The NXR Podcast - THE SERMON - Citizens of Christ's Kingdom

00:00:00.000 It's been a pleasure to hear the word preached from Michael Belch, so if you would, welcome

00:00:08.420 Michael with me this morning.

00:00:16.540 Good morning.

00:00:17.460 It's a great privilege and honor to open the word with you and for you this morning.

00:00:21.820 We're going to be continuing in our series in the book of Matthew, so our scripture text

00:00:26.380 today will be Matthew chapter 5, verses 1 through 12.

00:00:30.000 as you get that out will you stand uh together and we'll read it together and as you're preparing

00:00:35.920 that as you're looking that up in your bibles let me just say one word by way of introduction here

00:00:40.760 because i know i'll forget to say it later this passage in matthew chapter 5 is commonly referred

00:00:46.680 to as the beatitudes the beatitudes and so i just want to be clear on the front end the beatitudes

00:00:52.700 means statements of blessing statements of blessing and it gets the title because all of the

00:00:59.180 beatitudes all of these statements start with that word blessed that word blessed in the original

00:01:04.620 language means happy right happy and so as we study this passage today really when i refer to

00:01:10.660 the beatitudes when commentators throughout history we're talking about the blessed statements

00:01:15.880 the statements of why christians are blessed all right once again our passage this morning is going

00:01:22.280 to be matthew chapter 5 verses 1 through 12 after i read it please if you would be willing to i'll

00:01:28.900 say, this is the word of the Lord, and please reply, thanks be to God. Matthew 5, 1 through 12.

00:01:35.780 Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.

00:01:41.340 And he opened his mouth, and he taught them, saying, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs

00:01:46.660 is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are

00:01:52.440 the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for

00:01:57.440 righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

00:02:03.220 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they

00:02:09.480 shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake,

00:02:14.780 for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you

00:02:20.680 and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward

00:02:26.600 is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. This is the word

00:02:32.160 of the Lord. Thanks be to God. All right, you may be seated.

00:02:43.500 In a story that is probably familiar to some of you, sometime in the early 1900s, it is rumored

00:02:49.300 that Edward Shackleton, who was assembling the first group of explorers to go and explore the

00:02:55.020 South Pole, placed this advertisement in a London newspaper. It said, men wanted for hazardous

00:03:02.200 journey, low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness, safe return, doubtful,

00:03:10.860 honor and recognition in event of success. This advertisement is one of the most famous in history.

00:03:17.900 It's frequently quoted as one of the best examples of copywriting and one of the best

00:03:21.960 recruitment pitches. It's been quoted many, many times, and the reality is when you are looking

00:03:28.560 for a group of people to perform a particular task, the words that you use to explain what

00:03:34.900 they're doing and who they should be are very important. In many ways, Jesus was the king of

00:03:40.100 these recruitment little pitches, these sales pitches, as it were. He told the scribe, foxes

00:03:46.700 have holes, birds have their nests, but the Son of God has nowhere to lay his head. Want to come

00:03:52.300 along? He told people who were thinking of being his disciples, if you want to be my disciple,

00:03:59.180 you must deny yourself and take up your cross and follow me. Again, what does it mean to follow

00:04:05.740 Christ? And in a sense, the Beatitudes which we're looking at today is the greatest recruitment

00:04:11.860 speech ever made. In order to understand this text, it's absolutely critical that we understand

00:04:19.460 it in the context of the book of Matthew. As Pastor Joel said last week, Jesus' ministry,

00:04:26.020 we saw this in Matthew 4, began when John the Baptist was arrested. The reason for this is that

00:04:32.040 John the Baptist was sent to prepare the way for Christ. Now he, in a sense, has been moved off the

00:04:37.720 chessboard and Christ takes the stage and begins his ministry. And it's absolutely critical that

00:04:45.740 we see in the book of Matthew for the argument here that what Jesus does immediately, look at

00:04:50.740 chapter 4 verse 17, it says from that time Jesus began to preach saying repent for the kingdom of

00:04:57.800 heaven is at hand. Then he called his first disciples and began to minister to the people

00:05:04.740 in galilee and again verse 23 repeats this idea again it tells us what jesus was doing

00:05:11.320 it says he went throughout all galilee teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming what the gospel

00:05:17.960 of the kingdom and healing every disease and affliction among the people he was proclaiming

00:05:24.760 the gospel not just the gospel the gospel of the kingdom in the book of matthew he was telling them

00:05:30.100 that the kingdom of heaven is right on the verge. It's at hand. It's about to be here.

00:05:36.360 It's very near and almost established. And in order to add validity to his claim, he performed

00:05:45.040 miracles. Now, it's interesting that these miracles were not just displays of power. He could have

00:05:50.860 caused volcanoes to erupt in the middle of the fields or tornadoes to come. But no, he did not

00:05:58.940 do that. He demonstrated his power by healing them. And in this way, the miracles did not only

00:06:06.340 verify and prove his message and his authority, but they also showed that he loved them. You see,

00:06:12.720 even in the miracles, he was initiating the kingdom. He was rolling back the curse. He was

00:06:17.480 healing their diseases and tending to the afflicted. This is because even then he was

00:06:24.540 bringing the kingdom. He was giving a foretaste of what it would be like to live, in the final

00:06:30.080 sense, in the perfect, consummated, pure kingdom of Christ, when he would finally wipe away every

00:06:37.280 tear and heal every infirmity. And so to understand the book of Matthew, we need to realize that from

00:06:42.860 this point forward, everything that Christ does and everything that Matthew records is to illustrate

00:06:48.320 what is the kingdom of heaven. As he preaches, great crowds come to him. They come for the

00:06:55.880 miracles. He's healing. He's ministering to them. And they gather together. But he did not come as

00:07:02.220 a circus performer. He did not come as a social justice warrior. And so when the crowds gathered,

00:07:09.120 he went up onto a mountain. This is verse 1 of chapter 5. He went up on the mountain,

00:07:14.380 and he sat down and his disciples came to him and he's opened his mouth and taught them

00:07:19.140 he came to teach them we need to remember this

00:07:22.740 we need to remember that we need to be taught by christ

00:07:27.300 we need to be taught what it is to be a citizen of the kingdom of heaven

00:07:32.180 to be a follower of christ and we need to remember that what we are offering also is teaching

00:07:38.740 to the world we're not offering more compelling narratives although the story of the bible is the

00:07:43.960 greatest story. We're not merely offering grassroots political organization, although

00:07:48.600 we must do that. We're offering the teachings of Christ. We've been commanded in the Great

00:07:53.660 Commission, go disciple the nations, teaching them to obey all that Christ has commanded.

