Transcript

All right. Good morning, church. So good to see all of you this morning. Very thankful you're here. We are starting a new sermon series today that we're going to be in for many weeks together, going through the Sermon on the Mount together.

It's no doubt one of the best sermons ever preached, if not, some have argued, the best sermon ever preached by the best preacher who ever preached. And he's a lot more than that. He's the Savior and the Lord. But this is an incredible, incredible text of scripture. We're going to be in Matthew chapter five.

We've titled the series Kingdom Living. And I think it's going to be very obvious to you as we dig into this series, this wonderful study where Christ, essentially, what we're going to find out is he has flipped the world upside down. What he does on the Sermon on the Mount is expound upon what is already written in the Old Testament in such a way that I'm sure it left jaws dropped in its day. And it still leaves jaws dropped today. When we hear these things, we go, I don't know if I can do that.

And part of what we're going to talk about over the next many weeks together is we aren't meant to do it apart from the Holy Spirit of God. We are meant to do it inside of our relationship with Christ Jesus. He is going to spend many weeks turning worldly wisdom upside down. Here's what one famous theologian said about it, named John Stott. He wrote the Sermon on the Mount is the most complete description anywhere in the New Testament of the Christian counterculture.

Here is a Christian value system, ethical standard, religious devotion, attitude towards money, ambition, lifestyle and network of relationships, all of which are totally at odds with those of the non Christian world. And this Christian counterculture is the life of the Kingdom of God, a fully human life indeed, but lived out under divine rule. This is what we're going to be in for the next many weeks together, this incredible counterculture. In this sermon, Jesus is announcing a new way of life. And it's going to be new to some of you, some of what is described even today in what we call the Beatitudes, something you may have heard if you've been in church before, these blessed statements.

They're going to feel very upside down when you start to break them down, this counterculture. But it's not meant for us to understand it as a way to earn or a thing that we can do. The Kingdom Living isn't. This stuff isn't about earning your way into the kingdom. It's about what it looks like to be a part of the kingdom when you're already in it.

Christian church, if you're already in Christ, this is for you. By the power of the Holy Spirit. If not, step one is receive the one who could give you the power to do these things. And we're going to get into that as well. Martin Lloyd Jones writes on this.

He says, in other words, we are not told in the Sermon on the Mount, live like this and you will become Christian. Rather, we are told, because you are a Christian, live like this. You see the difference? This is how Christians ought to live. This is how Christians meant to live.

So in this series, Kingdom Living, hopefully you can pop up this image. Hopefully you got one of these booklets on the way in. We took a pause just so we could write these for you. There's a really wonderful written introduction. And our goal really was that as we go through this together, that this would be something you could keep if you wanted to reflect on in the past, that it would be something a little nicer than just a bulletin.

Although I'm sure those are just, you know, the best. But they're just paper. Right. And so we were kind of hoping to make something for you that you could come back to and reflect on. And so if you didn't get one yet, we've got those in the back, Michael.

Feel free to give them out. Hey, if you want one, somebody, if you missed it, raise your hand, please, and we'll get those to you. We want to be careful to follow this sermon as we stay on the path of grace. You're going to feel this tension today. I just want to go ahead and put it out there.

You're going to feel the tension today of this being such an idealistic kind of world that it seems unattainable. And you may even feel that this is something you've got to try to earn. Both are not true. There's a third path, and that is live by the power of Christ in you. This sermon is for believers of all age.

It's not some sort of utopian society. You know, there are famous Christians writing on the Sermon on the Mount that said, he's speaking of heaven. We can't do this here. Well, the fact is we can't do it perfectly, but we certainly can be inspired to go there by the Spirit's power. Because Christ says plainly, as we're going to read today, the kingdom of God is at hand.

The kingdom of heaven is upon you. What does he mean by that? Where we're going to be today is in the Beatitudes. This word is going to look wacky to you when it pops up. It's the Latin word beatus.

I know it kind of looks like beat us, but it's not. All right, It's Latin beatus, which means blessing. It was named the Beatitudes by some ancient thinkers who were writing in Latin. Here. He's speaking of the idea of blessings, and he's not talking about the idea of feeling happy.

Happiness is not really in view here. It's one of the synonyms of blessed, if you will, and some translations put it that way. But happiness kind of makes us feel like something emotional is going on. And that's only a very, very sliver of what's happening here in the Beatitudes. The objective reality here is that you are truly blessed of God, that citizens of God's kingdom have been redeemed, bought with a price, and have now come under his blessing.

That something new comes, this state of living, a deep spiritual joy. And I've said this before, it might be getting old now. Happiness is based on happenings. Joy is based on the Lord. It's not circumstantial.

Happiness is based on, hey, if it goes well, I'm happy. If it doesn't, I'm unhappy. But there's a deep spiritual joy that comes in the blessings that Christ is going to speak to today. There's a divine favor. There's this peace that comes when you can say, I'm living by God's will and by his purpose.

