Persecution

Michael Howard

Acts: The Mission of God • Sermon • Submitted 9 months ago • Presented 8 months ago

Acts 8:1–8

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INTRODUCTION

Aisha Granger was a Fulani Muslim in West Africa.

She was raised to be a faithful member of the Islamic community

She was a mother to two children by her Muslim husband

She held women’s leadership positions in Islamic women’s groups

When she was in her 20’s she was experiencing horrible headaches and she was told by Muslim healers to recite a passage from the Quran four times a day and to slaughter four goats

She did this, but she did not get better

She was told by the Islamic healers that there was no hope for her and she was going to die

She believed them. She went to the bathroom to perform her ritual washing and to prepare for death.

But in that bathroom she fell to her knees and said she heard a voice in her heart say, “I want you to worship Me.”

She knew enough about the God of the Bible to believe it was Him because she knew He is a personal God.

This started a four year journey of finding out who Jesus is and counting the cost of what it would take to follow Him.

She knew she would lose her friends, her family and her community.

Here is what happened next according to Voice of the Martyrs:

As she studied the Bible and attended church, Aisha discovered that Jesus Christ had already accomplished everything necessary for her salvation on the cross. She simply needed to place her faith in His righteousness to gain freedom from the curse of the law. Soon, Aisha was ready to tell her husband about her new faith.

Voice of the Martyrs

But her husband rejected her faith and took her to Sharia court where he sought to divorce her and remove their children from her care.

But the case didn’t make it to Sharia court because her pastor and church members advocated for her to be heard in the Magistrate Court.

In the Magistrate Court, the judge ruled that Aisha must recant the Christian faith or divorce her husband.

She chose Christ.

She got custody of her son, but her daughter went with the husband.

However, sometime later, her daughter heard about Christ and Aisha’s ex-husband told his daughter, “If you are a Christian, leave or I’ll kill you.”

Aisha and her family are now safe, living in a non-Muslim community and at 43 years old, she is going to seminary.

Her parents have shunned her for leaving Islam

Her ex-husband and her former community still hunt her and her family.

Aisha lives with the stress of knowing that her ex-husband and his family are still searching for her to kill her. She receives regular text messages exhorting her to return to Islam or threatening to kill her. Yet despite the difficulties and uncertainty, she has no regrets.

Voice of the Matryrs

This is persecution.

CONTEXT

This morning we look at a passage that Aisha would certainly be able to identify with.

In fact, of the reported 2.6 billion Christians that live on the earth today, 330 million of them are living with high levels of persecution and discrimination due to their faith.

They could all identify with this passage.

But we identify with it as well. As we said last week, godliness begets persecution.

Anyone who has ever been made the outcast because they stood for Christ...

Anyone who has ever been on the receiving end of injustice due to their biblical convictions...

Anyone who has ever been reviled for Christ’s sake...

They understand the bitter flavor that the church is made to drink in Acts 8...

But they also understand that there is sugar and sweetness at the bottom of that cup.

And that is what we will see this morning.

The passage that begins with execution ends with exuberance.

The passage that begins with scattering ends with salvation.

The passage that begins with injustice ends with inexpressible joy.

Let’s read the text. In it, we will see three points regarding persecution:

1. Persecution is provoked by obedience (v. 1-3)

2. Persecution is purposed by God (v. 4-5)

3. Persecution is a pathway to joy (v. 6-8)

Acts 8:1–8 ESV

And Saul approved of his execution. And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him. But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ. And the crowds with one accord paid attention to what was being said by Philip, when they heard him and saw the signs that he did. For unclean spirits, crying out with a loud voice, came out of many who had them, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. So there was much joy in that city.

PERSECUTION IS PROVOKED BY OBEDIENCE (v. 1-3)

Saul’s Persecution (v. 1, 3)

The passage begins with Saul’s approval of Stephen’s death.

We saw that last week.

