 But today is a time that we're going to spend looking at the subject of persecution and I think More than ever before it's amazing. We never would have imagined when you look back 10 years ago and You look at today. We would never have imagined to see what we're seeing now The images that we see on TV the the things that are Come before us from the time that we saw 9-11 and the whole world stood still and just said What's going on? I don't understand. What's what's happening and yet seeing right now as Isis is just taking over the Middle East and now Russia's in there the US is in there Iraq I ran all of these nations are in there's just turmoil all over the world and then we saw the the The the Arab Spring just break out all over North Africa from from Tunisia Libya going on Algeria into Egypt and then down into Sudan in the Middle East just all over breaking out And we just see things happening all over the world and yet persecution is a subject That is part of our history. It is the history of the church and Even go further back. It is the history all for God's saints all down through history All of the saints and if you look through your scriptures and you read the scriptures You will see that the righteous have always been persecuted by the unbelieving world by the wicked but today I want to share with you and We have a brief time, so I'm hopefully going to get through the things that I want to share with you But I've entitled this message the heavenly gift package the heavenly gift package, you know, I remember when I was About to get my driver's license and I was gonna have my own car and I thought man This is gonna be such a blessing. I can't wait to to get a driver's license. I'll have my freedom I'll be able to go places my parents don't have to take me there and I thought all about the blessing of owning a car but at the same time We often don't think of the expenses of gasoline the expensive car insurance The expenses of the maintenance the repairs the tires all of these things so we want the blessing of the car But it's kind of hard that we have to deal with having these other things that we don't necessarily like and The funny thing is this Oftentimes when we come to Christ and we accept Jesus and we have now received the forgiveness of sins We have the peace of God. We have the love of God. We have the hope of heaven One day I'm gonna see Christ and I'm gonna be in his presence and So everyone wants to receive salvation and the benefits of it But the thing is this the Bible says and all who live godly in Christ Jesus Will suffer persecution and those are one of those things just like we've heard before You know when we go to our promise jar and we pull out the promise for the day, you know And we just say oh, yes, you will be blessed, you know You will have joy in the Lord you will have peace of God none of us wants to pull out that promise card that says you will suffer persecution We don't want that But the very reality is If we choose Christ If you have chosen to follow Jesus then you have chosen the way of suffering if you have chosen Christ You have chosen the path of Calvary Jesus went the road of Calvary and so will you And that's the question we have to face am I willing to walk Calvary's hill and Calvary's road even as my master walked it Because unfortunately a lot of Christians and we see a lot of churches that do not preach the gospel And I praise the Lord that that my pastor our pastor David Rosales preaches the gospel But there are so many churches that are preaching a gospel that come to Jesus and everything's gonna be fine and good and dandy and then you'll get to heaven And yet we do not preach a gospel that says there is a price to pay and so this is the gospel that we have to deal with You know one of the very first Christian artists that I was introduced by my youth pastor when I came to Christ in January of 91 Was a man by the name of Keith Green Pastor David has played a couple of his songs and He was my very first Christian artist that I was introduced to And I want to read to you the lyrics of one of the songs that he he wrote This song is called I pledge my head to heaven listen to the lyrics He says I pledge my head to heaven for the gospel and I ask no man on earth to fill my needs Like the sparrow up above I am enveloped in his love and I trust him like those little ones he feeds Well, I pledge my wife to heaven for the gospel Though our love each passing day just seems to grow as I told her when we wed I Surely rather be found dead than to love her more than the one who saved my soul and Then the chorus says I'm your child and I want to be in your family forever I'm your child, and I'm going to follow you no matter Whatever the cost well, I'm gonna count all things lost Well, I pledge my son to heaven for the gospel though. He's kicked and beaten ridiculed and scorned I will teach him to rejoice and lift a thankful praising voice and to be like him Who bore the nails and crown of thorns and then it goes back to the chorus and The last stanza well, I've had the chance to gain the world and to live just like a king But without your love it doesn't mean a thing and Then he ends the song well, I pledge my son. I pledge my wife I pledge my head to heaven for the gospel and I thought of this song Especially that Particular day that I think all of us on the news when we saw those men on the beach there in the Mediterranean dressed up in orange down on their knees With their persecutors there with knives to their throats and They took their lives Those men Christians my brothers your brothers Said yes, I pledge my head to heaven for the gospel And I thought isn't that something Let that be us let that be me that we can sing this very song and say yes I pledge my head not only my head, but I pledge my wife not only my wife I pledge my children to heaven because they belong to the Lord not to me But this is the gospel This is the gospel that we've been called to But Paul the Apostle while imprisoned for the sake of the gospel was writing to the Philippians And he told us about this heavenly gift package that we're going to see in Philippians