Flipside Christian Church

A man.

You may experience couple drops
as if it keeps raining.

Got a couple little leaks.

But I just want to make clear
that if you do get sprinkle today,

that doesn't count.

You still got to get baptized.

In this series,

going through the book of Matthew,
we're in chapter five today,

and we're going to look
at the first portion of that chapter

and what are called the Beatitudes.

Chapters five, six, and seven

are commonly known
as the sermon on the Mount.

It's a message Jesus preached

to those who would follow him,

who were learning to follow him.

And as I've been preparing
for this message,

I've really been struggling,

with the preparation of it
and now the preaching of it.

And here's why.

This is a sermon Jesus preached

and for someone to

to have the audacity to try to explain

what Jesus meant.

That's a struggle for me.

I've debated
just not teaching through Matthew five

six and seven and and just telling you
as a church, study it on your own.

Like who am I to try to explain
what Jesus's intent was in this?

You understand?

I'm saying,
like the other parts of Scripture, I get

in all the epistles
that that the Apostle Paul wrote

in the historical documents
in the old Testament

and then all the rest of you,
we can read those and glean truth

from them and and try to understand
what the original author's intent was

when they penned, and, and,
and interpret Scripture

through a scripture, which is appropriate.

And you're supposed to do that and,
and kind of glean truths from Scripture.

And the gods are in the revelation
of God's heart, and that's all fine.

But when we're looking
at a sermon Jesus preached

and the

arrogance to say, let me tell you what
Jesus meant.

It just feels odd to me.

You understand what I'm saying?

Like when I let these Jesus words
just be Jesus

words like you knew what he was saying.

And so I've really been struggling with,

with even the work of, of,
of this message.

But we're going to do it.

And by God's grace,
you'll have mercy on my soul.

Not truly,

you you can

you can misrepresent and misspeak
on people's behalf all you want.

But this is Jesus.

And to misrepresent

his his spoken word and his message

and to think that we

that I that you would listen to me

as far as what his intent was, is

it's a little bit scary.

And so I appreciate your prayers
as we go through this and Holy Spirit,

just do the interpretation
that I'm a mess up.

Matthew five,

we're going to look at the first,

probably 16

verses or so, and Matthew
five one and two.

Let me just read these two verses.

Seeing the crowds,
he Jesus went up on the mountain.

And when he sat down,
his disciples came to him.

And he opened his mouth.

And he taught them, saying,
those are the first two verses,

of Matthew five.

I want us to understand that we didn't go
through the sermon on the Mount.

Matthew five six and seven,

the sermon that Jesus preacher
does not necessarily do with salvation.

Okay?

He's not dealing with salvation issues.

It details how the disciples of Jesus live
ethically in their daily lives.

That's what he's talking about.

In essence, he's saying, look,
you want to follow me?

Let me tell you the implications
of how you live now daily.

These are the ethical
implications of how you live.

This is what I

expect the beatitudes
that we're going to look at.

He's going to say, blessed are
the blessed are the. Blessed are the.

That's commonly known as the Beatitudes.

Everybody say Beatitudes.

Beatitudes.

The Beatitudes are literally
the blessings, okay?

They're the be attitudes, the attitudes

that should be in disciples lives.

They give the disciple their be attitudes.

How what are attitude as we go

daily through this life and interact
with each other and with God,

they're the standard expectation for
every disciple as we read through these.

Blessed are the. Blessed are the,
blessed are the.

This is Jesus's expectation
for every person

who would say, I'm
a citizen of the kingdom.

I'm a follower of Jesus. So get ready.

Jesus knew what he wanted from his people.

He knew his expectation.

If we're going to follow him, he said, I'm
going to tell you what I expect of you.

There's your attitude,

and these beatitudes will

produce the Greek word
Makarios, literally translated happiness.

It's not it's not happy.

Like, oh, I got a new puppy happy.

It's a joy that is serene and untouchable.

It's a joy that is independent

of the chances and changes of life.

It's constant and consistent.

That's what these beatitudes will produce.

That's why
Jesus starts them with blessed are the.

These are the attitudes
that's going to produce this serene

and untouchable
joy and contentment in life.

The Bible says Jesus sat down

and he taught

in that culture

when what a when a rabbi would teach,
he would sit

and the hearers would stand.

When a rabbi would preach, he would stand.

