 Amen. All right, so we're finishing our sermon series this morning, our two-part series on persecution. We're going to look again at Luke 6.22. Luke 6.22, we're going to look at the last half of the verse. Let's read it together. In chapter 6 of Luke, look at verse 22. Blessed are ye when men shall hate you and when they shall separate you from their company and shall reproach you and cast out your name as evil for the son of man's sake. So, of course, we talked last week about the first part of this, where men shall hate you and men shall separate you from their company. We talked about how the context of this verse is Jesus talking to his disciples. Jesus is preparing the disciples here for what they're going to experience in their lives, in their lives as a follower of Jesus. He's getting them ready. I mean, it wouldn't have been very good leadership of Jesus to just be on this earth and teach these men to do what they were supposed to do and then leave and not tell them what was going to be in front of them, what to expect coming from men that they were going to deal with. So, we talked largely about separation last week. How men will separate from you. We talked about how that really shouldn't be a big deal for us because, as Jesus says here, men will want to separate from you. So, it should be a mutual understanding where we want to be separate. The Bible tells us that we should be separate from the world, but it says that men will want to separate you from their company. So, that's one thing we looked at last week. Jesus is giving more advice here to the disciples. Don't forget who he's talking to is the context of Luke 6.22. But let's look at the last two things that he talks about in this verse where it says, and they shall reproach you and cast out your name as evil for the son of man's sake. And it's interesting that this is the last part of the verse because once you separate, here's what you're going to find, is once you separate and you make that decision because maybe you're deciding to get into this Christian life or maybe you've just started getting into this Christian life, you may not see these things yet, but it's when you make those decisions to be separate and to change your life and to change the way that you do things and operate in a different way. That is when all of a sudden men will reproach you and all of a sudden they'll cast out your name as evil because people as you start to make this move into this Christian life, people may try to convince you otherwise. They may try to talk to you about, hey, they may think it's just a fad or maybe a stage that you're going through, but as soon as they realize that this is not a stage you're going through, this is something that is going to be the life that you lead your family forward in and you start to make these very visible moves and changes in your life, that's when they're going to turn. That's when you will see people turn on you and they will do these last two things. So let's talk about these last two things and look at a little bit of what the Bible says on what that's going to look like and how we should respond to that this morning. So the first one is this, men shall reproach you. Men shall reproach you. That means to rebuke you or to express disapproval of you. They'll shame you. If you live the life of a disciple, people are going to shame you. That means you're going to decide to serve Christ with your life. People are going to shame you for that. People will express their disapproval to you and they'll tell this to your face and they'll say it behind your back. So it's going to be a disapproval that may be direct. It may be through your family. It may be through your children. It may be through your wife. But that's the first thing. They're going to reproach you. They're going to express disapproval to you. Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 13. The second part Jesus says to the disciples is he says that they will cast out your name as evil. He says that men will cast out your name as evil. That means they're going to speak horribly about you. They're going to say that what you're doing is wrong. And they're going to tell you that again to your face and behind your back. But I do want to, before I get into this section, I want to give a disclaimer. I want to give a disclaimer. And the disclaimer is in 1 Corinthians chapter 13. The disclaimer is this. And we always, look, we always must keep this in mind. And you'll see in this verse how important it is to keep this in mind because everything, the profit, whether or not your life is profitable or not depends on this. This is what the Bible says. So you say, I want to live. I mean, isn't that the purpose of your life? Isn't that the purpose of living this Christian life? Look, I'm saved. Nothing's going to change that. Nothing's going to change the fact that I'm saved. Okay? But is this some free ride for me? I mean, look, I want to be profitable with my life. That's why I'm doing what I'm doing with my life. You say, why are you doing what you're doing with your life? Because I want to be profitable. Why am I wanting to go into the ministry? Because I want to be profitable. Why do I go out soul winning? Because I want to be profitable. Why do I make the decisions that I make raising my children? Because I want to be profitable. Because, look, I'm saved. I'm going to heaven. I'm going to heaven. That's it. Nothing's ever going to change that. But what if I'm of no profit