The passage this message was preached from, in full, with every other passage it reached for.
Psalm 27opening verse about ancient gates and the king of glory entering
1 Yahweh is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? Yahweh is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid?
2 When evildoers came at me to eat up my flesh, even my adversaries and my foes, they stumbled and fell.
3 Though an army should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war should rise against me, even then I will be confident.
4 One thing I have asked of Yahweh, that I will seek after: that I may dwell in Yahweh’s house all the days of my life, to see Yahweh’s beauty, and to inquire in his temple.
5 For in the day of trouble, he will keep me secretly in his pavilion. In the secret place of his tabernacle, he will hide me. He will lift me up on a rock.
6 Now my head will be lifted up above my enemies around me; I will offer sacrifices of joy in his tent. I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to Yahweh.
7 Hear, Yahweh, when I cry with my voice. Have mercy also on me, and answer me.
8 When you said, “Seek my face,” my heart said to you, “I will seek your face, Yahweh.”
9 Don’t hide your face from me. Don’t put your servant away in anger. You have been my help. Don’t abandon me, neither forsake me, God of my salvation.
10 When my father and my mother forsake me, then Yahweh will take me up.
11 Teach me your way, Yahweh. Lead me in a straight path, because of my enemies.
12 Don’t deliver me over to the desire of my adversaries, for false witnesses have risen up against me, such as breathe out cruelty.
13 I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of Yahweh in the land of the living.
14 Wait for Yahweh. Be strong, and let your heart take courage. Yes, wait for Yahweh.
Jesus was despised and rejected, a man of sorrows acquainted with deepest grief
1 Who has believed our message? To whom has the arm of Yahweh been revealed?
2 For he grew up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no good looks or majesty. When we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
3 He was despised, and rejected by men; a man of suffering, and acquainted with disease. He was despised as one from whom men hide their face; and we didn’t respect him.
4 Surely he has borne our sickness, and carried our suffering; yet we considered him plagued, struck by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought our peace was on him; and by his wounds we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray. Everyone has turned to his own way; and Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed, yet when he was afflicted he didn’t open his mouth. As a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he didn’t open his mouth.
8 He was taken away by oppression and judgment; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living and stricken for the disobedience of my people?
9 They made his grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in his death; although he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.
10 Yet it pleased Yahweh to bruise him. He has caused him to suffer. When you make his soul an offering for sin, he will see his offspring. He will prolong his days, and Yahweh’s pleasure will prosper in his hand.
11 After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light and be satisfied. My righteous servant will justify many by the knowledge of himself; and he will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore will I give him a portion with the great, and he will divide the plunder with the strong; because he poured out his soul to death, and was counted with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
mentioned as the Monday night study topic, Jesus as the vine and disciples as branches
1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the farmer.
2 Every branch in me that doesn’t bear fruit, he takes away. Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
3 You are already pruned clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.
4 Remain in me, and I in you. As the branch can’t bear fruit by itself, unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you, unless you remain in me.
5 I am the vine. You are the branches. He who remains in me, and I in him, the same bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
6 If a man doesn’t remain in me, he is thrown out as a branch, and is withered; and they gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned.
7 If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, you will ask whatever you desire, and it will be done for you.
8 “In this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit; and so you will be my disciples.
9 Even as the Father has loved me, I also have loved you. Remain in my love.
10 If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and remain in his love.
11 I have spoken these things to you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be made full.
12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another, even as I have loved you.
13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
14 You are my friends, if you do whatever I command you.
15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant doesn’t know what his lord does. But I have called you friends, for everything that I heard from my Father, I have made known to you.
16 You didn’t choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain; that whatever you will ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you.
17 “I command these things to you, that you may love one another.
your joy will overflow, connected to remaining in Christ
1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the farmer.
2 Every branch in me that doesn’t bear fruit, he takes away. Every branch that bears fruit, he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
3 You are already pruned clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.
4 Remain in me, and I in you. As the branch can’t bear fruit by itself, unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you, unless you remain in me.
5 I am the vine. You are the branches. He who remains in me, and I in him, the same bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
6 If a man doesn’t remain in me, he is thrown out as a branch, and is withered; and they gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned.
7 If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, you will ask whatever you desire, and it will be done for you.
8 “In this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit; and so you will be my disciples.
9 Even as the Father has loved me, I also have loved you. Remain in my love.
10 If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and remain in his love.
11 I have spoken these things to you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be made full.
12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another, even as I have loved you.
