November 17, 2025 • 51 mins
In this honest and weighty message kicking off the Sermon on the Mount, Pastor Karl walks through the Beatitudes—the nine “blessed are” statements that reveal the heart attitudes Jesus demands of every true disciple. From spiritual poverty and mourning over sin to meekness, insatiable hunger for righteousness, mercy, purity of heart, peacemaking, and even rejoicing in persecution, these aren’t optional extras; they’re the non-negotiable “be-attitudes” that must mark every citizen of God’s kingdom.
When these attitudes shape us, we naturally become the salt of the earth and the light of the world—distinct from culture, preserving what is decaying, and shining so brightly that others see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven. A convicting reminder that following Jesus was never meant to look like the world around us.
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
A man.
You may experience couple dropsas if it keeps raining.
Got a couple little leaks.
But I just want to make clearthat if you do get sprinkle today,
that doesn't count.
You still got to get baptized.
In this series,
going through the book of Matthew,we're in chapter five today,
and we're going to lookat the first portion of that chapter
(00:25):
and what are called the Beatitudes.
Chapters five, six, and seven
are commonly knownas the sermon on the Mount.
It's a message Jesus preached
to those who would follow him,
who were learning to follow him.
And as I've been preparingfor this message,
(00:46):
I've really been struggling,
with the preparation of itand now the preaching of it.
And here's why.
This is a sermon Jesus preached
and for someone to
to have the audacity to try to explain
(01:09):
what Jesus meant.
That's a struggle for me.
I've debatedjust not teaching through Matthew five
six and seven and and just telling youas a church, study it on your own.
Like who am I to try to explainwhat Jesus's intent was in this?
You understand?
I'm saying,like the other parts of Scripture, I get
(01:31):
in all the epistlesthat that the Apostle Paul wrote
in the historical documentsin the old Testament
and then all the rest of you,we can read those and glean truth
from them and and try to understandwhat the original author's intent was
when they penned, and, and,and interpret Scripture
(01:51):
through a scripture, which is appropriate.
And you're supposed to do that and,and kind of glean truths from Scripture.
And the gods are in the revelationof God's heart, and that's all fine.
But when we're lookingat a sermon Jesus preached
and the
arrogance to say, let me tell you whatJesus meant.
It just feels odd to me.
You understand what I'm saying?
(02:13):
Like when I let these Jesus wordsjust be Jesus
words like you knew what he was saying.
And so I've really been struggling with,
with even the work of, of,of this message.
But we're going to do it.
And by God's grace,you'll have mercy on my soul.
(02:35):
Not truly,
you you can
you can misrepresent and misspeakon people's behalf all you want.
But this is Jesus.
And to misrepresent
his his spoken word and his message
and to think that we
(02:56):
that I that you would listen to me
as far as what his intent was, is
it's a little bit scary.
And so I appreciate your prayersas we go through this and Holy Spirit,
just do the interpretationthat I'm a mess up.
Matthew five,
we're going to look at the first,
(03:19):
probably 16
verses or so, and Matthewfive one and two.
Let me just read these two verses.
Seeing the crowds,he Jesus went up on the mountain.
And when he sat down,his disciples came to him.
And he opened his mouth.
And he taught them, saying,those are the first two verses,
of Matthew five.
(03:40):
I want us to understand that we didn't gothrough the sermon on the Mount.
Matthew five six and seven,
the sermon that Jesus preacherdoes not necessarily do with salvation.
Okay?
He's not dealing with salvation issues.
It details how the disciples of Jesus liveethically in their daily lives.
That's what he's talking about.
In essence, he's saying, look,you want to follow me?
(04:01):
Let me tell you the implicationsof how you live now daily.
These are the ethicalimplications of how you live.
This is what I
expect the beatitudesthat we're going to look at.
He's going to say, blessed arethe blessed are the. Blessed are the.
That's commonly known as the Beatitudes.
Everybody say Beatitudes.
Beatitudes.
(04:22):
The Beatitudes are literallythe blessings, okay?
They're the be attitudes, the attitudes
that should be in disciples lives.
They give the disciple their be attitudes.
How what are attitude as we go
daily through this life and interactwith each other and with God,
(04:45):
they're the standard expectation forevery disciple as we read through these.
Blessed are the. Blessed are the,blessed are the.
This is Jesus's expectationfor every person
who would say, I'ma citizen of the kingdom.
I'm a follower of Jesus. So get ready.
Jesus knew what he wanted from his people.
He knew his expectation.
(05:07):
If we're going to follow him, he said, I'mgoing to tell you what I expect of you.
There's your attitude,
and these beatitudes will
produce the Greek wordMakarios, literally translated happiness.
It's not it's not happy.
Like, oh, I got a new puppy happy.
It's a joy that is serene and untouchable.
(05:31):
It's a joy that is independent
of the chances and changes of life.
It's constant and consistent.
That's what these beatitudes will produce.
That's whyJesus starts them with blessed are the.
These are the attitudesthat's going to produce this serene
(05:51):
and untouchablejoy and contentment in life.
The Bible says Jesus sat down
and he taught
in that culture
when what a when a rabbi would teach,he would sit
and the hearers would stand.
(06:13):
When a rabbi would preach, he would stand.
And so the teaching position
in the New Testamentfor rabbis was to sit, and he touched.
So Jesus sits down, and they'reprobably standing, and he teaches them.
And heopened his mouth and he taught them.
Verse two says,he taught them that verb to teach
(06:36):
is in the imperfect tense in Greek,
which literally means
He used to teach themin an ongoing manner.
This wasn't a message Jesus taught ona weekend and then never came back to it.
The implication is that this messagethat we'll look through in chapters five,
(06:57):
six, and seven is the message that Jesuscontinually brought his disciples back to.
He continually taught them.
He continually reminded them
it was so importantand so central to what it is
to be a follower of Jesus,that it's the message he started with.
And he continued for three yearsof his public ministry.
(07:19):
Continue to teach them over andover and over because they had to get it.
These are the attitudes that
would shape their life, that would shapewhat it meant for them to follow Jesus.
They had to get it.
And so he continuallybrought them back to it
over and over and over.
(07:40):
And he starts in versethree, blessed are the
what he's saying
is right now, thisthese are the things that I expect.
And right now these are the, the,the results of these things.
He's not saying, blessed will you be you.
Some blessed are you.
And so the blessings that accompanythese beatitudes,
(08:03):
he says, are yours, rightnow, happy right now, content right now.
Now, as he moves through these Beatitudes,
in essence, there's nine of them.
I would encourage youto memorize them in order.
If these are the attitudesthat Jesus says, this is what I want
for my people, shouldn'twe know what those attitudes are?
(08:25):
Yeah, let me ask that again.
As if it's not rhetorical,
if these are the attitudes that you said,these have to characterize
my followers, shouldn'twe know what these are?
Okay, so to repeat them to me from memoryright now go.
So I thought
and sothis is why we have to study this over
(08:45):
and remind ourselvesover and over and over. Okay.
You understand in.
Yes. Yes.
Okay.
Here's something elseI want to say about these
shoes.
To make these part of your attitudesright now.
Those first words of Johnthe Baptist in preparing
(09:05):
the way for Jesus is publicministry was to repent
means change your attitude,change your life, change your direction.
The first words of Jesus were repent,
the first words of the disciplesand their messages was repent.
The first words of the church was repent.
The first words of Paulthe Apostle in his messages were repent.
So these are not
(09:27):
we're not capableto produce these in and of ourselves,
except for the the regenerationof the Holy Spirit in our lives.
But at the same time,we have to choose these.
They have to be our choice.
And so right from the beginning, forif any of us are going to claim
I follow Jesus,choose these attitudes right now
(09:48):
and stand.
Well, let's see,
blessed are the poor in spirit.
Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
To be poor in spirit
means that it's the confession
that I am sinful,
(10:10):
that I'm rebellious against God,
that I am without moral virtue,
that I have no spiritual assets
that would commend me to God.
I am completely devoid of any good.
The Bible says there is nonethat is righteous.
(10:32):
No not one.
There's no good that lives in any person.
