H.B. Charles closed the 2023 Southern Baptist Convention Pastors Conference with a message on the last and longest of the Beatitudes. Matthew 5:10–12 says blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’s sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
But Jesus doesn’t stop with that single statement, preached Charles, pastor and teacher of Shiloh Metropolitan Baptist Church of Jacksonville and Orange Park, Florida. The next two verses offer commentary on the first. The passage is personalized in verse 11, and it’s the only beatitude that includes a command — “rejoice and be glad.”
“These details transition us from the introduction to the main body of the Sermon on the Mount,” Charles said. “Moreover, these features express and emphasize the gravity of Christian persecution.”
It’s a given, he said, an inevitability seen in both the Old and New Testaments. Job’s friends, for example, accused him of harboring secret sin, resulting in the trials he faced. “Their theology could not compute the notion that the righteous suffer,” Charles said.
“Too many of us pastors think like Job’s friends. We want our lives and our ministries to be blessed. We do not want to be persecuted, and when we are, we definitely don’t consider it a blessing.”
Since Southern Baptist pastors last met together, Charles asked, how many have had to resign over moral failure, ethical compromise or doctrinal error? “But how many more have just quit because of the dangers, toils and snares of ministry?”
His message to anyone harassed, burdened and weary was “Brother, hang on in there. Why should you hang in there? Because in this beatitude, Jesus says ‘If you are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, congratulations. You are already blessed.’”
A godly reason
Persecution is a definite reality, not a hypothetical, Charles preached. It’s not if, but when. But Matthew 5:10—12 does make an important distinction about the reason for the persecution in question. The passage highlights the reality of persecution and gives a godly reason for it: righteousness.
“Friends, you won’t be persecuted for being merely religious,” Charles said. “The persecution of the world won’t come just because you are Baptist. And you definitely will not be persecuted if you subscribe to the world’s materialistic values, political agenda or sexual ethics. But if you lift up the name of Jesus, trouble will come looking for you.”
But Gospel trouble is good trouble, Charles said. Righteousness is a godly reason for persecution. “The indictment of our day is that the world doesn’t want to persecute many pastors because they don’t see anything different in us than they see in the world,” Charles said. But the faithful, he added, will find themselves in the line of fire.
How then does one respond to persecution? Jesus doesn’t say to give up, give in or give out, Charles preached. He doesn’t say to fight fire with fire or to grin and bear it. Rather, the mind-blowing reply in verse 12 is to rejoice and be glad. The double exhortation means the persecuted Christian is to be not just glad, but exceedingly glad, Charles said.
Charles continued that the rejoicing comes from looking up and looking back — up toward the reward waiting in heaven and back to the long line of other faithful Christians persecuted for righteousness’s sake.
The last and longest of the Beatitudes is a heavy message about the reality of persecution in the life of a Christian, Charles noted. But, he said, there’s hope and an answer for the believer who is harassed, persecuted and reviled.
“Leave it there,” he said, quoting the Charles Albert Tindley composition of the same name. Charles recited all four verses of the 1916 hymn over his listeners at the pastors conference, ending with the refrain. “Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there.”
To view more photos from Charles’s message, click here.
