THE SERMON - Citizens of Christ's Kingdom
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Summary
Pastor Joel continues our series on the book of Matthew, and today we are looking at Matthew 5:1-12. This is one of the most famous recruitment pitches in history, and is considered by many to be the best recruitment speech ever made. In order to understand this speech, we must first understand the context of the text. As Pastor Joel said last week, Jesus' ministry began in Matthew 4, and the reason for this is that John the Baptist was sent to prepare the stage for this, in a way that moves off the chessboard and begins his ministry off the stage.
Transcript
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It's been a pleasure to hear the word preached from Michael Belch, so if you would, welcome
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It's a great privilege and honor to open the word with you and for you this morning.
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We're going to be continuing in our series in the book of Matthew, so our scripture text
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today will be Matthew chapter 5, verses 1 through 12.
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as you get that out will you stand uh together and we'll read it together and as you're preparing
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that as you're looking that up in your bibles let me just say one word by way of introduction here
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because i know i'll forget to say it later this passage in matthew chapter 5 is commonly referred
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to as the beatitudes the beatitudes and so i just want to be clear on the front end the beatitudes
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means statements of blessing statements of blessing and it gets the title because all of the
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beatitudes all of these statements start with that word blessed that word blessed in the original
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language means happy right happy and so as we study this passage today really when i refer to
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the beatitudes when commentators throughout history we're talking about the blessed statements
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the statements of why christians are blessed all right once again our passage this morning is going
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to be matthew chapter 5 verses 1 through 12 after i read it please if you would be willing to i'll
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say, this is the word of the Lord, and please reply, thanks be to God. Matthew 5, 1 through 12.
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Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.
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And he opened his mouth, and he taught them, saying, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs
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is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are
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the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for
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righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
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Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they
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shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake,
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for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you
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and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward
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is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. This is the word
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of the Lord. Thanks be to God. All right, you may be seated.
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In a story that is probably familiar to some of you, sometime in the early 1900s, it is rumored
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that Edward Shackleton, who was assembling the first group of explorers to go and explore the
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South Pole, placed this advertisement in a London newspaper. It said, men wanted for hazardous
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journey, low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness, safe return, doubtful,
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honor and recognition in event of success. This advertisement is one of the most famous in history.
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It's frequently quoted as one of the best examples of copywriting and one of the best
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recruitment pitches. It's been quoted many, many times, and the reality is when you are looking
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for a group of people to perform a particular task, the words that you use to explain what
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they're doing and who they should be are very important. In many ways, Jesus was the king of
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these recruitment little pitches, these sales pitches, as it were. He told the scribe, foxes
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have holes, birds have their nests, but the Son of God has nowhere to lay his head. Want to come
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along? He told people who were thinking of being his disciples, if you want to be my disciple,
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you must deny yourself and take up your cross and follow me. Again, what does it mean to follow
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Christ? And in a sense, the Beatitudes which we're looking at today is the greatest recruitment
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speech ever made. In order to understand this text, it's absolutely critical that we understand
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it in the context of the book of Matthew. As Pastor Joel said last week, Jesus' ministry,
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we saw this in Matthew 4, began when John the Baptist was arrested. The reason for this is that
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John the Baptist was sent to prepare the way for Christ. Now he, in a sense, has been moved off the
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chessboard and Christ takes the stage and begins his ministry. And it's absolutely critical that
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we see in the book of Matthew for the argument here that what Jesus does immediately, look at
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chapter 4 verse 17, it says from that time Jesus began to preach saying repent for the kingdom of
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heaven is at hand. Then he called his first disciples and began to minister to the people
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in galilee and again verse 23 repeats this idea again it tells us what jesus was doing
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it says he went throughout all galilee teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming what the gospel
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of the kingdom and healing every disease and affliction among the people he was proclaiming
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the gospel not just the gospel the gospel of the kingdom in the book of matthew he was telling them
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that the kingdom of heaven is right on the verge. It's at hand. It's about to be here.