As Stephen’s murderers removed their cloaks, they laid them at the feet of Saul (7:58)

This shows Saul’s involvement in Stephen’s death.

And it is re-emphasized by Luke in 8:1.

Saul has his hands in the business of persecution.

We also see this in verse 3.

Saul is ravaging the church.

The Greek verb that translates to ravaging is lymaino (leh-MAY-noh) and it literally means to “Injure or do harm.”

Paul is wanting to inflict damage on the Lord’s bride.

He wants to see the church suffer.

Verse 3 also shows us how he is ravaging the church.

He is going to “house after house,” and Luke says he “dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.”

Greek-speakers used the same word to describe fishermen dragging their nets full of fish to the shore after a good day of fishing.

So it is a brutal picture then.

A man seeking to rip apart Jesus’ church and then carry their arrested bodies off to jail like loads of fish.

Saul’s Background

To understand Saul’s hatred of the church, you have to understand who he is.

He is born around the same time Jesus is born.

He is a Jewish man from Asia Minor, in the city of Tarsus, which is modern-day Turkey.

His dad was a Roman citizen, something that was probably granted to him because he had done something significant for the empire.

Because his dad was a Roman citizen, Saul was born a free man with the same Roman citizenship as his dad.

Growing up in Tarsus, Saul grew up in luxury.

The largest university in the world was in that city

And RC Sproul describes Tarsus as a “Cosmopolitan city” on a major trade route, where “Merchants, scholars, intellectuals and travelers” from all over the world coalesced.

In other words, Saul was a cultured young man.

As a young man, Saul likely entered into the world of trade and became a tentmaker—something that would serve him post-conversion.

This was the conventional route—to take his father’s path and become a merchant.

But as he came of age and turned 13, it was clear that he was brilliant and he was sent to Jerusalem to study under the Rabbi Gamaliel—none other than the one we met in Acts 5.

Saul spent seven years under Gamaliel, earning the equivalent of two doctorates in theology.

Some historians say that by the age of 21, Saul of Tarsus was the most educated Jewish man in all of Jerusalem.

Those his heart was depraved and far from God, his head was a sponge for Scriptural knowledge.

But a knowledgeable head combined with sinful heart is a dangerous thing.

Zeal becomes easily misdirected because the evil heart warps the knowledge of the head.

In Acts 22, he describes his upbringing and connects his misdirected zeal for God and his awful persecution of the church:

Acts 22:1–5 ESV

“Brothers and fathers, hear the defense that I now make before you.” And when they heard that he was addressing them in the Hebrew language, they became even more quiet. And he said: “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated at the feet of Gamaliel according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God as all of you are this day. I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and delivering to prison both men and women, as the high priest and the whole council of elders can bear me witness. From them I received letters to the brothers, and I journeyed toward Damascus to take those also who were there and bring them in bonds to Jerusalem to be punished.

And in Philippians 3, Paul shares that if he wanted to boast in the flesh, he had reason to more than anyone:

Philippians 3:4–6 ESV

though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

Why was Saul doing all of this? Because he was raised to do it from a young pup.

From the moment of his reaching manhood, he has become trained in heart and mind to be a legalist. To be vicious toward those who don’t get in line.

All those Pharisees that Jesus battled in His earthly ministry and all those Pharisees that are harassing the apostles in chapters 4 and 5 of Acts—Saul was going to surpass them all.

He was the next Gamaliel, who is described as being “held in honor by all the people.”

But he had a streak of vicious zeal that made him a more dangerous version of the old Rabbi.

Young, talented, brilliant and brutal.

In some ways, it is the perfect cocktail for a persecutor.

Provocation

The question is, “Why did Saul target Stephen? Why did Saul target these other men and women and drag them out of their homes?”

Because they were godly, obedient, proclaimers of the truth.

And this is what the world does to godly, obedient, proclaimers of the truth. Even the religious world. They persecute them.