And there's the knowledge
that I am completely and utterly
without virtue before God,
completely and utterly condemned
and worthy of hell in and of myself.
(10:54):
It's the acknowledgmentthat I am spiritually
bankrupt.
I'm a pauper,
and I'm a beggar before God.
This is the place that every personmust start.
It's the lowest rung on the ladderbecause it's the easiest thing,
(11:15):
and it's the primary thing that everyperson must start with in coming to God.
The realizationI have nothing to offer him.
Does this sound like any message?
If you would hear in our culture,
not in the least.
We want to believethere's something good in us.
(11:36):
We want to believe there's something in us
that is beautiful.
Matter of fact, as parents,we try to convince our kids,
oh, you're good,you're good kid. No, they're not.
Your children are spiritually bankrupt
because they're just like their parents.
(11:56):
There's no good in any of us before God.
The only thing we deserve before God
is damnation.
That's what Jesus means
when he says, blessedare the poor in spirit.
How can he say, happy?
Are those who are spiritually bankrupt?
(12:17):
Because this is the starting point
to being made right with God.
If any of us comes to God and say, God, I,
I want you to do what you can in my life,but I'm giving you a lot to work with,
automatically disqualified.
(12:37):
We have to get to the placewhere we acknowledge
and confess and admit and agree with.
I'm an utter wretch
before God.
Nothing of value.
Spiritual poverty
is the prerequisitefor receiving the kingdom of heaven. Why?
(13:00):
Because only beggars are. Get in.
And if we can start in this place,
I am absolutely spiritually bankrupt.
If that's where we start,
then we can be inheritors
(13:21):
of the Kingdom of God.
And because that's
the acknowledgment of where I start,
then Jesus says, blessedare the poor in spirit.
And then blessed are those who mourn.
(13:42):
For they'll be comforted.
We usually use that verse
when it comes to funerals,when it comes to our loss.
And we think, we think it means thatwhen I'm sad, Jesus comforts me.
That's notwhat this verse is talking about.
Jesus is saying, this
when you realizethat you are completely bankrupt
(14:05):
before God, worthyonly of hell in and of yourself,
it will cause you to mournyour own station.
And when you mournfor your spiritual poverty,
then you can be comfortedbecause of what Jesus has done.
But wehave to get to this place of mourning.
(14:27):
Now that this Greek word for mourn, isthis the most intense word for mourning?
That the Greek language has?
It's spoken of in the same vein,when you lose a loved one,
now some of you have lost.
People in your life,
and you know what it means to mourn
(14:50):
in tensely right?
That's what Jesus is talking about.
But not in the sense of mourning my lost
mourning over sin and the effects of sin.
I am so overwhelmed.
(15:13):
With the acknowledgment of my spiritualpoverty before God because of sin.
And I'm so overwhelmed at what sinis, what is done in me,
what is done in the society
that I'm experiencingthis incredibly deep sense of mourning.
If you've ever had the
the dark night of the soul,
(15:36):
when there's complete
bankruptcy before God and a sense of of
of of of peril and darkness
over your own soul in the morning of God,
please have mercy.
That's what Jesus is saying.
Blessed are the poor in spirit,and blessed
(15:56):
are those who mourn.
Not just here's,
here's here's our here's our standard.
We mourn over sinbecause of the consequences of it.
That's not what Jesus is talking about.
Even devoid of consequences.
Simply mourning over sin because of sin.
(16:22):
And not just personal sin,but sin of the courts.
Sin of the society.
When when you look at the worldbeing like God, have mercy on us.
We are oh wretched sinners.
So pervasive.
It's horrible.
Morning like that
(16:45):
and that type of morning is good.
Like we resist it so much.
We don't want one.We don't want to be sad.
We don't want other people to be sad.
Okay, let's just talk aboutthe love of Jesus.
That's good.
Jesus saying that's not worth.
Like, we can talk about that, butit means nothing if you don't understand
(17:07):
how spiritually poverty strickenyou are and mourn sin.
That morning is good.
The Bible says godly grief.
This type of mourning and grief produces
a repentance that leads to salvationwithout regret,
(17:27):
whereas worldly grief produces death.
Like, this type of mourning is goodbecause it leads us to repentance.
That grief allows us to live.
Said in another way,
for God sometimes uses sorrow in our lifeto help us turn away from sin
and seek eternal life, and we shouldnever regret his sinning. It.
(17:53):
But the sorrow of the man who is not aChristian
is not the star of true repentanceand does not prevent
eternal death.
Like I encourage us, sitin the realization
of the depravity of your own souland mourn
over the effects of sin.
(18:13):
Experienced
this type of deep and profound mourning,
because only then will lead youto repentance.
I'm not talking about
feeling bad because of the consequences.
That's simple.
You know as well as I dowhen we have more of the consequences
of sin in the moment,the consequences are there.
(18:34):
We like a dog back to its vomit,
right?
This too heavy for you this morning?
These are Jesus words said.
Look at you. Want to follow me?This is the attitude you got to have.
(19:02):
Blessed are the.
What was the first onewho got to memorize these
poor in spirit.
Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are the what?
Those who mourn.
They'll be comforted.
The next one.
Blessed are the meek.
Here's what I want to understand.
(19:23):
This process,
especially poor in spirit and mourning,
God allows that
in your life as a path, not a destination.
We gotta go through this process
to understandthat he didn't want us to stay there,
but we gotta go through thereto get to these others, okay?
(19:46):
It's like it's like you want to go down toDisneyland, the happiest place on Earth.
You got to go through Bakersfield.
We don't stay there,
all right?
It's a path. It's not the destination.
And so we got to go through that.
Most of us, we were like, I don't want to.
I don't want, like, poor spirit more.
That's horrible.
(20:06):
Yeah, it's part of the destinationas part of the path.
But we're getting to a destination
and part of that destination that we'regoing through, like poor in spirit mourn.
And then blessed are the meek.
For they will inherit the earth.
Now, we don't have a good translationfor the Greek word Prowse meek.
(20:30):
We don't.
We can't translate itwell at all in English.
Only thing we can do is use a bunch ofworst kind of explain what it looks like.
And so the best we can come upwith is meek
means a powerfulperson, properly controlled.
It means a perfect balance
between anger and indifference.
(20:54):
There's a tension here
in the one who is meek.
They're not passive,
but they're not pushed either.
The best way you can see it is it's.
It's strength under control.
It's a person free from malice
and free from a vengeful spirit.
(21:19):
It's it's it's the ability to suffer
without maliceand without seeking revenge.
To be meek
means I will willingly disregard
my own rights.
It's the power
and authoritythat says you will not take my rights,
(21:42):
but I will gladly give up my rights.
I have that much power
and it's under control.
Why would someone say
I don't have to assert my rights?
I will gladly give them up
(22:04):
because they knowthat they will inherit the earth.
And becauseI know I will inherit the earth,
I have nothing to proveand no one to impress.
That's meekness.
That's the taglinewe use for our men's ministry.
Because men, we've got to be meek.
(22:25):
It's not being walked on.
It's the ability to say, look,I have complete power
to assert my authority over you,but I'm going to choose not to.
Why? Because I got nothing to prove.
I have enough power
and authority that God has given me.
I don't have to prove myself to anybody.
(22:46):
I'm surely not going to tryto prove myself to you.
You don't deserve me to prove myselfto you.
Not arrogant.
I'm just saying, like I don't.
I have no one to impress.
Why would I try to impress you?
You don'tdeserve me to try to impress you.
And I don't feel obligated to.
(23:07):
I certainlyam not going to prove myself to God.
I only think I'm goingto prove myself to God is that I'm.
I am poor in spirit,and I'm mourning that.
And I'm certainlynot going to try to impress God.
Do you think any of us could impress God?
And so, likewise,
I'm like, blessed are the meek.
They don't have to prove anything.
They don't have to impress anybody.
(23:28):
They don't have to hold a grudge.
They don't have to be vengeful.
They don't have to assert their powerand might over anybody. Why?
Because they're going to hurt the earth.
Does does meekness
sound like anythingthat our culture has ever propagated?
