Matthew 5:7-12 | Four Attitudes of Love

Sunday Morning | August 23, 2026 | John C. Majors | Louisville, KY

In the second part of the Beatitudes, Pastor John explores four attitudes that reflect the love and character of Christ: mercy, purity, peacemaking, and perseverance through persecution. Jesus calls His followers to be merciful, recognizing that we are no better than anyone else; to be pure and undivided in heart rather than double-minded; to be peacemakers who are willing to take the high road and pursue reconciliation; and to remain faithful even when following Christ is unpopular or brings persecution. Throughout the Sermon on the Mount, these qualities reveal a life transformed from the inside out, reminding us that true discipleship is not about seeking the approval of others but remaining faithful to Jesus—even when it requires suffering. Ultimately, the greatest and final blessing of the Beatitudes is found not in our circumstances or the world's approval, but in the Son, Jesus Christ, who is our example, our hope, and our reward.

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Thank you. Good morning, Valley View. It's great to be with you as we continue in our study of the Sermon on the Mount. We're going to be looking at the second half of the Beatitudes. We looked at the first half last week. We did an introduction to the Beatitudes, and we showed how it related in some ways to the Ten Commandments, having this structure of the first half being about our relationship with God and the second half about our relationship with others. And we're not going to slice that too finely, because there's overlap between those. But today, the second half will be about our relationship with others, about loving others. And if you're a Christian, if you've been involved in church in any amount of time, you know that's an important part of being a Christian is loving others as well. However, what do you do when you're around those who are hard to love? This is a no elbow zone, by the way, right now, especially as important that you hold very still. Don't go elbowing people around you. What do you do when you encounter those who are hard to love? There are people in your life who are difficult to love. It may be at someone at work, someone you've been forced to work with. You didn't want to work with them. But now here you are and you got to figure out how to get along. Maybe it's someone at school you didn't want to be in class with them. You had the same last name or a similar last name, so you have to sit next to them. We didn't want that. But here we are. How do we love them? Well, maybe it's someone in your family. You don't get to choose your family. Maybe even it's someone at church. Not this church. Of course, we're not talking about our church. It's other churches out there who have struggles loving one another. But you know what I'm saying? There are people out there who can be difficult to love. And so what do you do? We're going to see in the Beatitudes, the second half of the Beatitudes. How do you love? Well, in fact, we're going to focus on four attitudes of love, for mindsets of love. When you're encountering that person that is hard to love. What's the mindset we're called to have as a Christian? These are shown in the Beatitudes today. So we're going to read through all of the Beatitudes, which is in Matthew chapter five. If you have a Bible, you want to turn there. If you have a church Bible that's on page 769, if you don't have a Bible, we have Bibles out in the lobby. We'd love for you to have one. We'd love for you to be able to have your own copy of the Bible that you can read and turn to at any time. You can slip out any time and grab a copy of that. Turn to Matthew five and let's all stand while I read through all the Beatitudes. We're going to reread them all, even though we'll focus on the second half today. Just stand as a sign of reverence for God's Word as I read through these Matthew chapter five, verse one. 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. Those are the verses we focused on last week. Now we turn our attention, verse seven through 12 that will focus on this week. 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. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you, and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. You can be seated. For attitudes of love are going to be summed up in this second grouping of the Beatitudes. And we're starting with verse seven, blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. We are called as Christians to extend mercy to others. And the attitude of mercy, that we're going to unpack the attitude behind that, that we should have is. And if you have a notes outline, this would be the first point in your notes. I'm no better than you, but as a Christian, we have that mindset. We should not walking around feeling superior to others, but we should have the mindset. I'm no better than you. Let's talk about what that means when it refers to extending mercy. We know that mercy is a key teaching in Scripture. Even in the Old Testament. We saw in Micah six eight. What does the Lord require of you? Oh, man, it's to to do justly, walk humbly, love mercy, or love kindness, depending