1 - Introduction - Living like a real Christian 9b - Blessed are those who are persecuted _2_

turn your head when it mocks God and for goodness sake don’t say anything about sin and hell. If you do the above, you will be fine and you will not experience persecution. But should you choose to live this kind of lifestyle then you may need to consider the words of Jesus, in Matthew 10 v 33, “Whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.” There is, I believe, no greater motivation for courage for Christians than this. Part of the dealing with persecution is that we need to understand that it is “normal”. All through the ages it has been a phenomenon that doesn’t always make sense, but is nevertheless true. If there is one thing that I think the church needs today it is a revitalisation of the spirit of boldness, but the truth of the matter is simply this: that our boldness will be determined by the depth of our belief. When boldness belief we really believe that Jesus is who He says He is and really believe and live out the core values of the Beatitudes that we have been studying these past few weeks, then there needs to be a greater measure of boldness in the face of a somewhat intimidating force. I leave you today with a picture of David standing before Goliath. Goliath persecuted David with insults and mocking words, but all of that just bounced off David like water off a duck’s back. David stood with incredible boldness before this great giant and, with great confidence, declared his faith in God and his belief that God is who He says He is. He did not stand there with arrogance, but he certainly stood with a bold confidence in the face of this barrage of verbal persecution. Wouldn’t it be great if we could do the same thing?! Prayer Thought: Scripture teaches us to pray for those who persecute us. Do not Thought hate them; do not argue with them; just pray for them. There may come a time when, like Jesus on the cross, you may have to pray like He did, “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Wednesday Reading: Matthew 27 v 32 – 44 Today, I would like to look in more detail at what persecution looks like. Jesus gives us, in Matthew 5 v 11, a picture of what form this persecution will come in. He tells us that there are three aspects to it. #1: “Blessed are you when people insult you…” – this comes in the form of verbal you abuse to your face. It involves name calling and demeaning verbal suggestions. Jesus suffered this form of persecution on the cross where, as He hung there, the Pharisees and the thief on the cross next to Him, taunted him saying the words that we read today (Matthew 27 v 41). Jesus, however, did not respond to this. He never

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