00:07:59.700 So Jesus stopped doing the miracles. He goes up on the mountain. He sits down and he begins to

00:08:05.700 preach. The next three chapters, Matthew 5, 6, and 7, are the text of this sermon. We call it the

00:08:12.920 Sermon on the Mount. It's a bit confusing in Matthew 5 because if you read it a certain way,

00:08:19.740 it could sound like he went up on the mountain and then his disciples, and we're used to just saying

00:08:24.240 just the 12, or in this case it would be just the four, came to him and he preached. And so we might

00:08:29.020 be tempted to think that he left the crowds to do this teaching, but no. If you look at the end of

00:08:33.520 the sermon in Matthew 7, it says, when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished

00:08:41.220 at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, not as the scribes. And so we

00:08:45.940 see here the crowds came up on the mountain with him and heard. This sermon was for them, not just

00:08:52.640 for a select few. This is a very important thing to notice, and we don't have time to unpack all

00:08:59.880 of this today, but there is an idea that's less popular now, but has had popularity in modern

00:09:05.380 evangelicalism, particularly in very dispensational camps, that the Sermon on the Mount, the proper

00:09:12.600 application, the proper audience for it, because it's talking about the kingdom of God, is not for

00:09:19.340 modern-day Christians. It wasn't for the people who heard it them. These theologians argue that

00:09:26.240 the Sermon on the Mount properly belongs to those who will live in the millennial reign of Christ,

00:09:30.740 because, after all, that's when the kingdom is there.

00:09:33.820 So it's important to notice that it was the crowds that Jesus was speaking to.

00:09:37.960 The sermon was for them, for the people that were going to follow him,

00:09:41.920 for the people that were going to join as citizens of the kingdom.

00:09:46.120 You see, the main thing that we need to see this morning is that the Sermon on the Mount,

00:09:50.640 and these Beatitudes especially, describe life for the ordinary citizen of Christ's kingdom.

00:09:57.720 that is for you and for me and for every Christian throughout history.

00:10:02.100 This is really the point that I hope we pick up on today.

00:10:05.800 So how do we arrive at that conclusion?

00:10:07.880 What's the connection?

00:10:08.760 Well, remember, I just said Matthew 4, 17,

00:10:12.420 says that Jesus began to preach,

00:10:14.340 repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

00:10:16.860 And then a few verses later in 4, 23,

00:10:19.520 Matthew says he began to preach the gospel of the kingdom.

00:10:22.940 It's no coincidence that we arrive at chapter 5, verse 3,

00:10:27.140 which is only a few verses later and the first beatitude the promise of it is for theirs is the

00:10:33.360 kingdom of heaven and the second to last but really the concluding beatitude in chapter or in verse

00:10:40.480 nine is again theirs is the kingdom of heaven matthew and jesus are trying to point out that

00:10:47.300 there is a way that citizens of the kingdom live and we begin to live that way when we establish

00:10:53.160 the fundamentals of the Beatitudes. You see, a follower of Jesus is not just to enter into a

00:11:02.260 life of personal, individual obedience. We are. We are to obey Christ in all areas.

00:11:08.880 But it is to enter into his kingdom. It is to be a citizen of the kingdom of Christ, a subject

00:11:16.600 and a servant of the Lord Jesus, and then it is to devote our lives to extending that kingdom

00:11:24.260 in our families, in our neighborhoods, in our towns, in our nations. The Beatitudes gives us

00:11:32.260 the foundation for how true citizens of Christ's kingdom live, what they believe, what they love,

00:11:39.160 what they do. And so it's worth taking a few minutes, even though the Beatitudes is a massive

00:11:46.160 passage and we could do weeks upon weeks, it is worth taking a few minutes to do a slight detour

00:11:52.040 here to talk about the kingdom of Christ Jesus that he is bringing about. What does this mean?

00:12:00.340 Well, the first thing to say is that it is really quite pointless to try and parse out all the terms

00:12:06.580 kingdom of heaven, kingdom of God, gospel of the kingdom. These are all referring to three different

00:12:11.820 things and the kingdom of heaven is one thing and the gospel that no it's the same thing it's

00:12:16.380 christ's kingdom that is being established here on the earth the second thing to notice even from

00:12:23.500 jesus own words is that this kingdom that jesus is announcing is in a sense a new thing he says

00:12:31.040 at that time it is at hand which means technically at that point it was not even fully established

00:12:37.980 It was imminent.

00:12:39.200 It was coming.

00:12:40.680 It was going to be there soon. 0.96

00:12:42.720 In the same way as when a woman goes into labor with her child,

00:12:46.620 we could say the baby is at hand. 0.83

00:12:49.640 Yes, she was pregnant before that, but now it's imminent.

00:12:52.660 It's going to be any moment now.

00:12:55.960 This presents us with a bit of a paradox

00:12:58.520 to say that the kingdom was new at hand,

00:13:03.620 had never been there before.

00:13:04.880 because all over the old testament and you'll find these in your notes

00:13:08.580 we see verses like psalm 47 2 which says a psalm of the sons of corp clap your hands all peoples

00:13:16.280 shout to god with loud sounds of joy for the lord the most high is to be feared a great king

00:13:22.400 over all the earth the old testament says he is the king psalm 95 3 for the lord is a great god

00:13:30.320 and a great king above all gods.

00:13:32.080 Psalm 47, 7.

00:13:33.960 For God is king of all the earth.

00:13:37.740 What do we mean?

00:13:39.280 That the kingdom of God is new.

00:13:41.740 The kingdom of heaven is new.

00:13:42.920 God is the king, clearly, all throughout the Old Testament.

00:13:46.780 And yet also, all over the Old Testament,

00:13:49.080 we see promises of a coming king and a coming kingdom.

00:13:53.420 Zechariah 9, 9.

00:13:56.000 It says, Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion.

00:13:58.260 Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem.

00:14:00.320 behold, your king is coming to you. This is a prophecy. Psalm 110, verse 1, which Hebrews

00:14:08.440 1 picks up on as well. The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies

00:14:14.280 a footstool. Again, a prophecy of a coming king. So how can it be that God is the king, and yet

00:14:21.580 there's a new kingdom that's being established?

00:14:24.860 the answer is that while god has indeed always been the sovereign lord of all the ruler of all

00:14:33.620 creation and of all demonic forces and of all time and space there is a sense in which jesus

00:14:41.620 as the god man had not yet been crowned as the perfect king of the world that had not happened

00:14:50.200 yet. We think about the incarnation. Something important to realize is that Christ represents

00:14:58.180 humanity through the line of Adam and therefore has a rightful claim to the throne. The earth

00:15:05.260 and the world was given to Adam, to humans, to be God's representatives, to take dominion of it,

00:15:12.140 to rule it, and Adam abdicated that responsibility. And since Adam, there has been no true

00:15:19.560 rightful human king of the earth. But Christ is. But on the other hand, Christ also is the

00:15:28.760 God-man. He represents God as the creator, the sustainer, the owner of all things that have ever

00:15:35.520 been created or will be. God is the proper sovereign of all. And so when Jesus is saying

00:15:42.320 that the kingdom is at hand is because he knows that he, the true representative of humanity and

00:15:50.300 of God himself, is now there. A kingdom, after all, is a place where a king rules.