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It's very near and almost established. And in order to add validity to his claim, he performed
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miracles. Now, it's interesting that these miracles were not just displays of power. He could have
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caused volcanoes to erupt in the middle of the fields or tornadoes to come. But no, he did not
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do that. He demonstrated his power by healing them. And in this way, the miracles did not only
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verify and prove his message and his authority, but they also showed that he loved them. You see,
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even in the miracles, he was initiating the kingdom. He was rolling back the curse. He was
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healing their diseases and tending to the afflicted. This is because even then he was
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bringing the kingdom. He was giving a foretaste of what it would be like to live, in the final
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sense, in the perfect, consummated, pure kingdom of Christ, when he would finally wipe away every
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tear and heal every infirmity. And so to understand the book of Matthew, we need to realize that from
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this point forward, everything that Christ does and everything that Matthew records is to illustrate
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what is the kingdom of heaven. As he preaches, great crowds come to him. They come for the
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miracles. He's healing. He's ministering to them. And they gather together. But he did not come as
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a circus performer. He did not come as a social justice warrior. And so when the crowds gathered,
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he went up onto a mountain. This is verse 1 of chapter 5. He went up on the mountain,
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and he sat down and his disciples came to him and he's opened his mouth and taught them
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we need to remember that we need to be taught by christ
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we need to be taught what it is to be a citizen of the kingdom of heaven
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to be a follower of christ and we need to remember that what we are offering also is teaching
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to the world we're not offering more compelling narratives although the story of the bible is the
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greatest story. We're not merely offering grassroots political organization, although
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we must do that. We're offering the teachings of Christ. We've been commanded in the Great
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Commission, go disciple the nations, teaching them to obey all that Christ has commanded.
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So Jesus stopped doing the miracles. He goes up on the mountain. He sits down and he begins to
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preach. The next three chapters, Matthew 5, 6, and 7, are the text of this sermon. We call it the
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Sermon on the Mount. It's a bit confusing in Matthew 5 because if you read it a certain way,
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it could sound like he went up on the mountain and then his disciples, and we're used to just saying
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just the 12, or in this case it would be just the four, came to him and he preached. And so we might
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be tempted to think that he left the crowds to do this teaching, but no. If you look at the end of
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the sermon in Matthew 7, it says, when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished
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at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, not as the scribes. And so we
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see here the crowds came up on the mountain with him and heard. This sermon was for them, not just
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for a select few. This is a very important thing to notice, and we don't have time to unpack all
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of this today, but there is an idea that's less popular now, but has had popularity in modern
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evangelicalism, particularly in very dispensational camps, that the Sermon on the Mount, the proper
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application, the proper audience for it, because it's talking about the kingdom of God, is not for
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modern-day Christians. It wasn't for the people who heard it them. These theologians argue that
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the Sermon on the Mount properly belongs to those who will live in the millennial reign of Christ,
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because, after all, that's when the kingdom is there.
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So it's important to notice that it was the crowds that Jesus was speaking to.
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The sermon was for them, for the people that were going to follow him,
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for the people that were going to join as citizens of the kingdom.
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You see, the main thing that we need to see this morning is that the Sermon on the Mount,
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and these Beatitudes especially, describe life for the ordinary citizen of Christ's kingdom.
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that is for you and for me and for every Christian throughout history.
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This is really the point that I hope we pick up on today.
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Matthew says he began to preach the gospel of the kingdom.
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It's no coincidence that we arrive at chapter 5, verse 3,
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which is only a few verses later and the first beatitude the promise of it is for theirs is the
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kingdom of heaven and the second to last but really the concluding beatitude in chapter or in verse
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nine is again theirs is the kingdom of heaven matthew and jesus are trying to point out that
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there is a way that citizens of the kingdom live and we begin to live that way when we establish
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the fundamentals of the Beatitudes. You see, a follower of Jesus is not just to enter into a
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life of personal, individual obedience. We are. We are to obey Christ in all areas.
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But it is to enter into his kingdom. It is to be a citizen of the kingdom of Christ, a subject
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and a servant of the Lord Jesus, and then it is to devote our lives to extending that kingdom
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in our families, in our neighborhoods, in our towns, in our nations. The Beatitudes gives us
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the foundation for how true citizens of Christ's kingdom live, what they believe, what they love,
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what they do. And so it's worth taking a few minutes, even though the Beatitudes is a massive
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passage and we could do weeks upon weeks, it is worth taking a few minutes to do a slight detour
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here to talk about the kingdom of Christ Jesus that he is bringing about. What does this mean?
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Well, the first thing to say is that it is really quite pointless to try and parse out all the terms
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kingdom of heaven, kingdom of God, gospel of the kingdom. These are all referring to three different
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things and the kingdom of heaven is one thing and the gospel that no it's the same thing it's
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christ's kingdom that is being established here on the earth the second thing to notice even from
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jesus own words is that this kingdom that jesus is announcing is in a sense a new thing he says
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at that time it is at hand which means technically at that point it was not even fully established
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In the same way as when a woman goes into labor with her child,
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Yes, she was pregnant before that, but now it's imminent.
