Persecution: God’s Divine Design for Sanctification

*The sermon manuscript below was generated from the recording by AI…

Once again, good morning to you, brethren. It is wonderful to be with you, um, on this Sunday morning as we come before the High King of Heaven in worshiping him in truth and in spirit.

Uh, I am joined today, um, by my beautiful and wonderful wife of 19 years, Pho- Feva. We call her Fever. Uh, some of you call her Fever. Um, and, uh, uh She, she gets that joke. And also, uh, by our dear uncle, another faithful servant of the Lord, um, uh, Brother Mark Tuala, uh, who’s with us also, and it’s just so great to be with you.

Uh, when I was talking with the brothers, uh, namely, uh, Logan, John, and Wally, uh, because we gather together to pray weekly, um, I said, “Hey, we’re, we’re thinking about coming in,” and they said, “We’re coming in also.” And such is providence, and it is good to be with you. I asked Logan, we’re puritanical back home, so I said, “I need about an hour and a half,” and he said, “You can get 2 services to preach. There’s your hour and a half.”

So this morning, if you will turn your Scriptures as Wally took us through Acts 4, and we will start in verse 31 and work our way to verse 33. The message, as you see there, is simply titled Persecution: God’s Divine Design for Sanctification.

Our dear Father, may we now heed Thy Word, that it renew our minds, prepare our feet, and for those who may have gathered that do not know your Son as the only Savior, may it grant them repentance and faith to believe. It is for Thy glory, Father, we pray.

Jesus in his first sermon, or at least the most famous first Sermon upon the Mount, looked upon the crowd that had gathered and he said the following words as is found in the Book of Matthew 5. He said,

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the gentle, for th- for they shall inherit the Earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called Sons of God.”

If you have not had a chance to do so, your YouTube page has a number of sermons leading up to this sermon. And if you were to just sit with a pen and paper and honestly measure what your pastor has been taking you through, the journey, from what we are to be devoted to in Christ to what he brought you to yes- last week Sunday evening, I guarantee everything that I have read so far will be checked off that list. And since the Word of Christ here is not only being taught and preached, but our hope that it is being lived out, so the following words of Christ should be of no surprise to you, brethren. For he says,

“Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Oh, blessed are you when people insult you, and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you” And here’s the kicker, “Because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great. For in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

Dr. St.Clair Ferguson, noting upon this ever-so-firmous- famous Sermon from the Mount, said these words, and I quote, “Christians are persecuted for the sake of righteousness because of their loyalty to Christ. Real loyalty to him creates fiction- friction,” Excuse me, “Friction in the hearts of those who pay him only lip service.” Loyalty arouses their conscience and leaves them with only 2 alternatives, follow Christ or silence him. Often, their only way of silencing Christ is by silencing his servants. Persecution in subtle and less subtle forms is this result.

Brethren, there is a blessedness and a true rejoicing upon all who face persecution because we are in Jesus. This isn’t only for believers in the first century. It isn’t for only Israel to whom he was speaking in context here. But Jesus Christ Himself says, “You are indeed blessed if you find yourself in this group of people.” It is not only the multitude of Nigerian Christians in Africa that are being martyred for their faith, it is Biblical Christians around the globe, our brethren, our eternal family. For as when they stand, they stand against not only the wiles of the devil, but against everything that this world has to offer in trying to lure us against and away from Christ.

And at times when we enter the narrow road, we forget that the narrow road, dear ones, does not run parallel to the wide road, but it runs in direct opposition to it. For anyone who ere- here has been downtown Auckland, right there on Queen Street, where you can cross this way and this way and whichever way, and in midday traffic when you’re crossing and you’re going against the grain, not only do you get that look, but you bump many a shoulder. You might even trip and fall up because everyone going one way is going against the way that you are.

And so often in religion, what ends up happening is that everyone, as Jesus said in this sermon, if you read the totality of it, seems to be going one way. But he says blessed are those who are going in the way that He has set. No wonder in the very first New Testament book written in the, in the canon, which is accredited to Jesus’ earthly half-brother and his eternal slave and servant, James. Do you know the very first command given to the church in a written form comes from his book? Where he says, “Consider it all joy.” That’s the very first imperative that Heaven shouts upon those who are but sojourners on this Earth for Christ, that you are to consider it all joy. Why? Because, my friends, it is not if you will face trials. It is when various trials overtake you. And we are to know that such are but testing of our faith, and what it produces in us is that wonderment of endurance and perseverance so that our faith may be complete and lacking nothing.