to my children? What if I'm of no profit to my wife? What if I have zero profit in my life? Look, it's all for nothing. If you have no profit in your life, it's all for nothing. So here's the disclaimer. Look at 1 Corinthians 13. Look at verse number one. The Bible says, Though I speak with tons of men and of angels and have not charity, I am become as a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. It says, no matter what I say, if I say all these great things and I speak all these wonderful things from the Bible, I sound like an angel. I sound like a messenger of God. But I have not charity. It's for nothing. It's just vain babbling. Verse two, And though I have a gift of prophecy of all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so I can remove mountains and have not charity, I am nothing. If I'm this great man and just says, I'm just filled with faith. I'm just filled with faith. I know everything that there is to know about the Bible. Idiot. See what I'm saying? And I have, but look, if I have filled with all knowledge, if I know the Bible backwards and forwards, I know the law of God. I have faith like no one you've ever seen, but I have not charity, it's nothing. Look at verse three. This is a really bad one. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, I mean, what was the rich young ruler's problem? He couldn't give away his riches. Though I just, I'll give anything to everybody, no matter what. And though I give my body, I'll even give my life. Look, and though I give my body to be burned, look, I'll give my life for this ministry. I'll give my life, but I have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Can you imagine the tragedy of somebody who gave their life for the cause of Christ? And it profits them nothing? So the point I'm trying to make is this. And this is why 1 Corinthians 13 is in the Bible. Because if men speak evil of you, because you have no charity, that's not what we're talking about today. If men speak evil of you, because you have all, you understand all knowledge. And you're this prideful, arrogant jerk about it, it profits nothing. Even to the point where if you didn't have charity and you lost charity, you lost, I mean, you lost that love for the lost is an example of charity. You lost that charity in your life. Look, maybe many of us have made this mistake to a certain degree. When, you know, we first got saved and we started learning what the Bible had to say and we started, you know, listening to biblical preaching and we just got all this knowledge because look, it doesn't take long to pass the average Joe on what they know about the Bible because people know nothing about the Bible. So you get saved and you get some knowledge and then you just want to correct everybody on everything. Look, people are just going to think that you're an arrogant prideful, you know, mean-spirited person. You can come off that way and you could come off as pompous, disagreeing with people at every turn, becoming this argumentative person with unsaved people, maybe even safe people that just have no knowledge of the Bible. Look, just because somebody's saved doesn't mean that they understand anything about the Bible. They understand it. Look, it means they understood the simplest thing in the Bible, the simplicity which is in Christ, the simplicity of the Gospel. So that's my disclaimer as we go forward. As men speak evil of you, just make sure that you have charity, that you have that love in your heart as a Christian should have or your life will profit nothing. Okay? But look, people may speak evil of you because of that. So keep that charity. Keep that charity. With that being said, with that disclaimer being put out there, when you do live this Christian life even if you have charity and you start living this Christian life and doing what you're supposed to do, people are going to cast out your name as evil. Just for that. Look, people are going to trash talk you behind your back for living the Christian life. Can you imagine? It's going to happen. It's going to happen to you for sure. And all, all for the Son of Man's sake. All for Christ's sake. You say, turn to Acts chapter 5. You say for being a believer, for being a believer and being a follower of Christ, I'm going to suffer shame from people? I mean, how could that be? Turn to Acts chapter 5. Turn to Acts chapter 5 and look at verse 41. Yes. For that reason, you are going to suffer shame. Look at the disciples in Acts 5. Look at verse 41. And they departed from the presence of the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. And daily in the temple and in every house, they cease not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. Go back to verse 20. Go back to verse number 20. So in verse number 20, an angel tells them. So what were they doing where they suffered this shame? We see how they reacted to it. What were they actually doing? They were teaching and preaching Christ. But look what the angel tells them. So this is the angel just breaks them out of prison and says, go stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life. And when they heard that, they entered into the temple early in the morning and taught. But the high priest came and they that were with him and called the council together and all the senate of the children of Israel and sent to the prison to have them brought. So look, they were out there and they were teaching and they were preaching Jesus Christ and people