As Russ mentioned, I'm an elder.
My name is Brad Respus, and we could kind of be accused like my dad used to accuse my mother's father of delaying dinner.
Whenever they go down to eat dinner at their house, he he was always late preparing the meal and having uh whatever his grill and be ready.
And my dad would say, he's doing that so that we'll like his food even more.
And so I wonder sometimes, if you wonder, if we have this last three or four weeks where you have other people preaching, is that so that you'll enjoy Russ's preaching even more when it starts back?
And uh, like you, I can't wait for him to come back and be preaching next week.
We love Russ, so thankful for what he's done the last uh three years here and the year or so before that.
Um I also want to mention one thing that was big last week uh here.
When I showed up last week, it had been a very difficult morning.
And I want to read this.
Uh this is from our bylaw.
I might cry a little bit today, I'm sorry if I do.
But um in our bylaws, we have a quote, I think, that Mandy brought together from Abigail Van Buren, and she said, The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.
And I'll read that one more time.
The church is a hosp is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.
And I love that about our church, that I can come here broken or sad or hurting or just a wretched, miserable sinner.
And it's okay to sit and find rest in this place.
And so I'm so thankful last week I could do that.
And that's the heartbeat of our church is that place.
Let me pray and then we'll start.
Father, I know that your word is enough.
Please speak through me today as well.
In Jesus' name I pray.
Amen.
It's hard for me to uh talk a little bit.
I'm sorry.
The text today is Matthew 5, 11, and 12, and I'll read it again for you.
Blessed are you and 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 are before you.
We've been talking about the Beatitudes now for, what, four or five, six weeks.
Russ started it, and then the the elders carried through.
And it's really been a neat time for me both to hear and learn something new about this familiar passage, but also for me this last week to work through and listen to what God was teaching me.
Last week, Rob came and talked about persecution.
And he talked about how persecution today is is very different than what we might have seen 2,000 years ago for the early Christians.
Let me tell you a story, though, about persecution that's pretty pretty recent and relevant.
You know Indonesia, it's a country that's got 204 million Muslims.
It's over kind of in the Asia-Pacific world.
Indonesia's got the most number of Muslims of any country in the world.
But there's about 10% of the population that's Christian, so about 20 million people in Indonesia are Christians.
In 1999, they were having a like a VBS, a Bible camp at a local university, and they had little children all the way up to teenagers who were gathered to learn about the Bible and grow in their faith, and just like VBS here.
And in the morning they send out cars and they go to villages and they pick up the kids and they bring them back to this university that was letting them use their space.
And then in the afternoon they get cars and they fill them back up with kids and they send them back out.
And one day during the week, they didn't have enough cars to get the kids back to their villages.
And so there are four men who were left there, and they they left and they said, All right, teenagers, you stay and you you watch out for the little ones, and we're gonna go walk to the closest village and try to find some more cars so that we can get the rest of these kids home.
And they waited and they didn't come back.
And next thing you know, they heard this mob coming at them, chanting and yelling and full of rage and kind of a twisted mad excitement.
And one of the teenagers realized what was happening, and they said, The Muslims are coming.
We've got to hide the little kids.
And they didn't know, but the four men didn't return because they'd been ambushed on their way to a village, two of them killed, and their bodies burned.
And the Muslims, this mob showed up at the university, and the little ones had been hidden, and they found the teenagers, and they brought them out in the courtyard, and they lined them up and they said, Renounce Jesus, or we'll kill you.
And one boy, 15 years old, he said, He said, I'm a soldier for Christ.
And warned the guys in the mob, took a sword.
This is 1999, this is not very long ago, took a sword and swung it at him.
He was holding his Bible and hit his Bible and knocked his Bible to the ground and saved him, but not the second time when the sword came back and cut him through the stomach and he fell to the ground and died.
They said his last word was Jesus.
It's a persecution that none of us knows.
Nobody in this room really has any idea what that kind of persecution is like.
We're persecuted like Rob was saying last week, because maybe we don't get a job, or maybe we don't get invited to that party, or maybe you know we we don't get invited to the inner circle of some group of people, or we're at school and the cool kids don't ask us to come hang out with them.
But it's no kind of persecution like the rest of the world hears.
Y'all know Richard Samuel, he's been here to talk as a guy that our church supports.
He lives in India.
There's a group of uh local kind of U.S.-based missionaries from a church who want to go and just go spend some time there.
And Richard said to them, Don't come right now.
