Reflecting on the Beatitudes and the Essence of Jesus's Early Ministry

Discover the profound lessons embedded within the life and teachings of Jesus Christ as we journey through history to a time when divine silence was broken. Embark on a narrative adventure starting with the angelic announcement to Mary, moving through John the Baptist's fervent call for repentance, and culminating in Christ's own baptism, temptation, and early ministry. Our exploration promises to illuminate the inseparable link between Jesus' transformative words and His miraculous deeds, akin to the prophets of old, providing a compelling understanding of the true essence of His mission.

As we navigate the complexities of discipleship and the paradoxical nature of godly blessing, we unravel the depth of Jesus' mentorship to His disciples. Contrasting modern evangelical trends with the intimate, ripple-effect approach of Christ, we discern the weighty joy in the oracles of blessing and woe. Feel the pull towards a deeper connection with the divine as we parse the Sermon on the Mount, exposing a path to fulfillment that reaches far beyond earthly contentment.

Lastly, this episode addresses the heartrending yet transformative experience of godly sorrow, distinguishing it from the fleeting pangs of worldly regret. We offer solace and insight into the beatitudes, reflecting on the traits of kingdom citizens and the power of recognizing our need for redemption. Our prayerful closing invites listeners to embrace humility, seek repentance, and foster a relationship with the Almighty, ensuring a journey towards forgiveness and true spiritual freedom. Join us for this introspective episode, where ancient teachings meet the enduring quest for spiritual growth and understanding.

ABOUT JAMES AND LESSONS FOR LIFE

Are you longing to find answers to the deeper issues of life? Join Dr. James Long, Jr., a pastor, counselor, and university professor with over 30 years of experience. Hear James as he tackles some of life’s biggest questions and helps us find God’s solutions to life’s struggles. Learn the power of living by God’s grace and for His glory. Experience the joy of forgiveness and freedom found in Jesus Christ alone. If you are in search of freedom, you will love being part of this conversation. Subscribe, and enjoy the show!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:26

Jesus entered into a stage where it had been quiet for 400 years there had been no prophet in Israel since the time of Malachi and Jesus burst onto the stage. What we have is Gabriel comes and announces that to marry, that you're going to bear a child, and prior to that he received a revelation, or a revelation was given to Elizabeth that a child would be born to her as well. John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus and Mary, was called blessed among women and she had received the blessing. It wasn't that she wasn't a sinner, she was. She knew she needed a savior, but she had the amazing privilege of bearing Lord Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1: 1:19

30 years later, as they are growing into adulthood, john the Baptist is out ministering and he is preaching to people that the kingdom of God is at hand, the kingdom of heaven is near. He is saying that you must repent and he's preaching about their sin and their need to repent, and he's baptizing people into the waters. And then, on one day, jesus Christ comes to him. In Matthew, chapter three, it's detailed that Jesus Christ comes to him and says that I need to be baptized, and it threw John the Baptist off a little bit. It's like this is a baptism of repentance. You're the Messiah. You don't need to be baptized. In fact, I need to be baptized by you. But Jesus says let it be done so that all righteousness will be fulfilled. So John the Baptist baptized the Lord. Jesus Christ, brought him into the waters and brought him up out of the waters, and what we hear from heaven is a word from God that this is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. The Holy Spirit, as a dove, is descending upon Jesus, and Jesus is there and he's baptized.

Speaker 1: 2:35

Immediately after that, the Holy Spirit drives Jesus into a wilderness. He drives him into a wilderness and he is fasting. He hasn't eaten anything for 40 days. He is perhaps near physical death. I mean, I guess he is really at a point where he is hungry. And in fact, what's happening in this wilderness experience is the exact opposite of what happened to Adam in the garden. Adam is in this lush garden, his stomach is full, he's with a beautiful wife, he is not alone, and when Satan comes and tempts him, he gives up all of that very easily. Jesus Christ at almost the end of life because he has no food. He is completely alone.

Speaker 1: 3:23

And Jesus Christ is being tempted by Satan. And what does he do? He attacks Satan's temptations time after time, with the very word of God. And what Satan does is he tempts Jesus. He says if you are the Son of God the very thing that his father had just said at his baptism and that this is my son Satan tempts him with his identity. And then Satan tempts him with a number of things. He says that you can get the blessings of earth that I will give to you if you shortcut the cross. Well, Jesus, of course, won that battle, as he wins every battle, because he is the ultimately victorious one. And he won that battle for you and he won that battle for me. And he begins his ministry. After that, he starts gathering disciples. He calls his first disciples to him and the disciples are followers of him. They were going to leave their livelihoods, they were going to leave their families, in essence, to follow Jesus. They were going to sit at his feet as a teacher and they were going to hear from their teacher. Jesus Christ did that.

