As Paul describes that, “all things work together for good to them that love God and are the called according to His purpose, this includes any persecution we might endure for His sake. However, in saying this, we must understand that the source of persecution in the life of the believer is not God. God does not persecute us. He does not tempt us nor does He desire that we fail or falter in the midst of persecution. Satan is the author of evil. The work of Satan in persecution should be seen as Joseph saw the events in his life. As he spoke to his brothers about their appalling misdeed of selling him into slavery and the attendant circumstances that befell him, he said, “You meant it for evil but God meant it for good.” This brings us to the key idea of this message. Though Satan, the author of every kind of evil, desires believers to suffer because he hates that which is precious to God, God uses the harm done to Christians to accomplish wonderful good and bring glory to Himself in miraculous ways. I will discuss four purposes God has in persecution, which is in no way exhaustive.
I. To Produce Fruit-Filled Christians
The first purpose God has in allowing persecution is to produce fruit-filled Christians. God desires that His fruit of righteousness be worked out in our lives. And one way in which He does this is through persecution.
Of course this is not an instantaneous event (fruit bearing) but is progressive in nature. We neither learn nor grow fully in one simple event. In Romans 5:3-5, the apostle Paul gives to us a look at this progression. If we note the end of verse 2, it helps us to pick up the context. He says, “We exult in hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”
Paul notes that there is progress in our Christian life that comes about through persecution and difficulties. They are purposeful. Tribulation produces perseverance. How can you experience or develop perseverance if you have no difficulty through which to persevere? Tribulations are the testing ground of our faith. Real faith will persevere but under what will you persevere without persecution or troubles? Paul then notes that this perseverance produces proven character.
Real faith doesn’t begin to show itself until it is tested and proven. James says this in his letter. In 1:12 he says, “Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.” This is the distinction between genuine faith and professed faith. Genuine faith needs to be approved and this is done through trial and persecution. This is why there are many people who profess to be a Christian (those who make some kind of profession of salvation) but when trials and temptations and persecutions arise they follow after their lusts instead of Christ. They worship the idol of comfort instead of continuing in the way of righteousness. These never find approval with the Lord and they shall never receive the crown of life because they loved the applause of men rather than the applause of heaven.
There seem to be times of testing in an individual who professes to have faith that will cause him or her to make or break with the Lord. Real faith holds onto what cannot be seen and professing faith rejects, as a sham, what they had thought was true. They become disillusioned with God who didn’t make things turn out the way they thought they should have turned out. This is the difference of proven character. Those who have endured under trial are approved. Their faith is declared genuine. Do you remember the result of Joseph’s trial? When all was said and done he didn’t complain that God had not worked in his life as he thought. He didn’t disparage God for allowing him to undergo persecution at the hand of his brothers. He didn’t shake a fist in God’s face for being falsely accused because he sought to keep himself sexually pure out of a fear of God. He wasn’t there in prison saying, “God, I avoided advances from that married woman because of You and look at what You did!!” No, in the midst of it, Joseph kept trusting God and God elevated him to accomplish God’s work at the proper time. Ultimately, his faith was vindicated. His faith then produced proven character.
Friends, this is proven character. Perseverance and proven character in faith believe God despite what lies Satan seeks to tell you. Perseverance and proven character endure no matter what ways those around you seek to draw you away from Christ. And this kind of genuine faith that has been tested is what brings approval from God.
Peter says that we are not to be surprised at the fiery ordeal that happens among you as if something strange were happening to you. Faith in God’s Word does not make life an easy victory. It promises trials and persecution that will test your faith. It separates those with genuine faith from those without it. It is so those without genuine faith will not be deluded as to the final outcome of their life.
Finally Paul says, “And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” What is the final outcome of these persecutions and trials in our life? It is the fruit of Spirit, which is love. As we go through these difficulties, we find the ever present, all sufficient Spirit of God working His way within our life to produce His fruit. Here, Paul is listing the fruit of the Spirit that is love. And what does this love result in? It results in joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The fruit of the Spirit is produced in the midst of the pressure-cooker of persecution and trial. It is natural to have joy or peace or self-control when there are no temptations or hardships. It is easy to be good when people aren’t ridiculing you for your faith. But only the Spirit can bring these about in us supernaturally when life is difficult or severe. Joy, peace and patience, in these instances, give us opportunity to speak of the great grace given to us in Jesus Christ. For when we are blessed because the Spirit of glory rests upon us we respond in a different way, we live in a different way.
So God allows you to experience tribulation in your life to make you a fruit-filled Christian. He wants you to exhibit the qualities of His Spirit so that you may glorify Him. Jesus said this in John 15:8. “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples.”
