WEBVTT 00:00:04.886 --> 00:00:11.054 First off, really thank you for giving me the opportunity to teach you guys and speak. 00:00:11.054 --> 00:00:17.852 It's a pleasure you don't often get to teach to the body of Christ. 00:00:17.852 --> 00:00:26.042 I mean, that's a privilege God gives to elders, to men of God, and I really appreciate it to elders, to men of God, and I really appreciate it. 00:00:26.042 --> 00:00:40.564 Tonight we're looking at the very last beatitude in the Sermon on the Mount, but there's some main things I want to cover before we start on that. 00:00:40.564 --> 00:00:46.511 Matthew 5.10 says Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of God. 00:00:46.511 --> 00:00:49.933 It's present tense, theirs is. 00:00:49.933 --> 00:00:57.526 It doesn't say maybe it says is, and that's important to really think about. 00:00:57.526 --> 00:00:58.768 There's so much in that. 00:00:58.768 --> 00:01:10.216 But the main thing on the Sermon on the Mount Jesus is talking about, he does several things. 00:01:10.216 --> 00:01:18.787 He is introducing a new covenant and he's introducing something here to the people that's really hard to grasp. 00:01:18.787 --> 00:01:31.593 Number one I got this out of the book that Mark Medley wrote called Trinity Trilogy, and Jesus calls God Father 17 times in the Sermon on the Mount. 00:01:31.593 --> 00:01:44.180 Calls him Father, and he's talking to Jews and he's saying Abba, father. 00:01:44.180 --> 00:01:51.063 And can you imagine how strange that might be to all those people to hear him call god abba. 00:01:51.063 --> 00:02:04.371 Father, you know, even today we all are focused on following rules and obeying the law, and I know that personally because I've broke the law in the past and I've paid the price. 00:02:04.371 --> 00:02:13.116 And Jesus is promising those who are persecuted will see the kingdom of God. 00:02:13.116 --> 00:02:34.372 He's given them a key to heaven and each blessing that he says in the Sermon on the Mount is a key to heaven that he's releasing as a seed, a mustard seed that's planted for when the holy spirit is released, that seed is going to birth and and be a key into the kingdom of heaven. 00:02:34.372 --> 00:02:41.193 And that's that's what I've been learning about the love of god through this sermon on the mount. 00:02:41.193 --> 00:02:42.562 It's amazing stuff. 00:02:42.562 --> 00:02:44.525 You've heard that. 00:02:44.525 --> 00:02:49.754 You've heard all your life, that you should become a better rule follower. 00:02:49.754 --> 00:02:53.931 But I ask you, what is the state of your heart? 00:02:53.931 --> 00:02:57.489 And that's what Jesus was asking. 00:02:57.489 --> 00:02:59.907 What is the state of your heart? 00:02:59.907 --> 00:03:03.468 And that is a major thing. 00:03:03.468 --> 00:03:06.868 He was asking then and he's still asking today. 00:03:06.868 --> 00:03:10.889 And still a lot of us don't really get that point. 00:03:10.889 --> 00:03:17.774 We still are stuck in the religious thought of being a Christian. 00:03:17.774 --> 00:03:32.526 We're stuck in obeying the rules, we're stuck in doing what's right, but our heart is far from God and I learned that the hard way, through my testimony but through persecution. 00:03:33.647 --> 00:03:36.252 I remember when I first got saved. 00:03:36.252 --> 00:03:46.153 I got saved on Tony Evans's front porch when I was 17 years old and Trinity was on Dedrick. 00:03:46.153 --> 00:03:55.408 Back then Mark was the praise and worship leader and I started going to house church with my brother Tim. 00:03:55.408 --> 00:04:19.646 He had a house church and I remember the college group started going out and we would go to Cumberland Avenue on the weekends Friday and Saturday night and we would witness to people on Cumberland Avenue that were hopping all the bars drinking drunks, and I was always a person that was a brawler. 