hated them for it. People were speaking evil of them for it. They're healing people. I mean that's what they were in trouble for. That's what they were being persecuted for. So look, people were upset at the message of Jesus Christ. I mean that message upsets people. You say, I mean you say what? I mean you say, how could the gospel upset people? But yes, if you go out and you preach the gospel people are going to be upset at you. People that you're preaching the gospel to and other people that may know that you're doing that. They're going to be upset. They're going to be upset at you. Look, and they'll express this to your face. This is what Jesus is saying in Luke 622. They'll express it to your face and they will express it behind your back. So that's what they're going to do to you. You say, okay, got it, let's pray. Okay, but look, we're going to look a little bit deeper into it. All right, you say why? You say why is that? I mean what we know the gospel is, the gospel is the most wonderful message that's ever come to the earth. It's the most wonderful message that will free every man that will ever live. It has the ability to free every single person in the history of the world till the end of the world to just set them free. I mean how could anybody be upset at that? Turn to Hebrews chapter 4. So we're going to look at why the gospel upsets people first. I mean let's look into it. Why? I mean Jesus lets us know that what's going to happen, but why does the gospel upset people? Why in the world would the gospel upset people? Turn to Hebrews 4 and look at verse number 12. This is why, right here. Hebrews 4 in verse number 12. The Bible says this. It says, for the Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. Okay, got it. But here's the problem. Here's the problem for people right here. Piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and to the joints and marrow and as a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Turn to Acts chapter 7. Because look, because the gospel, it cuts to the heart, is what the Bible says. It cuts right through the joints. It cuts through the flesh. It cuts through whatever is covering people's hearts. It cuts straight through and it cuts right to the heart. The Bible says. Look at Acts chapter 7. Look, I mean it forces a decision on people is what the gospel does. And that decision that is laid in front of them, it cuts to the heart. To believe or not. It cuts to the heart of what they believe. Now look, the devil's philosophy. How many of you know people that have a culture? Maybe that culture is even in their church. Let me just sidebar this thing for a second. But there was even a culture in the churches that I grew up in where you just, I mean, just men in general, and I can only speak from a man's perspective, but men in general were very uncomfortable talking about spiritual things. In church, after church, at coffee, and cookies, or snacks, or even fellowship events, it was talking about, you know, it was talking about, you know, our worldly lives. It was talking about our jobs. It was talking about, which are not bad things to talk about in church, but there was this thing where if you would ever bring up spiritual things, like men, just in the culture that I grew up in, just didn't, they were not comfortable talking about spiritual things. That is from the devil. That is the devil's philosophy. Because look, that's why many people, when you come to their door and you will see, oh, oh, I just, you know, they're super uncomfortable when you bring up the spiritual. They're super uncomfortable. It's because the devil's philosophy has pervaded, you know, the lives of this world and even the churches of this world where people are just not comfortable talking about spiritual things. And look, the gospel is the most spiritual thing and it will cut straight to the core of someone's heart. And if they're not comfortable talking about that, you won't even have a chance to open that door. So this is the, this idea, this philosophy, this culture of the tough man that can never talk about spiritual things. That is straight from the pit of hell. That is Satan's religion creeping its way into, you know, modern day churches to create that culture. Because look, Satan knows that if you will never talk about spiritual things, there is zero chance that you will ever get saved. There is zero chance. If you are completely freaked out, if someone wants to open a Bible and show you what the Bible says, you have no chance of getting saved. None. That's why this comes from the devil himself. It's just another aspect of these modern, you know, day churches or whatever you want to call them. It's a terrible culture. Look at Acts chapter 7. Proving once again. Acts chapter 7, look at verse 54. And when they heard these things, look at what happened to these people. Here are the guys, the disciples are preaching the gospel. It says, and when they heard these things, the people, the Jewish leaders, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, they were cut to the heart because it cuts to the heart. And they gnashed on him with their teeth. They were just like, you know, this was, you know, and they killed him. They killed him for this. Look, they got angry and spoke evil of them. They took it much further than that in this story. But this is why, look, this is why people can't just be like, oh, you don't go to my same church. No big deal. I mean, a lot of people are weirded out