(23:48):
Not at all.
Not at all.
So I will be meek
before God and completely submit to him,
and I will be meek before man,
which means I will be longsuffering,
powerful, and strong,
(24:09):
yet humble.
And so Jesus is saying,if you're going to follow me,
you firsthave to admit that you were completely,
utterly,spiritually bankrupt and poor in spirit,
and that has to cause you to mourn
and out of response of your realizationand who you are
and where you are before God.
(24:30):
You're a meek.
Blessed are those who first one is what
poor in spirit. Blessed are those who.
Blessed are the meek.
And when you're meek,
you realize who you are before God.
Then blessed are those who hungerand thirst for righteousness,
(24:52):
for they'll be filled.
Our desires and our drives come into line.
And I hunger and thirst for righteousness.
They will be filledwhen when the Bible talks
about being filled.
It it's it's being filled.
Where you experience this profound hunger
(25:15):
that can never be completely satisfied.
But in its satisfaction,
it intensifies for more.
And what Jesus is saying hereis, blessed are those
who have this profound hunger
that's never completely satisfied.
(25:37):
That always draws one to more.
Here's here's what I know.
Many of usget hungry often during the day, right?
Right.
Some of you missed breakfast this morningand you're thinking, okay, how long?
Because oh my goodness,
all of us get hungry.
None of us in this place suffer hunger.
(26:02):
Please understand, all of us get hungry.
None of us
suffer hunger.
And this is what Jesus is saying.
So I'm not talking aboutyou getting spiritually hungry.
You get spiritually hungry,you come to church
and then you have your snackand you're good for the next week or so.
So that's not what I'm talking about.
(26:22):
I'm talking about this profound,intense hunger
as if you are starvingand dying of thirst.
And the moment you partake, it'ssatisfying,
and all it doesis make it intensified for more.
It's that type of hunger and thirst,
and it's a hunger and thirst for what?
(26:44):
Righteousness.
We talked last week about righteousness,
and I challenge you to pray.
God intensified my desireto be a righteous man
before you, to be a righteous woman
before you intensify,grow my desire for righteousness.
And this is what Jesus is saying.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst.
This ongoing, intense, insatiable desire
(27:07):
to be a righteous manand a righteous woman.
Not I believe in Jesus.
So I got my fire insurance from hell.
But I am intensely desiring
the righteousness of God.
We hunger for a lot of things
(27:29):
other than righteousness.
We hunger for
for God to step in.
We hunger for
God to do something in our lives.
God to rescue God to save this. Godto make us so.
We hunger for a lot of thingsother than righteousness.
And Jesus says.
(27:51):
Starve for righteousness.
Here's my concern.
Oftentimes good
religious church people are inoculated
from the hunger of righteousness.
Because we're good religious moral people.
(28:13):
And we're inoculated
from the starvation of righteousness.
And that's what Jesus is saying.
Do you realize thatJesus didn't come to make any of us moral?
He can't make us holy.
To be people.
When men and women of righteousness.
And so this feeling,
(28:35):
it satisfies us at itintensifies the desire for more.
Blessed are the
poor in spirit, for theirsis the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, forthey will be comforted.
Blessed are the meekthat will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirstfor righteousness, for they'll be filled
and then blessed are the merciful,
(28:56):
for they'll what
receive mercy.
Listen, the merciful,
get the mercy they give.
Please, my dear friends, let that sink in.
The merciful get the mercy they give.
(29:16):
Once you receive it,
you have to give it.
When I realize
that I'm completely bankrupt and utterly,
devoid of spiritual value,
that would commend me to God.
When I experience that incredible evil
morning for my sinfulnessand the sinfulness of humanity.
(29:41):
And it puts me in a position to be meekbefore God and before people
now hunger and thirst for righteousness.
The one thing I knowis that what I need from
God is mercy.
I need his mercy.
And what Jesus is saying is,
you will get the mercy you give
(30:05):
something about King David,
Old Testament King David, he God
was so gracious towardsKing David, his little shepherd boy,
completely forgotten about by his family
and God chose him to be
the King of, of of Israel.
(30:25):
And God put his hands on King Davidand blessed him.
Oh, I was ridiculous.
The favor that David had on his life,and in the midst of experience
all this favor from God,he sees this married
a woman named Bathsheba, commitsadultery with her, gets her pregnant,
and then contractsto have her husband killed.
(30:47):
And God still
is so gracious and merciful to him.
He was horrible.
Why was God so merciful to himafter all of that?
I'll tell you why.
Because before all of that,
(31:08):
when King Saul was the king
and God removed his hand from King Saul
and said, David, I put my hand on you,you will be the king.
David had opportunity after opportunityafter opportunity
to dishonor Sauland to remove Saul from power.
And David said, I will be merciful to Saul
(31:28):
until God does what God wants to do.
And because Davidwas so incredibly merciful to Saul,
David experienced the mercy of God.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will. What
receive mercy.
(31:49):
And what Jesus is saying is
that our be attitudes
are those who,for that person who did that to you,
for those who
for that one you will never.
(32:09):
Jesus followers will be merciful.
And as a result,
they'll receive the mercy of God.
To understand. The.
(32:32):
Blessed are the poor in spirit.
Blessed are those who mourn.
Blessed are the meek.
But for those who hunger and thirstfor righteousness,
blessed are the merciful.
What's the next one?
Blessed are the pure in heart,
(32:53):
for they will see God.
When this word is just pure,
it means a straightness.
It means in and in honesty and a clarity.
It means an undivided heart.
(33:14):
The Bible says that
a double minded man is unstable,and all he does that's not this.
This is a straightness.
There's no division in the heart.
It it literally it's sincere.
Sincere comes from, two words sincerely.
(33:34):
And it literally means without wax.
That'swhat sincere means. Did you know that?
Let me tell you the context of that,because that's what pure.
And this is what pure in heart means.
Back in ancient times
when Romans and whatnot would,
would, would carve statues out of marble,
they would be commissioned,the artists would be commissioned
(33:56):
by a wealthy personto fashion a statue for the gardens,
and during the crafting
of the statue, oftentimesit happened quite, quite a bit,
right at the end of the statue'scompletion, right before it's completed.
As the sculptor was sculpting,they would hit some type of fracture
(34:18):
or fissure in the marbleand part of the statue would fall off,
rather than starting all over again andlosing all the work and time and money,
the sculptor would take the dust,
from the chiselingthe marble dust and mix it with wax,
and it wouldlook exactly like the original marble,
(34:38):
and they would fashion that partwhich fell off
from this substances,this marble dust, wax material.
And it would look exactly like the marbleno one would ever know
until
the person brought it homeand put it in their garden.
And a hot summer day came
and the the wax would melt
(35:01):
and it would fall off.
And so they made a law
that in every sculpturehad to be certified, that it was sensory
without wax.
It was pure, undivided, unbroken.
And what Jesus is saying here is, blessed
(35:21):
are the sincerity of heart.
It doesn't say, blessedare the poor in behavior that will come.
It doesn't say, blessed are the poorand rich or the pure in ritual
says, blessed are the pure in heartand undivided, sincere
heart of clarity, of straightness.
(35:45):
And they will.
What?
Blessed are the pure in heart,they will see God.
They'll see God.
They'll have a greater intimacy with God.
When I was in high school,I vividly remember this.
I was listening to someone teachand they said,
dust in the heart throws dirt in the eyes.
(36:08):
I wrote it down.
I still have it in my Bible in my office.
Dust in the heart throws dirt in the eyes.
When we don't have a pure heart,it gets dusty
and a dusty heart creates blinded eyes.
And what Jesus is sayinghere, that those who are pure in heart
have unblinded eyes, free
(36:29):
from the blinding pollutants of sin.
So you see God more clearly.
Imagine God is the one who said,nobody can see me and live.
And yet the blessings ofthe pure heart is to see him,
so that when we open Scripture,
we see God clearly,
not because of knowledge, but because of
(36:52):
sincerity of heart.
That when circumstances happen in life,we don't freak out.
Like, what's going on, God? Why?
Because we see him clearly.
That's not pure in heart.