Because you might have a visa, you might get to the border and to the airport, and they'll send you back.
Because the government of India is trying to make this Hindustan, the nation of Hinduism, again.
And the the Christians in India are being persecuted, like the boy Roy Ponto I mentioned in Indonesia.
The Sermon on the Mount is is this beautiful story that starts in Matthew 5 that Russ has been telling that that Jesus begins to preach on this concept which is so incredible, it's this gigantic theological position that that is so so amazing that he says, you, if you want to be holy and righteous and walk with God, and if you want your life to be right, you gotta be perfect.
This is Matthew 5.48.
You've got to be perfect.
And he goes on to say it's it's not that you can't just not have an affair and cheat on your spouse.
It's that you can't even look at someone else with lust.
It's not that you can't murder someone, it's that you can't even have anger in your heart towards them.
And he's beginning to say that the the criteria for perfection is more than your actions, but it's your heart and your intent and what's deep inside of you.
And he begins this whole passage with the Beatitudes, beginning to take us down this path that says, You've got to be perfect.
And yet he's saying at the same time, I know you can't be perfect.
I know you can't be.
And he's setting us up to tell us you need a rescuer, a redeemer.
And that's Jesus.
Jesus, the one who will live that perfect life, who will do everything required of man.
He'll be kind, he'll be humble, he'll be meek, he'll be giving, he'll serve.
He'll never sin.
And he'll exchange, when he dies on the cross, he'll set up the opportunity for us to exchange our imperfect life for his perfect life.
Jesus, the rescuer and the redeemer.
But yet at the same time, when we read the Beatitudes, when I read them this week, I'm reminded that Jesus is teaching something to his disciples that's so practical for them that day that I think as well has practical application for us today as well.
I think Jesus is teaching and showing his disciples something as small and as simple and yet as profound as this.
Where will you find true happiness?
Because your life, disciples, and your life, Christians, is going to be very, very difficult.
Where will you find true happiness?
And so I started thinking about my life, and if you look at my life and what I do, you would think, where does Brad find true happiness?
Well, yesterday morning I spent about an hour trimming the ivy off the side of my house.
So you might think he finds true happiness when he has his uh ivy in order.
And it does provide some happiness short term.
Of course, you know the old adage, if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.
So maybe if mama's happy, then I've got happiness.
Or maybe if my inbox on my email is empty, then I can find happiness there.
We search for happiness in so many ways.
If your golf game is right, if your career is going down the right path, when you hit a certain level in your income, if you if you've reached the right circles, if you've moved to the right house, if you go on the right vacation, and on and on and on, we seek for happiness in so many ways, and my life is reflective of that.
And yet Jesus is saying, that's deceitful.
So I I bought this.
This is cotton candy.
I thought I could find a big bucket of it, but I couldn't find it anywhere.
And last night we were down in Atlanta, and we happened to run across Brian and Mandy, and Brian told me that a dentist invented cotton candy.
Not pretty good.
Pretty deceitful for him to do that, isn't it?
Yeah, here we go.
Cheers.
You see, you see cotton candy, and it's big and it's fluffy, and it looks like if you didn't know what it was, you'd think, man, if I eat all that cotton candy, I'd get full.
But you know it's empty.
You know it's devoid.
You know it doesn't bring any nutritional value.
Maybe it helps a dentist pat his pocket.
But outside of that, it doesn't bring anything.
And that's what the pursuit of happiness in this life brings for us.
It's deceiving.
And it's void of value and real worth.
The Stoics knew this.
I'll move that before communion.
The Stoics knew this.
They said, look, don't seek happiness, don't seek good, don't seek joyful times, seek misery.
Seek to be miserable.
And only in that place when you're miserable will you find real happiness.
Because then you can create happiness out of misery because you'll have nothing to hang your hat on.
They knew that things and stuff and achievements would never bring happiness.
So if you create the opposite of that, then you can create your own happiness.
And then your happiness can be pure because it's not dictated by situation.
But we know that we can't create our own happiness either, because we've been in that place of misery and it lasts but just for a moment.
And Jesus' teaching to the disciples as you read through the beatitudes, that true happiness is going to come beyond this world.
Your reward as Christians, your reward is not in this world.
True happiness is when you realize that what will come, your reward will come down the road.
Your reward will come after this life.
And what's great about that to me as I read through this, as times are tough, as we face difficulties, as we have heartbreaks and persecution and be reviled and we have things that are broken in our life.