It's not perfect, but I know I'm doing what he's called me to do in this life. To be the kind of husband and wife, to be the kind of parent, to be the kind of worker. I know I'm going towards what Christ has called me to do. There's a peace there that supersedes persecution, suffering, many things, and that's where we're going to spend time today. So the question for you is, friends, you might be thinking, why do I need to hear this?

This sounds very heady. It sounds kind of 30,000ft, and I'm living down here on the ground. Well, a lot of us are seeking a temporary happiness in this world. At times, we're not even really thinking about it. It's not really intentional.

We're just trying to get through another day. We're just thinking, I just hope I can make it to tonight. Some of us will wake up tomorrow morning and think, I can't wait till I get home. This Evening. And I get that, you know, you're thinking about the next thing where you get to finally relax and rest or see your family or whatever.

But did you know there's a greater state of blessings? There's a place in which Christ has called you that circumstances don't get in your way. That true blessing, true joy and contentment is in this place, a new state of blessing. So let's dig in. We're going to be in Matthew 5:1 12.

Here's what it says. Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain. And when he sat down, his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, 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 meek, 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. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Yes, blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Church, hear this. Rejoice and be glad your reward is great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. This is God's word.

Amen. This is a great word to you today. But I have to admit something. Some of this is extremely challenging, extremely hard to actually live out. But Christ wants us to experience the blessings of God's kingdom, citizens.

And so let's think about what it means to experience these blessings. Number one. It seems in the first four Beatitudes that we need to understand the paradox of kingdom blessings. These first four blessings, and then the last one too are completely insane on face value. They're completely wild.

He says poor in spirit is blessed. He says mourning is blessing. Some of you need to hear that today. Mourning is blessing. Meekness is inheriting all the earth.

If you're hungry and thirsty, you'll be filled. These things are are completely upside down. Do you see it? They're completely backwards. I can promise you you won't find anywhere in a self help, any worldly psychological magazine.

You won't find this if you go to a non Christian counselor, them saying it's good for you to be poor in spirit, it's good for you to be hungry for the Lord, it's good for you to mourn I mean, to some degree you'll hear some positive thinking on this and you'll hear some thoughts about there's a time where we should weep and things like that. This is upside down. He says you're going to. When you're poor in spirit, you're going to inherit the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven. It says in verse one that Christ saw the crowds, he responded to seeing a great multitude of people, and he climbed up on a mountain and began to speak.

Now I want to pop up just a few images. I won't do this every week, but just to try to catch, get your mind around where we are. We're just above the Sea of Galilee at this first location. This is where they believe it has happened, just on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee. You can pop up the next image.

This is the church of the Beatitudes, which stands in that location now. So if you go to this place, you can see this church where they think Christ sort of was when he preached this message. Pop the next image up so you can kind of see a downward slope going into the Sea of Galilee. Jesus would have stood near the top of this hill, creating almost a, a microphone effect. You know, they didn't have all this fancy stuff.

I could yell at you today and get this job done. But Jesus didn't have all this. And so he's using nature to amplify his sound. And then this last image you can see here, this is a painting that's in that church, a famous painting that I think we put in your notebooks as well, by Karl Bloch. This is where Christ is.

This is the setting. And it says that he taught. He held a discourse, a long one. What a. Just think about this, what it would have been like to sit under his teaching in this moment on the side of this hill and hear him go on for three chapters.

It'll take you. Just so you know, you should try this this week if you want. Try to read chapters five through seven. It'll take you about 20 to 30 minutes. But I imagine there was some dramatic pauses in there and a couple of maybe discussion.

Perhaps it's not written, I don't know. He teaches and he goes. And he leads off with verse three. Blessed are those who are poor in spirit. This word blessed is better than happy.

In fact, it's the word makarios in the Greek it means supremely fortunate, supremely blessed, well off delight. It's something, something bigger. This word differs from other words that Christ uses throughout the scripture. That the writers use to describe. In Matthew, chapter 23, he says the word blessed as well.

But it's the word eulogeo. We know this wor. If you've ever been to a funeral, you've heard the eulogy that comes from Greek eulogia, which means good word. And so this is the idea of receiving a blessing when somebody says a blessing upon you, that a good word has been said about you. This is a different word here.

It's a far better word. A supreme blessing, a holy divine offering. He says this of poor in spirit. I haven't heard anybody lately say, hey, man, you're doing great. You're poor.

I haven't heard anybody say that lately. You know, man, I am blessed and highly favored. I am broke. Now, to be honest, that's not what he's speaking to here. He's not talking about your bank account.

That's its own unique challenge. And Jesus spends a whole lot of time about that, too. But it's not what he's talking about here. He's talking about the poorness of spirit. The best word that I could compare this to is humility.