00:04:19.646 --> 00:04:24.271 I liked to fight, I like to get you know, do things like that. 00:04:25.793 --> 00:04:43.076 But once I got saved and become a Christian, I was going with the college group out on Cumberland Avenue to witness and I witnessed to a guy that was. 00:04:43.076 --> 00:04:55.327 He was drunk and all of a sudden this guy just hit me in the chest hard as he could and normally my reaction would have been to start fighting, but it wasn't. 00:04:55.327 --> 00:05:13.788 I was speechless and I just stood there and everybody else just was like in awe and I was like, wow, he hit me for sharing jesus and and the revelation hit me. 00:05:13.788 --> 00:05:21.425 That's, that's why he hit me, just for being kind to him, and that's persecution. 00:05:21.425 --> 00:05:23.528 That's what persecution? 00:05:24.690 --> 00:05:27.115 And there's different forms of persecution. 00:05:27.115 --> 00:05:27.841 You know now. 00:05:27.841 --> 00:05:32.353 The Bible says that we will experience trials and tribulations. 00:05:32.353 --> 00:05:37.752 Every Christian will experience that in your life of sanctification. 00:05:37.752 --> 00:05:40.088 But that's not persecution. 00:05:41.779 --> 00:05:55.934 Persecution is when you are being treated ill for being righteous, because people see the presence of Jesus in your life. 00:05:55.934 --> 00:06:05.870 You won't be persecuted if you don't have the fragrance of Jesus on your life, and that's what the Beatitudes is saying. 00:06:05.870 --> 00:06:19.192 You have to have the fragrance of Jesus, showing the righteousness of Jesus, not your own righteousness, it's not our own, but it's the righteousness of Jesus Christ himself. 00:06:19.192 --> 00:06:32.968 And, like we've been hearing in all the other messages from Eben and Josh and all the other guys, and even Tyler on Sundays, it's about your identity. 00:06:32.968 --> 00:06:38.607 It's about who you are in Christ, and that's what Jesus was teaching. 00:06:38.607 --> 00:06:41.404 He was teaching you know. 00:06:41.404 --> 00:06:43.391 This is an identity. 00:06:43.391 --> 00:06:47.307 You can be an adopted child of God. 00:06:47.307 --> 00:06:50.221 You don't have to be a rule follower. 00:06:50.221 --> 00:06:52.586 You don't have to obey the law. 00:06:52.586 --> 00:07:00.728 You do have to obey the laws, but you do it with the desire of your heart, because Jesus has become in you. 00:07:00.728 --> 00:07:02.913 He's in you, he's living in you, he's living in you. 00:07:02.913 --> 00:07:04.435 You become a child of God. 00:07:04.435 --> 00:07:10.007 The presence of Jesus Christ is in you and that's why you would be persecuted. 00:07:10.988 --> 00:07:16.084 And now here recently, we've experienced some in the prison ministry. 00:07:16.084 --> 00:07:20.870 It's not violent persecution, it's not. 00:07:20.870 --> 00:07:24.795 It's not, you know, hateful persecution. 00:07:24.795 --> 00:07:35.759 But there are some people in the administration that don't like the fact that Jesus is being shared in the prison. 00:07:35.759 --> 00:07:42.305 And what we've been sharing in the prison is the same thing we've been sharing here at Trinity your identity. 00:07:42.305 --> 00:07:48.663 It's up to you to show the fragrance of Christ in your life to all the other prisoners. 00:07:48.663 --> 00:07:50.146 We can't do it. 00:07:50.146 --> 00:07:59.093 We can come up here and share gospel with you and love on you, but you have to change the prison and that's what they've been doing. 00:07:59.093 --> 00:08:04.704 And there's been an outburst of the Holy Spirit at Morgan County Prison. 00:08:04.704 --> 00:08:06.404 And there's been an outburst of the Holy Spirit at Morgan County Prison. 00:08:06.404 --> 00:08:08.607 They witnessed it this past Sunday evening. 00:08:08.607 --> 00:08:14.552 And the administration some in the administration are working against us because of that. 00:08:14.552 --> 00:08:26.637 I showed up on a Wednesday morning, like I always do, being a volunteer chaplain, and I'm told I ain't allowed in. 00:08:26.637 --> 00:08:37.325 All of a sudden, just boom, I'm not allowed in and I'm still on hold waiting for them to let me back in. 00:08:37.325 --> 00:08:39.289 Pastor Tyler's been trying to go through orientation for what? 00:08:39.289 --> 00:08:43.721 Three months more, and now they're telling him he has to go through orientation again. 00:08:43.721 --> 00:08:49.573 These are the things that we are battling while sharing the gospel in the prison. 00:08:49.573 --> 00:08:58.652 The prison administration is changing in the state of Tennessee and it's trying to stop sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. 