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because all over the old testament and you'll find these in your notes
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we see verses like psalm 47 2 which says a psalm of the sons of corp clap your hands all peoples
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shout to god with loud sounds of joy for the lord the most high is to be feared a great king
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over all the earth the old testament says he is the king psalm 95 3 for the lord is a great god
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God is the king, clearly, all throughout the Old Testament.
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we see promises of a coming king and a coming kingdom.
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behold, your king is coming to you. This is a prophecy. Psalm 110, verse 1, which Hebrews
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1 picks up on as well. The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies
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a footstool. Again, a prophecy of a coming king. So how can it be that God is the king, and yet
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there's a new kingdom that's being established?
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the answer is that while god has indeed always been the sovereign lord of all the ruler of all
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creation and of all demonic forces and of all time and space there is a sense in which jesus
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as the god man had not yet been crowned as the perfect king of the world that had not happened
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yet. We think about the incarnation. Something important to realize is that Christ represents
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humanity through the line of Adam and therefore has a rightful claim to the throne. The earth
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and the world was given to Adam, to humans, to be God's representatives, to take dominion of it,
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to rule it, and Adam abdicated that responsibility. And since Adam, there has been no true
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rightful human king of the earth. But Christ is. But on the other hand, Christ also is the
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God-man. He represents God as the creator, the sustainer, the owner of all things that have ever
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been created or will be. God is the proper sovereign of all. And so when Jesus is saying
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that the kingdom is at hand is because he knows that he, the true representative of humanity and
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of God himself, is now there. A kingdom, after all, is a place where a king rules.
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And Jesus, the true king, had finally come. All that needed to happen was that he needed to
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receive the title and the authority to rule from the father. Pastor Joel talked about this
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in the temptations a few weeks ago. Jesus was not content to receive that title from the devil.
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He knew he would be receiving it shortly from the father himself. And this is exactly what
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would happen. A few short years later, he would indeed obey the father and go to the cross and die.
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and in doing so, he would crush the head of the serpent.
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It's absolutely critical that we remember how this book, Matthew, ends.
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After he resurrected and before going back to his father,
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he said to his disciples in a verse that we all know,
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all authority on heaven and earth has been given to me.
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All authority has now been given to me in a way that it wasn't before.
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Philippians 2 also points out that because Jesus obeyed the father to the point of death
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it says God has highly exalted him and given him what a name that is above every other name Christ
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now for us has received the title the name and the authority as the king and because a kingdom
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is where a king rules the kingdom has been established and we are citizens of
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it now many Christians will object here by going to John 18 verse 36 you
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remember this passage this is the passage where Jesus is brought before
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Pilate as he's being tried and eventually executed and Pilate asks him
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are you the king of the Jews? And Jesus answers, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom
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were of this world, my servants would have been fighting that I might not be delivered over to
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the Jews. Many Christians look at this verse and they say, see, Jesus' kingdom is not of this world.
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It's merely spiritual or for some dispensationalists, it's actually only in the future.
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we could do a whole series on just this question
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but just for today consider one parallel text to help point out how absurd that statement is
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john chapter one i'll read verses four and then verses nine through ten straight together
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says this in him in christ was life and that life was the light of men okay so christ is the light
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the true light this is verse 9 now which gives light to everyone was coming into the world
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and he was in the world it was coming into the world and then suddenly christ he was in the
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world and the world was made through him and yet the world did not know him so there's a metaphor
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here jesus is the light that is coming into the world and then was in the world this would be i
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don't know if any of you have ever lived in a place with long, cold, dark winters, but it can
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feel like basically four months of just darkness and cold and ice and snow. It can be pretty
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miserable. So I think of this verse in John like the first truly warm, brilliant sunrise after a
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long winter of cold and dark and ice. When the dawn breaks, the light begins to come in. Maybe
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there's a town in a valley the light begins to break in to fill the town slowly and then
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increasingly as the sun goes up now obviously we would say the light did not originate on the earth
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it came from outside from somewhere else the light is from somewhere else but it would be
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preposterous to say that because the light came from outside the planet it was not in the planet
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it now or did not have any effect on that town. The sunlight illuminated the houses so that people
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could see and go about their business. Furthermore, the light produced warmth finally after winter
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that melted the ice and the snow. Maybe someone's car was buried out in their front yard in snow and
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you can see the car because the snow is melting. The flowers and the trees and the grass, they begin
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to grow under the warmth and the influence of the sunlight, all because the light, which was not of
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the world, it came from the sun, was now in the world. So when we say that because Jesus' kingdom
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is not of this world, it will not affect this world or even take over this world, it paints a
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very poor and small picture of the majesty and power of christ's kingdom in fact it is precisely
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because it is not of this world but because it comes from the spiritual realm of the father
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himself that it will utterly take over and control and dominate this world this world has no power
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against the spiritual world that that the father lives in and inhabits so this is why jesus says
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that the citizens of his kingdom ought to not look like the world. Rather, he's giving a pitch.