And so the teaching position

in the New Testament
for rabbis was to sit, and he touched.

So Jesus sits down, and they're
probably standing, and he teaches them.

And he
opened his mouth and he taught them.

Verse two says,
he taught them that verb to teach

is in the imperfect tense in Greek,

which literally means

He used to teach them
in an ongoing manner.

This wasn't a message Jesus taught on
a weekend and then never came back to it.

The implication is that this message
that we'll look through in chapters five,

six, and seven is the message that Jesus
continually brought his disciples back to.

He continually taught them.

He continually reminded them

it was so important
and so central to what it is

to be a follower of Jesus,
that it's the message he started with.

And he continued for three years
of his public ministry.

Continue to teach them over and
over and over because they had to get it.

These are the attitudes that

would shape their life, that would shape
what it meant for them to follow Jesus.

They had to get it.

And so he continually
brought them back to it

over and over and over.

And he starts in verse
three, blessed are the

what he's saying

is right now, this
these are the things that I expect.

And right now these are the, the,
the results of these things.

He's not saying, blessed will you be you.

Some blessed are you.

And so the blessings that accompany
these beatitudes,

he says, are yours, right
now, happy right now, content right now.

Now, as he moves through these Beatitudes,

in essence, there's nine of them.

I would encourage you
to memorize them in order.

If these are the attitudes
that Jesus says, this is what I want

for my people, shouldn't
we know what those attitudes are?

Yeah, let me ask that again.

As if it's not rhetorical,

if these are the attitudes that you said,
these have to characterize

my followers, shouldn't
we know what these are?

Okay, so to repeat them to me from memory
right now go.

So I thought

and so
this is why we have to study this over

and remind ourselves
over and over and over. Okay.

You understand in.

Yes. Yes.

Okay.

Here's something else
I want to say about these

shoes.

To make these part of your attitudes
right now.

Those first words of John
the Baptist in preparing

the way for Jesus is public
ministry was to repent

means change your attitude,
change your life, change your direction.

The first words of Jesus were repent,

the first words of the disciples
and their messages was repent.

The first words of the church was repent.

The first words of Paul
the Apostle in his messages were repent.

So these are not

we're not capable
to produce these in and of ourselves,

except for the the regeneration
of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

But at the same time,
we have to choose these.

They have to be our choice.

And so right from the beginning, for
if any of us are going to claim

I follow Jesus,
choose these attitudes right now

and stand.

Well, let's see,

blessed are the poor in spirit.

Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

To be poor in spirit

means that it's the confession

that I am sinful,

that I'm rebellious against God,

that I am without moral virtue,

that I have no spiritual assets

that would commend me to God.

I am completely devoid of any good.

The Bible says there is none
that is righteous.

No not one.

There's no good that lives in any person.

And there's the knowledge

that I am completely and utterly

without virtue before God,

completely and utterly condemned

and worthy of hell in and of myself.

It's the acknowledgment
that I am spiritually

bankrupt.

I'm a pauper,

and I'm a beggar before God.

This is the place that every person
must start.

It's the lowest rung on the ladder
because it's the easiest thing,

and it's the primary thing that every
person must start with in coming to God.

The realization
I have nothing to offer him.

Does this sound like any message?

If you would hear in our culture,

not in the least.

We want to believe
there's something good in us.

We want to believe there's something in us

that is beautiful.

Matter of fact, as parents,
we try to convince our kids,

oh, you're good,
you're good kid. No, they're not.

Your children are spiritually bankrupt

because they're just like their parents.

There's no good in any of us before God.

The only thing we deserve before God

is damnation.

That's what Jesus means

when he says, blessed
are the poor in spirit.

How can he say, happy?

Are those who are spiritually bankrupt?

Because this is the starting point

to being made right with God.

If any of us comes to God and say, God, I,

I want you to do what you can in my life,
but I'm giving you a lot to work with,

automatically disqualified.

We have to get to the place
where we acknowledge

and confess and admit and agree with.

I'm an utter wretch

before God.

Nothing of value.

Spiritual poverty

is the prerequisite
for receiving the kingdom of heaven. Why?

Because only beggars are. Get in.

And if we can start in this place,

I am absolutely spiritually bankrupt.

If that's where we start,

then we can be inheritors

of the Kingdom of God.

And because that's

the acknowledgment of where I start,

then Jesus says, blessed
are the poor in spirit.