when this first happens. When, you know, they get right, they get in a good Bible preaching church and getting people saved, and they have a heart for the lost, and they want to preach the gospel, and they want to actually make decisions in their life to, I don't know, follow what the Bible says. This is why people can't just be like, okay with that, because this is not a message that, you know, is just some random surface level message. It's the greatest message ever, but it cuts to the heart. Turn to Luke chapter 12. Another reason is this. And this is just a little recap of last week, but Luke chapter 12, look at verse 51. Look, following Christ causes separation. It's just naturally going to happen. Okay, and that's why Jesus mentioned it in the first part of Luke 6.22. Following Christ causes separation. They will want to separate from you, and you should feel the same way. And Jesus told us that in multiple different ways, but look at Luke 12 and verse 51. Suppose you that I'm come to give peace on earth. That's why these people that just think, oh, Jesus is here to bring everybody together. You know, I mean, if you think in your life, if you grew up in some liberal nothing church where it just teaches that Jesus is just this guy who just love everything, love everybody, love all this, love all the time. Look, have charity. We understand that. But look, I mean, Jesus says this, you think that I've come to give peace on earth. I tell you nay, but rather division. Look, the message of Christ divides people. From henceforth, there should be five in one house divided three against two, two against three. And then he gets specific and he says, look, he's like, this message that I have, which is the gospel, this wonderful message, it's going to divide houses. It's going to divide families he's talking here. It's again talking about family, just the nature of it. Look, I'm telling you, from our very core, we are all messed up about family. We are all messed up. Turn to Mark chapter three. Turn to Mark chapter three. This whole idea of blood relations, you know, because we're related to people, look, we're messed up. We're messed up about it. I'm telling you. And when I say messed up, I mean, we have our culture in us that is against what the Bible says when it comes to this type of thing. Look at Mark three in verse 31. Look at Mark three in verse 31. You say, well, you know, but they're my family and I must give them another chance and another chance and another chance and I know they don't agree with me and I know they, you know, want us to be part of things that we don't want to be part of, but they're angry that, you know, we won't be part of these things and there's all this conflict and all this kind of stuff, but they're family, but they're family. Look at what Jesus said in Mark three, 31. I mean, look, there's very specific cases with Jesus dealing with family. Jesus here is preaching and he is teaching to people. He's preaching and teaching about the kingdom of heaven. He's preaching to people. He is teaching the Bible to people. He is preaching the gospel to people. Look at verse 31. There came his brethren and his mother and standing without sin, sent unto him, calling him. And the multitude sat about him and they said unto him, behold thy mother and thy brethren are without seeking for thee. They went and they're like, Jesus, come out to us. He's in there preaching and teaching. And they're like, come out here. And then they go in, they're like, hey, your mom and your brothers are out there. Your mom and your brothers are outside. And he answered them saying, okay, I'll be right there. Okay, okay, I'm coming. Oh, it's my mom. It's my brothers. Everybody, burn in hell. See you later. Look what he said. He said, who is my mother or my brethren? And he looked round about on them which sat about him and said, behold my mother and my brethren. For whosoever shall do the will of God the same as my brother and my sister and my mother. I mean, look, there is no missing the fact that Jesus put like zero value on the fact that people were related to you by blood. Look, honor your father and mother. That's in the Bible. Okay, that's in the Bible. But you're still subject to the higher powers. That's how it goes. And as far as, you know, this blood relation, you know, whether you should take all this flack and let people, you know, speak evil of your name and not be separated from people because they're related to you, it's not in the Bible. As a matter of fact, Jesus spoke specifically of it several times. Here's a test for you. Here's a test for you. And I brought this up to one of you out soul winning yesterday. But here's a test. If what you're dealing with from somebody, you're dealing with people speaking evil of you, people pulling your family aside and trying to, you know, curb them against the beliefs that you're trying to teach and they're against what you're doing. Let me ask you this. Here's a test. A test is this. Would you put up with that from somebody who is not related to you? And if the answer is no, then you have your answer. That's it. That's it. That is all it is. And that test makes things pretty simple for most people in their minds. Turn to 1 Peter 4. Why are they, I mean, but why are they so upset? Why are they so upset? Turn to 1 Peter 4. 