on your translation. But there should be this love for mercy, this desire to extend mercy to others. There's even an emphasis in the Old Testament. And then we get to the New Testament. You see it show up in a number of different places. You get the story of the Good Samaritan. It's probably the most quintessential picture of mercy in all of Scripture. The good Samaritan, the Good Samaritan, the Samaritan says, I know the social conventions say Jews and Samaritans don't mix. I know they say we stay far apart, but I don't care. I see someone who's hurting and I'm going to go show them mercy. I'm going to help them. It doesn't matter what other people think. It's at our very human core, in our nature, and especially as Christians, is to extend mercy to others. It's a beautiful picture of that in the Good Samaritan. And then we get the opposite picture in the story of the unfaithful steward. That's in Matthew chapter 18. We'll turn to that in just a second if you want to pre-term there. But in summarizing the story, there's a guy who is owes what by many accounts believe in our terms billions of dollars, and he pleads for forgiveness and the debt is forgiven. And he turns around and just brutalize as someone who owes him a very small amount. Oh, he's he's forgiven billions and then won't forgive someone $1,000. And that story gets summarized in Matthew 18. If you want to flip over that, the summary teaching there, the issue at hand. The big problem that he's driving towards. If you look at verse 32. The master summoned him and said to him, you wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you? I showed you so mercy, so much mercy, and yet you can't extend just a small measure of mercy to someone else. He threw him in jail to pay his debt. And then verse 35, so also my heavenly father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. That's the key word we're going to see in the Sermon on the Mount. Even if the word doesn't show up, the idea is there over and over again the heart. We'll see it in the Lord's Prayer. It ends with, forgive us our debts, as we forgive those who have debt against us, who trespass against us. And it ends if you if you are not able to forgive others, how do you expect God to forgive you? The issue is the heart. We're going to come back to that over and over again, because Jesus cares so much more about your heart than your actions. Now he cares about the actions to. In fact, the word will hear. He cares more about your heart than your appearances. That's what he's going to attack the Pharisees about over and over again. You can appear to have it all together on the outside. You can appear to be doing everything great, and you've seen that. You've known people like that on the outside, they seem to be the model Christian, the model family member. And you found out later that wasn't the case. Their hearts were hard and dark and bitter. This was the main criticism Jesus had of the Pharisees. There's this whole section in Matthew called The Woes in Matthew 23. Flip over to their real quick, just a few pages over from where we were in 18, because he addresses this with them. In fact, he has a favorite word for the Pharisees. He calls them hypocrites. In fact, Matthew uses the word hypocrite more than any other book over and over again. Hypocrites. And there's this whole section where a number of times he says, hypocrite, hypocrite, hypocrite. If you look at verse 25, Matthew 2325, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You see that same wording over and over again? Woe to you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but the inside they are full of greed and self-indulgent indulgence, you blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean. The Pharisees were all about the religious rituals and rules to make sure everything looked right on the outside. We cleaned the club, the plate, the dish, all in the proper order. Washed the hands in the right way. But look, it doesn't matter how clean the outside of the cup is, if there's poison inside, it doesn't matter. And he's saying to them, you take so much care for the outside and you've forgotten about the heart. He says it again more directly here. Wo to you. Verse 27, woe to you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs which outwardly appear beautiful, but within our full of dead people's bones and all uncleanliness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. We saw this in the revelation with the church of Sardis. You have the appearance of being alive, but you are dead. My first car was a 1989 Malibu lowrider. It was awesome. It was great. I love that car. But there came a point where I was ready to upgrade and I wanted to go the other extreme. I wanted a Jeep. And so I started looking at jeeps. I found one I liked, and I took it to our mechanic and I said, hey, just look this over for me. Give it a quick once over to make sure it's good to go before I buy it, because I'm ready to buy it. And he puts it up on the lift and he takes a screwdriver and he just starts to press on the frame, which was freshly painted. It looked great. And he presses and he presses, and then all of a sudden the screwdriver goes straight through the frame and he said, John, you