Speaker 1: 4:36

And as Jesus Christ is ministering, as Pastor Doug shared with us last week, we see that Jesus Christ bookended his work. He did, he preached words and then he did works, and those works validated the words they was speaking. And if Matthew, as Pastor Doug shared with us as well he has a series of discourses throughout the book we will find that you will have preaching blocks. Then you will have aspects of miracles that are done, and what they are doing is verifying what Jesus has preached. Well, that's what the Old Testament, a number of Old Testament prophets did the same. When Moses preached or spoke a word, then there were miracles that were confirming his word, isaiah. We didn't see those same miracles with Isaiah, but we see miracles with other prophets in the Old Testament where there was a miracle, like Elijah. Elijah would preach a word and there would be some type of miracle. So there were miraculous times throughout the Old Testament Moses and Elijah and now we come to the New Testament with Jesus and his apostles. The word is preached prophetically and there is miracles that are done Well, as Jesus does that.

Speaker 1: 5:51

Of course, the miracles would gather great crowds and there were crowds that were around just clamoring to learn from Jesus but, more importantly, to be healed by Jesus, because Jesus was healing people the blind, the deaf, the lame. He was doing miraculous things and, as we have sad to say in our culture, there are some people that will just follow after the signs and they will look for signs, and so I guess there were two extremes of people. There are people that are just looking for the teaching but they really don't believe the words, and I guess you can interpret the sermon in the mount kind of that way that it's a bunch of ethical teachings and they don't really think of the supernatural power behind the sovereign God that's behind it and that's why some people look at the sermon in the mount. I guess other people will look at Jesus and they will see all the miracles that he does, but they don't even want to know about his ethics. They don't care about how he calls you to live. Well, what Jesus said is that you can't have one without the other. Very honestly, you need to know both. You need to know the word of God and you also need to know that this God is the supernatural God.

Speaker 1: 6:59

So the sermon in the mount is really basic Christianity. It's laying out for us what God wants you to know about his kingdom and the kingdom, as Pastor Doug talked about last week, there's the kingdom of heaven, kingdom of God. Don't get caught up in that. Matthew is preaching to or writing to Jewish believers, and they did not want. They were very careful about taking the name of God on their lips so he would speak of the kingdom of heaven. When Luke speaks and some of the other people will speak, they speak of the kingdom of God because, as Luke is writing, he's writing to Gentiles, so don't get caught up in that. It's the same thing. Now there's an aspect of the kingdom that is here now there's an aspect of the kingdom that is eternal and is coming, and so these two aspects, as you think, as we look through these Beatitudes, we're willing up in the next two weeks. Hopefully, you'll see that what Jesus is laying out is who you are as a believer.

Speaker 1: 7:59

What I find interesting about this kingdom, the Beatitudes, is it's primarily about who you are, not about what you do. A lot of religions today focus about what you need to do and they give you a list of things, and there will be some list of things that are brought up in the Sermon and the Mount. But he begins by saying this is who you are if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's so important. He gives you characteristics of those that are part of the citizenship of heaven, part of God's family. These are the characteristics that are there Now. These are new characteristics.

Speaker 1: 8:36

In fact, a number of the characteristics that I will share with you over the next two weeks, lord willing, are characteristics that had been there in the Old Testament. So these weren't new to a Jewish believer. They knew. If they knew their Bible, they saw these same characteristics. In fact, one of the characteristics of blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth is a direct quote from Psalm 37, verse 11. So, as Jesus is speaking here, he is saying that I want you to take all of these things that have been said in the Old Testament, all these blessings, and I want you to see that these blessings come out in your life as a believer.

Speaker 1: 9:13

But there's another thing. It's not only the fact that these are part of the Old Testament. Part of what Jesus is going to do in the Sermon and the Mount and he's going to do this in the Beatitudes is he's going to deconstruct you, and he's going to reconstruct you. He's gonna break you down to where you are in your essence, where you need to be in your essence, humbled, and then he is going to recreate you as a person of Christ.