1. PERSECUTION IS PROVOKED BY OBEDIENCE (v. 1-3)

Stephen was full of the Spirit and full of faith. He was filled with wisdom and he stood before the council charging him with blasphemy and he gave them a history lesson.

And in that lesson, Stephen reminded them of Israel’s long history of rejecting the Word of God and the prophets of God.

And they did all the way down the line until they rejected the Messiah Himself.

Acts 7:52 ESV

Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered,

This proclamation and obedience and devotion got him killed.

Because people like Saul, dead in sin, mistook their unlawful murdering for zealous law-keeping.

They were so far from God that they thought they were serving God by killing His servant, Stephen.

Just as they thought they were serving God by killing His Son. and the prophets who came before Him.

Devotion and Persecution (v. 2)

In verse 2, you see there are devout men who will not let Stephen’s body rot outside the city.

To leave a body without a burial in Jewish culture was to treat a person like an animal.

It is the same way with us.

If a deer gets hit by a car, it lays there for a while until VDOT comes around but we don’t do that with people.

And for good reason—they are made in the image of God.

These devoted men are absolutely determined that Stephen will be buried and mourned properly.

He is their brother.

Their devotion is exactly the sort of God-honoring faith that Saul wants to snuff out.

Those devoted men are just the sort of prisoners that Saul hopes to acquire.

And all of this reminds us of what Saul would write to his son in the faith, Timothy, long after his conversion--

2 Timothy 3:12 ESV

Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,

Are you devoted? Then gird your loins, for the resistance will come.

Are you obedient? Be prepared—obedience provokes persecution.

What does the Bible say about persecution?

In fact, the expectation of persecution as a result to obedience is a consistent feature of the New Testament.

John 15:19–20 ESV

If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.

They persecuted Christ before us. Christ promises that since a servant is not greater than their master, we can expect the same treatment.

Galatians 4:29 ESV

But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now.

The world, which is according to the flesh, always persecutes God’s children, who are born according to the Spirit.

From the time of Isaac and the patriarchs, this has been the case.

And again, converted Saul of Tarsus, our brother, the Apostle Paul, tells those he pastors to not be surprised with the persecuting affliction comes:

1 Thessalonians 3:2–4 ESV

and we sent Timothy, our brother and God’s coworker in the gospel of Christ, to establish and exhort you in your faith, that no one be moved by these afflictions. For you yourselves know that we are destined for this. For when we were with you, we kept telling you beforehand that we were to suffer affliction, just as it has come to pass, and just as you know.

Devoted obedience will bring about persecution during the age of tribulation.

It comes in varying degrees, but it comes.

Like gravity.

Like tax season.

Like death itself.

It is just the way things work.

PERSECUTION IS PURPOSED BY GOD (v. 4-5)

Now, you might say, “Why is it this way?”

Why would God allow Aisha to go through what she has gone through and to have to uproot and move her family?

Why would God allow Saul to drag the saints off into prison?

The answer is this: It is His purpose to glorify Himself through the steadfastness of a suffering church.

2. PERSECUTION IS PURPOSED BY GOD (v. 4-5)

The Scattering (v. 4)

And one of the ways that He does that is by using persecution to scatter his sheep, so that they will take the treasure of the Gospel within them to whatever place persecution pushes them to.

We see this in verse 4.

Those that are scattered by the persecution went about preaching the Word.

This scattering should not come as a surprise because Jesus told them that the Kingdom would advance and break through the geographical boundaries of Jerusalem and Judea.

Acts 1:8 ESV

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

It was not evident in His commission that the scattering would come about by persecution, but this was God’s plan.

He would use Satan’s tricks and man’s conspiring to bring about the fulfillment of the Great Commission.

He allows the affliction of the church for the advance of the church.

Martin Luther said that the church is like manure.

If you let it sit there and do nothing, it will start to stink.

If you spread it out, it will produce fruit.

The Lord Jesus had no intention of His church stagnating in Jerusalem.