00:16:00.900 And Jesus, the true king, had finally come. All that needed to happen was that he needed to

00:16:07.700 receive the title and the authority to rule from the father. Pastor Joel talked about this

00:16:14.620 in the temptations a few weeks ago. Jesus was not content to receive that title from the devil.

00:16:21.120 He knew he would be receiving it shortly from the father himself. And this is exactly what

00:16:25.540 would happen. A few short years later, he would indeed obey the father and go to the cross and die.

00:16:30.980 and in doing so, he would crush the head of the serpent.

00:16:35.860 It's absolutely critical that we remember how this book, Matthew, ends.

00:16:41.000 After he resurrected and before going back to his father,

00:16:44.480 he said to his disciples in a verse that we all know,

00:16:47.040 all authority on heaven and earth has been given to me.

00:16:50.460 Go disciple the nations.

00:16:51.580 All authority has now been given to me in a way that it wasn't before.

00:16:55.640 Philippians 2 also points out that because Jesus obeyed the father to the point of death

00:17:02.260 it says God has highly exalted him and given him what a name that is above every other name Christ

00:17:09.700 now for us has received the title the name and the authority as the king and because a kingdom

00:17:17.660 is where a king rules the kingdom has been established and we are citizens of

00:17:25.280 it now many Christians will object here by going to John 18 verse 36 you

00:17:35.160 remember this passage this is the passage where Jesus is brought before

00:17:38.960 Pilate as he's being tried and eventually executed and Pilate asks him

00:17:43.460 are you the king of the Jews? And Jesus answers, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom

00:17:50.560 were of this world, my servants would have been fighting that I might not be delivered over to 1.00

00:17:55.340 the Jews. Many Christians look at this verse and they say, see, Jesus' kingdom is not of this world.

00:18:02.320 It's merely spiritual or for some dispensationalists, it's actually only in the future.

00:18:07.440 we could do a whole series on just this question

00:18:12.500 but just for today consider one parallel text to help point out how absurd that statement is

00:18:20.960 john chapter one i'll read verses four and then verses nine through ten straight together

00:18:27.720 says this in him in christ was life and that life was the light of men okay so christ is the light

00:18:34.920 the true light this is verse 9 now which gives light to everyone was coming into the world

00:18:41.980 and he was in the world it was coming into the world and then suddenly christ he was in the

00:18:48.940 world and the world was made through him and yet the world did not know him so there's a metaphor

00:18:55.540 here jesus is the light that is coming into the world and then was in the world this would be i

00:19:02.620 don't know if any of you have ever lived in a place with long, cold, dark winters, but it can

00:19:08.680 feel like basically four months of just darkness and cold and ice and snow. It can be pretty

00:19:14.400 miserable. So I think of this verse in John like the first truly warm, brilliant sunrise after a

00:19:22.900 long winter of cold and dark and ice. When the dawn breaks, the light begins to come in. Maybe

00:19:30.520 there's a town in a valley the light begins to break in to fill the town slowly and then

00:19:38.720 increasingly as the sun goes up now obviously we would say the light did not originate on the earth

00:19:45.480 it came from outside from somewhere else the light is from somewhere else but it would be

00:19:52.560 preposterous to say that because the light came from outside the planet it was not in the planet

00:19:58.580 it now or did not have any effect on that town. The sunlight illuminated the houses so that people

00:20:05.220 could see and go about their business. Furthermore, the light produced warmth finally after winter

00:20:12.220 that melted the ice and the snow. Maybe someone's car was buried out in their front yard in snow and

00:20:18.320 you can see the car because the snow is melting. The flowers and the trees and the grass, they begin

00:20:24.020 to grow under the warmth and the influence of the sunlight, all because the light, which was not of

00:20:30.380 the world, it came from the sun, was now in the world. So when we say that because Jesus' kingdom

00:20:41.160 is not of this world, it will not affect this world or even take over this world, it paints a

00:20:47.060 very poor and small picture of the majesty and power of christ's kingdom in fact it is precisely

00:20:54.220 because it is not of this world but because it comes from the spiritual realm of the father

00:20:58.700 himself that it will utterly take over and control and dominate this world this world has no power

00:21:06.340 against the spiritual world that that the father lives in and inhabits so this is why jesus says

00:21:13.900 that the citizens of his kingdom ought to not look like the world. Rather, he's giving a pitch.

00:21:21.220 You want to be a citizen of the kingdom? This is how you look, the Beatitudes. That brings us back

00:21:27.660 to where we started, which is that immediately upon saying that Jesus is preaching the gospel

00:21:32.060 of the kingdom, that the kingdom of God is at hand, Matthew records the Sermon on the Mount

00:21:38.020 in the Beatitudes. And he promises that the kingdom belongs to the people who demonstrate

00:21:45.200 the characteristics of these eight or nine Beatitudes. So we're going to look at the

00:21:51.220 Beatitudes. What does it mean to be a citizen of Christ's kingdom? What does it mean to live the

00:21:57.500 way he commands and to love the way that he commands? But before we do, this will be helpful

00:22:02.280 for today and also as you go study these on your own later on. There are a few general principles

00:22:07.720 that we need to know about the Beatitudes.

00:22:10.960 The first is that we cannot take them in isolation.

00:22:14.400 We can't take them in isolation from the rest of the text,

00:22:17.300 which is what we've talked about.

00:22:18.640 And also, they're not really meant to be read in isolation one after the other.

00:22:22.820 It's good to focus on one.

00:22:24.200 I need to grow in being merciful, yes.

00:22:28.240 But also, they're a package, kind of the way the spiritual gifts

00:22:32.100 are to always characterize themselves in the lives of all believers.

00:22:36.220 all of these beatitudes are to be present in our lives it's not that one person in christ's

00:22:42.100 kingdom is merciful and i'm not that guy so i don't have to be merciful i'm pure in heart no

00:22:46.460 all of these are to be present in all of our lives

00:22:49.380 the second thing to notice is that these are not natural abilities it's not that if my personality

00:23:02.980 or my general way of being is kind of quiet and reserved, I am this spiritual virtue of meek.

00:23:10.100 Or that if I am timid naturally and lack courage, I am now demonstrating poor in spirit.

00:23:17.160 All of these virtues, or graces is a better word, in this passage are only produced in the hearts

00:23:24.120 of Christians when they come face to face with God. And really this is because Christ is the King.