And then blessed are those who mourn.

For they'll be comforted.

We usually use that verse

when it comes to funerals,
when it comes to our loss.

And we think, we think it means that
when I'm sad, Jesus comforts me.

That's not
what this verse is talking about.

Jesus is saying, this

when you realize
that you are completely bankrupt

before God, worthy
only of hell in and of yourself,

it will cause you to mourn
your own station.

And when you mourn
for your spiritual poverty,

then you can be comforted
because of what Jesus has done.

But we
have to get to this place of mourning.

Now that this Greek word for mourn, is
this the most intense word for mourning?

That the Greek language has?

It's spoken of in the same vein,
when you lose a loved one,

now some of you have lost.

People in your life,

and you know what it means to mourn

in tensely right?

That's what Jesus is talking about.

But not in the sense of mourning my lost

mourning over sin and the effects of sin.

I am so overwhelmed.

With the acknowledgment of my spiritual
poverty before God because of sin.

And I'm so overwhelmed at what sin
is, what is done in me,

what is done in the society

that I'm experiencing
this incredibly deep sense of mourning.

If you've ever had the

the dark night of the soul,

when there's complete

bankruptcy before God and a sense of of

of of of peril and darkness

over your own soul in the morning of God,

please have mercy.

That's what Jesus is saying.

Blessed are the poor in spirit,
and blessed

are those who mourn.

Not just here's,

here's here's our here's our standard.

We mourn over sin
because of the consequences of it.

That's not what Jesus is talking about.

Even devoid of consequences.

Simply mourning over sin because of sin.

And not just personal sin,
but sin of the courts.

Sin of the society.

When when you look at the world
being like God, have mercy on us.

We are oh wretched sinners.

So pervasive.

It's horrible.

Morning like that

and that type of morning is good.

Like we resist it so much.

We don't want one.
We don't want to be sad.

We don't want other people to be sad.

Okay, let's just talk about
the love of Jesus.

That's good.

Jesus saying that's not worth.

Like, we can talk about that, but
it means nothing if you don't understand

how spiritually poverty stricken
you are and mourn sin.

That morning is good.

The Bible says godly grief.

This type of mourning and grief produces

a repentance that leads to salvation
without regret,

whereas worldly grief produces death.

Like, this type of mourning is good
because it leads us to repentance.

That grief allows us to live.

Said in another way,

for God sometimes uses sorrow in our life
to help us turn away from sin

and seek eternal life, and we should
never regret his sinning. It.

But the sorrow of the man who is not a
Christian

is not the star of true repentance
and does not prevent

eternal death.

Like I encourage us, sit
in the realization

of the depravity of your own soul
and mourn

over the effects of sin.

Experienced

this type of deep and profound mourning,

because only then will lead you
to repentance.

I'm not talking about

feeling bad because of the consequences.

That's simple.

You know as well as I do
when we have more of the consequences

of sin in the moment,
the consequences are there.

We like a dog back to its vomit,

right?

This too heavy for you this morning?

These are Jesus words said.

Look at you. Want to follow me?
This is the attitude you got to have.

Blessed are the.

What was the first one
who got to memorize these

poor in spirit.

Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are the what?

Those who mourn.

They'll be comforted.

The next one.

Blessed are the meek.

Here's what I want to understand.

This process,

especially poor in spirit and mourning,

God allows that

in your life as a path, not a destination.

We gotta go through this process

to understand
that he didn't want us to stay there,

but we gotta go through there
to get to these others, okay?

It's like it's like you want to go down to
Disneyland, the happiest place on Earth.

You got to go through Bakersfield.

We don't stay there,

all right?

It's a path. It's not the destination.

And so we got to go through that.

Most of us, we were like, I don't want to.

I don't want, like, poor spirit more.

That's horrible.

Yeah, it's part of the destination
as part of the path.

But we're getting to a destination

and part of that destination that we're
going through, like poor in spirit mourn.

And then blessed are the meek.

For they will inherit the earth.

Now, we don't have a good translation
for the Greek word Prowse meek.

We don't.

We can't translate it
well at all in English.

Only thing we can do is use a bunch of
worst kind of explain what it looks like.

And so the best we can come up
with is meek

means a powerful
person, properly controlled.

It means a perfect balance

between anger and indifference.

There's a tension here

in the one who is meek.

They're not passive,

but they're not pushed either.