13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
14 You are my friends, if you do whatever I command you.
15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant doesn’t know what his lord does. But I have called you friends, for everything that I heard from my Father, I have made known to you.
16 You didn’t choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain; that whatever you will ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you.
17 “I command these things to you, that you may love one another.
18 If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you.
19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, since I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
20 Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his lord.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.
21 But all these things will they do to you for my name’s sake, because they don’t know him who sent me.
22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.
23 He who hates me, hates my Father also.
24 If I hadn’t done among them the works which no one else did, they wouldn’t have had sin. But now have they seen and also hated both me and my Father.
25 But this happened so that the word may be fulfilled which was written in their law, ‘They hated me without a cause.’
26 “When the Counselor has come, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me.
27 You will also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
The pastor opened the new year by walking the congregation through the Beatitudes from Matthew 5:1-12, the beginning of Jesus' first extended teaching in Matthew's Gospel. He treated each blessing not as a checklist of attitudes to perform but as a description of kingdom life that is already underway and still coming to its fullness. The sermon closed with Communion, tying the beatitudes back to Jesus himself as the one who walked all of this out.
What was said
the pastor set the scene before reading a word of the text. Matthew's Gospel has five major teaching sections, and this is the first. He connected it to Luke's account of the same period, where Jesus spent the night in prayer, named the twelve, and then sat down to teach, because sitting was the traditional posture of a rabbi. The crowd and the disciples were both present, and Jesus was addressing people who genuinely wanted what he was offering, not a military deliverer.
The first beatitude, "blessed are the poor in spirit," was explained as the recognition of complete spiritual bankruptcy apart from Christ, nothing in hand to bring, nothing to draw on except the well that never runs dry. The pastor pointed out that this one, unlike most of the others, carries a present-tense promise: "theirs is the kingdom of heaven." The kingdom is not only future. It is already available to anyone who acknowledges they have nothing to offer God on their own.
He worked through the middle beatitudes by contrasting them with how the world actually operates. The meek do not win land in any game the world plays, yet Jesus says they will inherit the earth. Hungering and thirsting for righteousness, he said, is not about winning an argument or a Twitter dispute. It is about wanting to be right before God even when that looks wrong to everyone else, and trusting that God's transforming spirit will satisfy that hunger over time.
On mercy and purity of heart, the pastor drew a clear line between grace and mercy: grace is receiving a blessing you did not earn, mercy is not receiving the punishment you did deserve. Because followers of Jesus have already received mercy they did not deserve, holding offenses against others becomes very hard to justify. The pure in heart, he said, are those seeking God for God's reasons rather than selfish ones, and their promise is that they will see God, even in seasons like Jeremiah's when God feels absent.
The beatitude about peacemakers prompted some personal reflection. The pastor noted that peacemakers typically get attacked from both sides, and he used Martin Luther King as an example of someone who was called an agitator in his own time and whom everyone now wants to claim as their spokesperson. The promise is not present recognition but a future one: they will be called sons of God. The pattern Jesus himself set, the Son of God becoming a son of man so that sons of men could become sons of God, is exactly what peacemaking participates in.
The pastor then pointed out the bookend structure of the beatitudes. The first and the last both use the present tense, "theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Everything in between is future, real and certain but not yet complete. That structure matters: you can belong to the kingdom of heaven right now, in any country, under any government, while the full weight of the other promises is still on its way.
He closed the sermon with verse 11, where Jesus shifts from speaking about "the blessed" in the third person to addressing the disciples directly: "Blessed are you." The personal turn was deliberate. Being insulted, persecuted, and lied about because of Jesus is the specific condition Jesus names, and he ties it to the long line of prophets who were treated the same way. The command to rejoice in that moment is grounded not in denying the difficulty but in the reality that the reward is God's own presence, and that the same kingdom that is already theirs now will one day be theirs completely.
Doing a Bible study?
Here is a guide we have prepared for you: the passages
in order, questions for the group, and room to write.
The pastor opened by saying that the kingdom of heaven is 'already and not yet,' and that 'blessed are the poor in spirit' carries a present-tense promise: theirs IS the kingdom of heaven, right now. What does it actually look like in daily life to recognize your spiritual bankruptcy before God, and have you ever experienced that present-tense reality of the kingdom?
The pastor described meekness and gentleness as not being a currency in this nation, but being a currency in the kingdom of heaven. Where do you feel the tension between what the world rewards and what Jesus says will inherit the earth?
Speaker 2break? And when do you go back? Oh, so you get oh, you got a little more time. That's good. Good morning, everybody, and happy New Year.
