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| Searching In ‘The Sermon On The Mount’, Part 1 Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Matthew 5:11-12 The Sermon on the Mount is perhaps the greatest teaching of Jesus that we can learn. From the Beatitudes through the Wise and Foolish Builders, Jesus takes us through a series of teaching that are so intense that often times people misunderstand them or feel that they are so hard that they cannot possible keep them. Jesus wants us to learn from them, how to build a personal relationship with God, going above and beyond the normal nice attitude and taking life into a direction that seems impossible to follow. Over the next few weeks, we are going to study each section, with the intent is that you will come to know the joy of living life within God’s expectations, and to be able to know that God does not give us unattainable ideals, but realistic and reachable goals for our lives. Jesus loved to teach to crowds. His love for His creations is so great and He wants so much for each of us to come into a life that is much more than the human life. God wants us to learn to depend on Him, to trust in Him and to learn how to live in His Spirit, so that we can be with God forever. God created us and knows we are capable of much more. We are so afraid to let go of our lives because we are unsure that we want to accept what God has for our lives. We don’t like the unknown, the not knowing what tomorrow is going to bring, and so we keep God at a distance. The Sermon on the Mount takes us to new heights that God knows we can attain, but we do have to work towards them. It will become a living, breathing life force for us, if only we will stop listening to the evil one and his lies. God wants us to live life to the fullest, and He will reward us for listening to Him and for doing what He asks of us. He wants us to learn, to question, to study, to become wise with His knowledge, because He knows that it is in us if only we allow ourselves to let go of self and give our lives to God. It is not easy, changing a lifetime of attitudes and putting on the BE ATTITUDES of God. It will take time and effort, we will go forward ten steps and fall back nine at first, but over time we will continue taking ten steps and only falling back five, another ten and only falling back one or two. Let’s think about that. Step by step, we will actually have gone forward 44 steps and only fallen 16 times. Because each time we fall back, we haven’t lost the original steps, and we kept the extras. Let me see if I can explain it a little different. Perhaps you are addicted to cigarettes and you decide that you want to give them up. So you decide to quit, just quit and not cut back. You are doing well, ten days go by and you haven’t had a cigarette. On the eleventh day, someone you love has an accident and they are in the hospital. You are stressed out and so you start to smoke a cigarette. You smoke for nine days and then when your loved one is getting better, you decide to start again. So you quit again and 10 days go by, and then an appliance in your house breaks. You have to call in a repairperson and take time off from work in order for it to get fixed. Stressed, you buy some cigarettes and for the next five days you smoke them. And then you decide to give it another chance and you quit for another ten days, and you are with a friend who smokes and they offer you a cigarette. Two days latter you quit again and this time you are successful. You didn’t lose the original days, but out of 44 days, you actually only had 16 days that you smoked. That means that over a third of that time, you were smoke free. Changes happen when we work on them, and there will be days when we fail, but we have to pick ourselves up and start all over again. We have to keep on trying so that we will be successful. So let us begin with the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12). I like to call them the BE ATTITUDES, because these attitudes are the attitudes that God wants us to have. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Poor does not refer to money, but to realizing that you have to empty yourself, be nothing and allow the Lord to fill you up. It means knowing that one must place all their trust in the Lord and not depend on self for anything. It means hearing the small voice of the Lord guiding your path and following the way He leads you, even when you don’t know where He is taking you. Because God knows your heart, when you have submitted yourself to the Lord, your reward will be the kingdom of heaven. And then you will realize that the kingdom of God is within you and you will begin life fully in the Lord. What do you think are some ways in which you can change your life, so that you are putting the Lord first? What types of steps can you take that will lead you along the path that He has for you? Do you see areas in your life where you need to change your point of view so that it will be aligned with the Lord’s point of view? How can you be joyful in the Lord during the rough times of your life? How can you change to joy in the Lord for your strength? Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. What are you mourning over? A lost love, a lost job, a lost house, or a lost loved one? We mourn when these things happen. Losing a spouse or a child is just as hard as losing a job or losing someone that you love. Grieving is a part of life. If we allow grief to overcome us, we will end up in depression, losing of our self into a spirit that will drag us done into the pits of despair. We need to be able to talk with others as we grieve. And to bring comfort to those who are grieving, we have to put on our listening ears. Grief will take you down roads that are dark and scary, but we must not be afraid. We have to learn to trust in the Lord and know that each thing happens so that we can become closer to God, learning to depend on Him. Through others, the grieving can be comforted, by a hug, a listening ear, sometimes just by being there and not even saying a word. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Who are the meek? They are the ones who do things, not for themselves but for others. They do things out of their great faith in the Lord, not looking for human praise, but looking towards their reward in the Lord. You don’t see many meek people up on stages, shouting out loud. You find the meek feeding the poor in soup lines, fighting against terrorism in another country far from home, in the mother caring for her children ahead of herself, the father working 2 or 3 jobs to put food on the table and a roof over his family’s head. It is the person who goes to the prison and brings the Word, it is the missionary, leaving home to follow where the Lord leaves. It is not about self, but of giving of self, the personal touch. When the time comes, there reward will be a new earth, without all the problems that they helped with, but with the comfort of a life well served. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Lincoln come to mind when I first think of those who hungered and thirsted for righteousness. Abraham saw that slavery was wrong, and he brought the United States into a civil war to do so. In his quest to do the right thing, he ended up dividing the United States and its people fought one another, brother against brother. Martin Luther King Jr. taught a peaceful way towards righteousness, teaching us that we should not look at each other as black or white, yellow or brown, but as all of God’s children. If we can regain that thought, that we are all God’s children and forego the dividing of God’ s children based on color, we will grow in a closer relationship with the Lord. What matters is that we love each other as God’s children, as He loves us. President Bush has had a lot of hatred thrown at him because he brought terrorism before Congress and asked them to do the right thing. As Christians, we must not think of ourselves as only Americans, but we must remember that we are all God’s children and we are to care for each other. We must remember that even though the president is at the top, he himself cannot do anything that is not within his powers given to him by the Constitution of the United States. Far too often, people don’t know what is in the Constitution and are confused by the lies that are spread. The same goes for the Bible. As a Christian, if you don’t know what God requires, you need to learn His Word and let the Holy Spirit teach you. God is about love and mercy and grace. His righteousness surpasses all things and as His children are to learn to live out in our lives, His righteousness. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. We are too quick too often with condemning another person until we have the whole story. We tend to forget that there are two sides to every thing, and that our own perception is not necessarily the other person’s perception. Let’s look at a jury trial. Facts are laid out, and the jury must decide what they believe of the evidence and of those who saw the person doing it. The justice system can only work correctly if people listen to the truth and follow the basic principles that God laid out. One witness is not enough to convict a man accused of any crime or offense he may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. (Deuteronomy 19:15) How do we then apply this principle to our own interactions with people around us? Perhaps a friend has said something or done something that has hurt you. Most people would get angry and hold a grudge against the other. But God calls us to “go and be reconciled to your brother; (Matthew 5:24), in other words, show mercy to your friend. When you go to your friend and asked why, you may find out that you said or did something, or someone else said that you did, and your friend was hurt. We far to often are afraid of finding out the truth, and find it easier to hold the grudge. God tells us that we must be merciful, finding out the whole story and forgiving one another. And forgiveness is mercy, because if we find that it was of undue cause that our friend did something and when you reconcile with each other, you forgive them. We cannot let things fester, because that would be something that the evil one would like. God calls us into account for our lives, for the sins we commit, and when we come to Him to reconcile our lives to Him, He shows us His mercy and forgiveness. And that is how we show mercy to another. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God . Just what does it mean to be pure in heart? Mother Teresa comes to mind when I think of the pure of heart. She came from a well to do family, when the Lord called her to His service. And He led her to a place where they don’t believe in Him. She brought His love and mercy to people. She clothed herself with God’s purity, foregoing the safe route and lived with the untouchables. She was a small woman, but the Lord had filled her with His grace and she gave her life to God, trusting Him to fulfill in her, His will. She stood for God’s view, never worrying about the world’s view. The pure in heart see only that, God’s view. Their lives are lived following where God leads them, doing the work of His that He sets before them, never worrying whether others in the world think it’s right, but forever trusting in the Lord. Though we may go through many valleys and not a lot of mountain tops, the pure in heart, keep your eyes on God, drawing strength for it all from the Lord. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the sons of God. Bringing peace to people is one of the hardest things to do. Just what is this peace that God is talking about? God’s peace, not the worlds; God will fill your heart with His peace, if only you surrender your life to Him and allow Him to take the hard stuff and He will surround you with His peace. Sounds so easy but it’s so hard to put this into practice. But when you do, it becomes a domino effect, you having God’s peace and it being brought into the lives of others just by the way that you live. And they will bring His peace to others and so on and so on. But far to often we get caught up in the negatives and we find no joy. But if we can break through the barriers we have set up in our lives, the ‘I can do it by myself attitude’, and surrender our lives to God we will truly be God’s children. We have to give a little of ourselves daily to God, that ten steps forward and five steps back journey. Each day is a journey and we are blessed that the Lord allows us to arise each morning to a new day, a new beginning, and work towards making our lives right with God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Here in the United States, Christians are being persecuted for their belief in God and for His Word. We are told that if we speak out against those who do not follow God’s Word, we are being intolerant of others. Satan loves to use God’s Word to incite his followers. There are so many people who claim to be Christians, and