Speaker 1: 9:43

When we go through these characteristics, the other thing that you're gonna see is that these characteristics are they're different than the values of this world. So we're gonna see values that are gonna be laid out here, that Jesus is gonna give in the Beatitudes, that are so counter-cultural, they contrast the world and in fact, they contrast the world in so much so that the world will in fact be in conflict with you, will persecute you. See, if you're a believer in the Lord, jesus Christ, and you are showing out these characteristics, the world will hate you. It's not possible, for the fact that if they hated me, jesus said, they will hate you. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you. If you are modeling Christ in this world, the world is not going to love you. It's one of the struggles that we have as humanity, especially in the Western culture. Our Western culture is so dominated with wanting to be loved and accepted that we're so fearful of what's happening around us that we are afraid of the wars that happened. So what we wanna do is soft pedal the gospel, soft pedal the word, so that the world will love us and like us. But the reality is this no one is getting into the kingdom of unless it's through the person in work of the Lord Jesus Christ. No one is getting into the kingdom unless they are humbled and no one is getting into the kingdom unless they repent. And if you are, if you're looking to be a Christ follower, just know that you're gonna suffer struggles in this world. So it's going to be a radical reversal of the world's values that we're gonna see in this sermon in the mount.

Speaker 1: 11:24

I think one other thing I want you to think about as we talk about this beatitude specifically is that these beatitudes I think there are eight of them. I'll lay them out here. Some see nine, I see eight. In these beatitudes, I honestly believe that there are a description of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, clearly, when it talks about he's poor in spirit, it's not the same as you and me. When it talks about mourning over sin, jesus Christ clearly mourned over sin, but he wasn't mourning over His own sin like you and I do. He was mourning over the sin that's in this world. He is the meekest of all people. He truly hungered and thirsted to become, to show His Father out in this world. He was clearly the merciful one. He clearly was persecuted, and so when you look at the beatitudes, you are seeing Christ, and so what he's saying is this I want you to know that as you go through these, I want you to see that this is the kingdom, this is what kingdom people look like, and kingdom people look like this way, and this is who you are, and when you find your satisfaction in the Christ of that kingdom, that is where you will find yourself being really satisfied, really secure, really hopeful. Last thing I want you to consider is that there's a now and a not yet. I think I've already alluded to that, that there are certainly certain things he's gonna talk about that are happening now, and then there's some of the things that are gonna happen in the future. So let's jump in with that as a background. Let us jump in to the beatitudes and, lord willing, I'll get through four this week.

Speaker 1: 13:03

And, as Pastor Doug talked about, there was a crowd of people that had come, but Jesus, primarily, was working with His disciples. He's teaching the disciples. Now there are other people that are hangers on or followers. I honestly believe that the church, the Christian church, really should follow the model that Jesus just did. What Jesus is doing is he is discipling believers, he is discipling followers. I think that's what Doug, tim and my call is to be is to disciple believers here, and when we do that, we pregine such a way that hopefully you'll see, wow, there's some benefits to that kingdom, there's benefits to the gospel that our greatest problem of guilt wow, I would love to feel no more dead I owe. I would love to be able to say it is finished and that no condemnation. I've really longed to have those kind of things. So when we preach and we teach disciples and see disciples grown up in the faith, hopefully those that are not believers will sit there and say I don't have that. I long for that. I think what churches make a mistake on is that they spend a lot of time trying to evangelize the crowd and they let go of the believers, and I think that's a mistake. What Jesus does is he's going to spend three years discipling these men. He's gonna pour into these men and some of the women that were following. He's pouring into them and then they go out and they radically change the world.

Speaker 1: 14:39

So let's talk about what he did. Chapter five, verse one. Seeing the crowd, he went up on a mountain. When he sat down, his disciples came to him, as Doug talked about last week. I guess I could have brought a chair and sat down up here and made all of you guys stand. That would have been fun, but we do it exactly the opposite. So you guys get the comfort and I gotta stand up here. And he opened his mouth and he'd bring in to teach them. Well, matthew, why are you telling us he opened his mouth? He's teaching. Of course he opened his mouth.

Speaker 1: 15:24

There is something prophetic about this that when it talks about he opened his mouth, it points them back to the Old Testament prophet. Now, the Old Testament prophet, when he preached and when he spoke, he would speak in such a way that it's thus says the Lord, he is opening his mouth and saying God is speaking through me. Now. They didn't have the written word, like you and I do. We have 66 books that have been given to you. That's how God speaks to you today.