Jesus is saying, when you set your sights and your mind and your hope on something beyond this world, then you can always have hope that your condition today will change.
You will always know your condition will get better.
Always.
Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you.
Let me go back.
Blessed are you when others revile you.
Jesus wasn't telling his disciples, hey, blessed are you if others revile you and persecute you.
Jesus was saying, Blessed are you when win.
Think about what Jesus is getting ready for.
Persecution.
And not only did we know the story of the cross, but his whole life, the religious leaders pursued him, and they were doing their very best to catch him.
They were it went so far as to bribe someone to betray him.
And Jesus was telling his disciples, yes, I'm going to live that life.
I'm going to have a lot of persecution, but so will you.
So will you.
Think about in Acts.
After the Spirit comes and comes and indwells the disciples, and Peter gives that great sermon, and 3,000 people come to know the Lord.
The next story is Peter and John walk into the temple in Acts chapter 3 and 4.
And on the way into the temple, there's a man who's lame and he's crippled, and he asks for some money, and Peter says, I don't have any money, but I'll give you something better.
And he heals him.
And in that healing, in that, in that turn of events, the religious leaders know and they're threatened, and they go and they get Peter and John and they throw them in prison.
They imprison them for healing someone and teaching about Jesus.
Jesus is saying, you're going to have the same struggle, the same persecution that I had and that I will have.
And so when I was in college, I went to Georgia Tech.
I came from Valdez.
I went to Georgia Tech and I went to um, I was looking for a church.
I wanted to go to church somewhere in Atlanta, and I really was hoping to go to kind of a radical, neat, cool church.
And so I went to a church called Blood and Fire.
Have any of y'all heard of Blood and Fire?
Anybody?
Nobody.
Okay.
Read Acts chapter 2.
I think it's where Peter's talking about blood and fire and billows of smoke.
And so it's biblical, the name is anyway.
But you might think, well, snake handling and poison drinking.
It wasn't that at all.
The Atlanta Vineyard planted a church very near the Capitol.
So on MLK, right across 75 from the Capitol in downtown Atlanta.
And that church was located across the street from some housing projects.
So you can imagine a big ministry of the church was to reach out to poor, very poor kids who had very little hope in life.
And the other ministry was for homeless men who had all kinds of addictions.
And that's where I sunk my teeth in, was with those guys.
I'd hop on my mountain bike, I'd ride down Peachtree or whatever street and get down to the Capitol and hang a left on MLK and show up at Blood and Fire.
And they had this old warehouse and it had dorms in it where these men would come and live for six months at a time and they learn about Jesus and they get a biblical foundation and they would work on their addictions.
It was a time of great learning for me as well.
One of the things I learned was about being bold for my faith.
So we had shirts just like this.
Right?
Well, this is a shirt that we had something very similar to, except it would have said blood and fire and red.
There you go.
Matt's taking a picture.
So here's here's what I what I when I look back at this.
I wore this shirt sometimes out.
And you've seen these people before, right?
You come out of the Braves game, and there they are, they're holding the signs, and they're yelling at you, and they're saying, repent or you're going to hell, those kind of people.
You know what I'm talking about, right?
That was me.
I mean, believe it or not.
So I was thinking about this.
You know that I love the west side in Atlanta.
And there's a little taco place called Tacaria del Sol.
Maybe you've been there before.
I'd like to get a chicken, a Memphis, and a fish, and maybe some guacamole or a salsa trio and a west side.
It's great.
Well, imagine if I stood in that line for 45 minutes and I wore this shirt.
I'd get some looks, wouldn't I?
I mean, you know the guy that takes orders.
I don't know if you've ever been there.
There's a guy that takes orders, and on his shirt, he says there are 10 types of people in the world.
Those of us who understand binary and those who don't.
You'll get that later, maybe.
We laugh and mock him, don't we?
You would mock me if you saw me wearing the shirt in that line.
But I want to ask you a question.
Would you mock me because of I'm a Christian, or would you mock me because of my abrasive, arrogant, terrible selection in clothing?
And my point being, so often we as believers, we read the Beatitudes and we think, man, Jesus is saying, Blessed are you when you're reviled and persecuted.
So therefore, let me go and get persecuted.
Let me go and wear this shirt so that people persecute you, persecute me, so that when I'm persecuted, I can receive his blessing.
And Jesus is not saying that at all.
He's saying, because you are a believer, because you have been pulled into my family, you'll be persecuted just for who you are.
Not because of what you do.