How how are you? Happy 2022. I have got I've got a verse here to to kick us off and worship this morning. Would you stand up with me? We're gonna we're we'll sing together.
But this one is from Psalm 27, and it goes with the song that we're singing. But it says, open up ancient gates, open up ancient doors, and let the king of glory enter. And that would be my encouragement to us this morning is let's let the king of glory enter. God, you are with us, but we want to invite you, God, that we your press you are here. You are present.
But, God, would would you make us aware of your presence, that we would enjoy being in your presence and worship you fully and freely in Jesus' name. Amen.
Speaker 3Alright. He's
Speaker 2coming on the clouds.
Speaker 3He's coming on the clouds. Kings and kingdoms will bow down. And every chain will break,
Speaker 2open up the gates.
Speaker 3Open up the gates made way before the king of kings. A god who comes to save is here to set the captives free. Who can stop the Lord Almighty? Our God is lying. The lion in Judah And let's sing, who can stop the Lord Almighty?
Who can stop the Lord Almighty? Who can stop the Lord Almighty? Who can stop the Lord? Oh, my. Who can stop the Lord?
Speaker 1You hear me now? Yeah, here it is. We got a few announcements this morning. We'll see what comes up. One of them is I just got this message late late last night.
So, miss Crystal's class is meeting. Miss Crystal's class is meeting But all of the other classes are not meeting for children's church this morning. So if you're in the second through the fifth grade, see what your parents want you to do. Stay up here or attend miss Crystal's class. Maybe we'll overwhelm her.
I don't know. Miss Crystal is meeting. Everyone else is not meeting for children's church. So that's happening. Monday nights at first b.
What's happening, Carl?
Speaker 2Yep. We're on tomorrow night, and, meal music message, we're up to John fifteen one through 17. Jesus says, he's the vine, and we're the branches. When we remain in him and he in us, we'll bear much fruit. This is so good.
It's a message about remaining in Jesus. So there'll be a meal too, Felix, in Guadalupe. If they can find the Smiths card, are going are going to serve a dinner. They always do just a fabulous job. But know that it's another worship gathering that we have and that you're invited at 06:00.
Speaker 1Monday night, meal, music, and a message. We've got Awana is happening tomorrow night starting off in this room right here. And so Awana Kids Club because kids matter to God. That is fun, and they'll spread out all over the whole church. They're back in action after two weeks off.
So that's Awana. If you would like to receive our weekly email bulletins, please let us know that. Actually, you don't even have to let us know anymore. You can go on First B Jackson and you can sign up for it yourself, and it'll just start coming to you automatically. Congregational meeting is happening in two weeks.
This is one we do every year. It's a normally scheduled thing. We usually do it third weekend in January, and it'll have the ballot on there, for our congregational style of government that we have. So it'll be on there, and we'll do the review of last year's budget and a proposed budget, hopefully, be ratified by the congregation. This is an interesting and new one.
So Julieta, would you stand up, please? This is Julieta Anaya, and she is a member of the debate team at the high school, and she would like to make a petition for anyone who would like to be a judge or a listener for speech and debate. January 8, there's a three hour maximum on this, but they will it'll be the beginning. Right? For more information, they need to talk to you.
But this is kind of the first time. If you'd like to be a judge for speech and debate, you can go, I think it's at the high school, on January 8, which is next Saturday. If you would see her the service, she'd appreciate it. If you're out there in TV land watching this and you call me, I'll get you her number so you can call her. It sounds like a great thing to do, and thank you.
I appreciate you being involved in that. So nursery helpers are always needed. You can talk to Kristen Galloway if you would like to volunteer your services. 2022. Good goodness gracious.
It's 2022. Then snowmobile retreat is January 28 through the thirtieth. It's up at Old Faithful Christian Ranch, $100 per adult, 75 for kids. It's not just snowmobile, and there are some people who grow up and snowshoe. There are others who cross country ski, so some people just go sit in the lodge, drink hot chocolate, and hang out in front of the fire.
You can do that too. Costs the same amount no matter what you do. Actually, if you if you go rent a snowmobile, that's apart from that but that's a fun trip. That's a good time. I think that's it.
Is there anything else looking out there? Any other announcements? No? Praises? Prayer request?
Would you stand? Let's sing together and we'll get to that in a minute.
Speaker 3Song in my soul and a feeling it's surging me. This I know I'm gonna show. That's your love is like a fellow, and your mercy never ending. I give my
Speaker 2There's a hope.