The best way you can see it is it's.

It's strength under control.

It's a person free from malice

and free from a vengeful spirit.

It's it's it's the ability to suffer

without malice
and without seeking revenge.

To be meek

means I will willingly disregard

my own rights.

It's the power

and authority
that says you will not take my rights,

but I will gladly give up my rights.

I have that much power

and it's under control.

Why would someone say

I don't have to assert my rights?

I will gladly give them up

because they know
that they will inherit the earth.

And because
I know I will inherit the earth,

I have nothing to prove
and no one to impress.

That's meekness.

That's the tagline
we use for our men's ministry.

Because men, we've got to be meek.

It's not being walked on.

It's the ability to say, look,
I have complete power

to assert my authority over you,
but I'm going to choose not to.

Why? Because I got nothing to prove.

I have enough power

and authority that God has given me.

I don't have to prove myself to anybody.

I'm surely not going to try
to prove myself to you.

You don't deserve me to prove myself
to you.

Not arrogant.

I'm just saying, like I don't.

I have no one to impress.

Why would I try to impress you?

You don't
deserve me to try to impress you.

And I don't feel obligated to.

I certainly
am not going to prove myself to God.

I only think I'm going
to prove myself to God is that I'm.

I am poor in spirit,
and I'm mourning that.

And I'm certainly
not going to try to impress God.

Do you think any of us could impress God?

And so, likewise,

I'm like, blessed are the meek.

They don't have to prove anything.

They don't have to impress anybody.

They don't have to hold a grudge.

They don't have to be vengeful.

They don't have to assert their power
and might over anybody. Why?

Because they're going to hurt the earth.

Does does meekness

sound like anything
that our culture has ever propagated?

Not at all.

Not at all.

So I will be meek

before God and completely submit to him,

and I will be meek before man,

which means I will be longsuffering,

powerful, and strong,

yet humble.

And so Jesus is saying,
if you're going to follow me,

you first
have to admit that you were completely,

utterly,
spiritually bankrupt and poor in spirit,

and that has to cause you to mourn

and out of response of your realization
and who you are

and where you are before God.

You're a meek.

Blessed are those who first one is what

poor in spirit. Blessed are those who.

Blessed are the meek.

And when you're meek,

you realize who you are before God.

Then blessed are those who hunger
and thirst for righteousness,

for they'll be filled.

Our desires and our drives come into line.

And I hunger and thirst for righteousness.

They will be filled
when when the Bible talks

about being filled.

It it's it's being filled.

Where you experience this profound hunger

that can never be completely satisfied.

But in its satisfaction,

it intensifies for more.

And what Jesus is saying here
is, blessed are those

who have this profound hunger

that's never completely satisfied.

That always draws one to more.

Here's here's what I know.

Many of us
get hungry often during the day, right?

Right.

Some of you missed breakfast this morning
and you're thinking, okay, how long?

Because oh my goodness,

all of us get hungry.

None of us in this place suffer hunger.

Please understand, all of us get hungry.

None of us

suffer hunger.

And this is what Jesus is saying.

So I'm not talking about
you getting spiritually hungry.

You get spiritually hungry,
you come to church

and then you have your snack
and you're good for the next week or so.

So that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about this profound,
intense hunger

as if you are starving
and dying of thirst.

And the moment you partake, it's
satisfying,

and all it does
is make it intensified for more.

It's that type of hunger and thirst,

and it's a hunger and thirst for what?

Righteousness.

We talked last week about righteousness,

and I challenge you to pray.

God intensified my desire
to be a righteous man

before you, to be a righteous woman

before you intensify,
grow my desire for righteousness.

And this is what Jesus is saying.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst.

This ongoing, intense, insatiable desire

to be a righteous man
and a righteous woman.

Not I believe in Jesus.

So I got my fire insurance from hell.

But I am intensely desiring

the righteousness of God.

We hunger for a lot of things

other than righteousness.

We hunger for

for God to step in.

We hunger for

God to do something in our lives.

God to rescue God to save this. God
to make us so.

We hunger for a lot of things
other than righteousness.

And Jesus says.

Starve for righteousness.

Here's my concern.

Oftentimes good

religious church people are inoculated

from the hunger of righteousness.

Because we're good religious moral people.

And we're inoculated

from the starvation of righteousness.

And that's what Jesus is saying.