If you follow Megan on Instagram, you might have seen this before.
She's a pretty good Instagrammer.
If not, you should ask her.
She's great at it.
We were sitting at dinner last week, like a week and a half ago, and we were on a lake, and we were sitting on a square table.
And so, you know, a square table, and we were sitting side by side and we were looking out over the lake.
And so I was like this, and Megan was was like this.
And we ate our dinner and we got done.
And um we had told the waiter, he said, Do you want anything more?
And we said, No, I think we're good.
We're gonna kind of walk around a little bit.
And uh, and then Megan like stopped.
I mean, like stopped.
And she's like, Brad, Brad, there's Robert De Niro.
I don't know if you've seen this picture yet or not.
But so here's our table, and here's this guy named Robert De Niro sitting right here.
I can't see him at all.
But Megan can see him.
So she's over here.
She's like, no, no, no.
Uh we we'll take a um a coffee and some cake and some ice cream, and she takes a picture of him, and she's putting this on Instagram.
And it's so fascinating because I told my brother, I said, can you believe it?
We saw Robert De Niro at uh at this restaurant, and he said, he said, he's the greatest.
I mean, a lot of people consider him as one of the greatest actors of all times.
You know movies have been Casino and Untouchables and Meet the Parents.
I mean, just all kind of great, but really some great movies.
But the reality is when Robert De Niro walks in, we know who he is.
He doesn't have lights, he doesn't have a big t-shirt, no red carpet, he just walks in.
He actually walked in trying to not be known, and yet we know who he is.
And a little bit that's what happens.
It's a it's I can't relate the Christian life to Robert De Niro, even though I want to try.
But when you become a believer, when we become Christians, our identity changes.
And Jesus was preparing his disciples the same way he wants to prepare us.
When you become a believer, and for them is when the Spirit comes back, this is in captured in Acts, when the Holy Spirit comes back, when Jesus, when Jesus ascends into heaven, the Holy Spirit comes and and dwells in people, our identity will be changed.
We'll be adopted into God's family and into sonship.
And we'll be sons and daughters, and he'll seal us with his Holy Spirit.
See, I saw I thought for so long this t shirt is a an example of this.
If I will see Persecution that I'll be more blessed.
And Jesus is not saying that at all.
He's saying, look, you're blessed because of who you are.
You're blessed.
Your happiness, blessed are you, is really happy are you.
True happiness you have.
Not because of what you're going to do, not because of what you accomplish as Christians, not because of what you go do in my name, but because of who you are in my name.
And it starts back with Jesus himself saying, I am.
He is.
Jesus, the Son of God.
There's a story in Matthew chapter 14.
I'm almost done, so I'll try to get through this.
In Matthew 14, verse 25 through 27, and in the fourth watch of the night, he, meaning Jesus, came to them, walking on the sea.
But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified and said, It is a ghost, and they cried out in fear.
But immediately Jesus came, spoke to them, saying, Take heart, it is I.
Do not be afraid.
When Jesus said, It is I, in the Greek, he's saying the same thing that when Moses said to God the Father, When I go to Pharaoh and say, Let my people go, when they ask me who sent me, what do I say?
And what did God say?
I am.
Tell them I am, Yahweh, tell them I am.
And Jesus here to the disciples is saying the same thing.
I am.
In your fear, in your situation, what's happening in the world, you will always know I am.
And because Jesus was the same, because God is the same as he was then, as he is now, and will be forever, God being always, always who he is, creator, loving, giving Father, calls us into that, into his family, adopts us as his own, and we can know that no matter what happens, we're his.
This is Galatians chapter 4.
When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who are who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.
So you are no longer a slave, but a son.
And if a son, then an heir through God.
Yeah, the Beatitudes, they do reflect our lives as Christians.
They reflect what it looks like as believers and how life looks.
But they point to our lives as being, not as doing.
As being is not as doing.
True happiness comes as a reward from being, not from doing.
As we've said so often here, it is finished.
It's been done.
The reward that we have is in heaven.
The reward is beyond because of who we are as his sons.
So I encourage you, be, be, and rest in that place, knowing that your reward will come.
Let me pray.
God, I thank you so much that you are a loving Father, the great I Am, and that through your Son Jesus, you exchange our life that will never be enough with His that fulfills every requirement.
I thank you that we are blessed, that we can find true happiness as believers, and knowing that we are yours and that our reward is to come as sons and daughters of the Creator of all.
Amen.