Let us pray:

we come O god to hear your gracious words.

but to hear them so they might penetrate our hearts so that we might be transformed into the likeness of the one who speaks those words.

may it be so as our prayer.

in Christ's name we pray.

amen.

Clark read correctly to the ninth verse in the bulletin but we need to go a few more verses or I will just preach last week's sermon all over, so, it was rough on you the first time I know.

verses 10 through 12.

blessed are those WHO are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

blessed are you when others 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 so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

when we study the beatitudes they should cause us or lead us to do some questioning.

I remember the first time I really read and studied the beatitudes it was a bible study in college and they started out all right, blessed are the poor in spirit, you know, and then we go to this part, blessed are those who are persecuted and I could not even read past the persecuted and I thought what is this Jesus guy  thinking?

persecuted, how could someone be blessed by being persecuted?

especially if you continue to read the story and you see how Jesus is persecuted.

why would a disciple of Christ be persecuted?

well first I know of a couple of reasons why not.

sometimes we make bad choices and we have self‑inflicted consequences.

and we like to think we are being Persecuted but those are our own choices and bad decisions and those are not the persecutions that Jesus speaks of.

sometimes we are a little too self‑righteous and we like to call out other people's faults and we are attacked and again that is not the persecution that Jesus talks about.

he talks about those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake.

for the righteous life, even without a word being said, convicts and condemns the world for its lifestyles and priorities and even its pretensions.

Jesus says in the gospel of John in the 15^th chapter ‑‑  persecution will happen.

people will hate you if you take on my values.

there is a values clash that happens on many levels, many levels, whether it is someone who tells an inappropriate joke and you do something about it or you don't do something about it, there is a clash of values.

someone has wronged someone else and you either say something or do something or you don't say something and done do something.

there is a clash of values.

even now in the season, there is a clash of values.

everybody knows about black Friday, the day after thanksgiving, and there is some clash of values on black Friday.

there have been plenty of Christians who have been martyred for standing up for Jesus, and I can name them but you can look them up.

if you claim Jesus is lord of your life and people know it, you will be ridiculed in some circles, you will be ostracized in some circumstances, you will be asked to conform to the world and if you don't, some type of persecution follows.

I have a friend who says I am not being persecuted, I am a good fellow.

what if I am not being persecuted?

I hate to say this, but maybe we have assimilated into the world and its values.

maybe we talk, dress, work, play and live like the world.

there is no distinction between us and what the world values.

we are all meshed up in it.

and that is what the apostle Paul struggled with even about that being in the world, but not of the world.

you are in the world to be a blessing to the world, to convert the world even.

but not to assimilate its values which are contradictory to the values of Jesus, particularly the values of the beatitudes.

if we have the same beliefs and the same priorities and perspectives as the world, most likely we will never be persecuted because we are not even seen as disciples of Christ.

but consumers of the world.

and it is not that we need to go out there and cause trouble.

the reality is that trouble follows,

trouble follows, at work you will be known as the person who doesn't tolerate rude jokes.

you will be known as the person that believes that all sorts of crimes are wrong, the person that stands up to injustices of all kind, whether it is how a coworker is treated or how something is happening on the world's stage, you don't need to go out can cause trouble, trouble will come to you when you claim Jesus as lord.

the questions we need to ask ourselves are, what am I doing that I should not?

what am I doing that I should not?

what ought I be saying that I am not?

what ought I be saying that I am not?

and what needs to change in my life?

what needs to change in my life to be recognized a follower of Jesus Christ?

tough questions.

and as if this isn't hard enough, this whole persecution stuff, Jesus has to throw in there: rejoice.

as if it is not hard enough to get the concept of clashing with the world and its values.

and maybe paying a price for that, Jesus says rejoice. 

Why would I rejoice?

I think Jesus understands that Persecution is a sign of authenticity.

I remember reading about archbishop ramoro from El Salvador, he was a priest and an academic.

he taught at el Salvador college and lived in an Ivory tower with his books, and he loved it and there was trouble in El Salvador and they needed to pick an archbishop that would not cause any trouble so they picked the bookworm.

and at first they thought that was the way it should be,  and then he said he wanted to go out and see the people he represented as archbishop of El Salvador and he started to see the poverty and the needs and he started to speak up, and lead marchs and ask questions about why was there so much injustice.

he says that because of this, because of leaving the ivory tower, he finally felt like an authentic follower of jesus christ.

it wasn't just lip service, it was real service.

and he was with his people.

and he even said, he said, you might kill me, but you will never kill the church which is the people of god.

and one morning while celebrating mass for the few priests and nuns, he was murdered, persecuted.

never more whole, never more feeling than who he had discovered he was in Christ and didn't want to change that.

it is a sign of authenticity Jesus says when we can rejoice, we know who were in Christ.

the other one is hard for us also.