Now I’ve heard people tell other believers, “Don’t pray for patience because God will bring you tribulation.” It is ludicrous to tell people not to pray for patience because you will receive tribulation. Tribulation is the means of God’s developing the fruit of His Spirit of love in us. And if we want love and its outworking of joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control that glorifies our God and Father then we need to endure tribulation in perseverance.
II. To Cause Us to Be Dependent upon Him
The next reason God allows persecution into our life is to cause us to be dependent upon Him. In 2 Corinthians 4:7-11, Paul describes the results of persecution he had endured for Christ’s sake. He says, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed but not despairing; persecuted but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.”
Enduring in the midst of persecution is not some stoic doctrine that tells us to grin and bear it while we endure. It is not some modified version of English patriotism that says, “Let’s go down with the ship chaps and shout Huzzah for the queen on the way down.” Persecution causes us to know how insignificant our strength is and how desperately we need the Lord’s grace.
Paul starts this off by saying we have this treasure (the light of the Gospel) in earthen vessels. We are not golden vessels or special or hardy in any way. Clay vessels describe the fragility of our nature. And God has given us this nature of clay vessels “so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves.” Then Paul notes all the differing ways in which they were on the receiving end of persecution and difficulty. In verse 11, he comes to the conclusion of his writing, “For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.” The reason God allows us to undergo persecution is to cause us to see how dependent we are upon God.
If we are consistently being brought to a place where our own personal endurance is shown to be woefully inadequate it causes us to rely on Jesus Christ and to show to the world the life of Jesus in a new way that cannot be explained in other than supernatural terms. This is what he means in verse 10. We are carrying about in our body the dying of Jesus so that the life of Jesus will be evident. Here again this brings glory to the God of heaven and earth who empowers his servants beyond measure to endure what they could not possibly endure under normal circumstances and to do it with the joy of the Holy Spirit. Suffering, beyond our capacity to endure allows His life to shine through us in remarkable, unexpected and glorious ways.
III. To Sanctify Us
The third reason God allows persecution into our life is to sanctify us. He uses this to make us holy. In 1 Peter 4:1, Peter says, “Since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same purpose, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin.” Now that seems like a very strange statement for Peter to make, “He who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin.” What does he mean by it? He explains what “to cease from sin” means in the following clause in verse 2. He says, “He who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to no longer live the rest of the time in the flesh for the lusts of men but for the will of God.” To cease from sin (from Peter’s viewpoint) is to no longer pursue after our own desire for sin like we did before we were saved.
When we enter into suffering for Jesus’ sake, when persecution occurs, this suffering helps us to see the utter uselessness, wickedness and bankruptcy of sin. When you suffer, when your body is plagued with pain, and you are smarting from it, you see things in view of eternity more clearly. In this state of suffering, you perceive what an awful thing that sin is and how your selfish desires have not laid up for you any kind of heavenly treasure, and that they have merely dishonored God in your body. This suffering brings into the heart and will a resolve to put off the sin that so easily besets us. It causes us to see that the eternal is truly what is worth living for. Bringing others to find the life we have found in Jesus Christ is worth more than any cheap fleeting entertainment of this life. Because when we suffer we come face to face with our mortality, and the strength of life and the vitality of youth loses its luster in light of this. When our hope in this life fades, the heart of faith clings more tightly to our Savior. The heart of unbelief despairs, but the heart of faith grows closer to our Savior.
In 2 Timothy 3:10-12, the apostle Paul tells his young disciple, Timothy, “Now you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance, persecutions, and sufferings, such as happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra; what persecutions I endured, and out of them all the Lord rescued me! Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” If you are seeking to live for God, Satan will oppose you. If you are seeking to please Him, then Satan will fight against you. He wants to put pressure on you to make you think it is not worth the battle to live righteously. If you are seeking godliness, then there will be struggle as Satan battles against you. But God will take and use those very same struggles to make us like His Son, to sanctify us. This brings us to the final reason we will note today.
IV. To Cause Us to Really Know & Love Christ
The fourth reason God allows persecution into our life is to cause us to really know and love Christ. In Philippians 3, the apostle Paul described how the Lord changed his heart attitude about what was true gain. Starting in verse 7 he says, “Whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith (now listen to verse 10), that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.”
Paul gave up, because of His stand for Christ, everything that he had held dear. He had power. He had prestige. He had advanced in his religion beyond those of his age. He was an upcoming star in the world of the Jews. But when he met Christ, those things he had once treasured, he repudiated. Everything he had worked for had to be let go; His name had to go; His reputation as a big shot had to go (no more letters of authority from the high priest). His self-made righteousness had to go. There was no shred of decency left in the man. But for Paul that was ok. The way of the world was left behind for the sake of Christ. And he suffered dearly for it. At the beginning of chapter 3 he listed all the things he had. He had a proper start, a pedigree, position, power, passion, and perfection (humanly speaking). Yet he lost it for Christ.