Speaker 1: 15:55

But back then they didn't have the same written word. So they needed this prophetic word that would come out from these prophets, and the words would come out as oracles, oracles of woe and oracles of wheel W-E-A-L. Okay, don't get too confused by it. There was oracles of woe, which were doom judgment. If you remember, in Isaiah, isaiah said he said woe to me, I'm a man of unclean lips. So when he saw a vision of God, he sensed the judgment even on himself and he says woe, doomed is me. Some of the Old Testament prophets were given words by God to speak out to the world to say woe is you, you're under judgment. Jesus also turned here to Matthew, chapter 23. Matthew, chapter 23. Jesus used the same technique, or whatever you would wanna say. Matthew, chapter 23, verses 25 through 28.

Speaker 1: 17:04

He said this woe to you, scribes and Pharisees. These are the religious leaders, hypocrites. You tithe mint and dill and cumin and you've neglected the weight of your matters of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness. These are you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides straining at the net and swallowing a camel. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. You clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside you're full of greed, insolvent indulgence. You, blind Pharisees, you clean the out first. Clean the outside of the copper plate that the outside may be clean. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you like wash white and wash white I'm sorry, white wash tombs which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and uncleanness. So also outward appearance of righteous to others, but within you're full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. Jesus did the same thing. He used these woes, these oracles of judgment.

Speaker 1: 18:11

But in the Old Testament it wasn't just oracles of judgment, it was also oracles of will, w-e-a-l, oracles of blessing, prosperity, well-being, where God would pronounce blessings. We have one great one the Aaronic blessing. You remember the Lord, bless you. And what Keep you the Lord. Make his face to shine upon you and be what Gracious to you the Lord, lift up his countenance upon you and give you what Peace. What a beautiful blessing.

Speaker 1: 18:41

The Psalms begin that way, with an oracle of blessing. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counseling, and Godly and understands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scorners, but his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law he meditates day and night. He's like a tree planted by the streams of water that yield fruit in its season. It's leaf does not wither and what it does, what he does, does, prospers. And so he gives this oracle of blessing. And so Jesus, in essence, as he is beginning this great sermon on the mount. He is not pronouncing an oracle of woe, he is pronouncing an oracle of wheel blessing to you. Jesus is pouring out these blessings upon you Now.

Speaker 1: 19:25

The word blessed, as Doug mentioned last week, is deeper than just what we would see you as happiness. Our world looks at happiness and happiness is primarily superficial, it's about something that's temporal and it's usually something that's earthly. And the blessings that Jesus is talking about here are our heaven word. And he's talking about this beautiful blessing that you have, whether it's the blessing, as Aaron pronounced, the blessing or even the beatific blessing in heaven that you are going to get an opportunity to see the very face of God in eternity, that you, if you're in Christ, you're going to have righteousness acquired for you through Jesus Christ, and then you have a standing righteousness and you will be infinitely loved, totally accepted, completely forgiven, and you will spend eternity with God in heaven. What an amazing blessing that you have in Christ.

Speaker 1: 20:22

And so he begins by saying he opens his mouth, he teaches them and he begins a series of blessings, and he begins with the first one Blessed are the poor in spirit, for there is the kingdom of heaven, which is interesting if you read Matthew, I'm sorry Luke. In Luke he leaves off the in spirit. He says blessed are the poor, and then he goes into a teaching about how the rich people are acting oppressively in the world. And so some have said that Jesus is talking primarily about material issues that are here. I don't think so. I think that could be part of it, but I think the greater issue is he's poor in spirit.

Speaker 1: 21:14

Now there's no doubt that there are people that are overcome financially in this world. They're hungry, those that are destitute and they struggle. But to just say that somebody who is hungry and destitute means that their heart is right is just not right, because there are some people that are in poverty today that struggle with bitterness and resentment and envy. So it's not just the external circumstance of physical poverty and that's not to also say. I know we believe this in our culture, which is just crazy is that rich people are always evil. So we have in our culture today that rich people are always evil and poor people are always saints, and that is not the case. There are some rich people that may be godly and want to give their money to help others and to serve the community, and there's some poor people that are really envious and covetous and they've made material blessings their God. So when he's talking here primarily he's talking about a poor in spirit and he's speaking primarily of bankruptcy.