chapter 1 these two inseparable parts of one gift and We're going to see that here in Philippians chapter 1 and so let's let's turn there. You've probably already there I'm going to go there in my Bible. So Philippians chapter 1 and we're going to begin with verse 12 and Paul says but I want you to know brethren that the things which happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel So that it has become evident to the whole palace guard and to all the rest that my chains are in Christ and Most of the brethren in the Lord having become confident by my chains are much more bold to speak the word without fear Some indeed preach Christ even from envy and strife and some also from goodwill The former preach Christ from selfish ambition not sincerely Symposing to add affliction to my chains, but the latter out of love knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel What then only that in every way whether in pretense or in truth? Christ is preached and in this I rejoice. Yes, and we'll rejoice And he goes on Now remember with me Paul is writing this letter from a prison cell and he's writing to the Philippian church From a prison cell he goes on and he says in verse 19 for I know that this will turn out for my salvation Through your prayer and the supply of the spirit of Jesus Christ According to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed But that with all boldness as always so now also Christ will be magnified in my body Whether by life or by death For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain But if I live on in the flesh this will mean fruit from my labor yet what I shall choose I cannot tell for I am hard-pressed between the two having a desire to depart and be with Christ Which is far better Nevertheless to remain in the flesh is more needful for you and being confident of this I know that I shall remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy of faith That you're rejoicing for me may be more abundant in Jesus Christ by my coming to you again verse 27 Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ so that whether I come and see you or am absent I may hear of your affairs that you stand fast in one spirit with one mind Striving together for the faith of the gospel and not in any way terrified by your adversaries Which is to them a proof of perdition, but to you of salvation and that from God and In verse 29 is where we see this heavenly gift package for to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ Not only to believe in him But also to suffer for his sake Having the same conflict which you saw in me and now here is in me Here in verse 29 Paul says this For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ That word granted is the word Karitsomai It may mean nothing to us when you hear that but the word Means to give graciously and freely To show one's self-kind or also it can be used to grant forgiveness It is the root word of this word is the word grace where we get the word keras in Greek Which is the word grace? So what Paul is literally saying you can literally read it this way For to you my brothers and sisters It has been graced On behalf of Christ not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for his sake God is saying to us that I have graced you. I have given something freely to you that you don't deserve What is that two things? He says to believe in him Our salvation is a gift To believe in Christ he said it has been granted on behalf of Christ to you number two To suffer for his sake To suffer for the sake of Christ he says it's not something that we cringe, but he says it's something that is a gift from God What an amazing thing This has been given to us freely Remember in Ephesians 2 8 it says by grace have you been saved through faith and that not of yourselves But it is the gift of God Paul is saying that not only is salvation a gift from God But suffering for the sake of Christ and his gospel is also a free gift And we know that grace is receiving something that I don't deserve So what an amazing Revolution to me that wait a minute God you have not only called me to salvation But you have given me the gift of suffering for your sake and yet this is what we as the church need to understand And when I look at my brothers and sisters around the world and I see them willing to suffer for Christ's sake We can begin to now understand That this is something that they willingly take on they willingly are allowing themselves To suffer because it's for Christ's sake and Christ has given us this gift and Paul we know later on in Philippians chapter 3 this well-known verse in verse 10 He says that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings How could Paul say that how could he say you know what I really want? I want to know him I want to know the power of his resurrection and many times we stop right there But he goes on he says and I want the fellowship of his sufferings because We see in scripture. There is a special Fellowship there is a communion that a Christian has with Jesus Christ and that only comes when we suffer for his sake You know I heard some of the the stories down through these past years that pastor Said has been in prison in Iran And you know some of the most sweetest things that God has ministered to pastor Said Some of the things where he says where his his cell became as as light There he is in this dark cell and yet Christ comes and meets with him and has fellowship with him Why because he is suffering for Jesus's sake and this is what God's word promises We know that Jesus as we look at the example that Jesus gave us in John 10 verse 18 Jesus said this No one takes it from me speaking of his life But I lay down. I lay it down of myself. I Have power to lay it down and I have power to take it again This command I have received from my father In other words Jesus is saying to us. I willingly gave my life and I gladly gave my life Why because the Bible says that Jesus knowing That we his bride would be one day there purchased from our sin there with him in the glory of the father Jesus paid the price for you and me so that we could one day be in his glory