Oh, how often we forget that the Apostle Paul as he is in the maritime prison and awaits the chopping block, he looks at Timothy, who may have been waning, and he doesn’t try to pad the reality. He gives it to him straight. “Oh, Timothy, my son, indeed all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” But he goes on and he says, “But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.”

Right now, as your pastor is taking you through the revelation of Jesus Christ as the last book of the Holy Canon, there is something interesting about the brothers Zebedee because they came to Christ through their mother, as Mark reminds us in the 10th chapter and 35th verse where James and John, the 2 sons of Zebedee, came to Jesus saying, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask you,” and he said to them, “What do you want me to do?” They said to him, “Grant that we may sit, one on your right hand and one in your left, in your glory.” But Jesus said to them, “Do you not know? You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” They said to him, “We are able.” And I love this. Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink, you shall drink, and you shall be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized.”

Dear brethren, today I count no less than 6 congregations or assemblies gathered in the one church before me. And so I want to remind you, for you, or to you, it has not only been granted to believe on the King, but equally, to suffer for His name. Or as the late Dr. R.C. Sproul reminds us in these words: “The church is the most important organization in the world. It is the target of every demonic, hostile attack in the universe. Jesus personally guaranteed that the gates of hell will never prevail against the church. He made no guarantee that the gates of hell would not be unleashed against it, however.”

Do not be surprised, dear brethren, what you face.

In my sermon, what I would like to do, just as your pastor has done, is not only take you through the descriptives of what the early church did, but to find the truths and I believe even some of the prescriptives or prescriptions on how we are not only to, for example, come to the Lord’s table weekly, which was a joy to my heart, brother, when I heard you guys would do that, but also when it comes to things like persecution. How are we to deal with

So I want to look at the first into- instance of persecution brought upon the church. It starts in verse, uh, in chapter 3, when th- John and Peter are going up to the temple. Many of you who have been reading your Bibles know the story of the man who was lame and he had trusted in false religion- And when he was encountered with the risen Christ through his apostles, what happens? And subsequently, how the gospel is preached, and as Wally reminded us this morning through the public scripture reading, what were the consequences? “Do not speak, stand, or share the name of Jesus Christ.” Why? “Because you guys are schismatics. You do not belong to the believing community.” And yet they could not deny one thing, these men had been with Jesus. And that a notable miracle, not of the man, but now the number was 5,000, had taken place. Not of a lame man walking, but of dead men living. What could they say? Nothing. So they just warned them, “Go! Speak of this name no more.” And hasn’t that been the case ever since? “Keep it private in your homes, in your closets, but speak not of the name of the risen Christ.” But we have been told, O brethren, there is no other name by which man shall be saved.

And so there are 3 important principles that I wanted to spend the rest of my time with, or rest of my time in. And each principle has a cause and has an effect. The job of persecution, I want you to remember this, is to distort the word, disregard the work, and despise the worship of the King. So anytime you are facing suffering for your faith, I want you to go back and look at that. Somebody will always make the Bible say it doesn’t mean, they will always downplay what you are doing for the King, and they will say your worship is invalid. That’s what’s happening here.

What was the response? They went back with joy, starting in verse 23, and they shared with not only the brethren, but the High King of Heaven, “Oh, Lord, this is your stamp of approval.”

So the first principle we see as found in verse 31, I’ve subheaded Prayer and Preaching Christ is what Allotted Them to Persecution.

Prayer and Preaching Christ is what allotted them to persecution. The scripture there says, “And when they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the Word of God with boldness.”

Did you notice it? They were jailed, they were warned here, but as you continue on further in the text, they’re beaten, they’re murdered, but nothing stops them. At the onset of the persecution, we warn you, “You’re not a church. You’re not the gathering of God, so stop with the Jesus thing.” You know what they do? They go back and say, “Thank you, God. Thank you.” And you know after they thank him? And they stand in his sovereignty and in his comfort, look at what the text says. They prayed because this is the trust onto God. And they preached because they are not ashamed of Jesus Christ.