Speaker 3There's a hope in my heart burning bright you. Would you pray with me?
Speaker 2God, when I when we sing this song, there's a joy in my soul. Truly, God, you give a joy that no one else can give. You give a peace that no one else can give. Joy is your grace recognized. When we recognize your grace, your favor, always extending in our direction, it has an impact on us, and it fills us with joy.
And I think of, John 15, your joy will overflow. Lord, I do pray that we would be a church where joy overflows. It spills out of us because we've stayed connected to the vine. We've remained in you. In Jesus name, amen.
Speaker 3Oh, who else commands all the hopes of heaven? Oh, who else can make every king bow? Oh, who else can whisper darkness, a holy God. And what other beauty do have such praise? Oh, what are the splendor and shines the sun?
Oh, what are the majesty rules with justice?
Speaker 2Think of this. Jesus is relatable. Jesus is relatable from from Isaiah 53. It says he was despised and rejected. A man of sorrow is acquainted with the deepest grief.
Some of you may be grieving in the New Year. Some of you may have come and just be full of joy and and hope and and expectation, and others may be grieving right now, but know that Jesus understands he is acquainted with our grief. You can have a seat here for a minute. This is the worship through giving part of the service. I'll invite the ushers to come on forward.
But I think this is a great verse to kick off the New Year. It's from Proverbs three, five and six. And you've probably heard it, but let's hear it again. It says, trust in the Lord with all your heart and don't lean on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him, and he'll make your paths straight.
Speaker 3Ray, would you pray?
Speaker 1God almighty, thank you for this day. I thank you for this New Year, new morning. It says in the Bible, Lord, that your mercies are new every morning. May we carry forth knowing that we are forgiven, Lord. May we carry that heart of mercy and forgiveness with us and display it to a world that is intent on canceling everyone.
In Jesus' name, Lord, may we be reaching out and reaching down and picking people up. In Jesus' name, may we be bringing them back into the light, Lord. I thank you for the opportunity to give back from what you've given us, whether it's talent or time or, Lord, financial resources. So, God, I pray that you'd receive all of these things and that you would bless this investment in the kingdom, Lord, that you would bless it to grow and to flourish here on earth. May it be on earth just as is in heaven, Lord.
Align our thinking with your thinking. Align our ways with your ways. In Jesus' name, Lord, we ask you to take all of this that we offer and to do something with it that we could not do by ourselves. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Speaker 3I hold on to. There's nothing I hold on to. There's nothing I hold on to. I'll lean not on my own understanding. My life is in.
And I get it all in you, God. Trusting that you make something beautiful out of me. I give it only you God. Trusting that you make something
Speaker 1Amen. Alright. It is time for miss Crystal's class downstairs. And for the sermon upstairs. So, we were before Christmas, before we swapped over to Christmas, we were in the book of Luke studying the sermon on the mount in the book of Luke and I did it in three sermons.
It's not very long in the book of Luke but in Matthew, it's almost three chapters long. So, we're not gonna cover it just three sermons. It'll take us a little while but Matthew five one through 12 is where we're gonna start today. It's this passage known as the beatitudes. It's a Latin word for the blessings.
So the beatitudes, which I always grew up thinking these are the attitudes that need to be. Right? These are the attitudes that we need to have, the beatitudes. But I've got one thing before that. Would y'all please pray for me?
I'd I'd when I mentioned prayer request, I was serious about it. We have a box back to back. You can put a prayer request in. We've got the line that you can call. You can email us.
You can let us know personally, and we'll be praying. I got a call from my mom last night just checking in, but also she asked if we'd be praying for my cousin, Jerry Padgett, and her husband, Bruce, and they had a baby born just a couple days ago. I mean, it was four days ago. December 30, and last night went to the hospital with a collapsed lung. So Camden Padgett is the baby's name, but Jerry and Bruce, I'm sure, are concerned.
And I'm just gonna pray right now. God, there are so many of us who have experienced difficulty in this past couple of years with people going into the hospital and not being able to visit them and not being there, And there are others of us, Lord, who have experienced great pain and loss. Lord, I pray that you would strengthen this little baby's lungs and that you'd strengthen mama and daddy, that they would find their strength in you, and that they would be able to walk forward and out of this hospital and back home, and that you would grow, that baby up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Lord, would you do, would you do it? In Jesus' name, we're thankful to be a part of your kingdom in the now.
