordid backgrounds. Two were gentiles. One was a prostitute. One posed as a prostitute to seduce her father-in-law. One seduced or was seduced by the King while she was married to another. Four scandalous women were used by God to continue the line from Abraham to Joseph, Jesus’ legal father.

In this genealogy, God, through the pen of Matthew, is reminding us that he takes broken people and uses them to accomplish his will. This is consistent with the character of God as revealed in Jesus.

The story of the woman at the well in John 4 is another illustration. Jesus, knowing the woman’s turmoil and need for inner peace, turns the conversation away from physical thirst to spiritual hunger. He also identifies himself as the means of bringing that inner peace. He does not condemn her for her futile attempts at satisfying the hunger through illicit sexual encounters. Instead, he offers her something so much better. Jesus offers himself as the satisfaction for her longing.

How does this apply to us in 2012?

With the rejection of the Biblical moral code, many in society have accepted and practiced behaviors which are contrary to God’s design. As a result, they come to the church (if they come at all) broken and in need of love and acceptance. Yet often the organization that is supposed to be the Body of Christ fails to accept people where they are. We, who claim to speak for Jesus, sometimes act in ways that Jesus would not approve.

God ordained these women to be in the line of the Messiah as a reminder to us that He uses unlikely people to accomplish his will. He uses people like us. We were all outsiders looking in at some point in our lives. We are all in need of the infinite love and grace of God in the person of Jesus Christ.  We all come to Jesus broken. We are not valued because of our heritage or accomplishments but because we are loved by God and accepted by Him.

We, the church, the gathering of the redeemed, have sometimes done a poor job of accepting the broken when they come to us for help. We radiate disapproval so that the “sinners” retreat. Or sometimes we try to quickly patch them up so that they appear unbroken. We persist in trying to maintain the illusion that we have it all together by attempting to force others into the same pretense.

Can we stop the pretense? Can we allow people to experience freedom instead of bondage? Can we trust God to bring people out of their brokenness without pretending that it doesn’t exist? Can we deal with the fact that we are all hypocrites in that we don’t fully live out what we believe?

The answer is yes, we can do this. God will empower us to do this if we allow Him to subdue our pride. It is pride that stands in the way of such acceptance.

John 13:35 – By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.

Jesus is here indicating that love is to be the identifying mark of the believer. We are commanded to love, not love if . . . our love is to be not conditioned upon the response of the object of our love.

While all churches would claim that they practice unconditional love, this is not the case. Too often, for one reason or another, love is conditioned on rule keeping, service to the church or some other qualification. When any conditions are placed on love, it is not the love described by Jesus.

Conditional love must be avoided because it sends the message that you have no value unless you are complying with the demands. People who come to this type of church may be loved for a while, but that investment of love better pay off in the desired response or it will not continue.

James speaks about this type of value judgment in James 2:1-8. In this passage James identifies this behavior as sin and a violation of the second great command to love your neighbor as yourself. James pulls no punches. In verse 4 he says, “have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives?” The root of this type of value judgment is evil.

The verb form of agape (selfless love) is used as a command 9 times in the New Testament. In only two verses was there a qualification on the love. In Ephesians 5:25, husbands are commanded to love their wives as Christ loved the church. Later on in verse 33, Paul commands every husband to love his wife as he loves himself. There are no further qualifications. And even these qualifications are not dependent upon how the object of love behaves. In all 9 commands to love, there is no out clause; there is no situation where it is appropriate to withhold love.

James tells us that to assess the value of a person based on their use to the church or their ability to keep rules is a sin. Paul tells us in Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” We all have equal value before the Cross.

To practice unconditional love, we must acknowledge our dependence upon God and our own need for grace. Once we realize how much we have been forgiven, then it should be easy to forgive and accept others. Can we follow Paul’s advice in Romans 12:9 and practice “love without hypocrisy?”

A world starved for real love is longing for us to get this right.

It may be a great over simplification to say that the story of Jeroboam explains this phenomenon, but perhaps it does give us a clue.

In 1 Kings 11:28 tells us:

Now the man Jeroboam was a valiant warrior, and when Solomon saw that the young man was industrious, he appointed him over all the forced labor of the house of Joseph.