That what it's like to come before a holy God and not be full of yourself. If you've come into church today and you're kind of feeling good, you're feeling prideful, you're feeling like you've got something, you've accomplished something. I just want you to know that in the presence of a holy God, you are minuscule. Maybe you're better off than me. Maybe you're greater than me in some world of greatness, if there were such a thing.

But we are all at the same playing field when we come into the presence of God. He says, that is a blessing. To understand your position in spiritual ways is a blessing. Now let me just paint the picture for you for just a second. Have you ever met anyone who thought very highly of themselves and everyone else around them knew better?

You ever met anybody like that? If you haven't, it's you. I'm sorry, it's you. Probably. But I bet you've met somebody like this that thinks, boy, I'm hot stuff.

And everybody around him's like, here comes Jonathan again. When people just kind of trail off when you approach, you're one of those guys, it's one of you. Poor in spirit. No. Christ says it is blessed to come humbly with a contrite heart.

Then you can experience truth. When you come living a lie before a holy God. You can't experience the blessing of the Kingdom of heaven. When you come saying, I'm good enough, I'm okay, I am great, then you can't experience God's gifts because God doesn't have much for the prideful, but to bring them low so that he can use them, he says, you will inherit the kingdom of heaven. Throughout these scriptures over the next few weeks, you're going to hear Jesus kind of interchange the words kingdom of heaven, kingdom of God.

I believe these are meant to be the. The same thing. Some translators think differently, but I think generally he means the same kind of stuff here when he's talking about the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God. This is this idea of God's sovereign reign and rule over all things, both the present spiritual reality and this future physical fulfillment that we'll experience together one day, that the kingdom of heaven is both at hand and coming. It's inaugurated really with the Christ coming, the first coming.

It's being advanced now as the people of God submit to his lordship, and it's going to be fully realized when he returns. The kingdom is characterized by the things he's describing here. Righteousness, peace, joy. And that all comes through repentance and faith in Christ Jesus, the gospel, the cross of Christ. So I'm going to kind of touch on this now because we're going to keep coming back to this kingdom idea for many weeks together.

So he's where? Where is the kingdom? First of all, where is this place? He says, kingdom of heaven. I'm thinking that's not here.

But then Jesus says, it is here. It's at hand. So where is it? Well, I'll give you a couple of things that describe this. Jesus says in Matthew 4, a little before our text here, that it is at hand.

Then he says that it has come upon you. Matthew 12. Then he says, it's in the midst of you. Luke 17. He also says, it's coming.

Matthew 6. Simply put, and this is what I grew up hearing, where is the kingdom of heaven? Wherever Christ is king. Where is the kingdom of heaven? Wherever Christ is king?

I think that's pretty good thinking. I've heard that a lot growing up. What is the kingdom of heaven like? I could go to a lot of places. Jesus describes it once as a mustard seed, which is not something, I have to admit, we use a lot.

Maybe some of you do. Cool. I don't think I've seen a mustard seed other than on a picture online. A mustard seed. He says it's like in Matthew 13.

This is the idea that it starts small but it grows into something large. He says it's like leaven in dough. Matthew 13. That means it works invisibly, but transforms you the kingdom of heaven in you. Christian.

It might be invisible at times inside you, but the way that it transforms you is highly visible. Christ says it's like a hidden treasure. Matthew 13:44. That means it's worth everything to obtain. So come humbly before a holy God.

This isn't just good advice. This is incredibly important. Come humbly before the God of the universe. And guess what? Just for your friends and your family's sake, come humbly before them too.

Don't be that guy. It's blessed to be poor in spirit. Then he goes on to say something that might be the most absurd thing in the whole text today. Blessed are those who mourn. Who mourn, who grieve.

Now, I think he leaves room here to tell us that when we mourn in Christ Jesus, when we weep over things, that we are confident and can trust him, knowing that his will, his plan is better, that his dreams, his hopes for us are better established. They are better. But I think more specifically in. Almost everyone writing on the subject thinks this has more to do with sin. What one writer says is, it's a deep grief over sin.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are those who come and say, I'm a broken man. I've made some mistakes. I'm sick of this area. You know this area in your life, Some of you know this very well, that there's something that you keep having to come to the Father and say, I'm that guy again.

I've thought that I've said that I've done that thing again. God forgive me, forgive me and help me to not live that way anymore. That's the idea of mourning, having a deep despair about something broken in you. Christ says, that's blessed. He says that type of thing can be comforted.

He brings consolation, comfort to those who come in mourning. And then he says, the meek, the gentle.

This has something to do with, like a child. I skipped a verse back there on mourning, and I do want to read it because it reflects what Christ is up to. In Isaiah 61, it says, the spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim the year of our Lord's favor, to comfort all who mourn. So you're going to see this countless times that Jesus is building upon what he's already said in the Old Testament, what God has already spoken. Now Christ is laying a firmer foundation.

And he says, blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Again, Jesus here is quoting Psalm 37. Psalm 37 says, the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace.