they have no personal relationship with the Lord. They do not know His Word, so when the evil one confuses people with bits and pieces of the Word, people buy into it. You see, as Christians, the only way that we are going to be able to believe in God’s Word is to believe the first four words of the Bible, “In the beginning God” (Genesis 1:1). If you don’t believe that, none of God’s Word will make sense to you and you will simply not be able to put it into effect in your life. When I stand on God’s Word, I stand on it as a whole, not as individuals verses, for the danger of not knowing the whole, leaves us to interpret God’s meaning singularly. For example, the slavery issue, when President Lincoln decided that slavery was wrong, he looked at it in the whole context of God. Let me put this before you. When you read in Deuteronomy that the Jewish people had slaves, whether they were Jewish or not, after 6 years they could be freed, or they could choose to stay with their owner. If they made the choice to stay, their ears were pierced. In a sense, it was an employment contract, and after 6 years, you had the choice to stay or to go. God was teaching us that when we remain slaves to sin, we have the choice to stay in our sins or be free from them. God’s Word is not always literal, as God wants us to delve deeper into a relationship with Him. He wants us to hunger and thirst for His righteousness, even if it causes us persecution from those who don’t know or understand what God is saying. We have to be lifelong learners, to live a life in God. We cannot rest on what we did in the past, but in every new day, throughout our entire lives, believing and living our relationship with God. And here’s the best part. When we do, the kingdom of God is within us. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets before you. In a sense, when we follow the Lord, we are prophets, doing what God wants of us, no matter what others think. The evil one has people believing that when a Christian says that abortion and sexuality immorality including homosexuality is against God’s Word, they often bring up the ‘judge and be judged’ Scripture. But we have to be strong, learning daily God’s Word and being confident in His Word no matter how hard the evil one is trying to convince you otherwise. The evil one wants you to believe that God’s Word is confusing, when in fact it is the evil one doing the confusion. God’s Word stands, but as God’s people we have not. Faith is not for a day, but for a lifetime. We altogether lose sight of God in today’s world. Don’t be afraid of the insults, the persecution, and the lies, place yourself in God and allow Him to teach you and surround you with His mercy. God is not forcing you to accept Him, that’s how His love is. But if you choose to believe, you must put away the old, the lies, the sins, and be bold in the Lord, forever trusting Him for your life. “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, expect to be thrown out and trampled by men. You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:13-16 This is such a powerful teaching. Salt bring such flavor to food and preserves it as well. We are the salt of the earth. Our lives are what season the earth. If we don’t live our lives in God, are we bringing flavor and preserving what God teaches in our lives? When we get caught up in the father of lies, we get thrown out and trampled upon. We have so forgotten the life in Christ, that we have allowed the evil one to pollute our lives and this world. God calls us to a higher standard, and wants us to live out in our lives, the good that is God. It’s hard to stand in the face of hatred and proclaim that abortion and sexuality immorality including homosexuality is wrong. It’s hard to stand up and say we have fallen far from God. We don’t honor His Sabbath, we use His Name in vain, we worship money, idolize people, giving in to all sexuality immorality, we listen to the father of lies and spread his lies. We covet what others want, craving for things that are not of God, we murder innocent babies all for the sake of choice. We forget that we are not our own, that we are God’s and would rather risk going to hell than following God’s Word. It doesn’t matter whether you feel that you don’t want a baby right now, or that you have desires that you want to fulfill in the arms of another, whether it is adultery, homosexuality, or sex before marriage or flaunting your body in ways to entice others into sexual immorality. Everything that is good has to be learned. When we give in to our desires, we are listening to the father of lies, the devil. We are to learn self-control, holding ourselves true and pure in the Lord and following His way. We cannot hide under a bowl, hoping that no one will see. We have to be willing to be God’s light, and shine for Him. Abortion is the devil’ s way of hate of God: as we do not mate with nonhumans, and the mating process if for procreation. The fact that we have pleasure from it is from God. But when we listen to the evil one, just as Adam and Eve did in the garden, he confuses us into thinking that we can know better than God. In reality, we are living in the end times. When will the end come, only the Father knows, for His timing is not ours, for a day to Him could be a thousand years for us. Jesus came because God wanted us to aspire to a personal relationship with Him: The Creator coming down and touching the created. Jesus came and showed us not a new way of living, but a new attitude for living. He took our sins upon Himself, and took the punishment that He gave for our sins upon Himself. No greater love than this can be found. Our lives are a process, a life long journey that we are taking. We are learning what we need so that we can live in perfection in the new heaven and the new earth. This is our practice run, disciplining our lives to conform to God. An athlete trains so that they can follow their passion. We as Christians need to train ourselves in our passion for the Lord. We can’t sit on the fence, in the middle and think we are doing the Lord’s will. We can’t rest on the past, but we must rest in the Lord, following Him wherever He leads us, today. We have to put ourselves up on a stand, a stand in God’s righteousness, and shine that light in the way that we live our lives. We must live out God’s love, doing His goodness and mercy to all God’s children. We have to lead by example, showing others that it’s worth it. |
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