Jeroboam had talent. He was a mighty warrior and a good manager. He was a man that men would follow. Solomon recognized this and rewarded it.

Jeroboam also had opportunity. A few verses later we are told that the prophet Ahijah came to Jeroboam to inform him that God was giving ten of the tribes of Israel to Jeroboam to lead. Not only would he lead them, but if he led well and followed God’s commands, Jeroboam would have an enduring kingdom like that promised to David.

It was at this point that Jeroboam had a choice to make. He had to choose between living in dependence upon God or relying on his wit and talent. As we can see from the following chapters, Jeroboam chose the latter and Israel suffered. 1 Kings 13:33 tells us that Jeroboam “did not return from his evil way.”

In reality, all of us have this same choice to make on a moment-by-moment, daily basis. In Luke 9:23, Jesus tells us to take up our cross daily. We have to constantly choose the path of self denial and reliance upon God. This is true not only for our Salvation but for our very existence as believers in Jesus Christ.

For those of us who are not in official positions of responsibility in the church, this choice seems like it would have small impact. Yet this is not the case. For the Body of Christ to be healthy, all of the members of the body must be in harmony with the head, Jesus Christ. We cannot be in harmony with the head unless we acknowledge our dependence upon him. Small rebellions can have a big impact.

For those, like Jeroboam, who have been given the responsibility to lead, small rebellions will always have huge impact. I believe this is why James 3:1 tells warns us that teachers will incur a stricter judgment. It is one thing to move yourself out of God’s blessing, it is another to lead a group toward chaos.

For all of us, small or great in the workings of the church, we need to learn the lesson of Jeroboam. Self reliance and self will have no place in the Kingdom of God. We rely on our own talent to our own peril and to the peril of those we lead.

We need to be reminded of the words Jesus spoke to Paul as recorded in 2 Corinthians 12:9, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.”

Reliance upon God-given talent, no matter how great that talent is, will always end in brokenness and failure. It’s not worth it; depend upon God and God alone.

King Ahab, on the other hand, viewed the prophet Elijah as a “troubler of Israel” (1 Kings 18:17). Ahab refused to tolerate the prophetic voice speaking into his life and reign. He viewed Elijah as a troublemaker or gadfly and dismissed his message as an annoyance.

While modern church leaders cannot pronounce the death penalty upon those who speak out with suggestions or criticism, they can make it very uncomfortable for those who do not agree with the leader. There is a danger that those who speak up and voice their disagreements will be labeled as troublemakers, the way that Ahab tagged Elijah. This is dangerous because not everyone that voices discontent is seeking to cause trouble.

Martin Luther was not seeking to split the Roman Church. He simply voiced his discontent over practices that were harmful and against Scriptural command. Yet he was tagged as a heretic and a troublemaker. We should be wary of any system which places such labels on people.

How do you distinguish between someone who is trying to bring positive change and a troublemaker? I believe the difference is in their focus. A troublemaker works his way into the spotlight and works for his own glory. The one who desires positive change (in the church setting) seeks to draw people into closer relationship with Jesus Christ and into a greater commitment to living out Scriptural principles.

Another distinction is that troublemakers attack people; change agents attack problems. It is one thing to attack the pastor’s character or motive; it is another thing to suggest a better way of doing something. Criticizing people causes dissension and division; critiquing methods can cause growth and improvement. Troublemakers tear down. Change agents seek to build up.

No human leader (with the exception of Jesus) is right all the time. No human leader should be granted the power to be the ultimate authority in a church. No human leader should have the authority to label those who disagree as troublemakers. If you find yourself within a church that applies such labels to people, my advice would be to walk quietly away and find a more loving place to worship.

Why walk away? Because eventually you will be forced to choose between acquiescing to something with which you don’t agree or be labeled as a troublemaker and be shunned. Better to leave sooner before the accusations start flying.

Leaders, I would offer this advice. Better a few gadflies than a castrated group of yes-people around you. A few gadflies will cause more growth in you than a thousand yes-people. You need your ideas challenged. You need your authority challenged because God is the ultimate authority and it is to Him that we are all to submit. The prophetic voice that you need to hear will be silenced if you start believing you are above such challenges.