Speaker 1: 22:18

The song Rock of Ages goes. There's a section in there where it says nothing in my hands I bring simply to your cross I cling. It's talking about this desperate need that a person that is representing the kingdom, a person that is truly in Christ, is one who has come to the place where they have seen their desperate need. It's no longer about self-sufficiency, it's no longer about self-reliance, it is about Christ and Christ alone, this dependent humility that is just so filling them. It's an eternal quality of a life, of a person. They're humble.

Speaker 1: 22:59

You remember the rich young ruler? The rich young ruler came to Jesus and he said what can I do to get to heaven? And Jesus does a little thing with him and he says here's what you need to do. You need to keep the commandments. The kid says I keep them all. I've done all. Yeah, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, nine, 10, I got them all. And then Jesus says in his heart I'm sure you don't even keep the first or the tenth commandment, because I'm now gonna show you, I'm gonna expose your sin, I'm gonna expose your struggle. I want you to sell all that you have and give to the poor, and then you will have eternity in heaven. Now Jesus is saying that all rich people have to give all their money away, and he's not saying that poor people don't automatically get to heaven. What he's saying is this you have another God cursed commandment and you were a coveter. Tenth commandment you can't even keep the bookends of the law and you think you've kept the whole law.

Speaker 1: 23:58

You need to come to a place where you are poor in spirit, where you're spiritually bankrupt. I've got nothing, god. One of my mentors at work. She has a tendency to constantly say I've got nothing. And when we're dealing with struggles and people around us and sometimes we just don't have an answer she says I got nothing. And then you know what, in essence, spiritually, that's exactly what we need to think I've got nothing. I've got nothing to offer you, god.

Speaker 1: 24:25

In John, chapter one, it talked about the fact that it's not about the family that you grew up in, it's not about the works that you do, it's not about the fact that you're here, it doesn't matter about the fact that you'll take communion this morning. It's not about the fact that you put money in the offering plate. That does not get you salvation. It is a bended knee before the Savior. It is recognizing your absolute need and there's nothing you could do about it. And it's turning to Christ alone. And he says now for that person, theirs is the kingdom of God, luke, or the kingdom of heaven, matthew. It's a world of confusion and all the chaos and all the conflicts that are in this world. The greatest path of peace is the person of peace, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so Jesus says this is what the kingdom is and this is a person that is part of a kingdom. That's what their behaviors are like, and that person gets eternity. And that person gets eternity because of me. You are great.

Speaker 1: 25:29

Problems that you and I struggle with are guilt and bondage. Every single person in this room struggles with one of those two things or both. Guilt Well, you know I've done wrong, you know you're a sinner and you know you're guilty within yourself, or you feel guilt from other people and that condemnation just weighs heavily upon you. Or bondage, and it's like I wanna be free, but I keep getting sucked into this same old sin pattern and Jesus says that I can forgive you and set you free through my perfect life, my substitutionary death, my victorious resurrection and my Ascension. He is seated in heaven praying for you today. Your forgiveness and your freedom is there for you in Christ. So he says, the kingdom of heaven, that we start with this. I am broken, I've got nothing. God, I need to lean on you. No longer self-sufficiency, no longer self-reliance. It is only about you, christ and Moses. To our second beatitude. Our second beatitude is not only poor in spirit, but mourning, he said. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Speaker 1: 26:55

Now there's some confusion over what we mean by mourning here. Could it be mourning over a loss? And maybe some of us have experienced real close losses to us, family members that have passed away. Some of them have passed away very quickly and they're gone and we feel grief and we feel sadness and we're broken. Some of us are anticipating our deaths and we're seeing that our death is on the horizon and we're maybe mourning our own lives, or maybe family members are mourning that and that could be the mourning of brokenness of this world. Grief, it could be. It could be mourning over the sin that you've committed Mourning over your own sin, this deep repentance, that you're moved deep down in your own heart, that it's like I know I have sinned Lord Mark in your outlines.

Speaker 1: 27:49

2 Corinthians 7, verse 10. And in that passage it talks about the difference between godly sorrow and worldly sorrow. Why don't we turn that real quick? I'll just do it Turn to 2 Corinthians, chapter 7, verse 10. And there Paul is talking about the difference between godly sorrow and worldly sorrow. And he says this. He says for godly grief produces repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you and what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what seal, what punishment.