1 Peter 4. Look at verse number 3. And the Bible says in 1 Peter 4, for the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles. And we walked in lasciviousness, lust, excess of wine, revelings, banquettings, and abominable idolatries. Wherein think it's strange? Wherein they think it's strange that ye run not? Look, these people that you separate from, they think it's weird. They think it's weird that you run not with them to the same excess of riot and they're going to do what? They're going to speak evil of you. Look, they're not going to like it. They're not going to like it. They're going to speak evil of you. You're not going to run with them. They're not going to like that. You would think, but you become a disciple of Jesus Christ and this is just what's going to happen. This is what Jesus is saying. Start living your life for Christ, making these moves, and you're running not with them anymore. The Bible says. I mean soul winning. You're out preaching the gospel to people. Again, people are going to gnash on you with their teeth because of those things. They'll cast your name out as evil behind your back and to your face. But look, here's the good news. The rest of the sermon is going to be almost nothing but good news. So you're like, this all sounds bad, it's ugly. But no, it's really good news. It's really a story of good news. But look, the first thing is the Bible says that you should rejoice over this. In Acts chapter 5, they rejoiced. The disciples revered Christ. They revered Christ so much that they counted it glory to suffer shame for His name. I mean, do you revere Christ that much? That if you do suffer shame, it's a glorious thing. People recognize you. It's a sign that people recognize you as representing Christ. Amen. How do we respond? Well, respond with grace. It's what the Bible says and it's what Jesus says in look at verse 35 of Luke chapter 6. Here's how you respond. I mean, if people even become your enemies, you respond this way. But love ye your enemies and do good and lend. Hoping for nothing again and your reward shall be great and ye shall be the children of the highest for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Look. Be merciful and ye shall have mercy. I mean, that's how you respond to this. I mean, everyone makes this mistake at first. You know, they get shocked by this and then, you know, they probably don't respond in the right way, but you're supposed to respond with grace. I mean, people have a general lack of knowledge of the Bible in this world that we're living in. And it's not going to take long for a believer that gets saved and starts wanting to know the Bible and tries to just surpass everybody else. And, you know, when people get upset at them, they may, you know, respond in the wrong way. They may respond without grace, you know, just because, you know, we have a tendency to do that. But look, I mean, and it may be it's out of excitement that you push on people too hard after you get saved. I think we've all probably done this. But we're not to slam this knowledge in people's faces. You know, that's back to the point I made earlier. You know, not just the gospel but just doctrine in general. I mean, even remember this, by the way. Somebody that gets saved, they know nothing about doctrine. Just because they get saved, it means they accepted the gospel. They know nothing about how to live their life. They know nothing about the things that they're doing wrong. So, I mean, we got to be easy about stuff like that. We can't be just hammer people to death over these things, or, you know, that's not really a graceful way of handling it. Realize where we started from is that not everyone is going to receive the gospel. Look, here's the thing. Not everyone that receives the gospel and gets saved is going to serve Jesus Christ. And it may be those people, it may be those same people that decide that, you know what, I'm going to get saved, but that's all I'm going to do. And it may be those same people that gnash on you with their teeth later on. You say, how's that possible? Because that's what Jesus is warning us about here. Jesus is telling us to be ready for this. But look, here's another point I want to make on how to react to this. And especially this is for the men. You must protect against this. You must protect against this. Because you say, I'm this strong Christian man and I'm leading my family. But guess what? You've got some weaker vessels in your family. This moment is the weaker vessel. I mean, you are to protect. You will find that many times people that attack you for your faith will not attack you, men. They will attack your wife. They will attack your kids. They'll make these little digs. They'll make these little digs about the things that you're doing in your life. Maybe they'll make these little digs about, you know, homeschooling. Or they'll make these little digs about, you know, your standards and then what you think is okay and what you don't. But look, and here's the danger. Here's the danger of family as well in this area. It's like everybody you've known them for so long, everybody has this inherent desire inside them to get approval from their family. And, you know, that could be dangerous. And that's where these little digs and this not having approval could really bother people. And it could really set you back in your Christian life. But look, these things can wear you down. They can cause, I mean, look, especially your kids, they can cause your kids to stumble. I mean, let me just give you an example. Let me just have a theoretical hypothetical situation here. So, let's say you homeschool