But there will see God.
So. So let's start at the bottomrung of the ladder.
(37:15):
The easiest step to take.
Blessed are the poor in spirit.
That's where everybody has to start.
We don't start with blessedare the pure in heart.
We don't start with blessed are the meek.
Everybody starts on the same rung.
Blessed are the poor in spirit.
And the next rung is blessed
(37:36):
are those who mourn.
And the next is blessed are the meek.
Blessed are thosewho hunger, thirst for righteousness.
(37:57):
Blessed are the merciful.
Blessed are the pure in heart.
And then he says,and blessed are the peacemakers.
They will be called sons of God.
You know the greatest way andthe greatest peace making is evangelism,
bringing peace between a lost personand the God who loves them.
(38:20):
That's what peace. Peace.
When Jesus is talking about peacemaking
here, he's not talking about, hey,let's just all get along and not argue.
He's not talking about
let's just let's not causelessdon't talk like, let's just be nice.
And that's what he's talking about.
The greatest act of peacemaking
is, is, is making helpingsomeone make peace with God.
(38:40):
It's evangelism.
It's that ministry of reconciliation.
We're reconciling humans to God.
The Bible says all this is from God, whothrough Christ reconciled himself to us.
It's evangelism.
And now he's given usthat ministry of reconciliation.
(39:05):
And those people who,
who for whom this is their attitudeand this is their practice.
These are recognized as children of God.
These are.
And Jesus saying,these are the attitudes of my people.
This is my expectation for everybodywho says they follow me.
(39:32):
And then he says.
Blessed are those
who are persecuted for righteousness.
Blessed are you when you're reviledand people
say all kinds of evil against you falsely,
for theirs is the kingdom.
(39:52):
And he says, rejoice and be glad, foryour reward is great in heaven.
For so they pursue the prophets,who before you says, listen,
the results of all this stuff, if you live
this way.
Be joyful
when you're persecuted because of it.
And Jesus puts persecution
not just in physical terms,but in terms of slander as well.
(40:17):
It's going to happen
if you're doing it right.
And, and and he says when this happens,
rejoice literally.
He says, jump for joy.
Like when you're persecuted, jumpfor joy. Why?
Because you're in good company.
This is what happened to all the prophets.
(40:39):
It's what happened throughoutchurch history, the shoulders
on which we stand as Christ followersall experienced persecution, he said.
So count it alljoy, my brothers and sisters.
When you suffer for the sakeof the kingdom, you're in good company
and great is your reward.
It's the kingdom of heaven.
(41:06):
And when we liveaccording to these attitudes,
we become something we're not.
You are the salt of the earth,
and you are the light of the world.
Most Christians
know those phrasesfar more than they know.
(41:27):
The Beatitudes.
And they kind of
say, hey, we are the salt of the earthand we are the light of the world.
No you're not.
If you haven't lived accordingto the attitudes of the Beatitudes,
that's the result of livingaccording to the Beatitudes.
Do you understand that?
(41:49):
Says when these.
Then.
When these are your attitudes. Now
you're the salt of the earthand the light of the world.
Salt has a preserving influenceand it slows decay.
That's what it did in the ancient world.
(42:10):
They'd put it on meat to preserve itand slow decay.
You said this is who you arewhen you live.
According to these archers.This is who you become.
You become the salt of the earth
and the light of the world.
You have a preserving influence.
Christiansought to have a preserving influence
and so of the key of culture,but not by posting on social media,
(42:33):
not by boycotting stuff, not by marching,not by chanting,
not by berating, but by the Beatitudes.
We naturally become the salt of the earth,the slow decay
and the preserving influencein this world.
And it's.
And the salt in the endtimes was incredibly valuable.
Some at some points in history,it was more valuable than gold.
(42:56):
Matter of fact, soldiers in the Roman armywould oftentimes be paid with salt.
That's where the saint comes from.
He is worth his salt.
It's valuable.
And when Jesus says you're the light ofthe world, think about what he's saying.
That title Jesus claimed of himself.
(43:17):
And now he it to the disciples who havewho, who live by these beatitudes.
Can you imagine?
He gives that title
to us because we live according to these.
Be out. These are our attitudes. Now.
It's amazing to me.
So here's what I know.
To be effective, we must be distinctive.
(43:40):
To be effective, we must be distinctive.
And these beatitudes
are very distinctive from this culturein this world we live in, right?
Right.
And so we just have to ask ourselves,
how much do church folks look like?
The culture we live in,
the same goals, the same debts,the same media,
(44:02):
the same schedules, the same stress,the same worries, the same habits,
the same addictions, the same marriages,the same priorities.
If we're going to be effective,we got to be distinctive.
And these beatitudeshave to be our attitudes.
And when these are our attitudes,
all of that stuff changes.
(44:27):
I love verse 15.
No peoplelight a lamp and put it under a basket,
but on a stand,and it gives light to all in the house.
The question we have to askis if this is what produces
the light of the world in us,and it gives light to all in the house.
How is our lightgiving light to our house,
(44:50):
to our spouse, to our children?
There's a lot of church folk
who want to be a light at workwho aren't first,
a light at home.
Who want to be a lightto their coworkers and friends,
(45:11):
and whose kids are still livingin darkness.
Who want to be good to peoplebut are bad for their spouse.
And Jesus says, when
these beatitudes are your attitudes,you are a light to the world,
and you will give light to your home.
(45:35):
And he says, in the same way.
Let your light shine before others,so that they will see your good works
and give glory to your fatherwho is in heaven.
Jesus wants people of his kingdomto live visible lives
that attract attentionto the beauty of God's work in their life.
They will see your good worksbecause of these beatitudes
(45:58):
and give glory to your father in heaven.
When Jesus uses
this, this phrase here,give glory to your father in heaven.
This is the first timein the New Testament God is called father,
and it's in reference to peopleseeing the good works of his children.
(46:18):
Did you realize that the way
God gets glory for being the father
is by his kids, having these attitudes?
Do you see how important these are?
You see how important these are?
Oh dear friends,
know these
(46:38):
because these are Christ'sexpectation of us.
And if we don't know these,how do we ever hope
to fulfill his expectations?
The shot in the dark.
And by our nature, we will miss white.
Because we are poor in spirit.
(47:03):
So high calling in it,
isn't it?
You and I will never get thereon our own for doomed.
But by the grace of God
and the empowering presenceof the Holy Spirit,
he calls us to a high calling,and he fulfills it
in us.
(47:26):
You ready?
Okay.
These are the attitudes you choose. Now.
When you go home tomorrow, this week.
These are the attitudes.
That will be your attitudes.
Won't you pray with me?
(47:50):
Father, these things.
Sometimes I look at Scriptureand I think there's.
There's no way
they're so contrary to who I am.
And I realize that that is the reality
because I am poor in spirit.
And I can't manufacture these on my own.
(48:11):
And I thank youthat you don't expect me to.
By your mercy and by your grace, father,I pray that you would
create these attitudes in me,that I would choose these.
And father, right now,
I pray you hear the hearts of your people,your kids
(48:33):
that are choosing these attitudes
to be their attitudes.
Friends, would you just
agree with Scriptureand walk through these
in your heart right now?
Father, I admit I am poor and spirit.
There's nothing in methat would commend me to you.
(48:55):
I'm spiritually bankrupt.
God, I mourn the fact
that sin has ruled in my life
and that sin rules in this world.
Father,
I choose the attitude of meekness that Ithank you that you've approved of me.
(49:21):
So I have nothing to proveand no one to impress you.
Help me hungerand thirst for righteousness.
God, thank you for the mercyyou've given me.
Help me be merciful to others.
(49:41):
Create in mea purity of heart, of sincerity,
an unmixed heart.
God, I want to be a peacemaker
and help other people know you.
And when I suffer,father, I will leap for joy.
(50:05):
I want to be the light of the world.
I want to be the salt of the earth,the light of the world.
And God, I want that light to shine
on my family.
Father,you've called me to a high calling.
Accomplish it in me,
for me and through me.
I choose you today,
(50:28):
that these be my attitudes.
In your name I pray.