00:08:58.652 --> 00:09:05.339 It's trying to get it to where they have to do it themselves and there's no volunteers coming in. 00:09:05.339 --> 00:09:06.869 That's what they're trying to do to where they have to do it themselves and there's no volunteers coming in. 00:09:06.869 --> 00:09:09.986 That's what they're trying to do and that's persecution. 00:09:09.986 --> 00:09:14.147 That's what that is and we're all going to experience that. 00:09:14.528 --> 00:09:17.927 Yeah, now there's other scriptures. 00:09:17.927 --> 00:09:23.893 If you look at Matthew 5, 10, it cross-references with Luke, chapter 6. 00:09:23.893 --> 00:09:27.188 Can somebody open up to Luke chapter 6? 00:09:27.188 --> 00:09:31.163 And we're going to look at verse 22. 00:09:31.163 --> 00:09:32.942 I think it's verse 22. 00:09:32.942 --> 00:09:35.302 Yeah, 22 and 23. 00:09:36.515 --> 00:09:40.961 It's a beatitude as well, but it words it quite different. 00:09:40.961 --> 00:09:58.019 Blessed are you when people hate you and they excrete you and revile you and they spurn your name as evil on account that the Son of man rejoiced in that day. 00:09:58.019 --> 00:10:10.359 Yes, it words it a little differently there and if you notice in Luke. 00:10:10.359 --> 00:10:13.988 It doesn't have all nine of the Beatitudes in Luke. 00:10:13.988 --> 00:10:23.528 It only has four or five, and one of the main ones that its focus is on in Luke is the ninth one. 00:10:23.528 --> 00:10:31.308 Blessed are they who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for they shall see the kingdom of God. 00:10:31.308 --> 00:10:44.644 They shall see the kingdom of God and I don't. 00:10:44.663 --> 00:10:46.995 You know, a lot of us Christians today are lacking knowledge of what's going on in the world around us. 00:10:46.995 --> 00:11:00.118 I don't know, maybe a bunch of you are, probably are, familiar with Voice of the Martyrs, but I recommend that everybody please read that newsletter. 00:11:00.118 --> 00:11:09.958 I mean, there are people in our world that are being persecuted, imprisoned and violently being tortured for the gospel of Jesus Christ. 00:11:09.958 --> 00:11:15.308 We here in America aren't experiencing that, but we will. 00:11:15.308 --> 00:11:28.784 We're going to experience that and I wonder how many of us are truly ready for that to happen to us, like that day when I went out and got punched in the chest. 00:11:28.784 --> 00:11:43.455 But you know, the thing that I realized and got with that is a revelation the peace of god is upon those who are persecuted. 00:11:45.716 --> 00:11:58.331 If we look in the book of acts at the account of stephen, a deacon, and we read that account, stephen was an awesome man of God. 00:11:58.331 --> 00:12:00.317 He was more than a deacon. 00:12:00.317 --> 00:12:11.522 He was one of the first seven deacons chosen and he was stoned to death for preaching the gospel to the Pharisees and the Sadducees. 00:12:11.522 --> 00:12:14.706 He preached a harsh word. 00:12:14.706 --> 00:12:19.799 I mean it perished their hearts and and they? 00:12:19.799 --> 00:12:24.149 They gnashed their teeth and they growled at him and they stoned him. 00:12:24.149 --> 00:12:36.010 And the thing that amazes me, during this, this account, stephen looks up and sees heaven and sees Jesus. 00:12:36.010 --> 00:12:38.342 The peace of God comes upon him. 00:12:38.342 --> 00:12:45.904 He's being stoned to death and he doesn't even I don't think he even realized what was going on. 00:12:45.904 --> 00:12:52.726 Maybe he did, you know, but what I see the most of is the glory of God in the moment. 00:12:52.726 --> 00:13:00.197 The most of is the glory of God in the moment. 00:13:00.197 --> 00:13:01.100 How much God was glorified in his life. 00:13:01.120 --> 00:13:14.188 Enough to where they have a whole chapter in the book of Acts that is accounted to Stephen's life and that can be any believer that is sold out to Jesus and that's what the Beatitudes is trying to teach here. 00:13:14.188 --> 00:13:15.676 That's what Jesus is doing. 00:13:15.676 --> 00:13:23.597 He's passing out keys to the kingdom of heaven and all nine of the Beatitudes, that's what he's doing. 