don't you don't want this jeep. I said, no, I still want it. He said, don't, do not buy this Jeep, because the issue is you can't just put paint over deep rust. That won't fix it. You gotta go all the way down to the core, to the heart of the issue to address it. And this is what Jesus is concerned about. Not appearances, but the heart. He wants to press in to the heart, and at the heart of how we approach others is mercy. I know, and it doesn't matter how long you've been a Christian, it doesn't matter how long you've been in church. You still carry the mindset of, I know I'm not any better than anybody else here. In fact, I used to get so mad when I would hear stories of well-known Christian leaders, pastors who have some kind of public moral failing. I would get so angry at them. How dare you defile the name of Christ that way? And that is a legitimate concern. But I think over time that anger has turned to sorrow. Sadness for them. One guy posted a picture of his family as he talked about his failure. I thought, your family has got to go through this as well. Your children publicly have to walk through this. It just makes me so sad. And it also is a reminder that apart from Christ, apart from the Holy Spirit, apart from accountability, I'm no better than that guy and none of us are. And because we know how much mercy we've been extended, that gives us the ability to extend that to others. We can walk in the mercy we've received. Blessed are those who are merciful because they received mercy. And we can also extend mercy, forgiveness, love to others. So that's the first mindset of how you love the unlovable. Start with look, I'm no better than you. Second, look here at verse eight. Our second beatitude we're looking at today. First was blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Second, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. What's the mindset here? The attitude of love to have. I will not be in my love towards others. I will not be double minded. The pure in heart is not double minded. I'm not one way in one setting and the exact opposite way in the other. I'm not going to be double minded. I'm going to be pure in heart. Now, I think there's a couple of different ways to take that, and part of the ways to understand this is to understand the backdrop of the Beatitudes. So much of the Beatitudes have the Old Testament as the backdrop, especially the Psalms. The Psalms are a huge backdrop. In fact, we quoted one of them last week directly. If you look at Psalm 24, you can turn there if you want or not. I'm going to quickly quote it. Most believe Psalm 24 is the clear backdrop for this passage, in particular Psalm 24 for he who has cleaned hands and a pure heart, there's that phrase purity of heart. He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false, does not swear deceitfully. He will receive blessings from the Lord. There's that word blessing. So you have purity of heart, blessed, same phrasing, same wording. There together he will receive blessings from the Lord, righteousness from the God of his salvation. So you have Psalm 24 as a backdrop. Purity in heart are those who are blessed. You also remember David after his sin with Bathsheba in Psalm 51 he said, Lord, create in me a clean heart, a pure heart. Renew a right spirit within me. You have these psalms, these passages as backdrop for us. And a Christian should want to be pure in heart. Again, not just about appearances. We want pure heart. We want to make sure we're right with Christ in heart as well, when it would be double minded or duplicitous, or saying one thing in public, doing something else in private. God was very critical of the of Israel for this reality. Isaiah 2913 addresses this where he says to them, you pay me roughly says it like this you pay me great lip service, but your hearts are far from me. You say all the right things. Oh, we love you, Lord. We do anything for you. If you just get me out of this jam, I'll do anything for you, I promise. Never again will I do that again. You say all the right things, but your hearts are far from me. That's not how it should be. It's not about appearance. Its first. Its heart first and foremost. I think probably we can look at this in two different layers. To be pure in heart with God means first and foremost, he has cleansed my heart. I know it's he who cleans my heart. It's not because of how many great actions I've taken to clean my own heart that now I am pure before him. No, he is the. I know how dark my heart is to begin with. He is the one who purifies and cleanses the heart. This is critical because. You know so much of our surroundings influence the way we act, and I think many people have this mindset. If it just weren't the people I was around, I'd act different. Or if it just wasn't the way I was brought up, I'd act different. Or if it wasn't for society, I'd act different. And of course, yes, those are a factor. Those play a role. But where we're Adam and Eve when they sinned. It's not your question. You should know this one. This one's pretty straightforward. They were in the garden in a place of perfection, and they still stumbled. The issue James four speaks to I've listed verses in your notes. Is the heart what