Amen. I am gonna start with the beatitudes because that's where the sermon on the mount starts. I don't think I've ever been daunted as much as when Jesus starts preaching. Every time Jesus starts preaching I mean, Paul I like Paul a lot, and his he has definitely been affected by the message of Jesus. There's no doubt about it.
When he starts, it seems to be in some ways practical and We're going be at the front, a little to summary at the end, but there are eight, blessings or beatitudes in there. And in Luke, there were four, and they were abbreviated, and then there were four comparatively. There were four woes that went with those. And so some people look at this and say, these can't be the same sermon. Honestly, though, I know what y'all are saying after the sermons.
I know that some of y'all take away very different things than what's were presented? No. No. No. Than than other people.
It's for you. Right? So Matthew is presenting a king like Carl started off with this morning that we're welcoming a king. Well, this is the king's first extended discourse, and it's three chapters long. There are five of these in the book of Matthew.
So five different times where Jesus begins to teach and he says, and it goes into a long discourse. Well, there's there's five of them in Matthew. This is the first one of those. And when he goes into it, it's very, very organized. Now I'll point out the organization next week.
I wanna sit these beatitudes in your lap like they've been sitting in my lap for the past two weeks, and I want you to just deal with them. It's very different from the world. The kingdom of heaven is very, very different from any kingdom of the world. If you've ever traveled much and you've been different places, you can get off the plane and feel a difference in some in every country. You know, it's just different.
We used to live just 50 miles on the other side of the Mexican border, but it was like a whole another country. Y'all are asleep this morning. I'm not funny. I know that, but y'all are asleep. So it's a whole different place.
There's a kingdom change or a national identity. We know that. Right? And we tend to be really individualistic, not collectivistic like some cultures, and we tend to be seeking to be right. And so I want for I want for these to speak to us.
I wanna I wanna give you a chance. Before we go into the next three chapters, I think this is almost an outline of the sermon, but we'll look at it together. When Jesus saw the crowds so this is after an extended period of ministry in Galilee. If we go by the timing in Luke, he has had day after day of crowds and he has been healing them all, And he has been teaching as he was healing and he's been presenting himself to lots and lots of different people. Now, the disciples were definitely there.
If we're going with Luke's timeline, he called the disciples to be with him up on the hill, and he named 12 of them that were the official 12. That was in Luke's buildup to the Sermon on the Mount. And so if we go with that, I believe it's the same sermon. I believe it's the same exact sermon, exact same time. When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on the mountain.
Luke says he spent all night there in prayer, and then he called the 12 called the the disciples to come up with him, and he named 12 of them. This says he went up on the mountain, and after he sat down that's a traditional posture in their day for the teacher was to sit down. And he sat down, and his disciples came to him. That's good. People are drawing near to the Lord.
And when they came to him, he opened his mouth and he began to teach them that he had been teaching. He had been teaching. He had been showing them the way, and he had been using his words before this, but this is in Matthew, the first out of five of these extended teaching sessions. So I kinda get in the mode when I get in the gospels of teaching a narrative story because I'm just narrating the action of what's happening. In Paul, you're ready for teaching.
That's what it's all about. So he opened his mouth and he began to teach them saying, and now this is the sermon. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are the poor in spirit. That is one that is really really difficult to define.
Yeah. I think you can see it when you see it, but it's difficult to define. Craig Blomberg has a little blurb right here that I like about poor in spirit. Poor in spirit as a virtue must refer not to a poor quality of faith, but to the acknowledgment of one's spiritual powerlessness and bankruptcy apart from Christ. Those who feel their spiritual need.
Blessing the spiritually poor provides important qualification of Luke's more absolute use of the poor. So Luke says, blessed are the poor. And Matthew says, blessed are the poor, but specifically poor in spirit. Those who recognize their absolute bankruptcy before God, that we have nothing in my hand I bring simply to the cross I cling. Right?
There's nothing that we have to offer. If you get that, you really get that, it puts you in a place of utter humility, and you recognize that I don't have a well to draw from on my own. I have to draw from the well that never runs dry from Christ. So blessed are the poor in spirit. This is the first of the beatitudes, and it says, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
It says theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Not it will be. Okay? It's not pie in the sky by and by. Kingdom of heaven is now.
It's already and it's not yet. Now the rest of them will be not yet. So a lot of them will be not yet, but this one's an already. If you recognize your utter spiritual lack and you turn to God, the kingdom of heaven is yours now. That's good.
That's really, really good. Blessed are those who mourn. Cry every Sunday. More often than that, but definitely every Sunday. I'm gonna look at the screens right now because when I look, I'm mourning with y'all, with y'all.