I haven't observed this very much lately, have you? Some of you have checked out of the news lately, and good on you. It's not a fun place to live. I don't go there a whole lot, but I kind of like to be up on things. I just want to be informed.

But good luck with that because we're all getting information from who knows if it's true. You know, it's hard to know if we're getting anything legit. And I think that's a good thing. Let me just say this to you, church. I think it's a good thing that generally we don't really trust anything anymore other than hopefully Christ Jesus.

I think that's a good thing. But on that note, if you watch TV news, sure. If you watch movies, if you watch. If you listen to music, just do anything. In the entertainment realm, I doubt you will find anybody that you would classify as meek.

I doubt you'll find anybody, in fact, that would say meekness is good, because meekness is a strength under control. That's what it means to be meek. It doesn't mean you're weak. Christ was meek. He was not weak.

He took the sins of all mankind on the cross. That ain't weak. He rose again from the grave. That's not weak. No, he's meek.

And that means something else. That means he's not flaunting it all the time. He's not a showy kind of guy. He's not showing off. He's not in it for.

Well, in Christ's case, he is in it for his glory because he's God. That's a unique scenario. But for us, meekness is the idea that instead of praise coming to us, we are constantly diverting praise that we're not out for our glory. We're out to show him glory. And when we do something that is something cool, people think that's an achievement.

We just go, no, no, I don't want that. We're just simply not designed for glory. We're not. We are not designed to receive glory. We are designed to give glory.

Now, we're great at giving one another glory, man. Good job. Wow. We want to go to concerts, we want to see films and say, man, these things are awesome. But our glory was meant to Go up.

And when we receive glory from other people, we just need to go, oop. I'll be a bypass. You know, Meekness, you're not going to see it anywhere. This might be one of the most countercultural pieces of this whole sermon today, that you would come and say, not my will, but his be done. Not my glory, but his.

And then you'll inherit the earth. And then the last paradoxical one until the last one is right here in verse 6, where he says, when you're hungry and thirsty, you'll be satisfied. What are you hungering and thirsting for? He's again using a physical illustration like he did with poorness. But he's not talking about literally stomach grumbling.

I know some of you forgot to have breakfast before you came today. That's on you. All right, eat before you come. I'm going to let you out at about the same time every single week. You're going to get to have lunch.

But if you're in trouble right now, I'm sorry, that's not what Christ is speaking to here. He's saying, hunger and thirst for righteousness. This is the idea of craving it, an eager desire. This one may have challenged me as much as any of them this week to just pause for a second and say, God, do I eagerly desire righteousness? Do I crave it?

What does that even mean? What does it mean to crave righteousness that I would so long to know God and be right with him and to spend time with him that his presence would begin to just invade everything I say and the work that I do? That's what I think it means to crave righteousness. And I have to admit, I'm not there all the time. I'm not even there enough.

Like, close to enough. So I read this and go, well, it's no wonder. A lot of times I don't feel satisfied because I'm hungry and thirsty for the wrong stuff. So are you. Do you have a sense of satisfaction about your life?

I hope you do to some degree. But if there's something just feels off, something just feels like I have a longing for something that money can't buy, that relationships can't make right. I have a longing for something. Christ says, you will be blessed and you will be satisfied. When you long for the stuff you were made for.

You were made for Him. He made you for himself. You go a whole day, you go a whole 24 hours, and don't say a word to Him. You're going to have some dissatisfaction. You don't spend time in His Word.

I don't understand this thing. I'm not that smart, Jonathan. Yeah, neither were the disciples until later. And the people started going, we could tell that they've spent time with Jesus. That's what the Bible says.

We could tell that they spent time with him. Oh, I'm too blue collar? Well, you know what, if you don't know how to read, we could probably. We need to work on that as a church. Let's get together and figure out how to help you read.

But I bet almost everyone in here can read other than little man right there. He probably can't read yet. Alright, but one day he will be able to.

I heard this recently. This I hope will help you. If you spend one day a week in God's word, you'll see very minor change. If you spend two days, doesn't have to be a significant amount of time a week in His Word, you'll see a little more somewhere around four days out of seven you're like, oh my gosh, four days out of seven. Really just five minutes.

Start with five, ten minutes. Four days a week. They found that it makes significant change on the way you feel your satisfaction, the way that you control your speech, the way you spend your money. All of a sudden it starts to invade the way you live four days a week. Lord help.

What will happen if you do it every day?

Hunger and thirst for righteousness. We are to be different than this world. Not conformed to it, but transformed by God's word. Paul writes to the Romans, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. When Paul and Silas were preaching in Thessalonica, the Jews became jealous.

You can read about this in Acts chapter 17. They started getting angry because. Because they said it this way. He said, these men have turned the world upside down and people are coming out to see them. They started getting persecuted in places because the message was so countercultural, because the message was so otherworldly that people were going finally something better, something that really satisfies.

