Gospel of John [16:33]. The response from the world to the mind of Christ in you - persecution. Mat 5:10-12; 1Pe 1:3-9; 4:12-13.
length: 61:24 - taught on Dec, 18 2014
Class Outline:
Title: Gospel of John [16:33]. The response from the world to the mind of Christ in you - persecution. MAT 5:10-12; 1PE 1:3-9; 4:12-13.
We have all been fallen men from birth. We know what sin is and can identify its effects with experience and can identify with it in others. In other words, if a stranger were to tell you that he was jealous, you could identify immediately with the experience and feeling of jealousy. This is true of most sin and it is also true of most good human experiences, i.e. feelings of joy over good news or the emotional experience of winning something or seeing something beautiful.
For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man, which is in him?
Yet with God we were perfect strangers being born into this world separate from Him. We were complete aliens to Him.
remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded [being aliens; KJV] from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
We who have believed in Christ were transformed at salvation through the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We were made brand new creatures who were not aliens unto God but were in fact in union with Christ, in Him and thus in the Father. We were given God the Holy Spirit to indwell us so that He could fill our souls with teaching, guidance, and power when we submit to His ministry. God, revealed through the Son of God in the person of Christ, can only be known through the scripture and the application or putting into action those doctrines in the believer's life. He cannot come to know God through his own personal experiences that are without the mind of Christ or the word of God. He is fooling himself if he thinks he can come to know God through the life of his children, through a sunset, through philosophy, through science, through being moral and nice, through any human thing that the world would consider good. He comes to know the one, true God of whom he was an alien before through the scripture and the application of that scripture. He must produce love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control. He must experience undeserved suffering, persecution, tribulation, sacrifice, and loss as well as blessing from God. These are things that make up our Lord's mind and His own experience and we will never fully know Him unless we come to know them and experience them by acting upon His word.
MAT 5:3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
MAT 5:4 "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
MAT 5:5 "Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.
MAT 5:6 "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
MAT 5:7 "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
MAT 5:8 "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
MAT 5:9 "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Verses 10-12 can be taken together to make the eighth beatitude. If we enhance this passage with numerology we could say that the first 7, the number of divine perfection and completion, make up the character of the true worshipper of God. The eighth is passive, or what comes upon the true worshipper of God, which is persecution of righteousness.
MAT 5:10 "Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
This is grounded in the OT and continues in the NT. The world has been and always will be in opposition to the plan of God.
And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, "There is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the Lord, but I hate him, for he never prophesies good concerning me but always evil. He is Micaiah, son of Imla."
"For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.
"The world cannot hate you; but it hates Me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil.
"If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
The seven characters described in the beatitudes are all in the teeth of the spirit of the world. The hearers of this discourse breathed the spirit of God and must have been startled as they had their whole system of thought and action rudely dashed. Poverty of spirit runs counter to the pride of men's heart; a pensive disposition, in the view of one's universal deficiencies before God, is ill relished by the callous, indifferent, laughing, self-satisfied world; a meek and quiet spirit, taking wrong, is regarded as pusillanimous or faint hearted, and rasps against the proud, resentful spirit of the world; that craving after spiritual blessings rebukes but too unpleasantly the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life; so does a merciful spirit the hardheartedness of the world; purity of heart contrasts painfully with painted hypocrisy; and the peacemaker cannot easily be endured by the contentious, quarrelsome world. Thus does "righteousness" come to be "persecuted." But blessed are they who, in spite of this, dare to be righteous. (from Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary)
Mind of Christ Contrary in World
Poor in Spirit Price
Contrite Callous, self-satisfied
Craving Righteousness Lust of eye and flesh
Merciful Hard heartedness
Purity of heart Hypocrisy
PeaceMaker Quarrelsome
MAT 5:10 "Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
MAT 5:11 "Blessed are you when men cast insults at you, and persecute you [used in 1PE 4:12], and say all kinds of evil against you falsely, on account of Me.
MAT 5:12 "Rejoice, and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
MAT 5:10 "Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
The promise is the same as the first beatitude - theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Same promise (kingdom of heaven) as the 'poor in spirit.' So: The poor in spirit will be persecuted, but take courage, yours is the kingdom of heaven.
Christ's warning causes us to recognize this in time and so we do not get discouraged. All of these blessings to the soul of the believer, their application and thus experience in his life, leads them to a deeper understanding of Christ and so in time they see God more and more clearly, understand Him and His way more completely, and rejoice in their hearts more fully.
Through this persecution we come to know more of Christ.
"Let this Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross, so that we may see and believe!" And those who were crucified with Him were casting the same insult at Him.
In verse 10 the persecution was for righteousness sake. In verse 11 it is for His sake. Thus He identifies Himself with true righteousness.
Here He identifies Himself and His cause with that of righteousness, binding up the cause of righteousness in the world with the reception of Himself.
Would Moses, or David, or Isaiah, or Paul have so expressed themselves? Never. Doubtless they suffered for righteousness' sake.
Christ is Righteousness incarnate.
saying, "What do we have to do with You, Jesus of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are — the Holy One of God!"
"But you disowned the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, but put to death the Prince of life, the one whom God raised from the dead, a fact to which we are witnesses.
He who is holy, who is true, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, and who shuts and no one opens, says this:
MAT 5:12 "Rejoice, and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
"Be glad" is found in the following passages.
1PE 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
1PE 1:4 to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you,
1PE 1:5 who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
1PE 1:6 In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials,
1PE 1:7 that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ;
1PE 1:8 and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory,
1PE 1:9 obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.
1PE 4:12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you;
1PE 4:13 but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing; so that also at the revelation of His glory, you may rejoice with exultation.
"Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready."
The same word for rejoice, chairo, is in:
JOH 16:22 "Therefore you too now have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one takes your joy away from you.
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