Do you realize that
Jesus didn't come to make any of us moral?

He can't make us holy.

To be people.

When men and women of righteousness.

And so this feeling,

it satisfies us at it
intensifies the desire for more.

Blessed are the

poor in spirit, for theirs
is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for
they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek
that will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst
for righteousness, for they'll be filled

and then blessed are the merciful,

for they'll what

receive mercy.

Listen, the merciful,

get the mercy they give.

Please, my dear friends, let that sink in.

The merciful get the mercy they give.

Once you receive it,

you have to give it.

When I realize

that I'm completely bankrupt and utterly,

devoid of spiritual value,

that would commend me to God.

When I experience that incredible evil

morning for my sinfulness
and the sinfulness of humanity.

And it puts me in a position to be meek
before God and before people

now hunger and thirst for righteousness.

The one thing I know
is that what I need from

God is mercy.

I need his mercy.

And what Jesus is saying is,

you will get the mercy you give

something about King David,

Old Testament King David, he God

was so gracious towards
King David, his little shepherd boy,

completely forgotten about by his family

and God chose him to be

the King of, of of Israel.

And God put his hands on King David
and blessed him.

Oh, I was ridiculous.

The favor that David had on his life,
and in the midst of experience

all this favor from God,
he sees this married

a woman named Bathsheba, commits
adultery with her, gets her pregnant,

and then contracts
to have her husband killed.

And God still

is so gracious and merciful to him.

He was horrible.

Why was God so merciful to him
after all of that?

I'll tell you why.

Because before all of that,

when King Saul was the king

and God removed his hand from King Saul

and said, David, I put my hand on you,
you will be the king.

David had opportunity after opportunity
after opportunity

to dishonor Saul
and to remove Saul from power.

And David said, I will be merciful to Saul

until God does what God wants to do.

And because David
was so incredibly merciful to Saul,

David experienced the mercy of God.

Blessed are the merciful,

for they will. What

receive mercy.

And what Jesus is saying is

that our be attitudes

are those who,
for that person who did that to you,

for those who

for that one you will never.

Jesus followers will be merciful.

And as a result,

they'll receive the mercy of God.

To understand. The.

Blessed are the poor in spirit.

Blessed are those who mourn.

Blessed are the meek.

But for those who hunger and thirst
for righteousness,

blessed are the merciful.

What's the next one?

Blessed are the pure in heart,

for they will see God.

When this word is just pure,

it means a straightness.

It means in and in honesty and a clarity.

It means an undivided heart.

The Bible says that

a double minded man is unstable,
and all he does that's not this.

This is a straightness.

There's no division in the heart.

It it literally it's sincere.

Sincere comes from, two words sincerely.

And it literally means without wax.

That's
what sincere means. Did you know that?

Let me tell you the context of that,
because that's what pure.

And this is what pure in heart means.

Back in ancient times

when Romans and whatnot would,

would, would carve statues out of marble,

they would be commissioned,
the artists would be commissioned

by a wealthy person
to fashion a statue for the gardens,

and during the crafting

of the statue, oftentimes
it happened quite, quite a bit,

right at the end of the statue's
completion, right before it's completed.

As the sculptor was sculpting,
they would hit some type of fracture

or fissure in the marble
and part of the statue would fall off,

rather than starting all over again and
losing all the work and time and money,

the sculptor would take the dust,

from the chiseling
the marble dust and mix it with wax,

and it would
look exactly like the original marble,

and they would fashion that part
which fell off

from this substances,
this marble dust, wax material.

And it would look exactly like the marble
no one would ever know

until

the person brought it home
and put it in their garden.

And a hot summer day came

and the the wax would melt

and it would fall off.

And so they made a law

that in every sculpture
had to be certified, that it was sensory

without wax.

It was pure, undivided, unbroken.

And what Jesus is saying here is, blessed

are the sincerity of heart.

It doesn't say, blessed
are the poor in behavior that will come.

It doesn't say, blessed are the poor
and rich or the pure in ritual

says, blessed are the pure in heart
and undivided, sincere

heart of clarity, of straightness.

And they will.

What?

Blessed are the pure in heart,
they will see God.

They'll see God.

They'll have a greater intimacy with God.

When I was in high school,
I vividly remember this.

I was listening to someone teach
and they said,

dust in the heart throws dirt in the eyes.

I wrote it down.