It was always His plan to see Kingdom fruit through the scattering of His persecuted church.

Jerusalem is not the center

And this scattering is an important moment in redemption history.

Jerusalem, the king’s city in the heart of Israel, is no longer the epicenter of worship and witness.

Listen to Mark’s account of Jesus’ words and actions in Mark 11:12-21

Mark 11:12–21 ESV

On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. And he said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard it. And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching. And when evening came they went out of the city. As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. And Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.”

Sandwiched in between this business about the fig tree being cursed and then withering, is Jesus cleansing the temple in Jerusalem.

This is not on accident. There is a connection between these events and that is why Mark arranges his narrative this way.

Jesus curses a fig tree that cannot bear fruit out of season. Why?

Well with the connection to Jerusalem and the temple, it certainly seems that Jesus is sending a message.

And that message is, “The fruit of worship has no season. It should always be coming out of the lives of God’s people.”

And in the cursing of the tree, combined with the cleansing of the temple, Jesus is saying, “The fruitless worship that takes place in that temple is going to end. The temple is going to be destroyed.”

And that is exactly what happened one generation later in 70 AD.

God judged Jerusalem and that judgment was most evident in the destruction of the temple and His putting an end to the hollow worship that was taking place there and those who were encouraging it.

So now, as we go forward in the New Covenant, Jerusalem is no longer the outpost that we look to as the center of worship.

We do not make pilgrimages there.

We do not remember the Lord through feasts there.

We do not count that city or any building in that city as the place where God meets with His people.

Instead, what we will see in Acts and the rest of the New Testament is that the local church is now the epicenter of worship.

The local church is the place we make pilgrimage to—we gather with one another each week.

The local church is the place where we remember the Lord with the feast of the Lord’s Supper.

The local church is the people whom God calls His own.

He dwells in the contrite hearts of the members who make up the local church.

And together we look to the city that is to come, the New Jerusalem, recognizing that we have no permanent address here.

You see this idea expressed by Paul in Ephesians 2:21-22

Ephesians 2:21–22 ESV

in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

Where does God dwell? Not on the temple mount in Jerusalem.

The people of the church are the temple of the Lord.

SAMARIA (v. 5)

So the Lord, desiring to not just dwell in the hearts of Jewish people, but also purposing to graft Gentiles into the promise, sends Philip to Samaria.

Samaritans were half-Jewish and half-Gentile. And this made full-blooded Jewish people have hatred toward them.

Most Jewish people wouldn’t even travel through Samaria.

They looked at Samaritans as unfaithful people with tainted blood.

They lived near the former capital of the Northern Kingdom.

During Babylonian Exile, their ancestors settled in that region.

Even after the Jewish people came home, they stayed up north.

They developed their own customs.

They had their own edition of the Torah and they viewed Mt. Gerizim, not Jerusalem, as the place of worship.

Jesus had a heart for the Samaritans. It was clear in what He said and what He did in His ministry.

In John 4, it is Jesus’ will that He would pass through Samaria.

John 4:3–4 ESV

he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. And he had to pass through Samaria.

And upon arrival, He speaks to a Samaritan woman at a well and tells her that a time is coming in which neither Jerusalem or Gerizim will be the place of worship.

It is right in line with what we saw in the fig tree.

John 4:19–24 ESV

The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Clearly the Lord Jesus longs to be worshipped, not just by Jewish people, but by Samaritans and anyone who worships God in spirit and truth.

Then we have Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, where He does something no other Rabbi would’ve dared to do—He uses the Samaritan as the example of a true neighborly love.

Luke 10:33 ESV

But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion.

When Jesus gets to the end of the parable and He asks the lawyer who questioned Him which of the men in the story was a neighbor—the priest, the Levite or the Samaritan, the lawyer couldn’t even bring himself to say the word.

Instead of saying Samaritan, he simply says, “The one who showed mercy.”