Seeing y'all who mourn, blessed are those who mourn. And that's what that means what it means. I could put the Greek word up there if you want to, but it's just people who feel utter grief and distress over loss, those who mourn. And this is for they will be comforted. Amen.
Amen. There are things that are really, really, really hard to deal with in this life. But the kingdom of heaven is now. You can be part of that now, but you will be comforted. That's a forward looking thing.
Blessed are the gentle or the meek. Blessed are the gentle for they will inherit the earth. In the land acquisition game, who gets it? Right? I mean, football is a metaphor for war.
Is it not? I I watched a game this week. I hardly ever do that, but it was Georgia. You know? They're fighting for land.
The meek are not winning the game. Right? Am I right about that? You've got to be tenacious and you got to go for it, and that's the way it is. But after all of that is done, after all of that fighting over it is done, what God says is blessed are those who are meek, for they're the ones that are gonna get this in the end.
All of your wrangling and all of your posturing and all of your fighting for it, all of your taking it, all of the imperial hubris. When it's at its end, the meek are the ones who are gonna inherit the earth. Blessed are those who are gentle. They'll inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
Diakosune is the word. Righteousness. Diakosune means righteousness. It means actually living rightly, uprightly, circumspectly, paying attention, and doing that which is right. Not being right in an argument.
It is not the winner of a Twitter battle. Is there ever really a winner in a Twitter battle? Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. Yeah. What we want, Lord, is to be right before you even if it looks like we're wrong before everyone else, Lord.
I pray, Lord, that we will be righteous and not just right in our own minds, not just win the debate. Amen. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness and the corresponding promises they will be satisfied for they will be satisfied. Does that mean we'll attain righteousness? If you hunger and thirst after it and you've got Christ providing from that well that never runs dry, the same spirit that raised him from the dead is at work in you to bring about a righteousness that is derived.
It's not of our own. It's derived from God. But blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be satisfied. Now, I I mentioned already and not yet theology. Already, the kingdom of heaven is here.
It's already at work, and we can submit ourselves to the kingdom of heaven and find ourselves becoming more righteous. But there will come a day when we will be righteous just as he is. We'll know just as we are known, and we will be righteous. One seven, blessed are the merciful. So I mentioned grace all the time.
Grace is a leaning towards with unmerited favor. Mercy is very similar to that. Mercy is not handing off the punishment which is deserved, well deserved. Okay? Mercy is not receiving a punishment you do deserve.
Grace is receiving a blessing that you don't. Blessed are the merciful. Merciful. For they will receive mercy. This is repeated throughout the Bible.
When even in the Lord's prayer, it says, forgive us our debts, Lord, just as we forgive our debtors. It's linking those two things together.
Speaker 3Whoo.
Speaker 1Blessed are the merciful. If you recognize that you have been forgiven by God, you humbly know that I was wrong and there was nothing that I could do to pay for this. I don't have innocent blood to give. I trust in the innocent blood that Christ has given, and therefore, I know I'm forgiven. How in the world could I hold anything against anybody else?
Right? Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. Go Jesus. He can quiet a room, can't he? Blessed are the pure in heart.
Now I I mentioned about Jesus' teaching and Paul's teaching. Now Paul's teaching, he's talking to a crowd of people that are often violently opposed to the gospel truth, and he's talking to a group of people that he's trying to convince them of the gospel, and he's evangelizing. Sometimes he's speaking to churches and churches only, but a lot of times he's got a broader net than that. Christ is speaking here to his disciples. He's speaking to those who want the kingdom of heaven now, not the ones who want the military conqueror to to overthrow the Roman government.
He's speaking to people who want for themselves what he wants for them. They want to see God. Blessed are the pure in heart. The pure in heart. I I think if you bring in Paul's purity into this, it kinda clouds the issue.
Does that make sense? Blessed are the pure in heart. These are already his disciples. They're already following after him, for they will see God. That's what the pure in heart are gonna get.
The people who are earnestly seeking God with a pure heart. It's it's not for selfish reasons. It's for God's reasons. They'll see God. Draw near to me, and I'll draw near to you is is kind of in the same vein.
Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are the peacemakers. How blessed are peacemakers? What do they usually get? I think of I think of a lot of examples of peacemakers here on earth that are martyred for their faith.
I mean, obviously. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, we've got lots of different examples whether they are Christians or not. We've got lots of people who are trying to draw two opposing sides together to have peace. And what do they usually get for it on this side? Blasted constantly from both sides.