00:23:29.820 and when we see the king and when we submit to the king we put aside all prerogatives all claims

00:23:36.320 to authority all claims to knowing our own good and right all claims to our own strength we put

00:23:42.100 those aside and and we must and then the holy spirit begins to give us this kind of heart that

00:23:48.920 honors above all things christ and his kingdom summarizing these two points martin louis jones

00:23:55.240 who wrote an entire book on the Sermon on the Mount, said this helpfully,

00:23:59.080 The Beatitudes are a complete whole, and you cannot divide them.

00:24:02.600 So that whereas one of them may be more manifest, perhaps, in one person than in another,

00:24:07.660 all of them are there.

00:24:08.860 The relative proportions may vary, but they are all present,

00:24:12.420 and they are all meant to be present at the same time.

00:24:16.220 None of these descriptions refers to what we may call a natural tendency.

00:24:20.580 Each of them is wholly a disposition, which is produced by grace alone,

00:24:24.620 and the operation of the holy spirit upon us the third thing to notice about the beatitudes the

00:24:31.180 third principle to keep in mind is that all of them follow a formula and if we're not careful

00:24:37.660 we end up reversing the formula and developing a works-based gospel a works-based salvation

00:24:44.520 for instance the first beatitude says blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of

00:24:49.700 heaven. Many social justice advocates, many Roman Catholic theologians over the time had reversed

00:24:55.840 the order, and they have said this, if you are poor in spirit, then because of that, God will

00:25:02.720 grant you the kingdom of heaven. If you are pure in heart, then as a response to that, God will

00:25:08.760 make you a son of God, or you will see God. But that's not it at all. The Beatitudes are a list

00:25:16.760 of holy spirit created activities and behaviors that run counter to what the world loves it's not

00:25:23.300 just that theologically this is backwards it is but it's also impossible because these cannot be 1.00

00:25:28.600 produced in the heart of an unbeliever only the holy spirit can give these true expressions of 0.99

00:25:35.500 the beatitudes so the formula is this jesus lists a virtue he says you're blessed if and then he 0.56

00:25:42.340 lists of virtue that runs completely opposite to our flesh so know this as we go into these some

00:25:47.980 of these will sting because they run completely opposite to your flesh the natural man does not

00:25:54.340 love these things they run opposite the world he then says that the person who has that virtue is

00:26:02.260 blessed which means happy because these virtues can only be produced by the holy spirit in the

00:26:08.040 heart of someone who has believed in christ and that because it's a holy spirit given gift

00:26:14.980 there is a great reward that god graciously gives to his children it's not that the particular virtue

00:26:22.160 produces the reward all the rewards in this passage are for all of god's children it's not

00:26:29.820 that some of us are going to get to heaven and you'll say well you're a son of god but you don't

00:26:34.020 get the earth yours is the kingdom of heaven but i'm not going to comfort you right you you you

00:26:40.240 didn't hunger and thirst for righteousness you're not going to be satisfied no all of the rewards

00:26:45.860 are for god's children but matthew and jesus connect the virtue to the reward in a way that

00:26:53.640 helps us understand why the virtue is so important

00:26:56.840 and so with that in mind let us now begin we'll spend the rest of the time going through

00:27:07.920 these beatitudes and some of them we'll do a little slower and some of them will move

00:27:11.640 quite quickly through so first of all blessed are the poor in spirits

00:27:17.480 remember these are all things that are produced through faith this is after all the gospel of

00:27:25.580 the kingdom, not the grassroots movement of the kingdom. It's still the gospel. It's by grace

00:27:30.940 through faith. They're produced through faith when one comes face to face with the living God. When

00:27:37.720 we see the true King, Jesus Christ, we will either reject or God will soften our hearts and we will

00:27:44.240 have these results. The poor in spirit are not those who are timid or shy or who go to great

00:27:53.660 lengths to always put themselves down with this false humility of oh i'm just nothing i'm not

00:27:59.880 important this is a false humility it's also not the materially poor no matter what the catholic

00:28:07.820 theologians have said over the years the person who is poor in spirit does not have the eeyore

00:28:13.600 attitude woe is me in fact that sort of perspective that false humility often is very impressive to

00:28:21.420 the world, right? It can get you points in the eyes of the world. Rather, the poor in spirit

00:28:27.500 is the one who has the idea of Isaiah 57 15, which says this, for thus says the one who is high and

00:28:36.740 lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy. This is what God himself says. I dwell

00:28:42.140 in the high and holy place, and then I also dwell, and also with him who gets to dwell with God,

00:28:49.120 him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit.

00:28:53.820 Like Isaiah, when we are poor in spirit,

00:28:57.100 when we come face, we are poor in spirit

00:28:59.200 when we come face to face with God

00:29:01.160 and we realize that compared to the God of the universe,

00:29:04.140 we have nothing to offer.

00:29:07.260 We have no power and no might in comparison

00:29:09.800 to this God, this king. 0.98

00:29:11.800 Not only that, but we are wretched and sinful and vile.

00:29:15.220 And thus the poor in spirit are those who realize

00:29:17.780 when they meet God, when they come face to face with God, that they in themselves have nothing.

00:29:23.800 They can offer nothing. They can do nothing on their own.

00:29:29.480 It's interesting. Though Jesus was not sinful, he demonstrated this in a way. John 14 10.

00:29:36.680 Jesus says to the disciples, do you not believe that I am in the father and the father is in me?

00:29:41.240 The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own authority, but the father who dwells in me

00:29:46.520 does this work. Even Jesus knew that the Father was the one doing the work through him.

00:29:54.740 Helpfully, here again, Martin Lone Jones says that to be poor in spirit means a complete absence of

00:30:00.020 pride, a complete absence of self-assurance, and of self-reliance. It means a consciousness that

00:30:05.740 we are nothing in the presence of God. It is nothing, then, that we can produce. It is nothing

00:30:10.980 that we can do in ourselves.

00:30:12.660 It is just this tremendous awareness

00:30:14.720 of our utter nothingness

00:30:16.200 as we come face to face with God.

00:30:20.880 Are you utterly convinced

00:30:22.620 that your own reason,

00:30:23.900 your own efforts,

00:30:24.920 your own abilities

00:30:25.640 will do nothing on your own

00:30:27.480 to advance God's kingdom,

00:30:29.560 to parent your children well,

00:30:31.680 or to honor God?

00:30:34.100 If we haven't started from there,

00:30:36.920 then we're going to get off

00:30:37.980 on the wrong foot from the beginning.

00:30:41.760 And yet, surely some of you will say, well, Michael, didn't you say at the beginning

00:30:45.580 that this is a job description for people who are going to go out and expand the kingdom of God?

00:30:50.800 Like, aren't we supposed to actually go do things?

00:30:53.820 Yes.

00:30:55.860 But notice that this list, the Beatitudes, is a list of the kind of people who Christ

00:31:00.300 will use to expand his kingdom.

00:31:05.460 Not the kind of people who on their own will go out and do this.