The late Dr. Voddie Baucham, whose memorial service was yesterday at the Shepherd’s Conference in 2019, reminded us when he said, “Suffering is common for all. However, persecution, which is a form of suffering, can be avoided.” All you have to do is compromise. Did you realize something in that text? They didn’t say, tell them to quit being in existence. They said, “Just don’t do it, in the name of Christ.”

At the very foundation which was laid in chapter 2, when Christ was given the privilege of preaching the first sermon in the new covenant age, they were asked to dissemble. But our whole hope, brethren, is upon Jesus Christ. The Greek rendering in the verb here, deomai, for what they prayed, is not pseude, of the general form of prayer. But this is people who are beseeching God with their whole heart, they are binding themselves in prayer to the most high king, saying, “We have no one else.”

This is how the church started, isn’t it? Weren’t they frightful waiting in the upper room? Weren’t they expectantly waiting for what Jesus had said, that a power would come from on high? And here they stand as bold as lions, for he who is in them is far greater, my friends, than those who are in the world.

And so they went to him in this text, and they prayed to him, and their earnest prayer led to one thing, their bold proclamation. If you look at it, this was earnest prayer, and as I’ve heard, RBC is not only gathering for prayer here before the service, but I’ve seen the pictures. I’ve seen the proof, and the proof is in the pudding. I’ve seen your Wednesday night prayer meeting. Somebody took a, a spy pic. Right? So I know who was praying and who was on their phone.

But the question is this, will this continue? Is it, is it just the excitement of something new, like the Christmas toy under the tree? Fever and I, we have a saying back home when the nephews and the nieces come over and we say, we pick out a few of those nephews, you know everybody got ’em in the family. And then we make a private bet like, “How long will that toy last?” How long will the newness, the shiny new toy last? And little boys, they’re, they’re inquisitive, aren’t they? They know how to take everything apart, but they just haven’t learned it to put back together. And sometimes the church is like that. We forget the God who takes apart is the God who puts back together, for he is the potter, and dear brethren, we are but the clay. Will the clay look to the potter and say, “Not that way?” Or will clay stay malleable in the potter’s hands and say, “Whichever way, O Lord. Whichever way thy will accords.”

Isn’t this what we see in the very prayer that is listed up in verse 28? to do whatever your hand and your purposed or predestined to occur. And so when they’re coming together here, brethren, they’re not just coming to quick pr- pray quickly and run out and say, “Hey, we’re the persecuted bunch.” No. If this is how the first church trusted God, I know for GPF BC, we’ve come to find out through our own seasons of trial and affliction that there is no other way to trust God.

And do you know, it took me 20 years as an elder and as a pastor to finally figure out, even in the Greek, why elders have to be men of, look at this, prayer, and then word. It took us through our season of affliction to find that out, in a very practical way. Or I can theo- I can tell you the theology of it. Uh, I can, I can, I can break down the, the original languages of it. I can preach it. But it’s until you live it, until it becomes a part of your DNA and you come to realize there’s no other place I’d be rather than on my face before my King. Oh, for who is like our God, dear sweet brethren? Who is like the High King of Heaven? And this is where they went. Did you realize it? This is where the leaders were drawing the people. They had nothing, and yet they had everything. And so often when God gives us everything, we forget the most important It is Him.

The very thing that brought them affliction is the very thing they turned around and did. They prayed and they preached. They prayed and they preached, and in between, there was persecution. But the focus here is not on the persecution. The persecution is just descriptive of what would happen. What is the prescription here? You pray and you preach.

But dear ones, this wasn’t just the apostles or the pastors or the elders. By implication here, my sisters, you pray and preach to one another. You’ve got the Do you know, you’ve got all the weaponry that we will need in the kingdom fight, rather in the first home, in your womb, rather on your bosom, or rather under your care? And how do you raise up a Godly heritage to, to the King? How, how do you sharpen the arrows that are under your care?