I've done marriage counseling before trying to make peace, and one of them said I was a bleeding heart liberal, and the other one says, you're so conservative, I can't even have a conversation with you. I just happened to be between them. Right? Blessed are the peacemakers. Every once in a while, you get both sides that turn on the peacemakers so much that they galvanize together.
Even so, Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are the peacemakers for they'll be called the sons of God. Jesus, son of God, Left, the glories of heaven came to be adopted, an adopted son, that we might receive adoption as sons and be called the sons of God. The son of God became a son of man so that the sons of men might become sons of God. Blessed are the peacemakers.
We should be striving for peace. Blessed are those who have been, verb tense there, who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness. Now, it says that blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness or for righteousness for they will what? Be filled. You wanna flip back to it?
Here we go. They shall be satisfied. Filled as satisfied. And then we get up to here and it says, blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness. They're trying to do everything they can.
They're hunger and thirsting after righteousness, and God is making them righteous. And then what do you get on earth? Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. It's a different king. We serve a different king.
And what you get on this side is resistance for actually falling after a king. God Almighty, Jesus Christ, the lamb that was slain. There's is the kingdom of heaven. Now I pointed it out kinda with tone of voice, but I want you to see that is right there. That's now.
That's already. That's already. You can already be a part of the kingdom of heaven right now even though you're in exile in a strange land no matter whether it's this country or any other. Any worldly kingdom is different from the kingdom of heaven, but you can be a citizen and a participant in and a willing and obedient servant of the kingdom of heaven no matter what land you live in. That is now look at the rest of these.
I'm gonna go in reverse order. Oh, how many top 10 lists have you seen in the past two weeks? Top 10 from 22. We're gonna go backwards from verse 10. We're gonna just go through these eight.
This one says is, and so this is one end of the list. Backwards, it says, blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called the sons God. It's a future thing. Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God. Now, mentioned the will on that peacemaker thing because, boy, Martin Luther King was known as an agitator, at least where I'm from.
Even though he's a Baptist preacher, there are people who wanna point out all of these other bad things about him. All he wanted was to make peace, people. Saw something that wasn't right and meekly, gently, they will be. Now we look back and everybody tries to get him on their side. Everybody with an argument wants to be Martin Luther King to be their spokesperson.
He's a Baptist preacher. He can't be a spokesperson for everybody. Really? Blessed are the peacemaker for they will be called the sons of God. At the time, they might not be.
They called everything everything else. That's the is is you can be a part of the kingdom of heaven now. Backwards going is they will be called the sons of God and blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God. There are times like the crying prophet Jeremiah where you just go, God, I'm not seeing you right now. I know that I'm trying to do the best that I can with the information that I've been given right here in your word, and I'm not seeing you in this.
I feel alone and destitute. But I believe you and I'm gonna keep on walking it out. Somebody sent me a text this week and instead of saying, have a happy New Year, he got auto corrected. I'm pretty sure it said, behave a happy New Year. Behave a happy New Year is what I wanna do.
I wanna behave in this New Year as if it's a Happy New Year. Right? Behave a Happy New Year. Intensifier. Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God.
Faith, evidence of things hoped for, things not yet seen. No one has seen God at any time, Jesus says. Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God. Blessed are the merciful for they will receive mercy. There is a payday coming.
There is recompense on the way. And for those who have put their faith in Christ, they will receive mercy. And this says, they will also be merciful in this life as a subject of the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the merciful for they will receive mercy. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be satisfied.
There's always something left that we can have improved by God, by his transformative spirit for they will be satisfied. Blessed are the gentle for they will inherit the earth. Right now, meekness and gentleness doesn't seem to go very far. It's not a currency in this nation, but it is in this kingdom, the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.
Looking back and seeing the people we lost in the last year and looking back and seeing things. There's a there's a sense of mourning that happens each time we take the time to consider it, but there will be an end to that. God will wipe away every tear. Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Both times when it's an is, it's a current. It's a kingdom of heaven. It's now. It's an already. The other things are partially fulfilled, but they will be absolutely fulfilled at that great mighty day.
And then I'm gonna close off with this last summary that Jesus gives to those disciples sitting there and the one sitting here. The one standing here. Blessed are you. Now this changes from all of the other ones are blessed are the poor, blessed are the me, blessed are the whatever. But this one swaps and it says, blessed are you.
Oh, man. That's personal. Blessed are you. When? When people insult you, and when they persecute you, and when they falsely, that's very important, falsely say all kinds of evil things against you because of me.
Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Now the falsely and the because of me are the two things that stand out. Peter says, don't let any of you be in trouble because you're a murderer or a thief or an evildoer. That's on you. But if you are persecuted for righteousness sake or if you're persecuted for my name's sake, Jesus says, then blessed are you.
Rejoice and be glad in the face of ugliness. Rejoice and be glad for your reward in heaven is great. And that's a better translation, your reward in heaven is great rather than, to think that there are stacks and stacks and stacks of rewards that are building up because of the persecution. I think that your reward in heaven heaven, presence of God forever is is a reward. For in the same way that they persecuted you, the prophets before you.
For in this same way, they persecuted the prophets who were before you. That's almost exactly the same line from Luke. I think it's the same exact sermon. Although Matthew may have left out the woes, and Luke just honed in on four of the things, and he simplified them some. This is a good start to a great sermon, but it will drive you to your knees.
A lot of people see Jesus ascending the mountain to deliver this, like Moses ascending the mountain to give the law of God. And this is not the new law of God. This is the continuing. Jesus said he came to fulfill the law. This is the continuing thing, but see in that parallel of Moses climbing the mountain and Jesus climbing the mountain and Moses present presenting these 10 commandments and Jesus presenting these beatitudes, these blessings.
There's some parallel there for sure. He's saying to get your mind in line with God, it's gonna be a complete change from everything this world has to offer. I think that's the last slide, but blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. It can be a part right now. It is right now, and it might not be all sunshine and rainbows for you.
That's it. Would you all stand? I think that's put us in a a good place. We don't have Florine to play something pretty. We don't have Jesse to play something pretty.
If there's somebody out there who wanted to play something pretty, you really need to let me know. Okay? I'm gonna ask Carl and Ryan if you'll come back up. Yep. The ushers are gonna come forward, and I'll say a prayer.
And if you would, take this time. God almighty, we we are seeking by our very presence here this morning or even online with us this morning. We're seeking into your word, Lord. We want you to transform us by your spirit, by the application of your word. Would you do your will, Lord, in your way?
I pray that you'd forgive us and that we'd sense your forgiveness. Sometimes the hardest thing for us as Christians, Lord, is receiving your mercy, receiving your forgiveness. May we receive it and may it transform us in a way that we just are constantly letting people off the hook, that we're constantly refusing to hold an offense. Lord God, transform our lives. I pray that you'd make us all of these things that in the now we'd experience the kingdom of heaven, but that you would bring us closer and closer to, actual glorification, Lord, in the best way possible.
Would you forgive us of our sins? In Jesus' name, would you bless this little representation of your body and blood as we distribute it this morning, as we play through this song and contemplate our own way, Lord. Would you have your will in your way this morning? And allow us to leave here rejoicing. Amen.
Speaker 2You could have a seat here for
Speaker 1for a moment
Speaker 2while the ushers are handing out the bread and the cup and wanna sing Jesus messiah.
Speaker 1So on the same night that Jesus was betrayed actually, it's the same night Carl will be talking about tomorrow on Monday night. On the same night that he did that upper room discourse, he said to his disciples who were there with him, and he's still speaking today and saying to his disciples here that this is my body that is given for you. Take this and eat and eat of it and do it as often as you will in remembrance of me. Thank you, Jesus, that you are identifiable and relatable like Carl said earlier, that you walked it out, that you know what it's like. You were tempted and tried just and as we are except you were without sin.
You are without sin. Lord God almighty, we pray that we would accept the reality that you did walk it out and we can, by your spirit, walk it out. I pray, Lord, that we would hunger and thirst after righteousness. Amen. Also, took the cup after supper like he had taken the bread, and he after he blessed both, he said, this is my blood which is given for you.
This is the new covenant in my blood which is given for you. Take this and drink and do it as often as you will in remembrance of me. Lord God, all righteousness that we that may dwell in us is derived, and it's derived from you, And it can only be derived from you alone, Lord God Almighty. Allow us the grace of understanding that in a way that we can present it winsomely. In Jesus' name.
In reality. In Jesus' name. Amen. Would you stand? Amen.
On up in Matthew six thirty three, this is a part of the same sermon it says, but y'all seek first the kingdom. Seek first the kingdom and his righteousness. All these other things will be given to you as well. That's added benefit for looking for the righteousness of God, seeking after him. It'll be found.
In Jesus' name, Lord, I ask your blessing on us, Lord. Lord, may kingdom values replace all other allegiances in Christ alone. Amen.