Amen.
You all right?
I want you to read this week,chapter five.
Go back to the Beatitudes.
Remind yourselves what they are,
and read the rest of chapter five.
(50:49):
We're going to Jesus,going to start putting the start,
putting the throttle down.
So get ready for it's going to be good.
It can be tough. It's going to be good.
Got it
I love you.
Stand up and let's sing.
A man.
You may experience couple dropsas if it keeps raining.
Got a couple little leaks.
But I just want to make clearthat if you do get sprinkle today,
that doesn't count.
You still got to get baptized.
In this series,
going through the book of Matthew,we're in chapter five today,
and we're going to lookat the first portion of that chapter
(00:25):
and what are called the Beatitudes.
Chapters five, six, and seven
are commonly knownas the sermon on the Mount.
It's a message Jesus preached
to those who would follow him,
who were learning to follow him.
And as I've been preparingfor this message,
(00:46):
I've really been struggling,
with the preparation of itand now the preaching of it.
And here's why.
This is a sermon Jesus preached
and for someone to
to have the audacity to try to explain
(01:09):
what Jesus meant.
That's a struggle for me.
I've debatedjust not teaching through Matthew five
six and seven and and just telling youas a church, study it on your own.
Like who am I to try to explainwhat Jesus's intent was in this?
You understand?
I'm saying,like the other parts of Scripture, I get
(01:31):
in all the epistlesthat that the Apostle Paul wrote
in the historical documentsin the old Testament
and then all the rest of you,we can read those and glean truth
from them and and try to understandwhat the original author's intent was
when they penned, and, and,and interpret Scripture
(01:51):
through a scripture, which is appropriate.
And you're supposed to do that and,and kind of glean truths from Scripture.
And the gods are in the revelationof God's heart, and that's all fine.
But when we're lookingat a sermon Jesus preached
and the
arrogance to say, let me tell you whatJesus meant.
It just feels odd to me.
You understand what I'm saying?
(02:13):
Like when I let these Jesus wordsjust be Jesus
words like you knew what he was saying.
And so I've really been struggling with,
with even the work of, of,of this message.
But we're going to do it.
And by God's grace,you'll have mercy on my soul.
(02:35):
Not truly,
you you can
you can misrepresent and misspeakon people's behalf all you want.
But this is Jesus.
And to misrepresent
his his spoken word and his message
and to think that we
(02:56):
that I that you would listen to me
as far as what his intent was, is
it's a little bit scary.
And so I appreciate your prayersas we go through this and Holy Spirit,
just do the interpretationthat I'm a mess up.
Matthew five,
we're going to look at the first,
(03:19):
probably 16
verses or so, and Matthewfive one and two.
Let me just read these two verses.
Seeing the crowds,he Jesus went up on the mountain.
And when he sat down,his disciples came to him.
And he opened his mouth.
And he taught them, saying,those are the first two verses,
of Matthew five.
(03:40):
I want us to understand that we didn't gothrough the sermon on the Mount.
Matthew five six and seven,
the sermon that Jesus preacherdoes not necessarily do with salvation.
Okay?
He's not dealing with salvation issues.
It details how the disciples of Jesus liveethically in their daily lives.
That's what he's talking about.
In essence, he's saying, look,you want to follow me?
(04:01):
Let me tell you the implicationsof how you live now daily.
These are the ethicalimplications of how you live.
This is what I
expect the beatitudesthat we're going to look at.
He's going to say, blessed arethe blessed are the. Blessed are the.
That's commonly known as the Beatitudes.
Everybody say Beatitudes.
Beatitudes.
(04:22):
The Beatitudes are literallythe blessings, okay?
They're the be attitudes, the attitudes
that should be in disciples lives.
They give the disciple their be attitudes.
How what are attitude as we go
daily through this life and interactwith each other and with God,
(04:45):
they're the standard expectation forevery disciple as we read through these.
Blessed are the. Blessed are the,blessed are the.
This is Jesus's expectationfor every person
who would say, I'ma citizen of the kingdom.
I'm a follower of Jesus. So get ready.
Jesus knew what he wanted from his people.
He knew his expectation.
(05:07):
If we're going to follow him, he said, I'mgoing to tell you what I expect of you.
There's your attitude,
and these beatitudes will
produce the Greek wordMakarios, literally translated happiness.
It's not it's not happy.
Like, oh, I got a new puppy happy.
It's a joy that is serene and untouchable.
(05:31):
It's a joy that is independent
of the chances and changes of life.
It's constant and consistent.
That's what these beatitudes will produce.
That's whyJesus starts them with blessed are the.
These are the attitudesthat's going to produce this serene
(05:51):
and untouchablejoy and contentment in life.
The Bible says Jesus sat down
and he taught
in that culture
when what a when a rabbi would teach,he would sit
and the hearers would stand.
(06:13):
When a rabbi would preach, he would stand.
And so the teaching position
in the New Testamentfor rabbis was to sit, and he touched.
So Jesus sits down, and they'reprobably standing, and he teaches them.
And heopened his mouth and he taught them.
Verse two says,he taught them that verb to teach
(06:36):
is in the imperfect tense in Greek,
which literally means
He used to teach themin an ongoing manner.
This wasn't a message Jesus taught ona weekend and then never came back to it.
The implication is that this messagethat we'll look through in chapters five,
(06:57):
six, and seven is the message that Jesuscontinually brought his disciples back to.
He continually taught them.
He continually reminded them
it was so importantand so central to what it is
to be a follower of Jesus,that it's the message he started with.
And he continued for three yearsof his public ministry.
(07:19):
Continue to teach them over andover and over because they had to get it.
These are the attitudes that
would shape their life, that would shapewhat it meant for them to follow Jesus.
They had to get it.
And so he continuallybrought them back to it
over and over and over.
(07:40):
And he starts in versethree, blessed are the
what he's saying
is right now, thisthese are the things that I expect.
And right now these are the, the,the results of these things.
He's not saying, blessed will you be you.
Some blessed are you.
And so the blessings that accompanythese beatitudes,
(08:03):
he says, are yours, rightnow, happy right now, content right now.
Now, as he moves through these Beatitudes,
in essence, there's nine of them.
I would encourage youto memorize them in order.
If these are the attitudesthat Jesus says, this is what I want
for my people, shouldn'twe know what those attitudes are?
(08:25):
Yeah, let me ask that again.
As if it's not rhetorical,
if these are the attitudes that you said,these have to characterize
my followers, shouldn'twe know what these are?
Okay, so to repeat them to me from memoryright now go.
So I thought
and sothis is why we have to study this over
(08:45):
and remind ourselvesover and over and over. Okay.
You understand in.
Yes. Yes.
Okay.
Here's something elseI want to say about these
shoes.
To make these part of your attitudesright now.
Those first words of Johnthe Baptist in preparing
(09:05):
the way for Jesus is publicministry was to repent
means change your attitude,change your life, change your direction.
The first words of Jesus were repent,
the first words of the disciplesand their messages was repent.
The first words of the church was repent.
The first words of Paulthe Apostle in his messages were repent.
So these are not
(09:27):
we're not capableto produce these in and of ourselves,
except for the the regenerationof the Holy Spirit in our lives.
But at the same time,we have to choose these.
They have to be our choice.
And so right from the beginning, forif any of us are going to claim
I follow Jesus,choose these attitudes right now
(09:48):
and stand.
Well, let's see,
blessed are the poor in spirit.
Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
To be poor in spirit
means that it's the confession
that I am sinful,
(10:10):
that I'm rebellious against God,
that I am without moral virtue,
that I have no spiritual assets
that would commend me to God.
I am completely devoid of any good.
The Bible says there is nonethat is righteous.
(10:32):
No not one.
There's no good that lives in any person.
And there's the knowledge
that I am completely and utterly
without virtue before God,
completely and utterly condemned
and worthy of hell in and of myself.
(10:54):
It's the acknowledgmentthat I am spiritually
bankrupt.
I'm a pauper,
and I'm a beggar before God.
This is the place that every personmust start.