Speaker 1: 28:38

At every point you've proven yourself innocent in the matter Paul gets to here is that we all have felt guilt. Very honestly, all of us have felt it at times. We've all done something wrong, we've quickly regretted it and we felt guilty about it. But there is good guilt and there's bad guilt. There is godly repentance and there is worldly repentance. And what he's alluding to here is that there are two different ones. Now perhaps you're one that has done something and you've gotten caught by someone, and you've gotten caught and you feel badly Now. You feel badly because somebody may be upset with you or you're on the outs, but there is something within you that it's really still all about you, that people are mad at me. I'm feeling uncomfortable. I really don't like to be in this situation. That is what we will call worldly sorrow, and on the surface it may still seem like you're grieving. You're crying, you feel bad, but the center of attention is still you.

Speaker 1: 29:46

Godly sorrow is radically different. Godly sorrow is that you are broken in heart over offending God, hurting others, even if that means that I am going to suffer the consequences of the weight of my sin. And what Paul is arguing is that there are two different types of earnestness that the desire that I have, this desire to do something different. I wanna be righteous the vindication. The vindication not that I am great, the vindication is that God is great through me. The indignation that I start to hate my sin, the fear of standing before a sovereign God, the longing to be a righteous person all of that is the internal thing, internal things that God does. That is radically different.

Speaker 1: 30:34

So when you are mourning, as you go back to Matthew's account here, he's talking about mourning over sin. I think that some of us, very honestly, are struggling with that and we need to mourn over our sin. I guess you can mourn over losses. I guess you can mourn over sin. You could also mourn over the persecution that he's going to talk about near the end of this the attitudes that if you are living a Godly life in the world, they're gonna hate you, and maybe you are going to mourn over the persecution that you're enduring. So, whether he's talking about mourning over sin or mourning over the fallenness he is talking about, there's a level of contrition that you have. All of us have suffered oppression or poverty in some way or another, but there is something about living in this broken world that should lead to a level of mourning.

Speaker 1: 31:25

Jesus was called a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief. He never sinned, but even living in this world, he had sorrow. And he had grief because he saw the evil of the world that's around them. He saw how people mistreat one another, he saw the pain of sin and he knew that he was going to go to a cross and bear your sin on the cross. So Jesus says that a person that really wants heaven has to be poor in spirit. I got nothing in my hands. A person that is really a believer is a person that has come to a place where they grieve, and they grieve over the world, they grieve over their own sin, they grieve over the brokenness and they long for heaven. And what God promises to that person is that you will be comforted. I love that.

Speaker 1: 32:16

But the Old Testament talked a lot about comfort. One of my favorite books, my favorite book, is Isaiah in the Old Testament and Isaiah, chapter 40, he says this, verses one and two Comfort, comfort my people. Says your God, speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that a warfare has ended, that her iniquity is pardoned and that she is received from the Lord double for all her sins. And this promise, beautiful promise, it's an emphasized comfort. He says comfort, comfort. It's not just comfort, it's comfort, comfort my people, because people are in pain and misery and they desperately need that comfort. He says it's not only an emphasized comfort, it's an exclusive comfort. He says comfort, comfort my people. See the world longs for this, but they can't have it because they don't have Christ. If you're in Christ, you have that comfort.

Speaker 1: 33:25

As you're mourning over your sin, go to the cross and recognize Jesus says I have forgiven you, I've set you free. Comfort, comfort. It's an emphasized comfort. It's an exclusive comfort. It's an everlasting comfort. He says her warfare has ended. No more dead I owe. It is finished. When Jesus stayed on the hung on the cross, he said it is done, done. I paid the eternal penalty for your sin. It's an emphasized comfort. It's an exclusive comfort. It's an everlasting comfort. It's an extravagant comfort. He says I will give her double for all her sins. I will your sin. Jesus says I will give you much more grace, grace upon grace, amazing. So for those of you that are part of the kingdom, your poor in spirit, for those of you that are part of the kingdom, you mourn over the sin that you have, but also the brokenness in this world, and God wants to tell you that there is a comforter that has come.

Speaker 1: 34:31

In Luke, chapter two, I don't know if you remember the story of Simeon. Simeon was this old man and he was longing to see the consolation of Israel and God had told him that you're not gonna die before you see the consolation, the comforter of Israel. And then Mary and Joseph bring the little baby Jesus to the temple to have him circumcised and have him named, and he gets a chance to hold this baby in his arm and he says now I can die in peace because my eyes have seen your salvation, my eyes have seen your consolation. The consolation of Israel is not an experience, it's not an event, it's a person. It's a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. But even there, jesus says it's not even just me, it's even the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit brings you to me, because on the night he was betrayed. He says I wanna tell you that when I leave, I'm gonna give you a what Comforter? I'm going to give you one who is going to be we translate it today counselor, the Holy Spirit becomes your counselor.

