Matthew chapter 5. The character and conduct of grace
in the soul. When our Lord came into this world, He came here to save a multitude
of sinners. Sinners. Bad people. None good, no, not
one. I wrote out beside of that verse,
even me. Even me. When he came here, he came to
save. He came to redeem. And the people he came to save
were totally opposite. of what they thought, of what
the Jews thought. If you were to ask a Jew in that
day, or even in this day, to describe a child of God, that Jew would describe a Pharisee. They would describe a Pharisee.
They were the most orthodox They were the most law-abiding, outwardly,
at least in public. They went to the temple. They
were very religious. They conducted all the ceremonies.
And if you ask a Jew to describe a child of God, he would describe
the Pharisee. There is no way he would have
described that publican. He would have never said, a child
of God is like that publican. They said, God be merciful to
me, the sinner. They considered them to be nothing
but lost and have no hope. But when our Lord gives, or at
least has written down the longest recorded sermon that he gave. He did not start out with doctrine,
did he? He didn't start out with what
we call the doctrines of grace. He started out with grace in
the soul. That's what he started out with. He started out with
a description of his people. These are my people. And seeing
the multitudes, he went up into a mountain. And when he was set, when he
was ready, he sat to teach. That's the way he taught at that
time. His disciples came to him, and
he opened his mouth, and he taught them. Are you ready to be taught this
morning? Am I ready to be taught? It's just as powerful and just
as relevant to this day as it was the day he sat on that mount.
This is God Almighty speaking. Think about that. This is the
Almighty God. This is the Creator of heaven
and earth. sitting on this mount, and getting
ready to preach. What is He going to say? He's
going to describe grace in the soul. That's what He's going to describe. And He says here, He opens His mouth, And to me, the
more I read this, and this is a chapter, the Sermon on the
Mount is a sermon I think we ought to read often. We ought
to read often. He opens his mouth and he says,
Happy, blessed are the poor in spirit. They wasn't expecting
that. They were not expecting that. He defines a believer. The key here is poor in spirit. Our Lord is going to deal with
the spiritual man. Not the carnal man, but the spiritual
man. He may be poor in purse, or he
may not be. Some of God's children have Riches
of this world? Some don't. But there's one thing
that every child of God has in common. It doesn't matter what station
in life they hold. Doesn't matter what race they're
of. There's one thing absolutely every one of them have in common.
First, the first thing they have is this, poverty of spirit. They know they're nothing. I don't care if it's a millionaire
whom God has saved or a pauper. Both of them know they're nothing
and that Christ is all and in all. Every one of them are poor. They are poor in spirit. And
they're blessed because of this. If you were to describe a blessed
man, would you describe one as poor Would you describe a blessed
man as Lazarus lying at the rich man's gate? Would you describe
him as a blessed man? If you looked at him, if you
passed him by, you naturally, now logically thinking, naturally
you would not say, that man is so blessed. But if you could
see that man's heart, you could say that man's happy. Because
a believer in Christ, if he or she truly believe the gospel,
they can be happy whether they are laying on a sidewalk or whether
they're in a palace. Who was it said, was it John
Newton said that a palace, a prison would prove a palace if Jesus
would dwell with me there? If the Lord dwell with me, if
I'm in prison and the Lord dwell with me, if I'm in a dungeon
and the Lord dwells with me, it becomes a palace. Happy! You should be, I should be happy,
joyful, if we know that we are poor in spirit. That God has
made us to know that I am nothing and I have nothing. Naturally. What do I have to offer to God?
Nothing. Everything I have, God's given
me. The offerings we give, we're only giving back what He's given
us. Right? Poor, poverty of spirit, broken
hearted. It has to do with a broken heart.
We'll see it in the next verse. It has to do with a broken heart. Now listen, theirs is the kingdom
of heaven. Here's the reason to rejoice.
You have the kingdom of heaven. All things are yours in Christ.
If you have the kingdom of heaven, you have the king of heaven.
You can't have one without the other. Oh, theirs is the kingdom of
heaven, not the Pharisees. He said, you're of your father
the devil. He came to that Jewish nation and religion was at an
all-time low. He told those Pharisees, you're
of, they said, we're of Abraham's seed. He said, no, you're not.
You might be fleshly, but you're not Abraham's seed. Abraham's
seed are those who believe me. Abraham's seed are those who
love me. You're of your father the devil. That publican who
smote on his breast said, God be merciful to me the sinner.