It's the lowest rung on the ladderbecause it's the easiest thing,
(11:15):
and it's the primary thing that everyperson must start with in coming to God.
The realizationI have nothing to offer him.
Does this sound like any message?
If you would hear in our culture,
not in the least.
We want to believethere's something good in us.
(11:36):
We want to believe there's something in us
that is beautiful.
Matter of fact, as parents,we try to convince our kids,
oh, you're good,you're good kid. No, they're not.
Your children are spiritually bankrupt
because they're just like their parents.
(11:56):
There's no good in any of us before God.
The only thing we deserve before God
is damnation.
That's what Jesus means
when he says, blessedare the poor in spirit.
How can he say, happy?
Are those who are spiritually bankrupt?
(12:17):
Because this is the starting point
to being made right with God.
If any of us comes to God and say, God, I,
I want you to do what you can in my life,but I'm giving you a lot to work with,
automatically disqualified.
(12:37):
We have to get to the placewhere we acknowledge
and confess and admit and agree with.
I'm an utter wretch
before God.
Nothing of value.
Spiritual poverty
is the prerequisitefor receiving the kingdom of heaven. Why?
(13:00):
Because only beggars are. Get in.
And if we can start in this place,
I am absolutely spiritually bankrupt.
If that's where we start,
then we can be inheritors
(13:21):
of the Kingdom of God.
And because that's
the acknowledgment of where I start,
then Jesus says, blessedare the poor in spirit.
And then blessed are those who mourn.
(13:42):
For they'll be comforted.
We usually use that verse
when it comes to funerals,when it comes to our loss.
And we think, we think it means thatwhen I'm sad, Jesus comforts me.
That's notwhat this verse is talking about.
Jesus is saying, this
when you realizethat you are completely bankrupt
(14:05):
before God, worthyonly of hell in and of yourself,
it will cause you to mournyour own station.
And when you mournfor your spiritual poverty,
then you can be comfortedbecause of what Jesus has done.
But wehave to get to this place of mourning.
(14:27):
Now that this Greek word for mourn, isthis the most intense word for mourning?
That the Greek language has?
It's spoken of in the same vein,when you lose a loved one,
now some of you have lost.
People in your life,
and you know what it means to mourn
(14:50):
in tensely right?
That's what Jesus is talking about.
But not in the sense of mourning my lost
mourning over sin and the effects of sin.
I am so overwhelmed.
(15:13):
With the acknowledgment of my spiritualpoverty before God because of sin.
And I'm so overwhelmed at what sinis, what is done in me,
what is done in the society
that I'm experiencingthis incredibly deep sense of mourning.
If you've ever had the
the dark night of the soul,
(15:36):
when there's complete
bankruptcy before God and a sense of of
of of of peril and darkness
over your own soul in the morning of God,
please have mercy.
That's what Jesus is saying.
Blessed are the poor in spirit,and blessed
(15:56):
are those who mourn.
Not just here's,
here's here's our here's our standard.
We mourn over sinbecause of the consequences of it.
That's not what Jesus is talking about.
Even devoid of consequences.
Simply mourning over sin because of sin.
(16:22):
And not just personal sin,but sin of the courts.
Sin of the society.
When when you look at the worldbeing like God, have mercy on us.
We are oh wretched sinners.
So pervasive.
It's horrible.
Morning like that
(16:45):
and that type of morning is good.
Like we resist it so much.
We don't want one.We don't want to be sad.
We don't want other people to be sad.
Okay, let's just talk aboutthe love of Jesus.
That's good.
Jesus saying that's not worth.
Like, we can talk about that, butit means nothing if you don't understand
(17:07):
how spiritually poverty strickenyou are and mourn sin.
That morning is good.
The Bible says godly grief.
This type of mourning and grief produces
a repentance that leads to salvationwithout regret,
(17:27):
whereas worldly grief produces death.
Like, this type of mourning is goodbecause it leads us to repentance.
That grief allows us to live.
Said in another way,
for God sometimes uses sorrow in our lifeto help us turn away from sin
and seek eternal life, and we shouldnever regret his sinning. It.
(17:53):
But the sorrow of the man who is not aChristian
is not the star of true repentanceand does not prevent
eternal death.
Like I encourage us, sitin the realization
of the depravity of your own souland mourn
over the effects of sin.
(18:13):
Experienced
this type of deep and profound mourning,
because only then will lead youto repentance.
I'm not talking about
feeling bad because of the consequences.
That's simple.
You know as well as I dowhen we have more of the consequences
of sin in the moment,the consequences are there.
(18:34):
We like a dog back to its vomit,
right?
This too heavy for you this morning?
These are Jesus words said.
Look at you. Want to follow me?This is the attitude you got to have.
(19:02):
Blessed are the.
What was the first onewho got to memorize these
poor in spirit.
Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are the what?
Those who mourn.
They'll be comforted.
The next one.
Blessed are the meek.
Here's what I want to understand.
(19:23):
This process,
especially poor in spirit and mourning,
God allows that
in your life as a path, not a destination.
We gotta go through this process
to understandthat he didn't want us to stay there,
but we gotta go through thereto get to these others, okay?
(19:46):
It's like it's like you want to go down toDisneyland, the happiest place on Earth.
You got to go through Bakersfield.
We don't stay there,
all right?
It's a path. It's not the destination.
And so we got to go through that.
Most of us, we were like, I don't want to.
I don't want, like, poor spirit more.
That's horrible.
(20:06):
Yeah, it's part of the destinationas part of the path.
But we're getting to a destination
and part of that destination that we'regoing through, like poor in spirit mourn.
And then blessed are the meek.
For they will inherit the earth.
Now, we don't have a good translationfor the Greek word Prowse meek.
(20:30):
We don't.
We can't translate itwell at all in English.
Only thing we can do is use a bunch ofworst kind of explain what it looks like.
And so the best we can come upwith is meek
means a powerfulperson, properly controlled.
It means a perfect balance
between anger and indifference.
(20:54):
There's a tension here
in the one who is meek.
They're not passive,
but they're not pushed either.
The best way you can see it is it's.
It's strength under control.
It's a person free from malice
and free from a vengeful spirit.
(21:19):
It's it's it's the ability to suffer
without maliceand without seeking revenge.
To be meek
means I will willingly disregard
my own rights.
It's the power
and authoritythat says you will not take my rights,
(21:42):
but I will gladly give up my rights.
I have that much power
and it's under control.
Why would someone say
I don't have to assert my rights?
I will gladly give them up
(22:04):
because they knowthat they will inherit the earth.
And becauseI know I will inherit the earth,
I have nothing to proveand no one to impress.
That's meekness.
That's the taglinewe use for our men's ministry.
Because men, we've got to be meek.
(22:25):
It's not being walked on.
It's the ability to say, look,I have complete power
to assert my authority over you,but I'm going to choose not to.
Why? Because I got nothing to prove.
I have enough power
and authority that God has given me.
I don't have to prove myself to anybody.
(22:46):
I'm surely not going to tryto prove myself to you.
You don't deserve me to prove myselfto you.
Not arrogant.
I'm just saying, like I don't.
I have no one to impress.
Why would I try to impress you?
You don'tdeserve me to try to impress you.
And I don't feel obligated to.
(23:07):
I certainlyam not going to prove myself to God.
I only think I'm goingto prove myself to God is that I'm.
I am poor in spirit,and I'm mourning that.
And I'm certainlynot going to try to impress God.
Do you think any of us could impress God?
And so, likewise,
I'm like, blessed are the meek.
They don't have to prove anything.
They don't have to impress anybody.
(23:28):
They don't have to hold a grudge.
They don't have to be vengeful.
They don't have to assert their powerand might over anybody. Why?
Because they're going to hurt the earth.
Does does meekness
sound like anythingthat our culture has ever propagated?
(23:48):
Not at all.
Not at all.
So I will be meek
before God and completely submit to him,
and I will be meek before man,
which means I will be longsuffering,
powerful, and strong,
(24:09):
yet humble.
And so Jesus is saying,if you're going to follow me,
you firsthave to admit that you were completely,
utterly,spiritually bankrupt and poor in spirit,
and that has to cause you to mourn
and out of response of your realizationand who you are
and where you are before God.