00:13:23.597 --> 00:13:40.826 He's planting them, mustard seeds and their keys to the kingdom of heaven, and he's relying on the Holy Spirit to give that revelation and, believe me, throughout sanctification in your life of Jesus Christ. 00:13:40.826 --> 00:13:44.625 Searching through the Word of God is full of jewels. 00:13:44.625 --> 00:13:57.440 It's like searching through a treasure and just going through the Beatitudes is like going through that treasure hunt and it's so full of so many jewels and you have to search for them. 00:13:57.440 --> 00:14:01.999 You have to be hungry, you have to be thirsty and you have to really dig for it. 00:14:01.999 --> 00:14:16.870 But once you get one of them jewels, and once you get one of them revelations, it's so amazing and it so encourages you and and gives you the strength to go forward and walk even further into your relationship with God. 00:14:16.870 --> 00:14:25.609 But the main thing is is that you learn your identity in Jesus Christ, who you are and who your father is. 00:14:25.609 --> 00:14:27.701 That is the main thing. 00:14:28.576 --> 00:14:30.783 There's another scripture that I want to look at. 00:14:30.783 --> 00:14:34.620 It's in Revelations. 00:14:34.620 --> 00:14:36.144 I believe it's. 00:14:36.144 --> 00:14:38.261 Let me find it. 00:14:38.261 --> 00:14:40.321 It's Revelations 6. 00:14:40.321 --> 00:14:49.278 Let me find it here. 00:14:49.278 --> 00:14:54.581 I'm all scrambling in my notes. 00:15:01.929 --> 00:15:07.826 Well, let's look at 2nd Corinthians, 5, 21 first, and then we'll look at the revelations. 00:15:07.826 --> 00:15:16.645 For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 00:15:16.645 --> 00:15:25.690 So when we trust in Jesus, we are declared righteous by faith. 00:15:25.690 --> 00:15:30.022 That's our identity. 00:15:30.022 --> 00:15:31.225 That's who we are. 00:15:31.225 --> 00:15:38.299 So the Beatitudes teach us everything we need to know about being a child of god. 00:15:38.299 --> 00:15:44.416 Just in those nine things we learned the truth of what it means to be a christian. 00:15:44.416 --> 00:15:51.105 Jesus released in one sermon everything we needed to have, but we got the whole Bible. 00:15:52.506 --> 00:16:18.857 And the thing that amazed me while doing this study is there's nine Beatitudes and there's also nine fruits of the Spirit in Galatians, chapter 5, and those nine fruits of the Spirit is what allows us to walk out our sanctification and follow through with the nine beatitudes. 00:16:18.857 --> 00:16:20.942 That's what gives us the power. 00:16:20.942 --> 00:16:36.743 So if you look at galatians, chapter 5 and tie that with matthew, chapter 5, you'll see that everything you need is given to you by the Holy Spirit to obey the Beatitudes. 00:16:36.743 --> 00:16:45.888 You don't have to work at it, you don't have to give yourself a hard time and stress out. 00:16:45.888 --> 00:16:50.947 You just have to surrender to Jesus and surrender to the Holy Spirit. 00:16:50.947 --> 00:16:52.120 That's all you got to do. 00:16:52.120 --> 00:17:05.520 You got to know that you are a child of God, you are adopted into the kingdom of God and that's your identity, and let the Holy Spirit do the work inside you that he needs to do. 00:17:05.520 --> 00:17:10.320 So you can follow out the Beatitudes and live it out in your life. 00:17:10.320 --> 00:17:14.983 It's that simple and we like to complicate it a lot of times. 00:17:16.815 --> 00:17:20.405 Now what guarantees that we're going to be persecuted? 00:17:20.405 --> 00:17:23.923 It shows in Revelations, chapter 2. 00:17:23.923 --> 00:17:26.582 Yeah, chapter 2, verse 9. 00:17:26.582 --> 00:17:43.344 It talks about the church in Samaria and God promises there will be persecution on the church in tribulation, and I think we're starting to see that here in America a little bit. 00:17:43.344 --> 00:17:50.642 I think we're starting to see persecution come to the church in America. 00:17:50.642 --> 00:18:04.386 We're seeing things happen that we don't normally would see, and that is proof where we're at and we're going to experience harshness. 00:18:04.386 --> 00:18:16.506 And I wonder there's questions on the sheet tonight that will ask you where you're at in your relationship with God and what you think about persecution. 