He has the kingdom of heaven. And blessed are they that mourn.
This is so opposite of the way we naturally think. Mourn? That's
blessed? You know Solomon said that it
was better to go to the house of mourning than to the house
of mirth. Well, the living, now listen,
the living shall lay it to heart. Those who've been made alive
in Christ, you lay it to heart. You know what the end is for
this whole human race. You know what it is. And it's
better to go to the house of mourning over your sins than to laugh with the sinners. Billy Joel has a song, I don't
remember the name of the song, I just hear it at work. I would
rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints. That's
the lyrics in that song. And you know what? That is the
world's attitude. It's entertainment, is it not?
Who gets paid the most in this country? It's the entertainers. It's the athletes. It's the Hollywood
movie stars, whatever you want to call them. They make an absurd
amount of money, an absurd amount of money. Why? To entertain us. It's for entertainment. But blessed are they, happy are
they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." God has promised
to comfort every heart that He has broken over sin. He's promised
to give you comfort. And that comfort comes by way
of Christ, by way of the gospel, the gospel of peace. This defines
the believer. He has poverty of spirit and
he mourns over his sins. He mourns over his poverty of
spirit. He mourns over it. He weeps over
it. It's a cause of grief. Is your deadness and your coldness,
is it not a cause of grief? Does it not make you mourn? Does
it not make you mourn? I believe John Noonan wrote,
"'Tis a point I long to know, often gives me anxious thought.
Do I love the Lord or no? Am I his or am I not?" Is that
not a call for mourning? Mourning over our poverty of
spirit. A dead man doesn't weep over
anything. Can you remember a time it didn't bother you? Can you
remember a time that your relationship with Christ did not bother you
in any way, shape, or form? But now it does. How could I
think like that? How could I think like that?
Those thoughts that go through your mind, you think, oh, why
did I think that? Why did I say that? Oh, there was a time it didn't
bother you because you said it. A time you could take God's name
in vain. Umpteen times a day. And never
have a twinge of pain over it. None. So be glad if you can mourn
over it. Be glad. For he shall be comforted. God will comfort everyone whom
He has broken. He'll raise up everyone He's
brought down. Blessed are the meek. Now meekness is not a weakness. I don't know why you take this
country, we think that people are just boisterous and out there
and go-getter, go-getters. Meekness is not a weakness. If it was, if meekness were a
weakness, then Christ would have been the most weakest person
ever walked on this earth. He said, I am meek and lowly,
and yet He rules over all. He rules over all. Look how gently he handled his
disciples. Why are you so fearful? And they
would say some of the dumbest things. You want us to call fire
down out of heaven and kill these guys? He said, I didn't come
to destroy a man's life, I came to save him. Meek. Meek. Spiritual meekness is what he's
talking about here. And you know where that comes
from? It comes from having a broken
heart over your poverty of spirit. That's where it comes from. That
you've been so broken that you consider when somebody else does
something, you're not ready to cut their head off. You're not
ready to assign them to prison for life. You know, I bet you,
I just consider that when David When he committed adultery with
Bathsheba, I bet if someone like that woman
had been caught in adultery and brought to our Lord's feet, I'm
sure if David had been standing in that crowd, he'd have been
going, Oh, that's me. That's me. That's me. You won't be so hard,
you won't be so quick to eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Oh, that's what it says. But then grace in the soul says,
mercy, mercy. Now that does not mean you just
let everything go. No, it doesn't mean that. But it does mean that
you have judgment with compassion. To be meek is to be like the
Lord Jesus Christ. That's what it's to be like.
A meek man is a kind, a meek woman is a kind and loving person. And it says here, note, here's
a promise. Here's a promise. They shall inherit the earth.
Not this one. Not this one. God's going to
burn this one up. That new earth. New heaven, new earth. It's going
to be just as real, just as solid as this one. And they're going to be on it.
That's why He says they're going to be there. And blessed and
happy are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness. You have a hunger and a thirst
to be right with God. You have a hunger and a thirst
to be righteous. That's not natural. We're not
born with that naturally. That's not a natural desire of
the human heart. Now, there's a natural desire
to be religious and self-righteous. Well, look at me. I do good. The Lord said, if you do what
you're supposed to do, that's what it says in Matthew. If you
do all you're supposed to do, you know what you're supposed
to say? That you're an unprofitable servant. You only did what you
ought to be doing. You just did what you ought to
do. But blessed are those who hunger
and thirst after righteousness. These are signs of life. When you get hungry, you eat. Thirsty, you drink. That's what
you do when you have life, when you're living. The dead don't
do that. Dead bodies. Those things are gone. When God saves a man, He makes
that man to know his uncleanness, to know his poverty of spirit,
his heart is broken, and he desires to be clean. David said in Psalm
51, cleanse me throughly. Wash me. Wash me throughly from
my sins. What he's saying is cleanse me
inside and out. Make me holy. You and I have
never known anything but sin. We're born in sin, shaped in
iniquity. But when God saves us, that new man, that new man
that's born of God, desires to be holy, desires to be righteous. If you could, if you could, you
who believe the gospel, you who believe on Christ, you would
not sin again, would you? If you could, you would not sin
again. You desire to be holy. You ask
questions like this, how can I be just with God? How can he be clean if born of
a woman? Natural men don't ask that question.
They don't ask it. These are signs of life, spiritual
life. Paul said that his great desire was to be found in Christ,
not having his own righteousness. But the Lord's righteousness,
His righteousness, that's what He wanted. And you know what
the Lord says here? In verse 6, He shall be filled. He'll have it. If you truly have
a great desire and hunger and a thirst for righteousness, you'll
have it. And you'll have it to the full,
because you'll have the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And His righteousness is complete.
That's why it says in Colossians, you are complete in Him. And then here's the conduct of
grace. Verse 7, we have the conduct of grace in the soul. Blessed
are the merciful. They're merciful. If God has
made you to know your poverty of spirit, if He's enabled you
to mourn over your poverty of spirit, He's made you to hunger
and thirst after righteousness. He's also made you merciful.
Because why? Because you have received mercy.
To those who've been forgiven much, they love much. They love
much. A person who cannot forgive,
who cannot be merciful, is a person who has never ever tasted of
the grace and mercy of God in Christ. They don't know it. They
don't know it. If it's in you, it's going to
come out of you. And it's going to come out of you in a way of
mercy and grace and kindness, gentleness. That's how it's going
to come out. It's not going to come out on a t-shirt. I saw
a man the other day, a young man at work, had a big, on the
front of his t-shirt was, I am a Christian. That's not how it
comes out. Not how it comes out. It comes
out in your grace. It comes out in your conduct.
It comes out in kindness and gentleness and love. That's how grace comes out. And
you don't have to advertise, I am a Christian. It'll be noticed. There's something
different about you. Something different. They shall obtain mercy. They shall obtain, they'll have
it. Mercy, David said in Psalm 23, shall follow me all the days
of my life. Encompass me. Surround me. You realize, if you can imagine
this, like an army surrounding you to protect you, that the
mercy of God is totally surrounding you. Like Satan said to the Lord concerning
Job, you put a hedge about him, I can't touch him. There's a
hedge of grace, there's a hedge of mercy, there's a hedge of
angels, I can't touch him. Mercy shall follow me all the
days of my life." Aren't you glad of that? Even when you're
doing something stupid, mercy is still following you. It doesn't
stop and leave and go somewhere else. It never stops. The man that wrote that is the
man who committed adultery and murder. The sweet psalmist of Israel,
God let him fall so hard that it made him the sweet psalmist
of Israel. He could have left him alone, he would have just
been a hard pharisaical king, is what he would have been. But
instead, through the falls and things that God let come his
way, he became the sweet psalmist of Israel. And then it says, blessed, happy
are the pure in heart, honest. You need to write over that word
honest. That's what that is, honest. Henry said, honest people
don't go to hell. Honest with God, honest about
themselves, honest with themselves, honest. And they're pure in heart. There is a heart that is given
in the new birth. Now listen, there is a heart
that is given in the new birth that is pure. There's no sin
in it. It's pure. It's holy. It's of
God. It's of God. I was born with
an old heart, an old Adamic heart, an old sinful heart, an old wretched
heart, and when I was born again, I was born with a new one. Go
over to Ezekiel, I believe it was Ezekiel 36, I'll give them
a new heart, a new heart and a new spirit. And then he says,
I'll put my spirit in them. True Christianity lies in the
heart. That's where it's at, it's in
the heart. The heart must be pure for out of it are the issues
of life. Who shall ascend to the hill
of the Lord? What's it say? He that hath clean hands and
a pure heart. Where did I get that from? And
when I read that, I do know this. I was born with unclean hands
and an unclean heart. And God says, he that shall ascend
to the hill of the Lord is he that hath clean hands and a pure
heart. in that new birth, born of God. That man has clean hands and
a pure heart. Made that way in Christ. Made
that way in Him. In Him, now listen, in Him, you
are righteous. You are holy. You are. You're just not treated that
way or looked upon that way. You actually are. You really
are. You're made the righteousness
of God in Him. In that new birth, you are. They,
listen, shall see God. Back over in the Old Testament,
the Lord said, no man shall see my face and live. Now over here,
the Lord says they shall see God. I shall see him, Job said, I
shall see him for myself and not another. Nobody's gonna stand
there and tell me about him. I'm gonna see God. I'm gonna
stand in God's presence and I'm gonna look upon him and rejoice
and not be afraid. Happy and not fearful, not full
of fear. I'm gonna see God. They shall see Him in peace and
not wrath, in mercy and not judgment, in glory and not hell. They shall
see Him forever and ever, never to be separated from Him again."
Never. Never. And then here's another
definition of their conduct. Blessed are the peacemakers.
This is all a description of one person here. It's not like
one is merciful and one is a peacemaker. This is a description of one
child of God. This is His children. They all
have this in common. We all have this in common. This
is our character. Peacemakers, another strong evidence
of a believer, he's a peacemaker. Having obtained peace with God
through the blood of Christ, he seeks peace. with all men. He's not a quarrelsome, he's
not a brawler. He's a peaceful person. Behold,
it says in Psalm 133, behold how good and how pleasant it
is when brethren dwell together in unity. Peacemaker, he goes
out of his way to keep the unity of the Spirit without compromising
the gospel. For they shall be called the
children of God. These are my children. My children
are peacemakers. My children are not those Arabs
who are always fighting, always ready to kill somebody. That group is always fighting. Always
fighting, fighting, fighting. He said, no, my children are
peacemakers. What did Abraham say to Lot?
He said, Lot, our brethren, our people are fighting with each
other. They're quarreling. He said, it's not good. We be
brethren. He said, let's separate. You
go where you want to go, then I'll take what's left. Abraham's a peacemaker. He's
a peacemaker. And then the Lord says, and I'll
close, you, the people I've just described, just defined, are
the salt of the earth. You're the reason this world
is still here. Salt is a preservative. The only reason the world has
not been annihilated is because God still has people on it. But if the salt has lost its
savor, it's lost its taste, well, it's good for nothing. You don't
salt salt, do you? You don't salt salt. You use
salt to salt your food, but you don't salt salt. He said, that's
good for nothing. You just toss it out. And it's
trodden underfoot of men. It's no good. A profession, now
listen, a profession is no count. It's possession. It is possession. Not profession. Christ in you,
the hope of glory. Not what I say about it. And you're the light of the world.
The only light this world sees is you. Right now, the gospel
being preached, that's light. There may be some who come in
here that's lost and they're in darkness, they're just in
religion, and you stand up here, Tom stands up here, preaches
the gospel, the gospel of light. Who knows? God may save that
sinner and make that sinner a child of light. A child of light. What he's saying here, God, children,
the ones that are His children, have been illuminated. God has
commanded the light of the gospel to shine in your hearts. You've
been illuminated. Now what our Lord has given us
here is the character and conduct of grace in the soul, or the
character of a believer. He's poor in spirit, mourns over
his sins, meek, humbled by grace. He hungers and thirsts after
righteousness. He's merciful because he's received mercy.
He's pure in heart. He's a peacemaker. He's been
persecuted over the gospel. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake. He said
the prophets rejoice. You know, one time the disciples
were beaten. And we're in the book of Acts.
You know, they went away rejoicing. They didn't go away saying, why
didn't he pull us out of this one? Huh? Why didn't he save
me from... No, he said, when you go through
the fire, I'll go with you. He didn't say, I'll pull you
out of it. I'll go with you. You're going to go all the way through
it. And you're going to be better off with the experience of it.
And they rejoiced that they were beaten. Persecuted over the gospel by
this present world, hated for Christ's sake, but blessed above
measure. A happy people. A happy people. I'm looking at the salt of the
earth and light of the world. Hard to believe, isn't it? It's
hard to imagine. Hard to imagine, but it's so. You're the salt of the earth
and light of the world. It's just a description of grace in
your soul. It's not so much what I believe, it's who I believe.
And it's who I am. Alright.