(24:30):
You're a meek.
Blessed are those who first one is what
poor in spirit. Blessed are those who.
Blessed are the meek.
And when you're meek,
you realize who you are before God.
Then blessed are those who hungerand thirst for righteousness,
(24:52):
for they'll be filled.
Our desires and our drives come into line.
And I hunger and thirst for righteousness.
They will be filledwhen when the Bible talks
about being filled.
It it's it's being filled.
Where you experience this profound hunger
(25:15):
that can never be completely satisfied.
But in its satisfaction,
it intensifies for more.
And what Jesus is saying hereis, blessed are those
who have this profound hunger
that's never completely satisfied.
(25:37):
That always draws one to more.
Here's here's what I know.
Many of usget hungry often during the day, right?
Right.
Some of you missed breakfast this morningand you're thinking, okay, how long?
Because oh my goodness,
all of us get hungry.
None of us in this place suffer hunger.
(26:02):
Please understand, all of us get hungry.
None of us
suffer hunger.
And this is what Jesus is saying.
So I'm not talking aboutyou getting spiritually hungry.
You get spiritually hungry,you come to church
and then you have your snackand you're good for the next week or so.
So that's not what I'm talking about.
(26:22):
I'm talking about this profound,intense hunger
as if you are starvingand dying of thirst.
And the moment you partake, it'ssatisfying,
and all it doesis make it intensified for more.
It's that type of hunger and thirst,
and it's a hunger and thirst for what?
(26:44):
Righteousness.
We talked last week about righteousness,
and I challenge you to pray.
God intensified my desireto be a righteous man
before you, to be a righteous woman
before you intensify,grow my desire for righteousness.
And this is what Jesus is saying.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst.
This ongoing, intense, insatiable desire
(27:07):
to be a righteous manand a righteous woman.
Not I believe in Jesus.
So I got my fire insurance from hell.
But I am intensely desiring
the righteousness of God.
We hunger for a lot of things
(27:29):
other than righteousness.
We hunger for
for God to step in.
We hunger for
God to do something in our lives.
God to rescue God to save this. Godto make us so.
We hunger for a lot of thingsother than righteousness.
And Jesus says.
(27:51):
Starve for righteousness.
Here's my concern.
Oftentimes good
religious church people are inoculated
from the hunger of righteousness.
Because we're good religious moral people.
(28:13):
And we're inoculated
from the starvation of righteousness.
And that's what Jesus is saying.
Do you realize thatJesus didn't come to make any of us moral?
He can't make us holy.
To be people.
When men and women of righteousness.
And so this feeling,
(28:35):
it satisfies us at itintensifies the desire for more.
Blessed are the
poor in spirit, for theirsis the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, forthey will be comforted.
Blessed are the meekthat will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirstfor righteousness, for they'll be filled
and then blessed are the merciful,
(28:56):
for they'll what
receive mercy.
Listen, the merciful,
get the mercy they give.
Please, my dear friends, let that sink in.
The merciful get the mercy they give.
(29:16):
Once you receive it,
you have to give it.
When I realize
that I'm completely bankrupt and utterly,
devoid of spiritual value,
that would commend me to God.
When I experience that incredible evil
morning for my sinfulnessand the sinfulness of humanity.
(29:41):
And it puts me in a position to be meekbefore God and before people
now hunger and thirst for righteousness.
The one thing I knowis that what I need from
God is mercy.
I need his mercy.
And what Jesus is saying is,
you will get the mercy you give
(30:05):
something about King David,
Old Testament King David, he God
was so gracious towardsKing David, his little shepherd boy,
completely forgotten about by his family
and God chose him to be
the King of, of of Israel.
(30:25):
And God put his hands on King Davidand blessed him.
Oh, I was ridiculous.
The favor that David had on his life,and in the midst of experience
all this favor from God,he sees this married
a woman named Bathsheba, commitsadultery with her, gets her pregnant,
and then contractsto have her husband killed.
(30:47):
And God still
is so gracious and merciful to him.
He was horrible.
Why was God so merciful to himafter all of that?
I'll tell you why.
Because before all of that,
(31:08):
when King Saul was the king
and God removed his hand from King Saul
and said, David, I put my hand on you,you will be the king.
David had opportunity after opportunityafter opportunity
to dishonor Sauland to remove Saul from power.
And David said, I will be merciful to Saul
(31:28):
until God does what God wants to do.
And because Davidwas so incredibly merciful to Saul,
David experienced the mercy of God.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will. What
receive mercy.
(31:49):
And what Jesus is saying is
that our be attitudes
are those who,for that person who did that to you,
for those who
for that one you will never.
(32:09):
Jesus followers will be merciful.
And as a result,
they'll receive the mercy of God.
To understand. The.
(32:32):
Blessed are the poor in spirit.
Blessed are those who mourn.
Blessed are the meek.
But for those who hunger and thirstfor righteousness,
blessed are the merciful.
What's the next one?
Blessed are the pure in heart,
(32:53):
for they will see God.
When this word is just pure,
it means a straightness.
It means in and in honesty and a clarity.
It means an undivided heart.
(33:14):
The Bible says that
a double minded man is unstable,and all he does that's not this.
This is a straightness.
There's no division in the heart.
It it literally it's sincere.
Sincere comes from, two words sincerely.
(33:34):
And it literally means without wax.
That'swhat sincere means. Did you know that?
Let me tell you the context of that,because that's what pure.
And this is what pure in heart means.
Back in ancient times
when Romans and whatnot would,
would, would carve statues out of marble,
they would be commissioned,the artists would be commissioned
(33:56):
by a wealthy personto fashion a statue for the gardens,
and during the crafting
of the statue, oftentimesit happened quite, quite a bit,
right at the end of the statue'scompletion, right before it's completed.
As the sculptor was sculpting,they would hit some type of fracture
(34:18):
or fissure in the marbleand part of the statue would fall off,
rather than starting all over again andlosing all the work and time and money,
the sculptor would take the dust,
from the chiselingthe marble dust and mix it with wax,
and it wouldlook exactly like the original marble,
(34:38):
and they would fashion that partwhich fell off
from this substances,this marble dust, wax material.
And it would look exactly like the marbleno one would ever know
until
the person brought it homeand put it in their garden.
And a hot summer day came
and the the wax would melt
(35:01):
and it would fall off.
And so they made a law
that in every sculpturehad to be certified, that it was sensory
without wax.
It was pure, undivided, unbroken.
And what Jesus is saying here is, blessed
(35:21):
are the sincerity of heart.
It doesn't say, blessedare the poor in behavior that will come.
It doesn't say, blessed are the poorand rich or the pure in ritual
says, blessed are the pure in heartand undivided, sincere
heart of clarity, of straightness.
(35:45):
And they will.
What?
Blessed are the pure in heart,they will see God.
They'll see God.
They'll have a greater intimacy with God.
When I was in high school,I vividly remember this.
I was listening to someone teachand they said,
dust in the heart throws dirt in the eyes.
(36:08):
I wrote it down.
I still have it in my Bible in my office.
Dust in the heart throws dirt in the eyes.
When we don't have a pure heart,it gets dusty
and a dusty heart creates blinded eyes.
And what Jesus is sayinghere, that those who are pure in heart
have unblinded eyes, free
(36:29):
from the blinding pollutants of sin.
So you see God more clearly.
Imagine God is the one who said,nobody can see me and live.
And yet the blessings ofthe pure heart is to see him,
so that when we open Scripture,
we see God clearly,
not because of knowledge, but because of
(36:52):
sincerity of heart.
That when circumstances happen in life,we don't freak out.
Like, what's going on, God? Why?
Because we see him clearly.
That's not pure in heart.
But there will see God.
So. So let's start at the bottomrung of the ladder.
(37:15):
The easiest step to take.
Blessed are the poor in spirit.
That's where everybody has to start.
We don't start with blessedare the pure in heart.
We don't start with blessed are the meek.
Everybody starts on the same rung.
Blessed are the poor in spirit.
And the next rung is blessed
(37:36):
are those who mourn.