00:18:18.435 --> 00:18:24.087 And it's a serious thought, because that's where the rubber meets the road. 00:18:24.087 --> 00:18:30.547 It's really where the truth of your Christianity comes out. 00:18:30.547 --> 00:18:33.942 It no longer is a religious game. 00:18:33.942 --> 00:18:34.444 No more. 00:18:34.444 --> 00:18:38.319 It's not something you just go to church on Sunday. 00:18:38.319 --> 00:18:38.782 No more. 00:18:38.782 --> 00:18:41.999 It becomes a reality. 00:18:41.999 --> 00:18:48.461 Man, what are you going to do when somebody wants to put you in prison for sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ? 00:18:48.461 --> 00:19:07.898 What are you going to do when somebody wants to kill you for sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ, or take your home away or punish your family, are you going to be able to show the fragrance of Jesus Christ in that moment? 00:19:10.262 --> 00:19:14.989 That's a serious thought and we have to really think about that. 00:19:14.989 --> 00:19:17.989 That's where the Beatitudes take us. 00:19:17.989 --> 00:19:21.869 It ends at the very thought. 00:19:21.869 --> 00:19:27.112 Are we willing to eat the flesh and drink the blood of Jesus Christ? 00:19:27.112 --> 00:19:31.089 Is that the truth of our salvation? 00:19:31.089 --> 00:19:35.430 Is that the truth of our relationship with god? 00:19:35.430 --> 00:19:43.669 If we take in the account the disciples, they were all martyred harshly. 00:19:44.349 --> 00:19:47.674 Peter neil told me tonight, hung upside down. 00:19:47.674 --> 00:19:51.124 Stephen stoned to death. 00:19:51.124 --> 00:19:53.828 One of them was boiled in oil. 00:19:53.828 --> 00:19:57.334 Can you imagine that? 00:19:57.334 --> 00:20:04.173 Yep, that's right. 00:20:04.173 --> 00:20:05.737 Can you imagine that? 00:20:05.737 --> 00:20:18.633 Can you imagine in our day and time, or maybe in our children's day and time or our grandchildren's day and time, what's life going to be for them in the kingdom of God? 00:20:18.633 --> 00:20:40.951 So we got to be prayer warriors now and we got to know our identity and we got to understand the word of God now and live it and be it, just be it, just let it happen, and we will persevere. 00:20:40.951 --> 00:20:42.967 We will win the war. 00:20:42.967 --> 00:20:46.890 That's what it promises and that's what it says. 00:20:48.121 --> 00:20:55.027 But if you're not ready, it ain't going to happen and it's going to catch you off guard. 00:20:55.027 --> 00:20:58.210 It's going to catch you. 00:20:58.210 --> 00:21:08.748 It could catch any one of us off guard and we have to be ready and I always really do think about that when I'm praying for other nations and stuff. 00:21:08.748 --> 00:21:29.272 I've been, I've not traveled as much as Mark and all them, but Neil, but I have traveled some in missions and I've seen some of the things that they go through not a lot, but, man, it's going to come here, it's coming. 00:21:29.272 --> 00:21:40.325 We have to be ready and we have to listen to our elders because what they're teaching us is the pearls of the kingdom of heaven, man. 00:21:40.325 --> 00:21:44.673 They're preparing us for what is to come. 00:21:44.673 --> 00:21:52.288 They're trying to get us ready and mature so we can be obedient to god through the Holy Spirit. 00:21:53.770 --> 00:22:03.951 So please go over the questions, ponder them, think about them and really take them serious and really take the Beatitudes series. 00:22:03.951 --> 00:22:06.805 Don't let this see in your study in the Beatitudes. 00:22:06.805 --> 00:22:11.523 You could study the Beatitudes for a whole year and still not finish with it. 00:22:11.523 --> 00:22:14.354 I mean, there's so much there to grasp. 00:22:14.354 --> 00:22:16.200 The gospel is never ending. 00:22:16.200 --> 00:22:20.728 It is never ending and the word of god is never ending. 00:22:20.728 --> 00:22:30.673 There's so much there to grasp a hold of and and I just I appreciate y'all listening to me and I hope you got something from this. 00:22:30.673 --> 00:22:35.228 But good, good joy with the questions there. 00:22:35.228 --> 00:22:36.650 I hope they do something for you. 00:22:36.650 --> 00:22:37.951 Praise god.