Speaker 1: 35:39

Jesus says I wanna give you rest, I am the bomb of Gilead, I am the one that can bring you comfort, eternal comfort and peace. So Lord Jesus Christ says that if you're part of my kingdom, a characteristic of your poor in spirit, you've got heaven. He says a characteristic of a person that is in the kingdom is that they mourn over their sins. But even mourning over your sins, you are comforted. Comfort, comfort.

Speaker 1: 36:09

The third characteristic of a person that is in the kingdom and in Christ is that they are meek. Look what it says here. It says that they are. It says blessed are those who are meek, for they shall inherit eternal life.

Speaker 1: 36:31

Now, most people will translate the idea of meek as weakness and the world's argument that's why it's counterculture. The world's argument is that the more weak you are, the less powerful you are, and the world would say that the more powerful you are and the more prestige that you have and the more possessions that you have. That is how you gain kingdom. That is how you gain authority. And Jesus says it's exactly the opposite. Let me just tell you. It's exactly the opposite. He gives you an Old Testament model.

Speaker 1: 37:01

The Old Testament model was who? Moses? Moses, who had great authority. He stands against the sovereign leader of that time, pharaoh, and he says let my people go. He stands against that great authority and he stands in boldness, the boldness of God. And then those millions of people are left out, those slaves are moved out towards the desert, and he's leading these millions of people. He's leading them. He's power. He's probably the most powerful man in the universe, in the world at the time.

Speaker 1: 37:37

And what does he do? Does he use that power to get more for himself? No, does he use that power to antagonize or to act as a tyrant? No, does he use that power in arrogance? No, does he rush-shot other people? Is he ruthless? No, he is a meek man. He's attacked by people in his own family. He's attacked by people around him. How does he respond? Time after time? With meekness. You know what the thing is. Insecure people attack other people, and when they attack other people, insecure people want to have their own way. Moses didn't do that. Moses wielded his power with grace.

Speaker 1: 38:24

But the greatest one, the greatest meek one, is not Moses, it's the Lord, jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, there is no one stronger. He spoke this world into existence. There is. He holds this world into existence. He humbled himself to become a baby. He humbled himself by putting himself under the law for you, and he was treated as an outsider. He was treated as a sinner. He was mistreated by the religious leaders, and what Jesus could have done is he could have struck down people with his word.

Speaker 1: 38:58

But what does he do, he's gentle? Now there are times that he's confronting. Like we read earlier, he confronts the Pharisees. But the woman at the well who was living with another guy and at five husbands, how does he treat her With kindness and grace? He says you gotta stop sitting, you gotta sin problem girl. But and I wanna tell you there's a better way the woman who's caught into adultery, zacchaeus, up in the tree. What does he do? He sees people and he treats them with compassion, and that's why John could say he dwelt with us and he was a man full of grace and truth. That's the Lord, jesus Christ.

Speaker 1: 39:38

And so what's interesting is that the world will tell you that you have to be ruthless in order to get earth. Jesus says no, be meek and I will give you the promise You'll inherit the earth. You'll not only inherit the earth, you'll get eternity, you'll get heaven. You'll get blessing upon blessing that you do not deserve, you don't earn it, you don't merit it, but I'll give it to you. So stop trying to clamor for things here in this world. Temper your power with grace, temper your power with mercy, temper your power with makeness. So, pour in spirit. You get grace, you get heaven. Mourn over your sin. You're gonna be comforted. Meek, you can inherit the earth. And then the last one today is blessed with those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. I almost wonder that, as I look at these first three. It really talks about the need that I need to be poor in spirit, that I need to mourn over my sin and I need to be a meek person, and it's almost like this one. I don't know if there's a central one, but it's almost like this one is really the essence of how I'm gonna live that I need to hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Speaker 1: 41:05

What drives you to succeed? What moves you? Today, some of us are gonna be watching a football game and we're gonna watch men struggle against one another to move a football. What A foot, three feet, a hundred yards Cross the finish line, yes, no. And then some of those guys are going to get hurt today. Their bodies are going to be broken today Over a piece of pigskin that they're taking over a line. But millions upon millions, upon millions of people are going to watch this and the goal is for them to score a touchdown on a Windows Super Bowl.