I still have it in my Bible in my office.

Dust in the heart throws dirt in the eyes.

When we don't have a pure heart,
it gets dusty

and a dusty heart creates blinded eyes.

And what Jesus is saying
here, that those who are pure in heart

have unblinded eyes, free

from the blinding pollutants of sin.

So you see God more clearly.

Imagine God is the one who said,
nobody can see me and live.

And yet the blessings of
the pure heart is to see him,

so that when we open Scripture,

we see God clearly,

not because of knowledge, but because of

sincerity of heart.

That when circumstances happen in life,
we don't freak out.

Like, what's going on, God? Why?

Because we see him clearly.

That's not pure in heart.

But there will see God.

So. So let's start at the bottom
rung of the ladder.

The easiest step to take.

Blessed are the poor in spirit.

That's where everybody has to start.

We don't start with blessed
are the pure in heart.

We don't start with blessed are the meek.

Everybody starts on the same rung.

Blessed are the poor in spirit.

And the next rung is blessed

are those who mourn.

And the next is blessed are the meek.

Blessed are those
who hunger, thirst for righteousness.

Blessed are the merciful.

Blessed are the pure in heart.

And then he says,
and blessed are the peacemakers.

They will be called sons of God.

You know the greatest way and
the greatest peace making is evangelism,

bringing peace between a lost person
and the God who loves them.

That's what peace. Peace.

When Jesus is talking about peacemaking

here, he's not talking about, hey,
let's just all get along and not argue.

He's not talking about

let's just let's not causeless
don't talk like, let's just be nice.

And that's what he's talking about.

The greatest act of peacemaking

is, is, is making helping
someone make peace with God.

It's evangelism.

It's that ministry of reconciliation.

We're reconciling humans to God.

The Bible says all this is from God, who
through Christ reconciled himself to us.

It's evangelism.

And now he's given us
that ministry of reconciliation.

And those people who,

who for whom this is their attitude
and this is their practice.

These are recognized as children of God.

These are.

And Jesus saying,
these are the attitudes of my people.

This is my expectation for everybody
who says they follow me.

And then he says.

Blessed are those

who are persecuted for righteousness.

Blessed are you when you're reviled
and people

say all kinds of evil against you falsely,

for theirs is the kingdom.

And he says, rejoice and be glad, for
your reward is great in heaven.

For so they pursue the prophets,
who before you says, listen,

the results of all this stuff, if you live

this way.

Be joyful

when you're persecuted because of it.

And Jesus puts persecution

not just in physical terms,
but in terms of slander as well.

It's going to happen

if you're doing it right.

And, and and he says when this happens,

rejoice literally.

He says, jump for joy.

Like when you're persecuted, jump
for joy. Why?

Because you're in good company.

This is what happened to all the prophets.

It's what happened throughout
church history, the shoulders

on which we stand as Christ followers
all experienced persecution, he said.

So count it all
joy, my brothers and sisters.

When you suffer for the sake
of the kingdom, you're in good company

and great is your reward.

It's the kingdom of heaven.

And when we live
according to these attitudes,

we become something we're not.

You are the salt of the earth,

and you are the light of the world.

Most Christians

know those phrases
far more than they know.

The Beatitudes.

And they kind of

say, hey, we are the salt of the earth
and we are the light of the world.

No you're not.

If you haven't lived according
to the attitudes of the Beatitudes,

that's the result of living
according to the Beatitudes.

Do you understand that?

Says when these.

Then.

When these are your attitudes. Now

you're the salt of the earth
and the light of the world.

Salt has a preserving influence
and it slows decay.

That's what it did in the ancient world.

They'd put it on meat to preserve it
and slow decay.

You said this is who you are
when you live.

According to these archers.
This is who you become.

You become the salt of the earth

and the light of the world.

You have a preserving influence.

Christians
ought to have a preserving influence

and so of the key of culture,
but not by posting on social media,

not by boycotting stuff, not by marching,
not by chanting,

not by berating, but by the Beatitudes.

We naturally become the salt of the earth,
the slow decay

and the preserving influence
in this world.

And it's.

And the salt in the end
times was incredibly valuable.

Some at some points in history,
it was more valuable than gold.

Matter of fact, soldiers in the Roman army
would oftentimes be paid with salt.

That's where the saint comes from.

He is worth his salt.

It's valuable.