is the source of the sin within you? What is the source of the quarrels, the fights among you? Is it not this that your passions are at war within you? And he says these two words you desire and you covet. The issue is that the sin starts here. And so I need him to purify me. And I'm not double minded in my relationship with him. I'm not thinking, yeah, look at what I did. And I know it's him, only him singularly that cleanses the heart. But I'm also not double minded in my relationship with you, with others, with one another. I don't say one thing to you. Turn around. Say the opposite to someone else. We don't do that as Christians. We're we're called to be straightforward. We're called to say, let our yes be yes, our no be no mean what you say. Say what you mean. We're called to be straightforward and a kind and loving way. Sadly, that's not always the case. Of all the work relationships I've ever had, the most difficult by far, it wasn't when I was working in the grocery store as a kid. It wasn't when I was working in engineering in various manufacturing settings. It was when I was serving in ministry, not here at church, by the way. Don't worry, that's not not some other staff member here or any of you. But it was in another ministry setting and there were two guys there consistently. I'd be in a meeting with one of them. We'd come to an agreement. We have a clear agreement there together. We were on the same page. Right. I repeat what we agreed to. Yes. Of course. Yes. All in. Not an hour later, I'd hear from someone else. The exact opposite from them. Oh, so-and-so told me this. The exact opposite of what we had just talked about. And that happened over and over and over again. And I get that that happens in, let's say, politics. That's that's part of the political game. I don't understand it. I don't think it's right. That shouldn't be the case among Christians are leaders in Christian ministry. We're called to be pure in heart with one another, not duplicitous, not double minded. So that's the second attitude to have as we seek to love others. And then third, look at verse nine. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Part of what this means for us is that the peacemaker is the person who says, I can take the high road. I can take the high road. I don't always have to be right. I don't always have to be the one in charge. I don't I don't have to go on the defensive. I can take the high road. I can be offended and survive and get through it. This is part of what it's at the heart of, of peacemaking. Blessed are the peacemakers, so that for they shall be called sons of God. Again, behind this we see some of the Old Testament. We see the Psalm. Psalm 3414 is a verse I've listed there. And the simple phrase there is seek peace and pursue it. So we're not ones who just sit around hoping peace occurs. We pursue. It takes wisdom on how to do that. But the reason we do that is because Jesus set the model for us. We said, leave us alone. We don't want any part of you. Each of us said that to him at some point in our life. Maybe you didn't say the words, but you meant it in your heart. God, leave me alone. I got this on my own. Don't tell me what to do. I got this figured out. And of course, hopefully, as we talked about last week, we come to the end of ourselves. We hit the point, we hit rock bottom and we go, oh, I was wrong. I don't got this. Would you show up? But even when we were saying, leave me alone, get out of my life, he wasn't giving up on you. He was the one pursuing you. And he may have let you go in your own way to get there, because he knew you weren't listening. But he was still in pursuit. He was still waiting for you. He was the one initiating peace. He's the one who died on our behalf. And that's the model, he said. For us, we don't just sit around going, well, look, hey, once they're ready to apologize and come to me on my terms, maybe then I'll maybe pursue peace. We'll see. Now we're the ones with a posture of. We want to see peace happen. We are the ones who are pursuing peace, who are making peace, who are hoping that peace comes about in relationships. And I think, as a side note, it's important to mention if you're someone that everywhere you go, all your relationships are filled with strife. If it seems that everyone is against you, if it seems like there is never any peace around you, it's going to be hard to say. But maybe you need to just take stock and wonder. There's one common denominator and all those relationships. Maybe the issue is in everybody else in the world, maybe it's you, maybe not. Okay, maybe not. And we're going to look at that in the next beatitude, maybe not. But it's healthy to take stock and go, you know what? Maybe I have been the kind of person that just loves to stir up strife. Maybe that's who I was before I knew Christ. I still have those patterns. You might have to pause and go. I need a new way of thinking. I need a new way of behaving. I need a new way to engage with people. I also need to say something else. And this is going to be hard to say, and it's going to be hard to engage around, but it's important. Peacemakers doesn't mean keeping the peace at all costs. And some of you are in homes where some have used