your kids. And you homeschool your kids for good reason. We talk a lot about homeschooling here. But let's say you hang out with a bunch of family members that go to public school. And so these kids are around your kids and you're just talking about how awesome public school is and all this and all the things that they do and all the things, their places they go or whatever. Look, that's going to cause your kids to stumble. That will cause your kids to stumble 100%. It's like, what are you doing? What are you doing? It's extremely dangerous. So men, look, you need to lead here. You need to protect here. Because I mean, we know the right way. We know the right path. We can't let these, you know, flanking attacks come to our family. We must be protective. We must be protective. So, I mean, it's rarely, especially if you're this strong Christian man. It's rare that they will attack you. It's rare that they will attack you. They'll come at you from the flanks. So you need to be ready for that. Turn back to Luke chapter 6. Turn back to Luke chapter 6. So what's the conclusion of all this? We see what's going to happen. You know, Jesus is warning us. He's telling us. We know why it's happening. What's the conclusion to all this? I mean, how could we possibly get joy from this? I mean, this all sounds like it's no fun at all. Look at Luke chapter 6 in verse number 21. The Bible says, blessed are ye. I mean, so the Bible here is saying, blessed are ye that hunger now, for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh. So the first point we can get out of, I mean, why this is okay and why this is good and why we should be joyful is because he says, blessed are ye that hunger now. He says, you know, blessed are ye that weep now. Look, this is all temporary is what he's saying. First, first of all the things that I've talked about in this two-part series, you know, this is more how to operate and the things to look for but it's not, you know, like physical persecution or anything like that. You know, there's Christians being killed in this world now. Do you know that? I mean, there's Christians being killed, you know, in this world. In America, everything that we have is light affliction. If we don't handle these things that I'm talking about, don't get me wrong. If we don't handle these things correctly, the consequences will be severe. But, you know, it's light affliction compared to what some people are going through. I mean, we're talking about people hating you, people talking behind your back. I mean, at this point I'm just like, whatever. I mean, who cares? Boo-hoo. Right? I mean, but look, there exists modern day persecution. I mean, think about the Middle East. You think about, you know, that's what people don't realize about, you know, all these, you say these wars in the Middle East don't really matter. You know, we, and a good example is in Iraq, for example. You know, just talking about Christian persecution. You know, we invaded Iraq, okay, you know, we didn't like Saddam Hussein, all this stuff. But do you know that in 2003, when the invasion there was 1.4 million Christians living in Iraq? Look, I don't know what church they go to. These are just the numbers. There's 1.4 million Christians living in Iraq in 2003. Today, there's like 200,000. Maybe less. You say, where did they all go? Well, they either all got killed or they left so they wouldn't get killed. I mean, that doesn't sound good to me. When things get unstable, you know, especially in places like the Middle East, Africa is like always unstable. The Christians suffer. So there's real suffering in this world. I mean, that's the only point I'm trying to make there. But look, Jesus says this is all temporary in verse number 21. So that's good news. The second one is look at verse number 23. The second point is this. You will be rewarded. Did you know that? Did you know that you're going to have rewards? That if you successfully endure persecution in your life, that there's going to be rewards for that. That's exactly what Jesus says. Look at verse 23. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy. Look, it's in the day. When this happens to you and you're upset because somebody is persecuting you and is trying to push against the life that you're trying to live here on this earth, it says in that day rejoice. I mean, look, first of all, count at glory that you're being persecuted for Christ. That's the first thing. Rejoice, behold. Why? Why rejoice? Behold, because your reward is great in heaven. I mean, you're going to be rewarded for that very thing. So rejoice that day. So you have two choices. When that happens to you, you can let it get you down. You can let it derail you. You can let it cause doubt in your mind. Am I really doing the right thing? And you know, why are these people saying all these things about me? You know, you can let it get you down or you can rejoice. You can move on and let it put look, it's a sign you're over the target. When this happens, it's a sign that you're over the target. It proves the Bible right. If nobody's ever persecuting you for anything, you're not over anything. You're over a field in Kansas. There's nothing there. You're over a, you know, a field in the hills of western North Dakota. There's nothing there. There's nothing there. Turn to 1 Peter chapter 4. Let it be a source of joy. Look, it's proof of the Bible. It's proof that you're right. It's proof that what Jesus said is exactly what's happening. Look