He stands in contrast to Jesus who wants love to cross sociological and racial and cultural boundaries.

And some Samaritans loved Jesus too. If you recall in Luke 17, after Jesus heals the ten lepers, the only one who comes back to thank Him is a Samaritan.

Luke 17:15–16 ESV

Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan.

So as we get to Acts 8, and the church is scattered, just as Jesus promised, the Gospel goes to the Samaritans.

Philip, who is one of the seven that was chosen to handle the widow controversy in Acts 6, goes there to escape Saul’s murderous threats.

And then a light bearer is scattered into a new region, they do not leave the light behind.

As Philip goes to Samaria, the good news of Jesus Christ goes with him.

Obadiah Holmes

We can see this in our own Baptist history.

We talk about religious freedom in our nation, but in the days of the colonies it wasn’t so free for our Baptist brothers and sisters.

They would not baptize their babies.

They would not submit to the Church of England and they practiced congregationalism outside of the crown’s authority.

As a result, men like Obadiah Holmes were persecuted.

He was a Baptist up in Boston that was put in jail for holding services in someone’s home and preaching against infant baptism.

There was a bail of 30 pounds placed over him.

His friends started to collect money to get him out and he said, “I have not committed a crime and if anyone bails me out, they are not my friend.”

So he sat there.

Eventually the Anglicans wanted to let him go because of the public outcry.

So they took him into Boston Common and tied him up and lashed him thirty times with a three-cord whip.

Holmes was hardcore. When his Baptist brothers from across the Atlantic, John Spillsbury and William Kiffen wrote to him, expressing concern for his suffering, Holmes wrote back and said:

“Don’t worry about me my brothers. The presence of God was so manifested around me that it was if they whipped me with the stems of roses.”

But that persecution caused the Baptists to leave Massachusetts and head South.

It wasn’t long before there were Baptist churches popping up from Rhode Island to Pennsylvania, all the way down to Charleston, SC.

Persecution scattered the sheep, and they took the Gospel and their good Baptist doctrine and polity with them.

Are we up for it?

Before we finish up with the final few verses, I think it is worth stopping to ask, “Are we up for this?”

Are we willing to be bold to the point of being scattered?

Would we view our scattering as providential and rejoice in it?

Would we see Samaria as a mission field or a miserable assignment?

Let’s put it in our context.

My politically conservative friends—if God scattered you to San Francisco would you writhe or witness?

Would you love the people there or despise them because of their political ideologies?

My politically liberal friends—if God scattered you to a holler full of MAGA hat wearing West Virginians, would you be like Jonah running from Nineveh or would you be like Jesus who HAD to go through Samaria?

Would you love the people there or despise them because of their political ideologies?

This world has created boundaries in society and culture, but those boundaries are not acceptable excuses for us to say, “I won’t go to them.”

And if God, in His infinite wisdom, spends the next 100 years scattering the American church in order to push us to the parts of the mission field we just don’t want to go to, will we say, “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done?”

PERSECUTION IS A PATHWAY TO JOY (v. 6-8)

Let’s finish up by looking at verses 6-8.

Acts 8:6–8 ESV

And the crowds with one accord paid attention to what was being said by Philip, when they heard him and saw the signs that he did. For unclean spirits, crying out with a loud voice, came out of many who had them, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. So there was much joy in that city.

This is amazing.

Philip has an incredible amount of favor that can only be attributed to the grace of God and possibly the work Jesus had already done in the region.

The people listen to him with “one accord,” and they are motivated to all be still and listen because of what Philip said and did.

He speaks and acts with authority.

He is doing signs and wonders, which authenticate the Gospel that He is preaching.

It is clear to the Samaritans that he must be from the Lord because his words are packed with the divine power of the Holy Spirit and his works are so magnificent that only God could be behind them.

His works include casting out demons and healing the paralyzed and the lame.

It is very similar to the work Stephen was doing before his arrest in Acts 6.

This shows that God always has another man ready to step up.

