Sunday message · That’s What He Said series
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Message Summary
On Palm Sunday, Pastor Phillip Santillan finishes an eight-week look at the Beatitudes in the That’s What He Said series with Matthew 5:10–12: blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness. Palm Sunday remembers crowds laying palm branches before Jesus as he entered Jerusalem. Jesus was blessed not only as the one who came in the name of the Lord, Phil says, but because he would be persecuted and suffer death to defeat death, so that we could be blessed.
The Sermon on the Mount can sound extreme, and that is on purpose. One scholar calls it the moral portrait of Jesus’ own people; Phil describes it as what our lives would look like if we had perfect faith in God, and the Beatitudes as a declaration of the people who already embody that faith. After reading verses 3–12, Phil notes that the promise of the kingdom of heaven bookends the list, given to the poor in spirit and to the persecuted.
Before defining this persecution, he explains what it is not. It is not the result of immaturity; as one commentator puts it, Christians are often rejected not for their Christianity but for their lack of it, for being rude, lazy or piously obnoxious. Nor is it the result of preference in music, schooling, politics or worship style, a problem Paul faced in Corinth, where believers lined up behind Paul, Apollos or Cephas (1 Corinthians 1). And it is not conflict in general; a run of hard days is not bearing the reproach of Christ.
Jesus defines it in verse 11: being insulted, persecuted and falsely accused because of him. “Persecution for righteousness’ sake is persecution for Christ’s sake,” Phil says, citing Mark 8:35, Matthew 19 and John 15. He once would have said American Christians are not persecuted, pointing to places like Syria, but now sees growing hostility, even on the church’s Facebook page, toward those who believe God is real, Scripture is his revelation, and Jesus rose from the dead and is the only way to the Father. He distinguishes this from criticism earned by abusive leaders or moral failures and rejects a victim mentality, but warns that persecution aims, as with Job, to diminish our commitment to the gospel. Citing Larry Osborne’s Thriving in Babylon, he notes that hardship reveals whether faith is genuine.
The antidote comes from the parable of the sower, which Phil calls the parable of the soils (Matthew 13). Seed on rocky ground springs up with joy but falls away when persecution comes, while good soil hears and understands the word and multiplies it. Phil asks, “How much has the work of God in me been multiplied through me?” That question brings clarity about our maturity and resilience. He closes by reminding the church that persecution is not the absence of God’s blessing but a blessing, first because Jesus was persecuted, and that the answer is a life that lets God multiply his work in us and through us everywhere we go, every day we live, with everyone we meet.