That we would one day know the exceeding abundance of his love towards us Look at what Ephesians 2 says it says that in the ages to come He might show to us the exceeding riches of his grace What a what an amazing God we serve What an amazing God we serve, but Jesus gladly and willingly gave his life and Then we see that Jesus taught us that we are to expect persecution in Matthew chapter 5 from the Sermon on the Mount Beginning with verse 10 Jesus said this Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake Rejoice and be exceedingly glad for great is your reward in heaven For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you and then in John chapter 15 verses 20 and 21 Jesus said to his disciples 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 keep yours also, but all these things they will do to you for my name's sake because They do not know him who sent me Notice what Jesus says he says they will persecute you because they do not know the father They do not know who sent me And do you know When I read that verse and I meditate on that do you know what is the solution to see? Those with wicked hearts who are persecuting the church. Do you know how? They are going to be changed and how they are going to stop When they know who the father is and when the gospel is taken to them Then they can come to repentance and their eyes can be opened and they can be delivered so that they just like Saul of Tarsus was persecuting the church and his eyes were opened and He was a man who was broken He was a man who was broken and he served Christ with all of his all of his might and This is what needs to happen and Jesus said here that if we walk as Jesus walked Then we will be treated as he was treated Jesus's perspective was that of placing a greater value on the proclamation of his gospel For the saving of souls rather than the preserving of our lives you know when God placed that call and spoke to my heart and stirred me as a as a 17 18 year old young man and God put that burden in my heart to to be a missionary and to go take the gospel to Morocco Knowing that it was a place where Christians are persecuted knowing that it was a place that was populated by Muslims and that they hate Christ and hate the gospel It was very difficult for especially my father my dad to even let me go and There were even other friends and family that had a hard time understanding. Why would you put yourself in jeopardy? Why would you take the gospel over there? and put your life in jeopardy and Yet, Jesus tells us right here because Either I am concerned for my own preservation Or I'm concerned for their souls Because I know where I'm going But they are not going where I'm going and if nobody takes them the gospel Then am I alright with letting them perish and go into the lake of fire? And that's what needs to happen in our hearts We need to pray and we need to ask Lord send me and if you don't send me then Lord send someone who will take the gospel To the terrorists to the persecutors to the places in the world where the gospel is being persecuted But we need to have the perspective of Jesus Then we also see the early church The early churches in the book of Acts they're preaching resulted in persecution and They gladly embraced it Turn with me to Acts chapter 1 You know the best way to discover What is the model for the church? The best place to find that model is in the book of Acts Pastor Chuck Smith who founded Calvary chapels He takes his model of the church from the book of Acts and that was something he passed down to the Calvary chapels But we find that in the book of Acts we see the early church. We see where the church began We see how the church moved. We see how the church related to the lost. We see how the church related to one another We see how the church related to their persecutors And we see the spread of the gospel But look at Acts chapter 1 in Beginning with verse 6 Therefore when they had come together they asked him they asked Jesus saying Lord will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? And he said to them it is not for you to know times or seasons which the father has put in his own authority But you shall receive power When the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be witnesses To me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth That word witnesses in the Greek is where we get our word martyrs And a witness is someone who tells what he saw what he has heard what he has experienced That's what you are When you tell someone when you share the gospel you are simply sharing something that you have seen with your own eyes Which you have heard in which you have experienced the question is have you seen? Christ's work in you have you heard the voice of the scripture have you experienced a life that is transformed and If you have then you have the power of the Holy Spirit upon your life and God has anointed you to take the gospel But Jesus was preparing the church that they would receive the power of the Holy Spirit Not to simply do miracles no it was to spread the gospel and Yet we see in Acts chapter 2 that the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples 120 of them and the Bible says that they began to speak with other tongues other languages Because the whole city of Jerusalem was filled with people from all over the world that had come to worship God in Jerusalem But now the disciples as they were filled with the Holy Spirit They began to speak in tongues and people began to hear in their language Spanish Russian Arabic Hebrew Whatever all these languages and they were speaking the praises of God and As the unbelievers outside began to hear them they began to say what is this and Peter the Bible says that he stood boldly and began to preach Christ to the multitudes and the Bible says that 3000 were saved that day because Peter boldly proclaimed the gospel But in Acts chapter 4 we see something that occurred the authorities arrested Peter and John and Threatened them not to preach as we see we see the Holy Spirit comes on the church and we see immediately as the word of God is spreading They are met with persecution