Scripture to continue to abuse you. And I don't know specifically. I don't have anyone in mind. But it's not okay. You don't have to keep allowing someone to sin against you. If there's abuse in your home, you need to remove yourself from that situation for your protection, for your children's protection. And if someone is using Scripture to continue to justify their abuse, that is evil. That is not Christ like. That's evil. Remove yourself from that situation. Come to us and talk to us. Let us come alongside you and help you. That's not what peacemaking is about, but turning it back to us in the church we should be known for those who are quick to diffuse, to not be defensive, to not make it about us. We can take the high road, we can be offended, and we can pursue peace. That's part of the mindset of how we love one another. That's part of the mindset of what it means to be peacemakers. In fact, Romans 1218 says, as far as it depends on you, and that's an important phrase. Some people don't want peace no matter what you do. So as far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. We can do this because second Corinthians five in your notes, Jesus sought peace with us. He gave us the ministry of reconciliation. Therefore be at peace with all men. He set the model for us in that, and we can follow that. Peacemakers. We are ones who know that we can take the high road. And then let's look at the fourth mindset, the fourth attitude to have when it comes to loving others. Verse ten, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. What's the fourth mindset we have when it comes to loving others? Well, it's just knowing that following Christ isn't the popular path. It's not. Pursuing Christ isn't a path we take so that we can gain more wealth and fame and popularity and health. And look, some of that may happen as a result. It may, but that's not what the gospel is about. It's not inherently come to know Jesus so that then you'll be richer. You'll be happier. I hope you end up happier. You'll be more popular. You'll be you'll have more success in the business world. That's actually, in many ways, the opposite of what the gospel teaches. Don't sign up for Christianity thinking. And this is a this is the pathway to greater success I've always been looking for. Now side note you will find greater joy than you could ever imagine. It just won't look like what this world tells you is the path to joy. And this should be no surprise. This should be no surprise at all. In fact, these beatitudes tell us I don't think it's any coincidence that verse many believe verses 11 and 12 are just an unpacking of verse ten. But just look at the volume, verse ten, 11 and 12 compared to verse seven, eight and nine. I mean, it's a gigantic amount on the fact that you should expect suffering. Let's look back at these. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. We saw that phrase last week that started the Beatitudes in verse three. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. We see it here in verse ten. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. All of the Beatitudes are unpacking. What does it look like to live in the kingdom of heaven? What does it look like to live under Jesus's rule and reign? What's interesting is Matthew is the only one who uses that phrase. It doesn't appear anywhere else in the New Testament Kingdom of heaven. It's always kingdom of God. Matthew uses Kingdom of heaven because he knows that the Jews, who are his primary audience, think that Jesus is going to come, the Messiah is going to come, and he's going to set up a new kingdom on earth. And so now we are the ones who are going to be in charge. We are going to be the powerful ones. Again, you'll drive out the Romans and we'll have political rule over this earth. But no, no, no, no, it's the kingdom of heaven. Know where your kingdom is. And so we're not surprised when Jesus comes and says, hey, you should expect to be persecuted. You should expect to suffer. In fact, he says in verse 11, blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. You shouldn't be surprised when there is suffering, when there's persecution, when people revile you and speak ill of you because you follow Christ. We're not surprised because he said in John 15, they hated me first, they're going to hate you, and you've experienced this with friends, with family, with loved ones. When you have taken a stand for Christ and you felt their hatred, maybe it's someone at school or work. This world will not tolerate you following Christ when it comes to certain issues. You take a stand for Christ. They will hate you. They will despise you. They will not tolerate it at all. It's a deep offense to them. When you say, I've got a standard I'm going to follow that's of Christ and not of this world. In fact, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, I've put a quote in your notes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He was a pastor in Germany during World War Two. He was known for taking a stand against Hitler and what he was trying to do, and it cost him his life. Many of the pastors in Germany were going along with what Hitler was saying, that Dietrich Bonhoeffer and a number of other said, this