I bet a lot of you have come to church or started going to church from a hunger for something more. There's just something missing in my life and I pray that you find it in the word of God. In the walk with Christ. It says they were jealous. The men have turned the world upside down.

That's what the Gospel does. Do you understand these four blessings? I pray you do that you can be blessed when you're poor in spirit, that there's true blessing and broken humility before God, that there's true blessing and godly sorrow over your sin. There's true blessing found in surrendering your strength and depending on God, and hungering and thirsting. So let's move into the second.

I spent a lot of time there. I got right excited. The second group of blessings pursue these practices of kingdom blessings. These seem to be more like pursuits. The first group is like, all right, I've got to change the way I think.

I've got to think differently. I got to be poor in spirit, come humbly and be meek. It's about thinking. But these ones are more about practice. So we're moving from paradox to practice.

They appear to be these. Once you've received grace, give grace kind of things. Once you've received mercy, give mercy kind of things. In verse seven, he says, blessed are those who are merciful, compassionate, giving of grace, willing to forgive others. I'm going to say something really plain and really bold to you right now, Church Christians in the room.

You should not be slow to forgive. You just should not. When the power of Christ is upon you, when you're walking in the Spirit of God, forgiveness should be readily available. The reason for this is you have been forgiven so much, you can't even write it all down. You've been forgiven so much, you couldn't even begin to understand that.

He says, blessed are those who are merciful, for they will receive mercy. Now that feels like earning. This is this tension point. If I am not merciful, I won't get mercy. But remember this church.

He is speaking to the kingdom, citizens of heaven. He's not saying, hey, if you guys go on not being merciful, you've lost your salvation. That's not even close to what he's saying here. If he intended that, he would have said a little more. No, he's saying, hey, believers, those who come to faith, those who want to walk in the kingdom of God, give mercy and you'll receive mercy.

Don't be merciful as a believer and watch your life get real frustrating. Watch other people begin to treat you without mercy. It's almost like a promise to you. If you make the decision that there are certain debts, certain things against you that you simply cannot forgive, you'll start receiving much of the same. I know there's some hard situations in your past.

I'm not trying to belittle them. Some of you have been really done wrong. Maybe your Parents, maybe something really deep hurt like that that your parents did to you. Maybe a spouse, maybe a child, maybe a past boss or something. Someone really did something terrible.

And your life, Christ isn't here trying to belittle that and saying, hey, you know, you should desire persecution, you should desire suffering. That's not what he's saying at all. He's saying, however, you will be mistreated. And when you are, have the spirit of God in your life. Be merciful, for I am merciful.

Be holy, for I am holy. When you're merciful, you will receive mercy. John Piper writes on this saying, forgive us our debts. Here, looking at Matthew 6, the Lord's model prayer. He says, forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors.

Mercy comes from mercy. He says, our mercy to each other comes from God's mercy to us. So yet again, when we receive glory, we're a conduit to give it to him. When we receive mercy, we're a conduit to give it to others. It's like a reverse.

And guess what? Church in Christ Jesus, you have received immense mercy. If you haven't thought about that lately, pause for a minute. Just. I don't know, just think about last week.

Just think about last week, for instance. Did you do everything right last week? Think only pure thoughts. Say only pure things. Great to everybody.

I was a blessing to society last week. Everyone. My wife. There's no better man in the world for her. Myles, the ultimate Father, if that's you, then pray now for humility.

Because you lack the first set of blessings. My guess is there's some stuff you could look back to just maybe yesterday and go, ew.

Every single day there's things that Christ has yet again said, I paid for that. I've shown you mercy. I've shown you mercy. I've shown you mercy. Thank him for it.

But don't live in a state where you don't give mercy. This reminds me of a story that Jesus gives a parable that he gives of this man that comes and begs and pleads for the man he owed this great debt to. He says, please don't lock me up. Don't throw me in jail. And the man feels mercy and grace for him and forgives all of his debt.

And then this man who had this immense debt that he'd never be able to pay, it cost him his life. Then he goes and finds someone who owed him like a day's wages and strangles him and holds him down and says, you gotta pay me right now and the word gets back up to the main boss and has the man thrown out. I think, in fact, the Bible says there was gnashing of teeth there. All of a sudden it goes from a physical illustration to something spiritual. It's seems like church, this is how we live.

Don't look at parables like that and go, that's a weird story. I can't imagine people are like that. You're like that. I'm like that. Christ has forgiven me a debt I could not pay.

It should have costed me my eternal life. And yet he absolved me. Do you understand that? The mercy he's shown. And then you go saying, I can't forgive him.

You wouldn't believe what he said to me. Are you kidding? Pennies he owes you, pennies you owe your life. We are this way, Church. Don't say, hey, this is somebody else.

No, this is you. Christ says, blessed are the merciful, for they will be given mercy. Blessed again are the pure in heart. Now this one is utopian. This one is ideal.