00:31:10.980 This is what the Apostle Paul knew, who was very active, very, we couldn't say he just sat around

00:31:16.820 and waited. No, he went out. And yet in 2 Corinthians 12, 19, Jesus told him, my grace

00:31:23.220 is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness. The first and the deepest impulse

00:31:30.380 of the Christian is to empty himself when he comes face to face with God, because we are utterly 0.51

00:31:36.740 convinced that we can offer nothing to God that he doesn't already have.

00:31:45.000 It is good to be active for the kingdom of God. It is good to train and teach our children.

00:31:50.120 It is good to memorize scripture and to work on our personal obedience. It is good to preach in

00:31:54.120 the public square and to advocate for good laws and justice in society. But these are fruits. They

00:31:59.360 are secondary. The citizen of the kingdom of God starts from a point that on my own, I am nothing.

00:32:06.740 How do we achieve this mindset?

00:32:09.080 Because if we don't have it, we don't have the kingdom.

00:32:14.920 It's not by beating ourselves up.

00:32:17.720 It's not by reveling in our sin.

00:32:19.720 It's by looking at Christ.

00:32:21.360 The clearer Christ is, then the more convinced we are of his power,

00:32:25.360 the more we realize, I just need less of me.

00:32:27.760 Because the less of me there is, the more Christ will fill me and use me.

00:32:36.740 So when we see the king, this empties us.

00:32:41.220 Notice there's a promise there.

00:32:42.920 The poor in spirit receive the kingdom.

00:32:46.180 You see, the temptation is that we will earn the kingdom

00:32:49.580 or even bring about the kingdom through our own wisdom.

00:32:53.340 Jesus is saying, no, the kingdom is coming.

00:32:55.400 It's at hand.

00:32:56.480 There's no way to stop it.

00:32:58.480 It's growing now.

00:33:00.780 Not through your efforts, but through your emptiness.

00:33:03.860 And Christ will fill you.

00:33:06.740 you remember at the beginning we talked about how beatitudes means blessed this is not

00:33:13.780 hashtag blessed when an athlete signs a new contract and gets a new ferrari right that's

00:33:19.580 not what we're talking about here to be blessed is to be truly happy that is what the word

00:33:24.220 means to be joyful and filled with the best that god has to offer to humanity brothers and sisters

00:33:30.340 god gives gifts to all of us he causes the rain to fall and the righteous and the un and the

00:33:37.320 unjust but his best gifts he only gives to the citizens of his kingdom to his children we will

00:33:45.880 receive the kingdom of heaven

00:33:48.320 and so to be blessed as citizens of christ's kingdom should cause us to be the most joyful

00:33:54.620 people in the world even as we empty ourselves and deny ourselves the next blessing then or the

00:34:00.960 next beatitude blessed are those who mourn if you're poor in spirit you have come to realize

00:34:07.700 that you have nothing to offer god and if you are the one who mourns you will be comforted again

00:34:14.600 this does not mean natural mourning it is good and appropriate to mourn and to weep for certain

00:34:21.260 things. Calamity, the death of a loved one. But this is a natural affection. This is a natural

00:34:27.740 thing. It's not a Holy Spirit-produced type of mourning. So what is this kind of mourning,

00:34:33.420 this weeping, this crying, this sadness that Jesus is talking about? Well, in Psalm 119, 136,

00:34:41.280 the writer, I think David, says, my eyes shed streams of tears because your law is not obeyed.

00:34:47.920 again those in the kingdom of christ have come face to face with a holy righteous king

00:34:55.000 as god the lord jesus is holy holy holy and when he reveals his holiness to us

00:35:02.240 it immediately exposes how sinful we are this is like the process of kids who are sleeping in the

00:35:09.740 living room maybe they build a fort in the living room and dad turns out the light go to bed now

00:35:15.900 they start to have a pillow fight they're throwing pillows around and it knocks over a lamp

00:35:21.520 and then one of them finds that there was a bowl of popcorn left on the coffee table

00:35:25.600 begins to throw the popcorn at his siblings another one finds a half empty bag of chips from

00:35:31.120 the snacks that they had starts throwing the chips lamps have fallen pillows all over the place food

00:35:36.480 is all over the living room dad comes in turns on the light immediately what was dark and hard to

00:35:44.080 see becomes clear and the living room is in chaos. See, to see God, to come face to face with God

00:35:52.160 is also at the same time to come face to face with your own sin.

00:35:58.060 And so we weep for sin. We mourn for sin.

00:36:04.540 And there's a sense where this happens before salvation and even after salvation. Before

00:36:09.920 salvation, there's three things that we weep for. We weep because we realize that we are lost.

00:36:15.200 We are hopeless. We are damned. In the comparison to the light of the holiness of God,

00:36:20.220 we are utterly and totally lost, and we weep. But a better reason to weep is because we realize that

00:36:29.160 actually we start to see that there's a standard. God has a standard, and we have violated it. So

00:36:34.100 now it's just not fear for our own doom but also a sense of i dishonored the king this is why it's

00:36:40.420 only holy spirit produced and then third once we have realized this we weep because we realize

00:36:48.540 that we are actually utterly incapable of honoring god in any spiritual sense

00:36:54.700 because we're poor in spirit we now know that we can offer nothing to god to appease his anger and

00:37:00.620 his wrath. And yet the promise is that those who mourn over their sin are actually the ones who

00:37:07.520 are blessed. Why? Because they shall be comforted. These are not those who see their sin and then

00:37:15.940 push it aside. It is those who mourn over their sin. This is because we are dealing with the

00:37:23.880 gospel of grace. Only those who see God and react with mourning and despair at their sin

00:37:30.500 will be saved. And so we repent, and God, how does he comfort us? He comforts us by clothing us

00:37:37.760 with Christ's righteousness. He comforts us by removing our afflictions from us.

00:37:43.860 But even now as Christians, we continue to mourn when we see how our flesh loves sin.

00:37:49.820 Always this should cause us, like the Apostle Paul, to cry out, O wretched man that I am,

00:37:54.820 who will save me from this body of death? But notice Paul doesn't stay there. He does mourn,

00:38:00.500 but immediately Romans 8 1 is the next verse therefore there is now no condemnation for those

00:38:06.560 in Christ and the promise and the beatitude must be our next thought when we mourn for our sin

00:38:11.660 we will be comforted we must remember God Christ will comfort me he will comfort me he will not

00:38:18.040 leave me in my sin he will finish the work that he began he will forgive me verse John 1 9

00:38:23.460 it's easy to plateau right as christians maybe when you were saved you were not you didn't grow

00:38:34.460 up in a christian family and you were saved out of some very obviously destructive things

00:38:39.300 and god removes those and sanctifies those and as we go through our life it's easy to plateau

00:38:45.620 and think yeah i do sin i of course i'll acknowledge that but they're not that big

00:38:50.380 of a deal. And there's a sense where that's true, right? You're not out murdering people.