Yesterday at the birthday party, we saw a testimony of that generationally. I was counting that. There’s 3 generations that stood up yesterday, the grandparents, the parents, and the children. I look forward to the next 10, 15 years, or 20 years, and I want to see how that looks. Oh, they are like arrows, my sisters, in the quiver. The problem becomes the covenant community has forgotten something, and instead of standing for truth and boldly proclaiming Jesus, we have dulled our arrows. shooting our arrows into the world and, and, and causing some real work of the Gospel to be done, we have You know those, uh, Nerf arrows? We’re shooting those into the world, and all we’re doing is tickling the world. No wonder the church is no longer being persecuted. We rather tickle them than offend them.

No, sisters, you’re equally a part of this. Your work as mothers and wives, as dear sisters, we call them the wisdom group back home, as you teach the younger women how to love their husbands and care for their children. I know that goes against everything feminism says, but may feminism burn in hell, for we are people of the covenant. My dear sisters, quoting my wife, “The place I feel safest is under the covering of my s- of my husband, who leads me in Christ.” That’s the people we are, and if you get persecuted for this, you are blessed.

There’s a second truth and principle that we see found in verse 32. If prayer and preaching Christ allowed of them to persecution, then how were they to deal with it? Well, participation and preference in Christ assisted them during persecution.

Look at what the verse says, “And the congregation of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and not one of them claimed that anything belonging to him was his own, but all things were common property to them.”

There was a war going on around them, firing upon them. Not a war against the world, but a war against the world that had crept in to what was the form of religion in that day that claimed God, but were far from Him. The very beginning, as Pastor Logan reminded us this morning, the first murder in the Bible did not happen where the world attacked the church. It happened when a false believer within the covenant community killed his brother. May we never forget that your most hostile treatment, at times it may seem like it’s coming from the world, but Jesus Christ said, “It will come from those who think they are doing God a justice.” We must let the Bible speak for itself.

So what were they to do? Don’t skip that. Those who believed. Circle that. Not unbelievers, not halfway believers, for they are non-believers, but those who believed. This applies only to those who believed. They were one. Unity here is not uniformity. That’s cultic. Unity here is not socialism or communism, for that is not covenant. No, unity here is taking into account the 10th law of the Decalogue, for we shall not covet, but as a man who God has given anything to, or everything to, we take all that is under our care and we steward it for the glory of God. The Bible says we are to do good to all men, but especially to the household of faith.

Brothers and sisters, the church is the church. If we are to get through things the way that Christ has showed us, we must get through it together. When they faced outward persecution, there was an inward hospitality, love, care, comfort, and bond of unity within the covenant community. This wasn’t simply a handful of people, but at this number, 5,000 people. So if you ever wonder, can this be done on a large scale? May I present to you ex- exhibition number one. It can be done, for where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. And when we move in such a liberty, Jesus said, “You not only gain a hundredfold when it comes to mothers and brothers and sisters, but along with it, you gain persecution and the glory to come.”

when we give up all for Christ and what I’m not preaching is like one of the prosperity preachers, go and sell and pour into my ministry so that your seed may be multiplied a hundred fold. No, all it will result in is just probably a better car for me. It won’t result with nothing for you. What it is saying here is that when we are persecuted and we are pressed, please remember, the world belongs to God. Christ is always enough, whether our bound or abased, full or hungry, freed or bound. Christ, my friends, is enough.

In prison, Paul had Onesiphorus. Out in public, the brethren have one another. No matter where you are in the world, if you are a Christian, your family might be the person sitting right next to you. And so we need to come back to the centrality of who we are in Christ. How did they get over or get through this persecution? Look at what it says there. They first came to understand they were one and from that oneness, all were taken care of. Tonight, we’ll see, we’ll see what contrasts this, by the and why it’s hypocritical. But, but for now, what we see is this genuine love. Nobody’s twisting arms, there isn’t an offering basket going around 3 times of service. There is Christ, there is His people, and people just want to love one another, for that is the great new commandment. That’s what we see in Scripture. Praying, supporting, caring, meeting not only spiritual needs but physical needs.