Pure in heart, ethically clean, free from corrupt desire, free from sin and guilt. To the pure in heart. That means nothing is dirty in me. Really. David prayed in Psalm 51.

He says, Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Now I got news for you, Church. You got to pray that every day. You got to come back to that over and over again. Create in me a clean heart, O God.

Make me well. Cleanse me from all unrighteousness. First John 1:9, Forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

He says, those who are pure in heart will see God.

I want to know God's will in my life more than anything. I don't know about you. I want to see and know God more than I want anything in this world. Now, just to know him, just to know that he's doing something and that he's walking with me, that he's a part of my life. There's a prerequisite here that my goal is a pureness in spirit, a pureness in heart before him.

Now this is where a lot of theologians come to this and say, ah, well, this just can't be done.

It can't be done perfectly. But I think what Christ is speaking to here is as often as you come back to him in humility and in meekness and in. And it's prayer, like David saying, create in me a clean heart, God. I mean, John is right when he says he will forgive us our sins. He will cleanse us so we can come pure again every single day.

Keep short records here church. This is where you can keep the ledger. Less read, you know, the moment that you sin against God, go ahead and talk to him. Right then I'll just wait till the evening, you know, I'll remember. No, you won't remember it all.

You won't remember driving down the road and flicking someone off. You won't remember that unless it was really heavy. You're probably going to forget that part where you were just living outlandish where you cussed out a co worker. You might forget that now. You'll probably remember some big fight you had with your spouse or something like that.

But what about all those little details in there where you thought what you shouldn't know? Keep short accounts. Keep created me a clean heart. Oh God. It doesn't take long.

You don't even have to close your eyes. You know, this is just something we've kind of traditionally done. You know, you can pray with your eyes open. Just saying you can pray in the car when you're driving. And I, trust me, don't shut your eyes in that moment, right?

You can pray with your eyes open. You can pray in the middle. Some y'all don't know this, right? I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Some of you are so frustrating to deal with sometimes that.

I'm praying while you're talking to me, alright? I am praying about you while you're talking to me, alright? And I love you. I love you enough to do that for you and for me. You don't know if my lips start moving.

You know this prayer is serious, right?

Don't watch me too closely. I'll probably let you in too much. You can pray pure in heart, then you can see God. John Stott says only the pure in heart will see God. See him now with the eye of faith.

See his glory in the life of the world to come. For only the utterly sincere can bear the dazzling vision in whose light the darkness of deceit must vanish and by whose fire all pretense is burned up. This is this idea of coming in such a pure way. I feel like this is like the way a child comes up to you, a very young child and just has a simple motivation in mind. This is what Christ, I think is speaking to here.

My kids will come at times with just pureness of heart. Dad, right now all I really need in this life is another squeezy applesauce. It's just all I need right now. There's a pureness to that, you know, a little bitty toddler toddling around. All I really need right now.

Dad, is my diaper changed? I am sitting in it. It's wonderful. That's why Christ in another place says let the little children come to me. The kingdom of heaven is for such as these.

What is he talking about? He's not saying heaven's only for children. No, he's saying there's something about the heart that we could take notes about. Come purely motivated. It's not perfection.

Come in such a way. God, I just want you. I just want to know you help me with my mess. He's not saying come sinless. He's saying pureness of heart.

And then he says something that most men in the room probably hate on some level. Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be sons of God. I don't even know what to do with this. As an American who was once in the military, I don't even know what to do with this. Sometimes.

Sometimes. I had to study this one a lot this week and just think about what Christ is saying here. He's going to go into more detail about turning the other cheek and all this and we could get in all this. I'm not going to spend time. I spent two hours this week just on this one verse, alright?

I'm not going to do that to you right now. I know you're hungry, alright? So just understand I'm going to put this. Generally there's a difference between the way in which you should live individually and the way in which we should live corporately. The Bible is speaking, I think to two different things here.

In fact, if you've ever heard of the law or the rule of just war, just war theory. If you've ever heard of this, I want you to know something. This is created by Christians by primarily Thomas Aquinas. A long time ago this was men getting together, trying to figure out how to be a military of a nation as Christians and what they really determined and I think this is right, is that what Christ is speaking to here has more to do with you as an individual. Not so much what it has to do with what our nation should do.

Our nation is going to be imperfect. I don't know if you figured that out yet. News flash, it's going to be imperfect. We're going to misuse the military. We're going to misuse things all the time.

We're just going to waste $500 billion a year on who knows What? That's what the government will do. But as people, we long for peace. As the church we make peace, we forgive easily, we show mercy.

The Bible speaks often about people who come into the church as wolves. This is an affront to this verse that people who come in and say, I've got to have it my way, I don't like so and so. I'm going to do everything in my power to run off so and so. You my friend, are not a peacemaker, if that's you. And I pray that God will give us the wisdom to see wolves in our midst if they're here.