Listen, when you make a decision to follow Christ there are things that have to go. Sometimes it’s a certain life you’ve been living. Sometimes it’s a certain crowd you’ve been hanging with. Sometimes, it’s a vocabulary you’ve been using. Sometimes, it’s various activities of which you have been a part of. It may just be the mindset in which you’ve been living. Well, when you count those things that you held so dear as rubbish for Christ’s sake then you should expect to be persecuted for it. When I told the girl I was with at college I couldn’t go with her anymore because I had been saved, she didn’t understand and ridiculed me. When I told my friends that I wouldn’t be following them to our old drinking parties they gave me a rough time. When I left my fraternity because I told them that I was part of a new brotherhood they didn’t understand. I was cursed at and mocked but in all of this a beautiful thing took place.
I began to know Christ intimately, even though these were small sufferings. My life wasn’t threatened. My body wasn’t harmed. I didn’t experience what Paul went through but Christ became ever so real to me. I experienced the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings were sweet because in them I had a glimpse of the depth of Christ’s love on my behalf when He suffered for me. He voluntarily suffered on my behalf so that I might know Him. And as I entered into sufferings for His sake it gave me a new wonder at His love for me. God will allow persecution and suffering in our life that we might understand the depth of Jesus’ love for us. There is a participation in the sufferings of Christ for the Christian when he undergoes persecution. Paul says that he endured the loss of these things so that he might experience the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings.
Many people want the power of Christ’s resurrection but they do not want to participate in His sufferings nor be conformed to His death. Perhaps the reason this is so is that we all love this present world too much. You’ve probably heard it said that someone could be too heavenly minded to be of any earthly good. Well, I’ve never seen anyone too heavenly minded and those who are heavenly minded are the ones who are going out and accomplishing the good. Those who are earthly minded are simply slobbing around, living for themselves instead of living for Him who loved them and gave Himself for them.
My brother met a man who used to come and minister at the prison in which he works. He knew him by the name of Rabbi Nathan. Here was a young man, of considerable import in his Jewish community. He was the leader of a large synagogue and was paid very well. But as he began to study the Scripture he saw that the Old Testament truly proclaimed Jesus to be the Messiah. He sought to bring his congregation to understand this wonderful truth proclaimed in the Word of God and was summarily dismissed from his post. Because of this he, his wife and young child began to live meal to meal. Yet, he saw God’s hand of provision for them and was filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit. He endured persecution for the sake of Christ and learned the satisfying fellowship of the sufferings of Christ. I hope that we would have the boldness to stand for Christ in the midst of such a circumstance. I hope that we would choose Christ over compromise, the Savior over sin even if it would mean persecution. But you don’t know that until the time comes. If you have been a coward before, if you have compromised with the world, then today is the day to stand up for Christ, regardless of what results you might suffer for it.
Now, I never promised that this whole discussion of persecution would be easy. Maybe it has been easier for you to listen to this than for me to deliver it. We are only in our second part of this and I’m not sure then next several weeks will answer all our questions. Perhaps it might have been better to have had some tortured believer come and give this series or maybe Rabbi Nathan, but God has given me the responsibility to speak to you on this. And the best part is that He has given me all the authority to speak on it from His Word. We can learn about it from God Himself in His Word.
Perhaps you might say, “Can’t God grow us, and change us and mold us without persecution?” Isn’t this the very heart of the question Jesus asked His own Father in Gethsemane? If there is some other way, let this cup pass from Me? If God, knowing what is best for us all, did not spare His own precious Son from what awaited Him then why would He not give us the very same privilege? If there is some way in which we come to know God that cannot take place except through suffering then why should we avoid it? In Hebrews 2:10, the Scripture says, “It was fitting for [God]…to perfect the author of [our] salvation through sufferings. If it was fitting for Jesus, then it is proper for us.
We do not need to go look for sufferings. We simply need to desire to be like our Savior. If God should give us the gift of being persecuted for His name’s sake then we shall receive a greater glimpse of the glory of God. We shall bear more fruit. We will become more dependent upon Him. We shall be more like the Savior and we shall know Him and love Him with a gratitude that can only be forged in the furnace of persecution and affliction.
We may not fully grasp God’s purposes for persecution but when we experience persecution for His sake, we can trust that He does know what He is doing and that His purposes are for His glory and our ultimate good.