And when Jesus says you're the light of
the world, think about what he's saying.

That title Jesus claimed of himself.

And now he it to the disciples who have
who, who live by these beatitudes.

Can you imagine?

He gives that title

to us because we live according to these.

Be out. These are our attitudes. Now.

It's amazing to me.

So here's what I know.

To be effective, we must be distinctive.

To be effective, we must be distinctive.

And these beatitudes

are very distinctive from this culture
in this world we live in, right?

Right.

And so we just have to ask ourselves,

how much do church folks look like?

The culture we live in,

the same goals, the same debts,
the same media,

the same schedules, the same stress,
the same worries, the same habits,

the same addictions, the same marriages,
the same priorities.

If we're going to be effective,
we got to be distinctive.

And these beatitudes
have to be our attitudes.

And when these are our attitudes,

all of that stuff changes.

I love verse 15.

No people
light a lamp and put it under a basket,

but on a stand,
and it gives light to all in the house.

The question we have to ask
is if this is what produces

the light of the world in us,
and it gives light to all in the house.

How is our light
giving light to our house,

to our spouse, to our children?

There's a lot of church folk

who want to be a light at work
who aren't first,

a light at home.

Who want to be a light
to their coworkers and friends,

and whose kids are still living
in darkness.

Who want to be good to people
but are bad for their spouse.

And Jesus says, when

these beatitudes are your attitudes,
you are a light to the world,

and you will give light to your home.

And he says, in the same way.

Let your light shine before others,
so that they will see your good works

and give glory to your father
who is in heaven.

Jesus wants people of his kingdom
to live visible lives

that attract attention
to the beauty of God's work in their life.

They will see your good works
because of these beatitudes

and give glory to your father in heaven.

When Jesus uses

this, this phrase here,
give glory to your father in heaven.

This is the first time
in the New Testament God is called father,

and it's in reference to people
seeing the good works of his children.

Did you realize that the way

God gets glory for being the father

is by his kids, having these attitudes?

Do you see how important these are?

You see how important these are?

Oh dear friends,

know these

because these are Christ's
expectation of us.

And if we don't know these,
how do we ever hope

to fulfill his expectations?

The shot in the dark.

And by our nature, we will miss white.

Because we are poor in spirit.

So high calling in it,

isn't it?

You and I will never get there
on our own for doomed.

But by the grace of God

and the empowering presence
of the Holy Spirit,

he calls us to a high calling,
and he fulfills it

in us.

You ready?

Okay.

These are the attitudes you choose. Now.

When you go home tomorrow, this week.

These are the attitudes.

That will be your attitudes.

Won't you pray with me?

Father, these things.

Sometimes I look at Scripture
and I think there's.

There's no way

they're so contrary to who I am.

And I realize that that is the reality

because I am poor in spirit.

And I can't manufacture these on my own.

And I thank you
that you don't expect me to.

By your mercy and by your grace, father,
I pray that you would

create these attitudes in me,
that I would choose these.

And father, right now,

I pray you hear the hearts of your people,
your kids

that are choosing these attitudes

to be their attitudes.

Friends, would you just

agree with Scripture
and walk through these

in your heart right now?

Father, I admit I am poor and spirit.

There's nothing in me
that would commend me to you.

I'm spiritually bankrupt.

God, I mourn the fact

that sin has ruled in my life

and that sin rules in this world.

Father,

I choose the attitude of meekness that I
thank you that you've approved of me.

So I have nothing to prove
and no one to impress you.

Help me hunger
and thirst for righteousness.

God, thank you for the mercy
you've given me.

Help me be merciful to others.

Create in me
a purity of heart, of sincerity,

an unmixed heart.

God, I want to be a peacemaker

and help other people know you.

And when I suffer,
father, I will leap for joy.

I want to be the light of the world.

I want to be the salt of the earth,
the light of the world.

And God, I want that light to shine

on my family.

Father,
you've called me to a high calling.

Accomplish it in me,

for me and through me.

I choose you today,

that these be my attitudes.

In your name I pray.

Amen.

You all right?

I want you to read this week,
chapter five.

Go back to the Beatitudes.

Remind yourselves what they are,

and read the rest of chapter five.

We're going to Jesus,
going to start putting the start,

putting the throttle down.

So get ready for it's going to be good.

It can be tough. It's going to be good.

Got it

I love you.

Stand up and let's sing.