This didn’t die out just then, because decades later when Paul reminded the faithful Macedonian church from prison, these are the words he wrote. Philippians 2. “Therefore, if there be any encouragement in Christ, if there be any consolation of love, if there be any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, one intent on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves. Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.” Why? Because this attitude that you are ha- to have in yourselves was also found in Christ. This is Christ’s love.

Remember, brethren, we are but stewards and not owners of what God has given. There is nothing done out of compulsion here, but a deep compassion for God’s people. The local church ought also be the place of refuge. I don’t like to use safe space. I think that’s like a woke term, right? I’ll say that publicly. I don’t like that The name of the Lord is a strong tower. I don’t need a safe space. I need Christ. Every space on this Earth is dangerous for the King’s children, and the only place of solitude, believe it or not, are the people you will spend eternity with.

So when you’re facing persecution, do not overlook the means of grace. Word, prayer, sacrament, fellowship, evangelism; they’re all means of grace. Some are primary, some are secondary, but they’re all means of grace. Not sources of grace in themselves, but what the people of God gather around, partake of, utilize, and declare that there is but one King. And to every saint, this brings comfort.

And finally, we’ve already looked at how prayer and preaching Jesus Christ, a lot of them persecution, and how participation and preference in the local body assisted them through persecution. And so finally, power and provision from Christ affirmed them through persecution.

Look at verse 33. “And with great power, the apostles were giving testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and abundant grace was upon all.”

Did you realize it? Both the power of the Gospel and the provision of grace is only from one source. Rinse, repeat. Go out and be persecuted, come back and heal of your wounds, get right back out. There’s no one too young, no one too old. If you don’t believe that, you’ve not met Dr. Jo- Dr. Jerry Jones. Only reason he’s not on this trip, he’s 88, 87, sorry. He’s right now laid up in a hospital bed, had a stroke 3 months ago. For some reason, the Lord says, “Not yet.” So we said, “You got Gospel work still to do.” You may have seen him at the markets in Mangere if you’re there on a Saturday when we are open air preaching. Uh, you may have seen him down in Palmy North passing out tracts. Uh, you may have seen him at Covenant roll in on a, on a wheelchair wanting to speak to you about Jesus.

And so for every Dr. Jerry Jones, there is a Gideon John, who I love, for he never forgets where the hope is. For every Gideon John in the Kumra capital of the world, there is a Wally and a Shanette who made us feel like family, and I think a man who will probably start to pastor a pastor, for he is a pastor’s pastor, Brother John. These are gray hairs. Don’t worry, Uncle Mark, I was gonna throw you in there, but you’re not grayed out yet. These are gray hairs in my life, and I love these gray hairs, for there is wisdom that now I’ve seen the church discard, because, oh, they don’t bring anything. When Solomon was asked, “You want your enemies destroyed, you want all the money, or you want wisdom? What do you What do you want?” To fear the almighty God is the beginning of wisdom. That’s what our gray hairs teach us. Go back I’m pretty sure every gray haired here I don’t say that as a pejorative, by the way, but as a compliment.

And so don’t think this is a older congregation or a younger congregation. This is the congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, living, well, and persecuted for his sake. The youngest member of the Covenant community seems to be sleeping. So I won’t address him. I’ll excuse him for sleeping on my sermon.

John Bunyan, when thinking upon such a grace in his work Grace Abounding, said these words: “Therefore, I bind lies and slanderous accusations to my person as an ornament. It belongs to my Christian profession to be vilified, slandered, reproached, and reviled. And since all this is nothing but that, as God and my conscience testify, I rejoice in being reproached for Christ’s sake.”

It’s okay. Preach Christ, brethren. We have to take a plane, at least one plane, before we can find Biblical fellowship. Don’t feel like you’re alone. Don’t feel like you’re alone. Christ stands with you. There are far more people than you think stand with you than you know of. GPC I’m excuse, G- GPC. GPFBC stands with you. And we stand with you because this is not a perfect church, but Christ, He does not put out the smoldering wick. Oh, the, the tender shoot of Jesse looked upon the little ones that they were shooing away and reminded us, to such as these belong the kingdom.

So may we come with a childish faith, a faith that only has one object, Jesus Christ our Lord. And whatever may come- whatever my God has designed, whatever He has ordained, it is well with my soul.

---