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You want to be a citizen of the kingdom? This is how you look, the Beatitudes. That brings us back
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to where we started, which is that immediately upon saying that Jesus is preaching the gospel
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of the kingdom, that the kingdom of God is at hand, Matthew records the Sermon on the Mount
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in the Beatitudes. And he promises that the kingdom belongs to the people who demonstrate
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the characteristics of these eight or nine Beatitudes. So we're going to look at the
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Beatitudes. What does it mean to be a citizen of Christ's kingdom? What does it mean to live the
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way he commands and to love the way that he commands? But before we do, this will be helpful
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for today and also as you go study these on your own later on. There are a few general principles
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The first is that we cannot take them in isolation.
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We can't take them in isolation from the rest of the text,
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And also, they're not really meant to be read in isolation one after the other.
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But also, they're a package, kind of the way the spiritual gifts
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are to always characterize themselves in the lives of all believers.
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all of these beatitudes are to be present in our lives it's not that one person in christ's
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kingdom is merciful and i'm not that guy so i don't have to be merciful i'm pure in heart no
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all of these are to be present in all of our lives
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the second thing to notice is that these are not natural abilities it's not that if my personality
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or my general way of being is kind of quiet and reserved, I am this spiritual virtue of meek.
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Or that if I am timid naturally and lack courage, I am now demonstrating poor in spirit.
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All of these virtues, or graces is a better word, in this passage are only produced in the hearts
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of Christians when they come face to face with God. And really this is because Christ is the King.
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and when we see the king and when we submit to the king we put aside all prerogatives all claims
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to authority all claims to knowing our own good and right all claims to our own strength we put
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those aside and and we must and then the holy spirit begins to give us this kind of heart that
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honors above all things christ and his kingdom summarizing these two points martin louis jones
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who wrote an entire book on the Sermon on the Mount, said this helpfully,
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The Beatitudes are a complete whole, and you cannot divide them.
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So that whereas one of them may be more manifest, perhaps, in one person than in another,
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The relative proportions may vary, but they are all present,
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and they are all meant to be present at the same time.
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None of these descriptions refers to what we may call a natural tendency.
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Each of them is wholly a disposition, which is produced by grace alone,
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and the operation of the holy spirit upon us the third thing to notice about the beatitudes the
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third principle to keep in mind is that all of them follow a formula and if we're not careful
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we end up reversing the formula and developing a works-based gospel a works-based salvation
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for instance the first beatitude says blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of
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heaven. Many social justice advocates, many Roman Catholic theologians over the time had reversed
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the order, and they have said this, if you are poor in spirit, then because of that, God will
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grant you the kingdom of heaven. If you are pure in heart, then as a response to that, God will
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make you a son of God, or you will see God. But that's not it at all. The Beatitudes are a list
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of holy spirit created activities and behaviors that run counter to what the world loves it's not
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just that theologically this is backwards it is but it's also impossible because these cannot be
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produced in the heart of an unbeliever only the holy spirit can give these true expressions of
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the beatitudes so the formula is this jesus lists a virtue he says you're blessed if and then he
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lists of virtue that runs completely opposite to our flesh so know this as we go into these some
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of these will sting because they run completely opposite to your flesh the natural man does not
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love these things they run opposite the world he then says that the person who has that virtue is
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blessed which means happy because these virtues can only be produced by the holy spirit in the
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heart of someone who has believed in christ and that because it's a holy spirit given gift
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there is a great reward that god graciously gives to his children it's not that the particular virtue
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produces the reward all the rewards in this passage are for all of god's children it's not
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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
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get the earth yours is the kingdom of heaven but i'm not going to comfort you right you you you
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didn't hunger and thirst for righteousness you're not going to be satisfied no all of the rewards
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are for god's children but matthew and jesus connect the virtue to the reward in a way that
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helps us understand why the virtue is so important
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and so with that in mind let us now begin we'll spend the rest of the time going through
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these beatitudes and some of them we'll do a little slower and some of them will move
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quite quickly through so first of all blessed are the poor in spirits
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remember these are all things that are produced through faith this is after all the gospel of
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the kingdom, not the grassroots movement of the kingdom. It's still the gospel. It's by grace
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through faith. They're produced through faith when one comes face to face with the living God. When
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we see the true King, Jesus Christ, we will either reject or God will soften our hearts and we will
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have these results. The poor in spirit are not those who are timid or shy or who go to great
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lengths to always put themselves down with this false humility of oh i'm just nothing i'm not
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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,
00:29:01.160
and we realize that compared to the God of the universe,
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
00:30:41.760
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?