As Wallace Tucker, a charter member of this church used to say: “One monkey doesn’t stop the show.”

Stephen was a great man, but God had Philip ready to go and to carry on this work.

Notice that Luke records “there was much joy in that city.”

Joy from those being ministered to

But also joy from Philip who is obedient and being used by God.

There is joy all around.

And this is quite incredible considering how we started today—with Saul dragging Christians off to prison like fish in a net.

Do you see how good God is to use the persecution and the scattering of His church for the glory of His name?

Do you see how His purposes and decrees, which were written from the beginning of time, are playing out with everything in its perfect place? How God is not thwarted by the sin of man, but uses it to glorify Himself in His all-wise plan?

Do you see how even the suffering of His saints is ultimately for their joy? And for the joy of the unbelievers in the world who will come to Him and repent?

3. PERSECUTION IS A PATHWAY TO JOY (v. 6-8)

We should be surprised by none of this. The Bible is packed with promises for the persecuted. Promises that show how God is for the joy of His people, to the glory of His name.

Consider some of these texts as we close:

I will start with the Beatitudes. Listen to this promise for the persecuted from King Jesus:

Matthew 5:10–12 ESV

“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 show God that we value Him and His Gospel over everything in this world, to the point that we will willingly suffer for the sake of proclaiming, He promises us that the inheritance in the world to come is ours.

Not because we have earned it by suffering persecution—God saves us by grace and not works.

But grace-saved people are grace-preaching people, whatever the cost may be.

Mark 10:29–30 ESV

Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.

Whatever we lose for Christ in this age, we will gain in Him in the age to come.

2 Corinthians 12:9–10 ESV

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

We can be content in tribulation and persecution because the grace of God is sufficient for us and His power is made perfect in our weakness.

He does not abandon us in persecution.

1 Peter 4:12–14 ESV

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.

You are sharing in the suffering of Christ as you are persecuted.

And if you suffer with Him, you will reign with Him. You will be glad when His glory is revealed.

If you are insulted for His sake, you are blessed because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.

Meaning, the Spirit of God helps you endure

But since He is the Spirit of glory, this enduring work in your life is a little taste of the glory of heaven.

CONCLUSION

What amazing promises these are.

Reward in heaven

A hundredfold in the age to come

Sufficient grace and perfect power

Sharing in suffering

The Spirit of glory and of God resting upon you.

We don’t need to fear persecution.

It may scatter you.

It may unsettle you.

It may take temporary peace and rest from you.

But we don’t need to fear it.

When I was in college I joined the Richmond Biblical Evangelism Team.

We would go out on Friday nights and preach the Gospel in downtown Richmond.

It was 90 minutes of prayer and then three hours of evangelism.

One of us would open-air preach on a step-stool and as people drew near, the rest of us would engage with them.

We saw people converted.

We experienced God’s providential hand.

One night I shared the Gospel with a guy for about 15 minutes and when I introduced myself, we realized we were both named Michael Howard.

But every now and then, there was persecution.

One night, my friend Rob was open-air preaching at an Art Festival in the Fan and suddenly, he was hit with an egg.

Someone had went and bought eggs to throw at Rob.

And they began to pelt him with all 12.

One after another at point blank range.

And by friend Rob never flinched.

He just kept preaching.

I remember standing there and thinking, “Rob is amazing. How can he just keep going? He’s not even addressing it.”

Well that is who my friend Rob was.

He would also go to some of the most drug-ridden bars in Richmond and sing Jesus songs at open mics.

I used to think Rob was just an elite-level evangelist.

But now I think Rob just figured out the same thing as Aisha and Obadiah Holmes. The same thing as Peter and Paul. The same thing as Philip.

Jesus is worth more than everything.

And there’s nothing, including our own safety, that comes before obedience to Him.

For He is King Jesus, and the Sirs and Dames that serve His holy court, have declared that we have been bought with great price and our lives are not our own.