He says, blessed are the peacemakers. So what should we pursue then? Romans 14 says, Then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual up building. What we should be about is peace and encouragement. If your goal, when you come conversating, bringing something up to a brother or a sister in this church, if your goal is not their good, their betterment, then don't even waste your time.

If your goal is not encouragement, even if it mixed in with rebuke. All right, this person, let's just put it in a scenario. I can see that my brother is having trouble, he's drinking too much. Then I come saying, you can do better my friend. This is not best for you.

You can overcome this. I see this as sin. However, God's got a better future for you. But the non peacemaker would come to someone, they wouldn't even come to this guy. They'd come to the pastor and say you got to get rid of him.

He's out gallivanting on the weekends and looking, making our church look bad. Then go talk to him. Go talk to him and tell him, I love you, this isn't best for you. Instead of bleh everybody, you wouldn't believe what such and such is doing. That's not a peacemaker.

Those who live under God's blessing have these traits, mercy, pure in heart and peacemaker. Alright, I don't even have any time for point three. So here we go, pay the price. And I needed time for this. This one's a hard point.

I'm going to move quickly through it. Christ is essentially saying, pay the price for the kingdom blessings. He tells in another passage of scripture. Count the cost before you come and follow me.

This is where we've watered down Christianity as a church. Just generally just watch messages online from famous people. They're good, there's some good self help stuff in there, but a lot of them, they'll never tell you the whole truth. That Christ wants to change absolutely everything in your life, that you came broken and he wants to fix it all. He's not interested in leaving any stone unturned.

He wants to be Lord of all in your life, not just Lord of a few things. That's just a true thing. And we do you no justice when we lie to you about this. Christ says, count the cost. He says to his disciples, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.

Deny yourself, take up his cross. Does that sound like some kind of mamby pamby walk through life, Christianity? It just doesn't to me. And then he ends this text by saying, blessed are those who are persecuted. And he describes it in several ways, that you'll be reviled, People will utter evil about you, they'll lie about you.

Now he's careful here in verse 10 and 11 to say persecuted for righteousness sake, persecuted on my account. He, I think, puts that in there on purpose because some of you are getting persecuted because you did something stupid. That's on you, right? You went out and did something you shouldn't have done. And now people are angry with you.

That's not even persecution, my friends. That's called justice. But when you go longing after Christ and trying to live for him, and people make fun of you and utter lies about you because you're trying to live for the Lord, that's what Christ is speaking to. And he compares you to the prophets of old, and he says, your reward is great. And he gives in verse 12 the only commands in the whole text.

So it's like implied that these are the things you're going to desire to be poor in spirit, mourning over sin, pure in heart, peacemakers. And the only thing I'm supposed to do with that in response is rejoice and be glad.

He just said, hey, when people make fun of you, when they revile you, when they lie about you, rejoice. Cool. Why?

I don't really know how to do this perfectly, Church. But if somehow you could stand and see as God sees you would look at your life as a blip in time, as a blip. And that the most of your life as a believer will happen in the future and will happen for eternity. And when Christ says, your reward is great, there you should go, well, that's easy. That's just easy math right there.

I'll suffer a couple of foul words. They had it worse. Church. Let's just be honest. The Christians in this day, Paul's beheaded, Peter's Hung upside down.

John gets boiled and left for dead. They're getting it rough. You. Sometimes people will say, I can't believe you won't work on Sundays. What a piece of work.

Hard. I know. It's so hard. I'm trying to treat my wife well. I can't believe you would do that.

You know who does that? Who tries to maintain a marriage in this world? Just move on. Move on.

Don't spank your kids. Do spank your kids. Gentle parent your kids. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm just going to do what God's word said.

Raise them up in the way they should go, and they won't depart from it. They might, you know, they might venture here and there. I can't control everything they do right. It's not even up to me. Raise them up in the Lord.

Do not spare the rod. The Bible says some of you are going to want to talk to me afterwards. Come on. That's what it says. It's worked.

It worked for me. I can tell you right now, I needed to spank in every single day of my life growing up. I just did. I was on it. And here I am preaching.

I didn't see that coming.

Kingdom living necessarily brings persecution. This is a guarantee church. Some of you might as well just go ahead and say, all right, sign me out. I don't want to be a part of the kingdom of God. Fair enough.

At least you're honest. But if you're saying, hey, I'm God's children, I want to be a part of God's kingdom, it necessarily brings persecution. Jesus promises this. He says, hey, if they made fun of me, guess what? They're going to make fun of you.

If they persecuted me, they're absolutely going to persecute you. Paul tells Timothy this very, very plainly. Second Timothy, chapter three, indeed. All who desire. How many?

All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Hallelujah. At least now when it happens, I know, hey, I'm going the right direction. If you're not making a splash at all, then the devil's right. Pleased with your life, you're doing nothing.

I want to end with this thought just so you could be encouraged. This might not sound encouraging, but I think it should encourage you. You can pop up this image for me. This is from a group called Open Door International. This is a world watch list that describes how one in seven Christians are persecuted.