at 1 Peter chapter 4. And look at verse 13. Look at verse 13 of 1 Peter chapter 4. But rejoice. Inasmuch as you are partakers of Christ's sufferings, that when his glory shall be revealed, you may be exceeding joy. If you be reproached for the name of Christ, it says, if you be reproached, if people are just, they're trashing you to your face, they're just telling you you're wrong to your face, they're telling you you're wrong to everybody you know behind your back, everybody you grew up with, whatever, it's like happy are you? I'm happy for the spirit of the glory of God rested upon you. In their part he is evil spoken of, but on your side. I mean it glorifies God. You're doing the right thing. It's a proof. You know what a trigonometry proof is? Didn't you ever do those? It's like it's a proof that the math works. It's a proof that you know the geometry works out. It's a proof of the theory. Look this, when this happens to you it's a proof of the Bible. And look it's a proof of the truth of the Bible and it's a proof that what you're doing matches the Bible. That's awesome. I mean that's something to be joyful about. He's proven correct. He's glorified. And you're proven correct. You're doing the right thing. It should be, look it should be when you see these things. It shouldn't be oh this is weird. Why is this happening? It should be a real encouragement to you actually. It should be a real encouragement in your life. I mean you will have some pragmatic measures in place to make sure it happens in your family's men. I'm talking to you when I say that. You have to do stuff. You've got to put some walls up and you've got to make some actual separation decisions here. You can't just say oh yeah we're going to be, no. There may be some hard conversations. There may be some hard phone calls. There may be some hard, but look you make sure that none of that influences your family. That's what you do. Your actions need to come out of that is what you do. Whether that's conversations. Whether that's actions of not going to things you used to go to or places you used to go to or you know events or whatever. I mean you might be uncomfortable, but I mean who cares? I mean become a man. At the end of the day it's definite proof about what you believe. And it will be rewarded. Turn to James chapter 1. All good. All good things. All good things. James chapter 1. Now I don't focus a lot on rewards. I'll talk to you about that in a minute. But look at James chapter 1 and verse 12. The Bible says this. It says, That doubt to quit. I mean people quit the Christian life because of persecution. But if you endure it you'll get a crown of life. What's that look like? I don't know. It's probably pretty nice. I don't think a lot about rewards myself. Here's the thing. If rewards keep you going great it's biblical you're going to get them. If you're going out and you're working for the Lord you're going to be rewarded for that. The Lord Jesus believes you should be paid for your time. Look that's biblical. And He's going to reward you for your time. But here's the thing. I mean me personally I don't really think I deserve what I have. I don't really think that I'm still kind of in shock that I'm saved. I hope that shock never really goes away. You know when I got saved I told the guys this the other night when I got saved the first feeling I had was that was close. I mean God thanks for not letting me go. I'm still kind of getting over that one. I mean the rewards that's going to be great I'm sure it's going to be more than I could ever imagine more than you could ever imagine but that's not what keeps me going. It's here. Here it is. You're going to be rewarded for this. It's true. You'll be rewarded for your work here. So at the end of the day persecution is a good thing. Do you understand that? No matter what happens with persecution more than even this Luke chapter 6 stuff anything that happens physical persecution verbal persecution you know whatever I mean it's a good thing it proves the Bible right I mean you want to talk about history of Christians. You want to look you want to get Baptists fired up for the Lord start persecuting them you want to get them really fired up for the Lord start killing them that's when you see the greatest things happen that's when you see the greatest things done in the Christian life the greatest moves that men have made for the Lord are in times of heavy persecution. Think of the book of Acts think of what happened to every single one of these men after the book of Acts and it's because I mean times of great persecution makes great exploits for the Lord I mean the two go together take no thought for how you shall speak the Bible says you know it says it shall be given you in that hour what you shall speak the greatest words that you will ever say in your life will be in times of persecution and the greatest actions that will ever have I mean just think about this think about if things just go terribly bad against Christians which you know what maybe they will think about if things go incredibly bad in this Christian life but now you're trained to rejoice in persecution look that will be your greatest moments that's what the Bible says in that moment will be your greatest the Bible says persecution be ready for it it's real it's coming it's going to happen to you if it hasn't already but we rejoice in it we rejoice in it for all these reasons let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer