Matthew chapter 5. I've been asking the Lord for some
direction about where to preach after we finish the last two
books. God willing, I'll start on the
Sermon on the Mount and start with these Beatitudes on Sunday
evening. Still don't know what I'll do
about Wednesday evening yet. I'll start a little introduction
this evening. I'll start a little introduction.
And, of course, the Scripture starts out here with the Beatitudes,
and it's the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. And a lot
of people think this is just good advice, that if you could
live according to the Sermon on the Mount, you know that that's
what salvation is, is living this good, clean, dedicated life. But this actually delineates
and shows us what a believer is. Not what he's supposed to
be, but what he is. You know, when you talk about
a believer throughout the Scriptures, it says you've tasted the graciousness
of the Lord. It's called being made a new
creature. It's called having a new spirit. New heart. Being cleansed. Being born again. And those are things that a man
cannot do for himself. Those are all acts of God. All
acts of God. We didn't, we didn't have anything
to do with our first birth, and we certainly can't have anything
to do with our second. And the Beatitudes here, we'll
take a look at them by God's grace and by the enabling power
of the Holy Spirit. And there's nine blessings here.
Beatitude just means blessing. The blessings or the happiness.
And there's nine of them here that our Lord pronounces. And
first of all, he has this great multitude that's following him
around. Multitudes. And he's still those multitudes.
He went up onto a mountain and he sat down. He was set. He got ready, prepared himself. And all of his disciples came
to him, gathered around him. And I believe here that there
are some wonderful lessons, general lessons that we can learn from
these Beatitudes, from these nine blessings. before we get
into the Sermon on the Mount, and I'll go through each one
of them individually, maybe later. But I want us to look at them
before we take each one individually. First of all, I read to you,
blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are they that mourn,
blessed are the meek. Now, all believers, all believers
are to be like this. All of them. You know, there's
no such thing as exceptional Christians. No such thing as
an exceptional Christian. Most of religion divides believers
into two groups. Clergy and laity. Clergy is up
here, laity is down there. They want this great distinction
between them. But you look at our Lord Jesus
Christ and the common people heard Him gladly. And they not
only want to separate them into clergy and laity, but there's
the ordinary Christian, and there's the exceptional Christian. There's
the carnal Christian, and then there's the good, safe folk.
There are those who allow Christ to be Lord, and there are those
who are just saved. And then you hear people say,
well, I'm sold out. I wonder what in the world that
means. But these beatitudes are descriptions
of character. Character. Character. And there's no difference. All
believers are like this. You know, Romans 1, 7 says, To
them that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints. Every one of God's people are
beloved of God and called to be saints. No matter where you
write that letter to, that's what they are. Beloved of God
from all eternity. Called to be saints. Separated. Everybody in glory is a saint.
Every believer in this building here tonight is a saint. That
just means one separated to God Almighty, set apart to God Almighty. And all beloved and all believers
manifest these characteristics. Some will say, well, there are
some that are poor in spirit. Some are meant to mourn. But
that isn't right. No, no. None of these things,
none of this mourning, poor in spirit, meekness, mercifulness,
purity in heart, Righteousness, none of these things come from
the natural man. None of them come from nature. Each one is wholly a disposition
that's produced by grace alone and by the Holy Spirit's work
within us. All of them are. You know, blessed are the poor
in spirit. Those are people who know that they absolutely have
nothing before God. Nothing to contribute before
God. David said, I'm poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh
upon me. What have we got that we can
give to God? What worth have we got that we
can give to God and add to God? And mourn. We mourn over our
sin. We mourn over our weakness. We mourn over our inability.
We mourn over the condition of the world. We mourn over our
children. These are things that can make that for man. One of
them is a disposition produced by grace alone. And this description,
this description of character and characteristics, they reveal
clearly, clearly the essential and utter difference between
the believer and the world, between believers and unbelievers. They
show the difference between the two. The world and believers,
unbelievers and believers. Now, I know that there's very
little distinction now. There's an unholy union between
the world and so-called church. They mix and mingle like it's
just a social gathering. It's a place to make contacts. It's just a place to make a network
and that kind of thing. But very little distinction now.
Most churches and most preachers, a lot of them go to marketing
campaigns to learn how to market their church and send out surveys.
What do you want? What do you need? What would
you like the church to be? If you went to church, what would
you want it to be like? And they try to turn it into coffee clubs
and turn them into like a cafe somewhere or something. I don't
know, but they have all the plays and they have all the drama and
all that kind of stuff. But see, this is what they say,
we must make ourselves attracted to the outside. We must make
ourselves attracted to the world. We need to be contemporary. We
need to make folks understand we're like them. Or we're not
like them. We're not supposed to be like
them. You know, whenever you find somebody in the world that's
poor in spirit, that mourns, that's pure in heart, that's
meek and submissive to Christ. You know, there was a church
that started here. Well, it's not a church. It's just a meeting
place. They started here several years ago, and one of the things,
one of the big flyers they put out and advertised in the newspaper
was, is that if you're tired, if you're tired of the same old,
same old way of worshiping, you're tired of the same old way of
doing things, and you don't like the old-fashioned way, which
I don't even know what that means. There's only one way to worship
God, and that's in spirit and in truth. Only one gospel to
be preached. They said, if you're tired of
that, come, we're contemporary. We don't care anything about
anything about being, we're contemporary. We're music contemporary, our
worship's contemporary. And what they're saying is, is
we're keeping up with the times. But I'll tell you what, has God
changed? Has the gospel changed? Has the
Bible changed? And all is the glory of the gospel.
Now you hear me. The glory of the gospel is that
it makes us absolutely different from the world and absolutely
different from religion. Utterly and absolutely different.
Believers and unbelievers are absolutely different in what
they admire. What we admire and what the world
admires is absolutely different. Believers admire somebody who
is poor in spirit. They admire people who know and
understand what it is to mourn. They admire the meek. They admire
those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. That's who they
want to be around. But the world says they're weaklings. They're not manly. What does
the world believe? They believe in self-confidence,
self-expression. Master life. Conquer life. Get it and get all you can. And
take over and let everybody know how self-respecting you are.
And all you got to do is look at who the world is admiring
in the news right now. It's the one who's got all the
power and all the glory. And all the confidence and all
the assurance. That's who the world admires.
But ours is much different than the Beatitudes and what the world
admires as day and night. It says, blessed are they that
mourn. The natural man, he likes, he don't like to mourn. He likes
boastfulness, accomplishment, bragging, oh, lining out everything
he's accomplished in this world, putting out all of his everything
that he's ever done, and boasting about it, and glaring about it,
and glaring in all the things. But that's the very thing that's
condemned here. And then there's not only a difference
in what they admire, and a difference in their mourning and all the
things, but look, there's a difference in what they seek. It says there,
what is it, in verse 6, Blessed are they which hunger and thirst
after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Believers hunger
and thirst after righteousness. But why does the world hunger
and thirst after? Status? Position? Power? Recognition? Popularity? People get offended if they don't
get recognized. How many times have you heard
somebody say, don't you know who I am? If you have to tell
them, they don't care anyway. If you have to tell them, they're
not impressed by who you are anyway. You know who I am? Dust and ashes. A worm. Grasshopper. Flash. And your glory is just like a
flower that's going to come up and bloom one of these days like
many of Mary's flowers. They bloom and then they're gone.
She says all the time, I'm going to get rid of that and it don't
stand to bloom long enough. That's what man is. He's like
one of these beautiful flowers. He blooms up and he just shines
like new money and all the glory and then he's gone. Oh, they get upset with that,
but oh, they and their believers are interested in having a righteousness,
being righteous, being right with God. We hunger and thirst
to be right with God. We desire to have acceptance
with God, to have the very righteousness of God Himself. Paul said, I
desire, he said, I want to be found in Christ, not having my
own righteousness, but the righteousness of God, which is by faith in
Jesus Christ. I want to be right with God. I don't care about being right
with the world. If we're right with God, we'll
be right with one another believers. Look what our Master said here
in Matthew 6.31. You know, I'll tell you a true story while
you look at this, true story. There's this fella, this preacher. I could tell you his name, but
I won't do that. But he had his own plane, and he had several
churches that he pastored and went around and overseed. And he went to a group of believers
out in Missouri one time, flew his plane out there. He went
by to see our dear friend Drew Deeds. And when he got there,
Of course, Drew didn't know him, didn't know him from anybody.
And after service was over, he introduced himself to him. And
that's what this preacher said, don't you know who I am? He said,
no. He said, I'm so-and-so. He said, you know what? He said, you didn't even recognize
me. And you know what Drew told him?
He said, I'll never recognize you now. But I'll tell you what
that preacher's done. Heard it just the other day.
Took off with his secretary. Him and his airplane took off
with his secretary. And nobody knows where they're
at. He just well done that. I'm glad he's better off with
his secretary than he is in the pulpit. That's for sure. But here, look what our Master
said in Matthew 6.31. Take no thought. What we will eat, or what we
shall drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed. For all these
things do the Gentiles seek after. Your heavenly Father knows that
you have need of all these things. But here's what we're talking
about. Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness,
His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.
You see, beloved, that's what he's saying over here. That's
not what the world seeks after. There's such a great difference
in it. And thereafter, wealth and status and position, power,
recognition. Now let's go back over here to
Matthew 5. There's a difference in what they seek, and there's
a difference in what they do. There's a difference in what
they do. It says here, blessed are they that are merciful, blessed
are the pure in heart, blessed are the peacemakers. You know,
we admire and seek different things, and they do different
things. And I do know this about non-believers, and I know about
people of the world. They're consistent. They're consistent. This is the only world that they're
going to live in, and they're going to get all out of it, all
that they can possibly get. And they should. If you do not
mean to seek Christ, if you never have an interest in seeking Christ
and His righteousness, to know God and to know Christ, and be
done with yourself, and if you never have that interest, if
you don't care at all about that, then get all you can in this
world. But the believer, the believer says, this isn't the
only world that we live in. I'm a stranger and I'm a pilgrim
in this world. I'm not living for this world.
I'm living in it, but I'm not of it. Let me show you that over
here in 1 Peter 2. We're in it, but we're not of
it. You know, I'm a stranger and
I'm a pilgrim. Simon Peter says here in verse
9, 2 Peter, 1 Peter chapter 2 and verse 9. The world seeks after
all it can, but believers, it's not the world, the strangers
here, the pilgrims here. But he says you're a chosen generation,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people. And this is
what we're called to do, that we should show forth the praises
of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Because there was a time you
were not a people, not regarded as a people, but now you're the
very people of God itself, which have not obtained mercy, but
now have obtained mercy. And what's this now? Dearly beloved,
I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly
lusts which war against the soul. Having your conversation, your
manner of life honest among the Gentiles, whereas they speak
evil against you as evildoers, they say those folks there, they're
crazy, they believe in election, they believe in predestination,
they believe that Christ only died for his elect, they believe
in total depravity, that man don't have any ability, and they'll
say you're evildoers. But they may, by your good works,
by your living to the glory of God, living according to the
gospel and the grace of God, they shall behold and glorify
God in the day that He visits them. Those folks were telling
the truth. Those folks were living to the
glory of God. And Peter said it also this way,
pass your time of sojourning here in fear. We're just strangers
and pilgrims passing through. We hold everything with a loose
hand. And another essential difference between believers and unbelievers
is what they believe they can do. What they believe they can
do. Now, people say all the time,
you can do anything you set your mind to. I ain't never been able
to do everything I set my mind to. I set my mind to lots of
things I ain't been able to do. You know, worldly men are confident
of their capacity. confident of their ability, and
they're prepared to do anything. I can do anything. But all believers are the only
people in the world, only people in the world who are really aware
of their limitations. We are realists. Only people
in the world who are really aware of their limitations. And you
know our Lord says, Banking can add to your stature
one cubit. Can you make your hair black
or white? And people brag of all that they can do, and, oh,
you're just a hot kid. I'll roll up my sleeves and I'll
show you how it's done. But, oh, we know our limitations.
God help us. Oh, God help us to be like our
master. to be a complete contrast to
those who don't belong to Christ. Our Lord Jesus says, without
me, you can do what? Nothing. Nothing. But He also says we can do all
things through Christ who strengtheneth us. And trying to be like the
world is an utter contradiction of our faith, of what we believe. Look what our Master said here
in verse 13 of Matthew 5. You're the salt of the earth. He says you're the light of the
world in verse 14. Men don't light a candle and
put it under a bushel. But they hold it out where it'll
light up the whole house. And you let your light shine.
And I mean, if you've got it, it shines. That they may see
your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven. But
what's in the world? This is it. We're the salt of
the earth, the light of the world. But what's in the world is the
lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of the
life. These are not of God. And what is our spirit? What
is our spirit towards things in this world? What is it? What is it? And I know the believer
and the unbeliever belong to two entirely different realms.
Different realms. You know, the first beatitude
here, the first blessing, it says, blessed are the poor in
spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And the last one in
verse 12, which says, when you're persecuted, rejoice and be exceedingly
glad, for great is your reward in heaven. The first and last
beatitude promise the same reward, theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
You see, we belong to different kingdoms. And no, we belong in
the kingdom that we're in is not of this world. It's not of
this world. Our Lord, you know, when they
said, you know, I have power to crucify you, I have power
to let you go. He says, you have no power except
to be given you from heaven. And he said, are you a king then? He says, you know, my kingdom
is not of this world. For if my kingdom were of this
world, then would my subjects fight? War. But my kingdom's
none of this world. And that's what he said. We're
in a different kingdom, a different world. And it's a spiritual kingdom. And what is this spiritual kingdom?
This kingdom of heaven. This kingdom of God. It's where
Christ rules. Christ never tries to rule. He
never attempts to rule. He never asks if you want him
to rule. He never knocked at anybody's heart's door and said,
would you please? He has a kingdom on this earth
and which were Christ's rules. And the realm in which He is
reigning. And that's why we say, Lord,
Thy kingdom come. The kingdom's here, but Thy kingdom
come. Come here. Come in people's hearts. Set
up in people's hearts. Set up in the heart and realm
of a man's soul and mind. And then look over here in Matthew
12. It was present in the days of our Lord's flesh. It is present in the days of
our Lord's flesh. Matthew 12.28 says, But if I cast out devils
by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you. What does that mean? That means
all power and all authorities come among you. The kingdom of
God, the kingdom of authority, the kingdom of power, the kingdom
of And everything in practice, every fact was in their presence,
that then and there. When our Lord Jesus Christ commanded
devils, commanded men, healed the sick, whatever, He showed
His power, His rule and His reign. And look over here in Luke 17,
and you know the kingdom of God is within you. The kingdom of God is within
you. Look in Luke 17 with me, just a moment. Oh, the first and last beatitude
has two promises. The kingdom of God within you,
Matthew 17 and 20 says this, and when he was demanded of the
Pharisees when the kingdom of God should come, and there's
lots of folks saying, when is the kingdom going to come? Christ
is going to come up and set his kingdom up on the earth, and
he's going to go to Jerusalem, he's going to reign in Jerusalem,
he's going to sit on the throne for a thousand years. That's what these Pharisees want
to know. When is the kingdom of God going to come? We want
to know when power is coming, when the throne is going to be
set up, when the glory is going to be set up. And everybody is
going to have to answer to us. And the answer to them said,
the kingdom of God don't come while you're looking for it.
It don't come with outward observation. They will say, lo here or lo
there. There's the kingdom over here. There's the kingdom. There's
where the king's at. For, behold, the kingdom of God, where's it
at? It's within you. That's where it's at. That's
where it's at. Anybody here don't want Christ
on the throne of their hearts? Don't want to be ruled by Him?
Don't want Him to reign over them? Don't want Him to be master?
Oh, I love my master's rule. And don't look for, our Savior
said, don't look for a material kingdom. And wherever his reign
is being manifested, he says the kingdom of God is there.
It is there. And I know this, the kingdom
of God is present in all who are true believers. You know
God, Colossians 1 says this, that God hath delivered us from
the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son
of His love. took us from over here in the
realm of darkness, death and depravity and sin, took us from
there, hath translated us, took us from here and put us over
here in the kingdom of the Son of His love. He put us in that
kingdom. And oh beloved, Paul said our
conversation is in heaven, our manner of life is in heaven,
from which we look for the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ. And
there's a sense in which the kingdom's yet to come. It has
come. It is coming. And it is to come. And I want
you to look at one more verse of Scripture with me in Revelations
11. There's nothing more dishonoring,
I think, to our Master than to present Him as something, as
someone who hasn't had the power or ability to do it. You know, and that's what the
scripture says, that God has given him a name which is above
every name. That at the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, every
knee is going to bow. He said this in Isaiah. He said, I swore in my righteousness
that every knee is going to bow. Every tongue is going to confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord. Some doubt don't put us, and
you know, our Lord's sitting on this, the earth is His throne,
and the heavens His throne, the earth is His footstool, and He
don't put His enemies under His feet. But every tongue on this,
ever been on the topside of God's earth, will confess that Jesus
Christ is Lord, and they're going to glorify God and saying, that
was the Lord. That's the Master. That's the
one that we despised and rejected. And the rest of us, we do it
here. We do it gladly, we do it gratefully, we do it thankfully,
we do it rejoicingly. He is Lord! Not trying to be,
not wanting to be, and, well, He's Lord over all! No, He's
Lord over all! Revelation 11, 15, look what
it says. And the seventh angel sounded,
and there were great voices in heaven saying, The kingdoms of
this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. What does it say? He shall reign
forever and ever and ever. Jesus shall reign where the sun
do His successive journeys run. His kingdom stretch from shore
to shore till moon shall wax and wane no more. And I know
this, that there will be a new heaven and a new earth wherein
dwelleth righteousness, and everything that offends will be taken away. Now let me ask you some questions.
Let me ask you some vital questions. Do we belong to this kingdom?
Are we in this kingdom? Do we love this kingdom? Do we
see the spirituality of this kingdom? Are we ruled and gladly
ruled by the Lord Jesus Christ? Do we say, You are our Master,
Your will be done. Guide us by Your will. Teach
us about Your will. Do you bow before Him and acknowledge
Him to be the Lord, to be a Savior, to be a Master, to be all? Do
we manifest these qualities in our daily lives of mourning Poverty
of spirit and peacemakers and merciful. Purity of heart. Hunger and thirsting after righteousness,
huh? Do we have an ambition, a desire
to do these things? To have these, to be this way,
to be like our Master? Do we see that this is what believers,
that God is making us to be? Working in us these things? And
when it says here, blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed, nine times,
are we truly blessed? And that word blessed means happy.
Happy. Are we truly blessed? Are we
really happy? Have we been filled with righteousness? Have we got peace? What do we find ourselves? What
do we find ourselves to be in light of these blessings here?
When we read that, blessed are the poor in spirit. Do you read
that and say, oh Lord, I want to be poor in my spirit. And
blessed are they that mourn, oh Lord, I mourn over my lack
of conformity to you. I mourn over my lack of desire
to have, be as committed to you as I possibly can in this world.
Do you read, blessed are the meek, and you read that and you
say, oh that word meek just means pliable. You want, oh Lord, make
me pliable in your hand? Do you read these things and
do you write? What do you find yourselves to
be in light of? Is it the soul that's described
here that's truly happy, truly blessed? Are you truly happy,
truly blessed? Let me say this. Our immediate
reactions to these beatitudes tell us exactly what we are.
Our immediate reaction to them. When we read them and say, oh,
that's too harsh. That's too hard. That goes against
the grain. That depicts a life. That depicts a character I dislike. I don't want to be like that.
Well, believe me, you're not. And if a person's got that attitude,
they're not a believer. If I don't want to be like this,
like these men here, like this blessed man, this happy man, if I don't want to be like this
and have these characteristics and have this ambition, this
holy desire, then I'm still dead in my sins. But if I feel unworthy,
empty, desire to be filled, If I want to be like this person
described here, from the top of my head to the sole of my
feet, from the inside of my soul to the outside, if I want my
mind, my heart, my soul, everything, my whole being to be filled with
this character, this nature, this kingdom, if I feel unworthy
and empty and desire to be filled, if I want to be like this person
described, if that's my desire, if that's my ambition, Then there
must be new life in me, because this is as against nature as
you can possibly get. I must then be a citizen of this
kingdom that we are promised to have. I must be a kingdom
in God's dear Son. What about you? Poor in spirit? Well, you got the glory and saved
the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. All right, let's just get started. We'll talk next week about blessed
are the poor in spirit. Maybe get blessed are the more,
they that mourn. But I do know, I do know, that
there is as much difference, and this shows the difference,
between the child of God and the child of the world. The person
who knows Christ and the person who just has religion. Our Father, in the blessed holy
name of your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, thank you for your mercies
today. Thank you for the gospel. Thank
you for your word. Thank you for the hearers. Thank
you for the truth as it is in our Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, Father,
take us as clay in your hands. Shape us and mold us and make
us. You're the potter, we're the clay. And shape us and mold
us and conform us into the image of your blessed Son. Work in
our hearts, work in our souls, work in our minds. Everything
that is so unlike you, O Lord, we ask for your forgiveness.
Not only what we do, but what we are. And ask, O Lord Jesus,
that you would fill us with your Spirit. Fill us with your love. Fill us with your grace. Enable
us, O Lord Jesus, to desire you above all things in this world.
Continue to work in us. Continue to perform the work
that you started. We bless you for this grace,
for the work, for the blood, for the righteousness, for the
gospel, for this body of believers. We bless you in our Lord Jesus'
name. Amen. Amen. There is a name I love to hear. I love to sing its word. It sounds like music in my ear. The sweetest name on earth. Oh, how I love Jesus.