00:38:54.120 That's a good thing, right? Your sins are more private, anger, impatience, things like this.

00:39:01.820 And yet we must resist the idea that because they're smaller, more private sins, that we

00:39:05.940 shouldn't mourn over them. We must resist that impulse. It doesn't mean that every time you sin,

00:39:12.280 you have to have a three-hour grief session in your closet. It's not what I'm saying. That's

00:39:16.780 destructive in its own way but it does mean that when you sin and when the holy spirit prompts you

00:39:21.440 you have that twinge of lord i'm really sorry like i really i really am sad that i did that

00:39:26.320 i really am sad that i treated him that way or her that way or that i did that

00:39:30.660 if it becomes easy to blow off our sin if there's no twinge of mourning that actually is a sign

00:39:41.080 that your spiritual condition needs some help if you can blow it off easily and just move on and

00:39:47.120 not have a sense of mourning even if it's short and small then you need to come back to christ

00:39:53.600 and see his holiness and i'm sure all of us know the news about steve lawson pastor up here in

00:39:59.660 texas who has been removed from his ministry because of various immoralities i don't know

00:40:06.340 all the details there but i guarantee you at one point there was a time where he stopped mourning

00:40:12.860 over his sin yeah it's not that big of a deal next day doesn't even register and pretty soon

00:40:20.400 he does it and doesn't even doesn't even prick his conscience that's how it goes brothers and

00:40:25.960 sisters so we must labor to keep our conscience tender so that we grieve even our private sins

00:40:33.300 But at the same time, we must labor to keep our faith strong so that when we are grieved for our sin, we continue to believe that Christ comforts those with forgiveness who confess.

00:40:49.840 Connor mentioned this earlier, so I'm not going to mention it too much.

00:40:52.360 But there's a sense, too, where we mourn public sin in our land, right?

00:40:56.600 And I just want to say this is good.

00:40:58.700 We should weep for the sin in our land.

00:41:00.400 We should mourn for the sin in our land.

00:41:02.460 and this even can lead to indignation.

00:41:07.680 So those who are truly happy,

00:41:09.780 those who are true subjects of the king

00:41:11.340 are those who recognize that they have nothing of their own to offer

00:41:14.640 and who grieve over their sin.

00:41:17.920 This leads to the third beatitude.

00:41:20.600 This one is very humbling.

00:41:22.440 It's very difficult.

00:41:24.060 We live in a time of entitlement and victimhood

00:41:27.100 where we have all been convinced that we are owed certain things

00:41:31.360 that we deserve certain things and so we reject this almost out of hand in the age that we live

00:41:37.980 now when we say blessed are the meek there is a sense i'm sure all of you have heard the phrase

00:41:45.960 meekness is power under control and this has been an attempt to recapture the doctrine of a strong

00:41:52.620 and lordly christ because for many decades he was painted as weak effeminate unthreatening

00:41:59.460 type of savior. And so we are trying to recapture the doctrine that he is not weak or effeminate,

00:42:06.160 but that he is lordly, strong, and holy. And so we have often said, and it's not wrong,

00:42:12.740 but it's just not complete, that to be meek is to have power under control.

00:42:17.600 But the question is, what kind of power? You see, meekness is the ability to control your instinct

00:42:24.440 to get what you think you deserve.

00:42:28.340 In other words, meekness is about controlling your impulse to take vengeance.

00:42:35.460 Okay?

00:42:35.960 It is, you think that you should be able to reach out and grab and claim

00:42:40.300 and take aggressively what you think you are owed.

00:42:43.720 Meekness resists that.

00:42:45.720 This follows the example of Christ, who we know.

00:42:48.560 1 Peter 2 says, when he was reviled, he did not revile in turn.

00:42:52.580 when he suffered he did not threaten but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly you

00:42:59.280 see when we understand god's power and his holiness we can be meek because it's not saying

00:43:05.480 i don't matter or rights don't matter or righteousness doesn't matter but rather i

00:43:10.460 commit myself to god who will take care of it what then is meekness it's not laziness

00:43:18.040 It's not passivity. It's not being a doormat, just going along to get along.

00:43:24.880 No, that's not what it is.

00:43:29.360 Lloyd-Jones says, meekness is essentially a true view of oneself, expressing itself in attitude and conduct with respect to others.

00:43:37.440 It is therefore two things. It is my attitude towards myself, and it is an expression of that in my relationship to others.

00:43:45.040 We are to leave everything of ourselves, of our rights, our cause, our whole future in the hands of God.

00:43:51.920 And especially so if we feel that we are suffering unjustly.

00:43:56.920 John Gill also agrees.

00:43:58.500 He says, we are not easily provoked to anger.

00:44:01.880 The meek patiently bear and put up with injuries and affronts.

00:44:06.260 They carry themselves courteously and affably to all.

00:44:09.000 here meekness is to be considered not as a moral virtue but as a christian grace a fruit of the

00:44:15.040 spirit of god which was eminently in christ and is very ornamental to believers

00:44:19.860 now of course we have to be careful here we do fight for justice we do fight for proper order

00:44:28.260 in our families right fathers you don't just say well i don't actually deserve that my children

00:44:34.740 would obey me. So when they disobey, eh, I'm not going to consider my own rights. Go ahead,

00:44:39.880 children. Continue to disobey. Right? We have to be careful. Let's not be silly here.

00:44:44.840 We fight for justice in our society. We fight for proper ordering in our families. We're trying to 0.74

00:44:50.120 spread God's law. But here's the point. We don't spread it in a way that is motivated by our own

00:45:00.080 rage or our own vengeance or our own grievance and so fathers maybe your children don't listen

00:45:09.320 to you and this enrages you in the moment you do need to deal with that disobedience but not out

00:45:16.200 of a motive of i should be obeyed right you put it aside you wait and you come back when you're 0.64

00:45:22.160 meek because when you're meek you're not enforcing your own rights you're enforcing what god has

00:45:27.480 given to your family is the proper structure and the proper order. You're entrusting your own, 0.99

00:45:33.360 yep, that was offensive to me. I'm going to give that to God, and I'm going to wait until what I'm

00:45:37.960 enforcing in my family is proper ordering. If you're fired for standing up for biblical sexuality, 0.81

00:45:46.440 yes, that should be dealt with justly. Maybe a lawsuit is in order, but it doesn't come out of 0.92

00:45:51.480 a sense of, I am owed more than that. I'm better than that, right? No. It comes out of a desire

00:45:57.460 to see justice and righteousness enforced. We're not pushing ourselves when we do that. We're

00:46:02.680 pushing Christ's order and his justice. And when that's our goal, it's very good to insist on

00:46:08.640 righteousness. We need to be honest, because sometimes our goal is just, I want to be vindicated.

00:46:14.800 I want to be right. The meek person does not act out of that motivation,

00:46:22.380 but out of a motivation to see Christ be shown as right.