Speaker 1: 42:00

Right, I wonder what is it that drives you and what drives me? Because I love football, so don't misunderstand, I love football. My team's not in, so I'm not as excited about this, but Jesus says what drives you? You know, it's interesting that there are some athletes. I got a chance to meet an athlete, a baseball player, who had phenomenal talent. Phenomenal talent.

Speaker 1: 42:29

The man could have been a Hall of Famer ten times over, but he let drugs and possessions take over his life. He didn't hunger and thirst for hitting a home run, he didn't hunger and thirst for his profession. He hungered and thirst for temporary satisfactions drugs, and it cost him his career. But I wonder what you hunger and thirst for. Jesus says hunger and thirst for what Righteousness Now, I wonder. I'm not going to ask you to tell me out loud, but some of you created resolutions for the year. As you began this year, a month ago, and as you created those resolutions, I wonder how many of you put there even in the top ten? How many of you, man, had the word righteous on your list? How many of you said I made it my goal in life.

Speaker 1: 43:24

I hunger and thirst to be like Christ. Sad to say, most of us don't. So when it inflames your passion. My daughter, we call her hangry at times. Sometimes, when she gets hungry, she can get a little hangry. I love that.

Speaker 1: 43:49

But Jesus uses a metaphor of physical living, because when you are longing for food, there is something that you're just going to crave, I'll eat anything. I just need something. I need something to come into my mouth. I need something. So, what affections? What drives you? What motivates you? What are you so passionate about? What captivates you? What compels you? What controls you? What motivates you? What motivates you? What motivates you? What motivates you? What motivates you? What is it Jesus said? Don't let it be possessions, don't let it be privilege, don't let it be power. Some of the politicians are doing that. They are craving this. Christians crave righteousness. They crave a godly life, trusting God, reflecting God, growing in his grace, the excellence of Christ, reflecting through you. What Jesus says is this when you do that, guess what? You will be satisfied. My football team and my life has won four Super Bowls. I loved every single one of them, but once the game is over, it's over. Some of us have basements full of stuff that I desperately need, so I can be happy, and they're still in the box.

Speaker 1: 45:09

Jesus is arguing that a kingdom person is poor in spirit. They're spiritually bankrupt. A kingdom person mourns over their sin because they look at the sin in the world but, more importantly, the sin in themselves. It sickens them. A kingdom person is meek because they have strength and they've been given a privileged position, but they want to show that out to others differently. A kingdom person hungers and thirsts, not for an inch or a foot on a football field, but for righteousness in life.

Speaker 1: 45:49

Is that you? Is that me? Thankfully, when we fail, we can look to one who ran a touchdown every single time because my guilt has been paid for in Christ. My bondage is gone, the chains have been set free and for any of you that are sitting here today filled with judgment and condemnation, I beg you to run to the cross. Run to the one who lived a righteous life for you. He says I got that hundred for you. You failed the test, I completed it for you.

Speaker 1: 46:27

I pray for those that are in bondage today Bondage to yourself, bondage to substances, bondage to people, bondage to possessions, bondage. God says I want to set you free. Will you trust him today? Let's pray, Father. There is a kingdom blessing that is there.

Speaker 1: 46:55

It's so sad, father. The world is just full of such anger, such vitriol. I know that there are people that are in this world that are upset with a lot of people, a lot of us angry and, father, I find sad to say is that the world has such anger about what's happening around them rather than anger that is happening within them. So, lord, I praise you for the fact that a blessed person is a person who's poor in spirit, spiritually bankrupt. I got nothing, god, and God, you say they got heaven.

Speaker 1: 47:41

I thank you for the fact that we can mourn over our sins. You actually give us a heart that can actually be broken over our sin. And you say I want to comfort you, lord, I praise you for the fact that you show us what it means to be meek, whether it's a model of Moses but, more importantly, the model of Christ, that strength under gentleness. Lord, help us to do the same and, father, I pray today that you would help us be people that are hungry and thirst, not for possessions, not for prestige, not for temporary blessings. Help us to hunger and thirst for you, for your son Filled by your spirit. Father, for anyone that's here in this room that doesn't know your son, lord, jesus Christ, I pray that something that I've said today or something that we sung today, pierce their ear or their hearts. I pray that they be humble enough to bend their knee to your son so that they can have the answer to their guilt, the answer to their bondage, the answer to true forgiveness and freedom. In Jesus' name we pray Amen.