is not right. We can't go this direction. This is unchristian. And here's what he said. If you see it in your notes and the quote should be on the screen as well, suffering, then is the badge of the true disciple. The disciple is not above his master. Discipleship means allegiance to the suffering Christ, and it is therefore not at all surprising that Christian should be called upon to suffer. We shouldn't be shocked that there will be moments of persecution and suffer suffering when that's what Jesus did, when that's what Jesus went through. So if you've ever been a part of a Christian teacher that's saying you should never suffer. You should never go through anything hard. That is not that's not Christianity. It doesn't reflect who Christ is and what he did. Okay. But what he does here that's different is he gives us a path forward. He gives us a path through it. And I confess, verse 12, I think it's one of the harder verses to stomach in all of the Sermon on the Mount. It's one of the harder verses to process because it's one thing to say, hey, you're going to face suffering and persecution, it's going to be hard and you need to get through it. But verse 12 goes far beyond that. Verse 12 doesn't just leave you in, we're somehow going to manage it. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. In fact, in the Luke version of this, you know Luke has some of the Beatitudes repeated in a similar sermon there in Luke. In that version it says, jump for joy. I gotta tell you, I don't know that I'm always there. I don't I don't know that I go, yes, persecution. I don't that's not my immediate reaction. And I'm guessing it's probably not for most of us. But the reality is, whether you're Christian or unchristian, you're going to face challenges in this life. You're going to face suffering. You're going to face and not Christian persecution, but you're going to have others opposed to you. The non-Christian has no path forward. And Jesus says, look, there is a greater reward coming one day. Rejoice. In fact, in acts five, the disciples, when they were persecuted, they were whipped. They were beaten. They're leaving their with bloodied backs. Their shirts are probably sticking to their backs because their flesh is torn and bloody, and they're rejoicing that they were counted worthy of the gospel, worthy enough to be beaten. I don't know how we get there. Some of you, I think, probably do have that mindset. I see it on your face. I see the joy in your heart. I think of it there of us go, I hope, man, I hope that's my response. Persecution looks different for us as Americans. There's as much persecution going on around the world now as there ever has been in the history of the world. It doesn't mean that we'll never face it. Rejoice. Take great joy. Take great delight that you are counted worthy that he thought you could handle it. That's a whole different mindset. But it comes back to this idea. Following Christ isn't the popular path. And Hebrews 12 it says he, for the joy set before him endured the cross. Lastly, I want to point out one thing that ties the Beatitudes all together because remember the context. He's speaking to a Jewish audience, and he's largely going to address the fact that the Pharisees have misunderstood a lot of what the law was teaching, and they've missed the heart. Part of the backdrop for all of this. There's a reason why he keeps repeating the word blessed over and over again. We're going to end in Psalms one, Psalm one and two. The Book of Psalms is a powerful section of Scripture. Every Jew would have known so much of it. That would have been what they sang when they gathered to worship. They would have just sang the psalms. That was their songbook and the very first word in Psalms. This is a word they would have heard over and over again. And most believed Psalm one and Psalm to act as an introduction to the whole book of Psalms, the very first word of the Book of Psalms, the introduction to the whole book that sets up the whole understanding of the book is the word we've heard over and over again. And Beatitudes. Blessed. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, stands in the way of sinners, sits in the seat of scoffers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. So the Jews already understood. You want a blessed life. You want to want to know what it means to have God's favor, God's flourishing in your life. Meditate on his law, know his law, be in his law. And that's one side of it. But here's where it comes full circle, because the end of the intro to Psalms is at the end of chapter two, and that word blessed shows up again. And now we'll understand where ultimately you find our fulfillment in blessing. Look at how chapter two ends. Verse 12, kiss the son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way for his wrath as quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. Blessed are all who take refuge in the sun. You want to know what blessing, true blessing, true favor, true flourishing is? It starts in the law, but it is completed. In fact, this is the final blank in your outline. True and final blessing is found in the sun. And of course we know that is Jesus points to who he is. That is where we find blessing.