and They were told not to preach again Peter and John were released and then we see in Acts chapter 5 The Apostles begin to do ministry and they begin to heal people and the people get They come and they get healed We see that the Sadducees Began to arrest the Apostles again and they imprison them But we see in Acts chapter 5 that the angel of the Lord came and freed them from prison and then Commended them to go back out into the street and to tell them the gospel and As Peter was out there preaching the authorities again came and said and took them and said what are you doing? But in Acts chapter 5 verse 29 Peter said this He said we ought to obey God rather than men We ought to obey God rather than men And we were reminded this morning. I believe I believe it was Jared that shared this But we were reminded that we are called to preach We are called to speak the truth in love the problem is Many of us are doing one and not the other We are either speaking the truth without the love and without the compassion of Christ or we are loving But we are not telling the gospel. We are not giving the whole truth and Peter says right here. We ought to obey God rather than men and That is the challenge for me as a Christian. Am I truly obeying God or am I? Listening am I seeking the approval of men because I'll tell you right now society Our government wants us to be quiet They don't want the church to speak up because the moment we begin to stand for Christ and stand for the gospel and Stand for Jesus Christ and stand for marriage and stand for all of these things that are in scripture They're gonna want to silence us and what we are seeing right now throughout the world We will see come right here in our country But the thing is we have to say Am I willing to pay the price? Am I willing to pay the price in Acts chapter 5? The apostles after war not to preach were beaten and Commanded and charged that they should never preach again in Jesus name and I want you to notice in Acts chapter 5 verse 41 What it says it says that they departed the apostles departed from the presence of the council Not weeping it says they went Rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name Could I do that? Could I go away rejoicing saying Lord, thank you that I get to suffer for your sake That's a hard thing That's a hard thing and I question my own self I question my own soul and I think each one of us needs to do a soul search We need to say God Give me this kind of boldness God give me this kind of of of reality Let me embrace what the apostles embraced that Jesus I won't shrug away I won't shrink back and be ashamed, but I will be willing to suffer for you because you are worthy And then we see in Acts chapter 9 this man Saul of Tarsus Turn with me to Acts chapter 9 we see that Saul as it says in verse 1 still breathing threats and Murder against the disciples of the Lord Went to the high priest and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus So that if he found any who were of the way whether men or women he might bring them bound to Jerusalem And so we see that Saul goes on and he's ready. He is going with his mind with one purpose To find Christians wherever they are men women and children and to arrest them and to have them put in prison But God had different plans God put his hand and put his finger on Saul of Tarsus and you know what Saul was seeking to arrest Christians but God arrested Saul and I pray that we will be praying for the persecuted and for their Persecutors that God would arrest their hearts and God would arrest them Not with chains, but with the chains of God's love the chains of his compassion So that those persecutors those very men that had knives at the throats of those Christian brothers Would begin to fall down on their face and worship the living God I have prayed that those men who persecute would be like the Centurion Do you remember the Centurion at the foot of the cross? He looked up and he saw Jesus Saying it is finished and he said Surely this man was the Son of God Can you imagine seeing one day that Centurion in heaven and I pray that one day we will see Thousands and millions of not only Christians, but those who were persecuting the church They will be in heaven Why because God wants to save all men the Bible says that he desires that none should perish But that all should come to repentance and that's what the Lord wants Let me close with this in Revelation 12 11. I believe this needs to be The verse that the church of Jesus Christ marches to Revelation 12 11 Because this is what is proclaimed in heaven This is what is proclaimed by God Almighty It says this of the saints that is you and that is me and They overcame him They overcame Satan They overcame him by the blood of the lamb and By the word of their testimony and they did not love their lives to the death As we serve the Lord Jesus Christ alongside our brothers and sisters We will overcome how Not with military power or economic power. No, no, no, no We are a different tribe. We are a different people. The Bible says you and I are a special people We are a people. We are an army that marches on our knees We are an army that overcomes Number one by the blood of the lamb By the blood of the lamb of God Number two, we will overcome by the word of our testimony now, I Don't necessarily it's I don't necessarily think it's talking about our Testimony the testimony of my life how I came to Christ But I think more so it is the word of our testimony meaning the word of God that we proclaim and number three There is a number three We will overcome because We do not love our lives to the death and So I ask you and I ask myself Do you love your life? Jesus said if you love your life, then you will lose it But he said if you if you lose your life for my sake, then you will save it in the end What is it? Prophet a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his own soul And so today as we come into our time of prayer as A fellowship as a church Let's keep that in mind that we will overcome by the blood of the lamb by the word of our testimony And because we do not love our lives to the death Amen