00:46:28.220 This is because his greatest desire is found in the next beatitude.

00:46:32.560 A Christian's greatest desire is not for himself to be great or himself to be right,

00:46:37.380 but to be righteous.

00:46:41.200 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. 0.92

00:46:45.920 The Christian, the citizen of Christ's kingdom, understands that he is broken and sinful,

00:46:50.100 and so he hungers and thirsts for righteousness. 0.62

00:46:53.560 When we see God, we realize, I am not righteous.

00:46:57.460 but there's a promise. He will be satisfied. He will be justified. Initially, before someone is

00:47:04.760 a Christian, he hungers and thirsts for righteousness, and God applies the righteousness

00:47:08.800 of Christ to him. He receives that satisfaction. I want to be holy. Boom. The gift of God is that

00:47:17.260 he is made holy, but also the process of sanctification is evident here. We have been

00:47:23.200 forgiven we have been made righteous but also we long to continue to grow in our obedience

00:47:28.300 we long to be more righteous in our actions in our thoughts in our desires

00:47:34.280 and even as we long for this the promise still applies you as you desire you long to grow in

00:47:41.900 christ you will be satisfied here and in the future philippians says that he who began the

00:47:48.340 good work in you will carry it out will bring it to completion until the day of christ jesus

00:47:53.000 And obviously, when we see Christ, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.

00:47:59.500 And also, we long that this land, this earth, would be righteous.

00:48:04.800 I skipped over the promise of the beatitude just preceding this one.

00:48:09.460 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

00:48:12.120 Saved it for here. 0.74

00:48:13.860 There's a sense that because we're part of the royal family, we have even now inherited the earth.

00:48:19.500 It belongs to the citizens of Christ's kingdom.

00:48:23.000 and yet in God's providence he's waiting for the final redemption of the earth and so

00:48:28.880 the earth still rebels and it's good for us to look at the world and say we want

00:48:34.580 righteousness in the world we long for this we long to apply God's law to our land

00:48:39.520 after all this is what the great commission tells us to do we must teach our nation

00:48:43.900 to obey all the commands of Christ but again this is not personal preference this is not

00:48:51.340 I like guns. I want to have guns, but this is not just because I want to have guns.

00:48:58.160 We apply righteousness meekly because we long for God's standards and God's honor and God's glory

00:49:05.460 to become evident more and more in our nation.

00:49:11.280 And as we do this, we need to remember the next beatitude. Blessed are the merciful.

00:49:15.660 those who have been made citizens of the kingdom are those who are merciful

00:49:22.080 there's a true sense where we look at our society in our world now and people are giving themselves

00:49:30.820 over to sin and reaping as romans 1 says the due consequences for that sin in themselves

00:49:36.720 there's a true sense where they are absolutely destroying themselves and there does need to be

00:49:41.600 side of us where the message is that's what happens when you sin let that serve as a warning

00:49:46.380 to everyone else also we need to remember spheres the government is not a minister of mercy right

00:49:55.160 so even a man if he's a judge is not called to exercise mercy in that moment he's called to

00:50:00.300 execute justice but citizens of christ's kingdom here are called to be merciful because why because

00:50:08.660 they themselves have been shown abundant mercy by christ and let us not forget that

00:50:14.180 here lloyd jones again helpfully says grace grace is especially associated with men and their sins

00:50:22.520 mercy is especially associated with men in their misery so we preach the gospel yes but brothers

00:50:30.140 and sisters the merciful also have compassion on the consequences of people who have given

00:50:37.380 themselves over to sin. And yes, I know we do not cast our pearls to swine, but sometimes as we're

00:50:44.480 exercising mercy, it can take a little while to realize if we're dealing with a pig who's going

00:50:49.780 to trample on God's grace or with a sheep whose heart is being softened by our mercy. As we extend

00:50:56.140 Christ's kingdom throughout all the land, we must remember we are merciful. Quickly now, the pure in

00:51:02.080 heart this one we've already talked about a little bit but it reminds us

00:51:07.320 where the source of our trouble is many in our society in our time think that

00:51:14.440 what's wrong with the world is lack of equality and income or lack of access to

00:51:20.620 education or lack of access to health color or skin color and Christ says no

00:51:25.960 the problem is that you don't have pure hearts jeremiah 17 9 says the heart is deceitful above

00:51:33.760 all things and desperately sick and who can understand it the heart is the center of one's

00:51:41.020 being one's entire being affections actions will motivation and apart from christ we are not pure

00:51:48.780 in heart there is none righteous no one is pure in heart which means as jesus said out of the

00:51:53.700 abundance of the heart the mouth speaks from our heart we produce all sorts of quarrels and

00:51:59.940 conflicts and violence so even though we long for righteousness in our land and we want good and

00:52:09.380 proper laws that honor christ we need to remember and i'm thankful this is not a rebuke or an

00:52:14.260 exhortation we we know this already in this church but we bring the gospel along with it because the

00:52:21.640 real problem is the hearts are not pure hearts are not pure our heart was not pure Christ has

00:52:30.640 made it pure blessed are the peacemakers they shall be called sons of God this second to last

00:52:44.060 one wants us to remember well the second to last of the is the peacemakers they are blessed because

00:52:53.480 they shall be called sons of god this one is particularly challenging i think it's true that

00:52:59.540 there's a spiritual sense where christians are peacemakers because they're bringing the gospel

00:53:03.100 to the world they're seeking to make peace between god and man but i was surprised that's been kind

00:53:09.360 of how i've always heard this applied in my life as i grew up in the church but i was surprised to

00:53:14.260 read commentators who said that actually probably this more has to do with those who bring peace

00:53:20.460 into personal relationships john gill martin lloyd jones and others agree that what is primarily in

00:53:28.560 mind here is that the citizens of christ's kingdom work to bring peace to their relationships and

00:53:33.300 This is necessary because we often think that a peaceful person is passive.

00:53:38.720 He's an appeaser.

00:53:40.420 I will do whatever it takes to get along.

00:53:43.160 But really, the peacemakers apply the righteousness that they long for to interpersonal situations.

00:53:50.780 They work to bring God's good principles to bear where it matters, close to home, with the people that they know.

00:53:57.160 It's one thing, and this is good, I'm not criticizing, it's one thing to fight for laws in Washington, D.C.

00:54:02.620 It's another thing to fight for peace in my family.

00:54:06.620 So the citizens of the kingdom of God are peacemakers.

00:54:10.400 And this starts, first of all, and this is why it's hard.

00:54:13.300 We must be meek.

00:54:14.560 We must consider ourselves as nothing by confessing our sins and asking for forgiveness.

00:54:20.280 The peacemaker, first of all, initiates and says, I was wrong.

00:54:23.600 I caused this conflict.