this idea of an eternal reward.

we are a society, we are a people, we want everything today.

we go to Mcdonald's and if we wait 7 minutes we are upset because it took too long.

we don't like to wait for elevators or wait in line, we want it yesterday, never mind today.

that is why people got up at 2 in the morning on black Friday.

sometimes brothers and sisters, we will be trampled in this world and we want immediate victory and vindication, much like the world offers, and it seems like those who perform immoral acts, or athletes that cheat, or politicians who lie, or business persons who steal, they seem like they get away with it.

and that bothers us and it should.

but the reality is according to the beatitudes to Jesus, that god doesn't settle all accounts in this world.

there is another world where god settles all accounts.

where it is, what it looks like ‑‑ I don't know, I just know that Jesus says god is in charge.

good thing.

if it was me there would be a lot of people in trouble.

Jesus places priorities upon the conditions of our hearts, not on rules and regulation, but on our hearts, where are we, are we authentic when it comes to being a follower of christ.

another thing the beatitudes tells us is they are interrelated.

you cannot be merciful and peacemaking and persecuted if you are not first poor in spirit.

if you are not first letting go of everything you know and trusting only in Christ.

and third, the beatitudes are the key to the sermon on the mount and to all god expects from us.

they are right there.

the poverty of spirit, and the peace making, and the mercy and all of it, that is who we are to be.

we are sinful, imperfect beings always seeking justice.

it seems to me that Jesus is saying, god doesn't settle for external, formal, or mechanical disciples.

when you study the beatitudes you realize jesus says you work it from the inside out, not the outside in.

it starts all in here.

that is where Jesus starts his work, in our hearts.

and that those that are led by the heart are the ones that are truly blessed, no matter.

get this ‑‑ no matter their External circumstances.

those alone are the persons that are authentic because they don't need anything else.

they don't need all the other trappings that the world offers.

in this sense the idea of just Jesus and me is a pretty good one.

those persons are the ones who overcome the world in which we are placed because in the end we realize that that is not what we need.

we ultimately need Jesus.

the beatitudes are about blessing, not cursing, they are the Marks of the church, we should exemplify them in everything we say and do.

they are about action, we are to live them out outside these walls and to each other.

the promise is fulfilled ‑‑ jesus doesn't say this will be, Jesus says this is.

the beatitudes are authentic because Jesus speaks them, they are hopeful, there is hope for those who are down and almost out.

Jesus says in this beatitudes that life together looks like this.

the peacemaking, merciful, poor in spirit people gather together to be graceful.

and so we conform our common life more and more to these kingdom values and leave behind the things of the world.

the pettiness and the jealousies and all those things that bring human beings down.

you see, Christianity isn't a scheme to reduce stress.

it is not a scheme to lose weight, it isn't a scheme to advance our careers, it isn't a scheme to even save us from illness.

those things happen, faithful or not we see them happen.

Christianity is a way of living based on the hope that meekness, and righteousness and peace will prevail and that god's future will be a time of mercy and not punishment because our future is in the hands of god.

so blessed are those who live this life.

even, even when it seems foolish and silly for those are the ones jesus said will be identified as the children of god.

I said, you know, I can anytime a lot of famous people but the person I want to talk about is Gene.

gene was at seminary I attended, gene was not a professor, he didn't work in the administration, gene was the maintenance man of our seminary.

you could often see him in cowboy boots and hat.

we would make fun him and we would say, there are no cowboys in Ohio and he would say ‑‑ there is one.

Gene and his wife were always offering compassion, and grace, and peace to the students.

I don't know what he did to the faculty but I know for students he was always reaching out.

he was always inviting students who had no place to go to his lithe white house on the campus, or hiring students who needed money when it wasn't in the budget and paying them out of his own pocket, but he wanted to help.

one time I needed to travel back to West Virginia but had no money and was wondering how I was going to get back, I had no gas money, no money at all and one morning I went to my mailbox and there was this little envelope and there was $200 in it.

I couldn't believe it.

god answers prayers.

it was not until gene died ten years later that I found out it was him who put the money in the envelope, him and his wife so I could get back home and make the appointments I needed to make.

it seems to me that you don't have to be famous to live out the beatitudes.

that you can be a follower of Christ and people can know it, just by living your everyday life.

gene was a great example of someone who had Jesus in his heart and lived it out.

this week I received a phone call from someone who received our mailer, John, I don't think he was here this morning and he wanted to talk about our church and Christianity and all the churches he had attended and their faults.

and I said well, you know we have fought and won just trying to live our life as disciples of Christ, and he said but do you have it in your heart?

do you have it in your heart?

that is the question for us today.

we have been learning about the beatitudes for 6 or 7 weeks and that is the question I want to leave us with:

do we have it in our hearts?

my prayer is that it is so.

so we can really be a church of service and not lip service and all of god's children said, amen.