And the next is blessed are the meek.
Blessed are thosewho hunger, thirst for righteousness.
(37:57):
Blessed are the merciful.
Blessed are the pure in heart.
And then he says,and blessed are the peacemakers.
They will be called sons of God.
You know the greatest way andthe greatest peace making is evangelism,
bringing peace between a lost personand the God who loves them.
(38:20):
That's what peace. Peace.
When Jesus is talking about peacemaking
here, he's not talking about, hey,let's just all get along and not argue.
He's not talking about
let's just let's not causelessdon't talk like, let's just be nice.
And that's what he's talking about.
The greatest act of peacemaking
is, is, is making helpingsomeone make peace with God.
(38:40):
It's evangelism.
It's that ministry of reconciliation.
We're reconciling humans to God.
The Bible says all this is from God, whothrough Christ reconciled himself to us.
It's evangelism.
And now he's given usthat ministry of reconciliation.
(39:05):
And those people who,
who for whom this is their attitudeand this is their practice.
These are recognized as children of God.
These are.
And Jesus saying,these are the attitudes of my people.
This is my expectation for everybodywho says they follow me.
(39:32):
And then he says.
Blessed are those
who are persecuted for righteousness.
Blessed are you when you're reviledand people
say all kinds of evil against you falsely,
for theirs is the kingdom.
(39:52):
And he says, rejoice and be glad, foryour reward is great in heaven.
For so they pursue the prophets,who before you says, listen,
the results of all this stuff, if you live
this way.
Be joyful
when you're persecuted because of it.
And Jesus puts persecution
not just in physical terms,but in terms of slander as well.
(40:17):
It's going to happen
if you're doing it right.
And, and and he says when this happens,
rejoice literally.
He says, jump for joy.
Like when you're persecuted, jumpfor joy. Why?
Because you're in good company.
This is what happened to all the prophets.
(40:39):
It's what happened throughoutchurch history, the shoulders
on which we stand as Christ followersall experienced persecution, he said.
So count it alljoy, my brothers and sisters.
When you suffer for the sakeof the kingdom, you're in good company
and great is your reward.
It's the kingdom of heaven.
(41:06):
And when we liveaccording to these attitudes,
we become something we're not.
You are the salt of the earth,
and you are the light of the world.
Most Christians
know those phrasesfar more than they know.
(41:27):
The Beatitudes.
And they kind of
say, hey, we are the salt of the earthand we are the light of the world.
No you're not.
If you haven't lived accordingto the attitudes of the Beatitudes,
that's the result of livingaccording to the Beatitudes.
Do you understand that?
(41:49):
Says when these.
Then.
When these are your attitudes. Now
you're the salt of the earthand the light of the world.
Salt has a preserving influenceand it slows decay.
That's what it did in the ancient world.
(42:10):
They'd put it on meat to preserve itand slow decay.
You said this is who you arewhen you live.
According to these archers.This is who you become.
You become the salt of the earth
and the light of the world.
You have a preserving influence.
Christiansought to have a preserving influence
and so of the key of culture,but not by posting on social media,
(42:33):
not by boycotting stuff, not by marching,not by chanting,
not by berating, but by the Beatitudes.
We naturally become the salt of the earth,the slow decay
and the preserving influencein this world.
And it's.
And the salt in the endtimes was incredibly valuable.
Some at some points in history,it was more valuable than gold.
(42:56):
Matter of fact, soldiers in the Roman armywould oftentimes be paid with salt.
That's where the saint comes from.
He is worth his salt.
It's valuable.
And when Jesus says you're the light ofthe world, think about what he's saying.
That title Jesus claimed of himself.
(43:17):
And now he it to the disciples who havewho, who live by these beatitudes.
Can you imagine?
He gives that title
to us because we live according to these.
Be out. These are our attitudes. Now.
It's amazing to me.
So here's what I know.
To be effective, we must be distinctive.
(43:40):
To be effective, we must be distinctive.
And these beatitudes
are very distinctive from this culturein this world we live in, right?
Right.
And so we just have to ask ourselves,
how much do church folks look like?
The culture we live in,
the same goals, the same debts,the same media,
(44:02):
the same schedules, the same stress,the same worries, the same habits,
the same addictions, the same marriages,the same priorities.
If we're going to be effective,we got to be distinctive.
And these beatitudeshave to be our attitudes.
And when these are our attitudes,
all of that stuff changes.
(44:27):
I love verse 15.
No peoplelight a lamp and put it under a basket,
but on a stand,and it gives light to all in the house.
The question we have to askis if this is what produces
the light of the world in us,and it gives light to all in the house.
How is our lightgiving light to our house,
(44:50):
to our spouse, to our children?
There's a lot of church folk
who want to be a light at workwho aren't first,
a light at home.
Who want to be a lightto their coworkers and friends,
(45:11):
and whose kids are still livingin darkness.
Who want to be good to peoplebut are bad for their spouse.
And Jesus says, when
these beatitudes are your attitudes,you are a light to the world,
and you will give light to your home.
(45:35):
And he says, in the same way.
Let your light shine before others,so that they will see your good works
and give glory to your fatherwho is in heaven.
Jesus wants people of his kingdomto live visible lives
that attract attentionto the beauty of God's work in their life.
They will see your good worksbecause of these beatitudes
(45:58):
and give glory to your father in heaven.
When Jesus uses
this, this phrase here,give glory to your father in heaven.
This is the first timein the New Testament God is called father,
and it's in reference to peopleseeing the good works of his children.
(46:18):
Did you realize that the way
God gets glory for being the father
is by his kids, having these attitudes?
Do you see how important these are?
You see how important these are?
Oh dear friends,
know these
(46:38):
because these are Christ'sexpectation of us.
And if we don't know these,how do we ever hope
to fulfill his expectations?
The shot in the dark.
And by our nature, we will miss white.
Because we are poor in spirit.
(47:03):
So high calling in it,
isn't it?
You and I will never get thereon our own for doomed.
But by the grace of God
and the empowering presenceof the Holy Spirit,
he calls us to a high calling,and he fulfills it
in us.
(47:26):
You ready?
Okay.
These are the attitudes you choose. Now.
When you go home tomorrow, this week.
These are the attitudes.
That will be your attitudes.
Won't you pray with me?
(47:50):
Father, these things.
Sometimes I look at Scriptureand I think there's.
There's no way
they're so contrary to who I am.
And I realize that that is the reality
because I am poor in spirit.
And I can't manufacture these on my own.
(48:11):
And I thank youthat you don't expect me to.
By your mercy and by your grace, father,I pray that you would
create these attitudes in me,that I would choose these.
And father, right now,
I pray you hear the hearts of your people,your kids
(48:33):
that are choosing these attitudes
to be their attitudes.
Friends, would you just
agree with Scriptureand walk through these
in your heart right now?
Father, I admit I am poor and spirit.
There's nothing in methat would commend me to you.
(48:55):
I'm spiritually bankrupt.
God, I mourn the fact
that sin has ruled in my life
and that sin rules in this world.
Father,
I choose the attitude of meekness that Ithank you that you've approved of me.
(49:21):
So I have nothing to proveand no one to impress you.
Help me hungerand thirst for righteousness.
God, thank you for the mercyyou've given me.
Help me be merciful to others.
(49:41):
Create in mea purity of heart, of sincerity,
an unmixed heart.
God, I want to be a peacemaker
and help other people know you.
And when I suffer,father, I will leap for joy.
(50:05):
I want to be the light of the world.
I want to be the salt of the earth,the light of the world.
And God, I want that light to shine
on my family.
Father,you've called me to a high calling.
Accomplish it in me,
for me and through me.
I choose you today,
(50:28):
that these be my attitudes.
In your name I pray.
Amen.
You all right?
I want you to read this week,chapter five.
Go back to the Beatitudes.
Remind yourselves what they are,
and read the rest of chapter five.
(50:49):
We're going to Jesus,going to start putting the start,
putting the throttle down.
So get ready for it's going to be good.
It can be tough. It's going to be good.
Got it
I love you.
Stand up and let's sing.
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