00:30:55.860
But notice that this list, the Beatitudes, is a list of the kind of people who Christ
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
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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.
00:32:09.080
Because if we don't have it, we don't have the kingdom.
00:32:21.360
The clearer Christ is, then the more convinced we are of his power,
00:32:27.760
Because the less of me there is, the more Christ will fill me and use me.
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.
00:33:00.780
Not through your efforts, but through your emptiness.
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
00:33:48.320
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.
00:36:04.540
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?
00:41:11.340
are those who recognize that they have nothing of their own to offer
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
00:42:28.340
In other words, meekness is about controlling your impulse to take vengeance.
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.
00:42:45.720
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.
00:43:29.360
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.
00:44:01.880
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
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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
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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,
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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,
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yes, that should be dealt with justly. Maybe a lawsuit is in order, but it doesn't come out of
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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,
00:46:41.200
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
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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.
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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.
00:48:13.860
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
00:49:11.280
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.
00:53:43.160
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.
00:54:14.560
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.
00:54:24.960
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
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if you're saved in a family that does not honor christ when you change your habits and customs
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or your friends they're going to be offended that you no longer do the things that you used to do
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it will convict them it will cause them to speak poorly of you that's true so there is a sense
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where just being personally holy, living like the Beatitudes, will offend them.
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But it's also true that if we live holy lives in the privacy of our own homes,
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if we're merely pietistic personally, this will not really offend all that many people.
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It will not cause them to persecute us nearly as much as if we preach righteousness.
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you see as we're moving out of the beatitudes we're now moving into the next passage which is
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the mission you are salt you are light you're supposed to have an influence in the world and
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when our influence is preaching christ the king who is just and righteous and holy and when we
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tell people you must be righteous and without that you are going to hell and our nation will
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be destroyed we will be persecuted the world will hate that they will not hate a hidden
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camouflaged christianity they will not hate mild-tempered passive christians they will
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hate those who extend the expectations of king jesus to all people and jesus says i'm looking
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for that kind of person who will expect this not only who will expect it but who will rejoice
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As much as we long to build an inheritance for our children,
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as much as we long to build a society that honors God,
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So we should not be surprised when we get fired
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But because we have come to know the risen king,
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because we mourn for our sin and we love righteousness
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that we are considered worthy to suffer along with the prophets and along with
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Christ himself and in that we are truly blessed and brothers and sisters ours is
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a church that believes that we need to be public about our faith I'm so
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thankful that I've grown so much in understanding that since being here we
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believe that our families and our cities and our nations must honor God and we're
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committing to spreading his kingdom as we preach the gospel and as we work for
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society that upholds god's moral standards but let us never forget that the activity of building
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christ's kingdom starts when we embody the virtues and the spirit of the beatitudes
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when we empty ourselves when we hunger and thirst for righteousness when we extend mercy when it's
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not deserved when we forgive and make peace and really all of those things if you just read them
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they sound like jesus christ and so we remember that the citizens of christ's kingdom
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that in that time was about to come and in our time is here and is growing the citizens of
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the kingdom of christ are to live and look like the lord and savior himself like jesus christ let's pray
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father this passage is beyond us it's humbling it's challenging and really we've scratched the
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surface only lord none of us can do this on our own it's not like we can just produce a sense
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of being poor in spirit that runs counter to our flesh we can't just love mercy and love
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righteousness on our own we can't just try harder lord we do want to be effective tools in your hand
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for your honor and your glory and your kingdom in our families, with our children,
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our spouses, in our neighborhoods, in our nation. But Lord, we don't want that to replace
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that we are first and foremost to obey you and love you and serve you. So Lord,
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help us, help us to grow. We know that you will. So we thank you in the name of Christ. Amen.