One in five in Africa, two in five in Asia. Last year, almost 4,500 Christians were murdered for their faith. Over 7,000 churches were attacked. Almost 5,000 were imprisoned for their faith. The president of Open Doors says this.

You might look at that list and think it's all about oppression and persecution, but he says it's not. He says, in reality, this is all about resilience. The numbers of God's people who are suffering daily should mean that the church is dying. However, it is not that Christians are keeping. You might think that Christians are keeping quiet, losing their faith, turning away from one another, but the opposite is happening instead.

In living color, we see the word of God going forth. Do you know where the church is slowest growing.

Why? Because we're not truly being persecuted. And I'm not saying, hey, church, we better start praying for persecution. That's not what Christ has said. He says it's blessed when you are.

He doesn't say pray for it like some kind of weirdo church. Father Tertullian, cool name. Y'all can use that for your kids. Tertullian. He said the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.

He was right about this. The fastest growing church, one of the fastest growing in the world is in China, where they're greatly persecuted. In Africa, where there's great persecution. I've been to Uganda and I saw some people that were fired up about their faith like I hadn't seen. I mean, it was wild.

Planting churches day by day. It was awesome to see. And it was hard to be a Christian there. Kingdom living invites worldly opposition. Just know this as a church.

When you start getting serious about this walking with Christ Jesus, people don't get that. Your own family won't get that. Your own family will go, what is wrong with you? We were expecting complaining Jonathan to show up at this holiday. And Hopeful Jonathan showed up and we don't like him.

We like it when you just complain all the time because it makes us feel at home. Well, he died Complaining Jonathan died. Guess what? I am a new creation in Christ Jesus. Behold, the new has come.

Get used to Hopeful Jonathan. Even if it kills you. Kingdom living brings opposition. I pray that in Christ Jesus we can receive these kingdom blessings. This is a greater way to live.

This is better. In fact, this is God's best for you. That you would come with humility, that you would understand how to hunger and crave righteousness. That you would make peace. And that when people make fun of you or whatever, they revile you, whatever ends up happening in your life, that you would say, hey, but the reward in Christ Jesus is better, not just in the future, but in the now, it's just better understand the paradoxes, pursue the practice and pay willingly pay the price.

Let's pray now together. Church Heavenly Father, we ask that you would so guide us, that you would so bless us in this. We look at this list of Beatitudes, this really cool list that we've heard maybe a lot if we grew up in the church, and maybe today we're hearing it in a way and going, man, I don't know if I can do that. I don't know if I can. I know that I'm not craving righteousness like I should.

I know that at times I don't make peace. I make a mess. God, I'm not this guy all the time. Lord, I lay that at your feet. God, would you make your church just to chime in on one specific attitude, make us pure in heart.

I feel like in so many ways, if we would come to you in a pureness of heart that you would begin to work on all these other little things when we would come to you poorly in spirit and pure of heart and just say, God, I'm a mess, God, I don't say what I ought. I don't think what I ought. I'm being terrible to my spouse. I don't know how to parent. I'm having trouble at work.

I'm lazy at times, I don't care at times I'm apathetic. I'm having the worst trouble with my parents. I'm addicted to something, God, I'm a mess.

I know that in that very moment when we come purely in heart before you and say, God, I'm not what I desire to be or what you've called me to be, but would you make me? So I pray for your church today, myself included, that that would be the kind of way we approach you. It's just like little children saying, God, forgive me, dad, forgive me, help me. And God, would you show up in a mighty way when we do that, that you would so move us and stir us to be more like you. To.

To walk holy in this place and draw other people in, like Paul and Silas. As we read earlier that the people were jealous because so many were turning towards them and saying, we want what you have. We want to live like you live, God, would you do that in us? I pray for that person that's come today and they can't do anything on this list. They look at it and go, this is completely foreign.

And the reason being is because I don't know this Jesus I haven't received him for myself. I've heard some things about. I've heard some things. I've heard some stories. I've been to a Christmas service or two.

If that's you, my friend, and you're feeling the desire to say yes to Christ today, to count the cost and say it's worth it. It's worth it to know him. Because he's made me for himself. He has a better plan than I do. If that's you today, friend, Romans chapter 10 says very plainly.

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Pray simply with me, my friend Jesus. I believe that you are Lord of my life. I believe that you died on the cross for my sins. I repent of them now.

God, I am sorry for how I've lived on my own and apart from you. I lay them now at your feet believing that you've already paid for them. Now that I've received you and God, I believe that you raised Christ Jesus from the dead. That gives me incredible hope. And now, Father, I ask that you would guide me in this life to live out these blessings.

This upside down kind of thinking. God help me to understand it and pursue it. It. Do this in all of us, Lord Jesus, we pray. Do this in all of us.

That we would pursue you. That we would crave righteousness, that we would look more like Jesus tomorrow than we did today. We pray all this in Jesus name, Amen.