00:54:24.960 secondly the peacemaker when someone apologizes to us puts aside rights of retribution and says

00:54:33.820 i do forgive you i do forgive you so it becomes obvious that the peacemaker is poor in spirit

00:54:40.520 because he does not seek his own glory it becomes obvious that he longs to righteousness

00:54:44.320 because he's willing to apply himself the righteousness to the people around him

00:54:48.800 it's interesting that the blessing for this beatitude is they will be called sons of god

00:54:55.620 how do you know someone is someone's son well joel's pastor joel says this all the time he

00:55:01.300 looks like him how do we know that we are sons of god how will the world know if we are sons of god

00:55:07.120 for peacemakers that's astonishing to me that this is the one that christ says the sons of

00:55:14.460 god will be known because they are peacemakers robert barnes who was a pastor in england many

00:55:20.560 many many years ago centuries ago said this those who strive to prevent contention strife and war

00:55:27.060 who use their influence to reconcile opposing parties and to prevent lawsuits and hostilities

00:55:32.140 and families and neighborhoods are peacemakers every man may do something of this every man

00:55:38.900 can make peace and listen here and no man is more like god than he who does it astonishing

00:55:45.780 the most christ-like thing that we can do robert barnes says how you know you're a son of god is

00:55:51.600 if you are a peacemaker hebrews 12 14 says pursue peace with all men and the righteousness without

00:56:01.660 which none will see the Lord. Are you a person known for bringing peace, not just turning the

00:56:09.660 blind eye, not for just stirring up the pot for no reason, but patiently seeking that Christians

00:56:16.960 and even non-Christians in your sphere would live at peace with one another?

00:56:23.780 Lastly, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake. This last beatitude

00:56:31.180 comes in two parts, and it perfectly concludes what it means to be a citizen of the kingdom of

00:56:36.680 heaven. Jesus knows that as his people live as true citizens of his kingdom, and as they work

00:56:44.980 to spread the kingdom across the earth, they will be persecuted. I think it's quite important to

00:56:53.100 notice that verse 10 and 11 have a similar phrase, and they equate, they equate, blessed are you when

00:57:00.280 you are persecuted for righteousness sake, and blessed are you when you are persecuted for my

00:57:04.800 name's sake. Brothers and sisters, it's the same thing. To be persecuted for Christ is to be

00:57:11.120 persecuted for righteousness. There's no sense where we can't be expected to push righteousness

00:57:15.900 out into society because we just want to be faithful to the name of Christ. It's the same.

00:57:22.940 We are blessed when we are persecuted for righteousness sake, for the sake of Christ's

00:57:27.820 name now it's true that sometimes just the act of living holy and righteously offends people

00:57:36.140 if you're saved in a family that does not honor christ when you change your habits and customs

00:57:41.800 or your friends they're going to be offended that you no longer do the things that you used to do

00:57:46.180 it will convict them it will cause them to speak poorly of you that's true so there is a sense

00:57:51.900 where just being personally holy, living like the Beatitudes, will offend them.

00:57:58.960 But it's also true that if we live holy lives in the privacy of our own homes,

00:58:05.980 if we're merely pietistic personally, this will not really offend all that many people.

00:58:11.500 It will not cause them to persecute us nearly as much as if we preach righteousness.

00:58:17.200 you see as we're moving out of the beatitudes we're now moving into the next passage which is

00:58:26.240 the mission you are salt you are light you're supposed to have an influence in the world and

00:58:32.320 when our influence is preaching christ the king who is just and righteous and holy and when we

00:58:38.920 tell people you must be righteous and without that you are going to hell and our nation will

00:58:43.940 be destroyed we will be persecuted the world will hate that they will not hate a hidden

00:58:51.540 camouflaged christianity they will not hate mild-tempered passive christians they will

00:58:57.020 hate those who extend the expectations of king jesus to all people and jesus says i'm looking

00:59:05.400 for that kind of person who will expect this not only who will expect it but who will rejoice

00:59:11.320 and be exceedingly glad when this happens.

00:59:15.280 For your reward is great in heaven.

00:59:19.480 As much as we long to build an inheritance for our children,

00:59:23.520 and amen to that,

00:59:24.980 as much as we long to build a society that honors God,

00:59:28.260 and amen to that,

00:59:29.820 remember, brothers and sisters,

00:59:31.300 that we're also building up an eternal reward.

00:59:33.920 And God sees your efforts,

00:59:35.480 and he sees the way that you don't compromise,

00:59:37.340 and he sees when you're mistreated for that.

00:59:39.540 and he promises to reward you.

00:59:46.560 So we should not be surprised when we get fired

00:59:48.800 or persecuted or slandered or backstabbed

00:59:51.380 for the name of Christ.

00:59:52.680 But because we have come to know the risen king,

00:59:55.520 because we have emptied ourselves,

00:59:57.280 because we are poor in spirit,

00:59:58.820 because we mourn for our sin and we love righteousness

01:00:01.080 more than our own name,

01:00:03.060 we will preach Christ and we will rejoice

01:00:07.660 that we are considered worthy to suffer along with the prophets and along with

01:00:12.300 Christ himself and in that we are truly blessed and brothers and sisters ours is

01:00:19.240 a church that believes that we need to be public about our faith I'm so

01:00:23.480 thankful that I've grown so much in understanding that since being here we

01:00:28.180 believe that our families and our cities and our nations must honor God and we're

01:00:32.200 committing to spreading his kingdom as we preach the gospel and as we work for

01:00:36.980 society that upholds god's moral standards but let us never forget that the activity of building

01:00:45.580 christ's kingdom starts when we embody the virtues and the spirit of the beatitudes

01:00:51.880 when we empty ourselves when we hunger and thirst for righteousness when we extend mercy when it's

01:00:57.840 not deserved when we forgive and make peace and really all of those things if you just read them

01:01:04.980 they sound like jesus christ and so we remember that the citizens of christ's kingdom

01:01:11.600 that in that time was about to come and in our time is here and is growing the citizens of

01:01:19.360 the kingdom of christ are to live and look like the lord and savior himself like jesus christ let's pray

01:01:27.180 father this passage is beyond us it's humbling it's challenging and really we've scratched the

01:01:36.260 surface only lord none of us can do this on our own it's not like we can just produce a sense

01:01:42.260 of being poor in spirit that runs counter to our flesh we can't just love mercy and love

01:01:49.160 righteousness on our own we can't just try harder lord we do want to be effective tools in your hand

01:01:55.240 for your honor and your glory and your kingdom in our families, with our children,

01:01:59.740 our spouses, in our neighborhoods, in our nation. But Lord, we don't want that to replace

01:02:04.680 that we are first and foremost to obey you and love you and serve you. So Lord,

01:02:09.580 help us, help us to grow. We know that you will. So we thank you in the name of Christ. Amen.

The NXR Podcast - September 22, 2024

THE SERMON - Citizens of Christ's Kingdom

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