So I want to begin this morning, I got a confession to make as I begin this morning. I've failed as a father and a husband, so let me explain why. Nothing major, don't freak out. Though it may be considered that way, my dad's probably listening and he probably will be disappointed in me So yesterday, we went to the ballet, which was wonderful. That's not a failure. That was a wonderful thing. We went to the ballet down at Newberry, at the Newberry Opera House, put on by the Newberry College troupe. And we thought it was a Peter Pan play, and it ended up being a ballet. But it was very delightful, and it was a wonderfully cultural experience. But to make sure that we didn't lose our redneck and man cards, we stopped at the Zesto on the way home. And so when we stopped at the Zesto on the way home, of course, We got burgers and ice cream cones and all those kind of things. And Joshua loves to eat fish, and so he ordered catfish. Now, Joshua thought the catfish were gonna be fillets, chunks of fillets, and so he was fired up about it. And then they came out, and he got his little plate, and we were eating out there. And they were the whole catfish, about that long, right? You know, that real good sweet meat, but it was on the bone. And so nobody in my family knew how to eat a catfish off a bone. I have failed them. Please pray for me. And so I go over there and I'm like, all right, so I start picking it off the bone and I'm telling them how to do it. And they're like, how do you know how to do this? And I was like, what rock did y'all climb out from under? Right? But apparently I've never taught them how to eat catfish off a bone. So y'all please forgive me. I'm going to have to do better. With that said, let's turn our attention to Matthew chapter five. I use that somewhat of an illustration to kind of jump in, right? There are certain things that you must learn. There are certain things that you need to know. that fit within the context of your culture. We grew up eating catfish on the bone, grew up eating crappie on the bone, grew up eating brim on the bone, and all those kind of things. I don't like to clean fish, that's why we don't do it. And we haven't done it, but I've gotta change. But there are certain things that you have to learn, right, to be part of a culture, part of a family, whatever. Well, when Jesus is calling his first disciples in the Gospel of Matthew, we've been studying the Gospel of Matthew, and I've told you that this is a gospel that emphasizes the royal nature of the Lord Jesus Christ, the fact that he is the king, the long-anticipated king of all creation, the long-anticipated Messiah, to come, the son of David who would sit upon an eternal throne. Matthew wants to understand his primarily Jewish audience and Jewish readership understood that. He tells us that Jesus is king and he spends time preparing us to understand that Jesus is king. And then Jesus begins to gather those who would come into his kingdom, those who would be a part of his kingdom. And I love how Matthew and oftentimes the gospel writers do this, and Paul does this in his epistles as well, and the historical books in the Old Testament do it. It flows naturally as you would expect a story to flow. Matthew is writing a beautiful story, not just a gospel, not just a book that's gonna tell us a story, tell us who Jesus is, but it's a story, and the story is captivating. And so it unfolds as a story would unfold. And so you would expect this great king to arrive on the scene and start gathering to himself people who would then follow him, who would be a part of his kingdom. That's what you would expect, and that's what we find at the end of chapter four. And we looked at that last week, that Matthew tells us Jesus shows up with a beautiful message, repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. Seems odd for us right now that that would be beautiful, but we explained last week It was actually a message of hope because we turned from the ways of the world to the one who has created us to live in a relationship with him. And then we jump into Jesus calling his first disciples, Sam and Peter and his brother Andrew and then James and John. And then many people coming to find out who Jesus is and receiving healing and casting out of demons and various diseases. And I talked with our fifth graders this morning in Sunday school, we were studying the book of Acts God uses Philip in the book of Acts, Acts chapter 8, to do some of these similar things where he casts out demons and people are healed and the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is breaking into a pagan society. And so we see some miracles that go along with the testimony of the good news of Jesus. And that purpose of those miracles is to say, this is legit. It's real. And I asked our boys, I said, isn't that an exciting time? And one of them said, no, people got demons. I said, yeah, but let's think about it in the context of demons are now gone and people are being healed. And so like, oh yeah. So this would be an exciting time. In fact, the book of Acts tells us there was joy throughout all the city. And we find here that the great crowds throughout all of Galilee and Syria are following Jesus. And so now we have this gathering of people excited about being a part potentially of this kingdom, caught up in this wonderful figure, this figure that brings tremendous charisma, but also does amazing things. And so now it is time for him to settle them down and to explain to them This is how you are to live your life. As I said, my dad would probably be disappointed that I hadn't taught my children how to eat fish off a bone, because fundamentally that's part of what it means to be a part of my family, or at least my dad's family. And so we jump into this section in Matthew chapter five, and I'm gonna begin in verse one through verse 11, or verse 12, if you will. Seeing the crowds, Jesus went up on the mountain. He sat down and his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Pray with me, please. Our Father and our God, we pray that you will teach us from this word this morning. As Jesus begins to explain what it means to be a part of his kingdom and the expectations of those who would live and follow him, he starts with this statement of description where he describes the kind of people they are to be before his presence. And we pray, Lord, that we will learn from it. For it's in Christ we pray. Amen. So in the brief moments we have left, about 15 or 20 minutes or so, I want to take a moment to break down this section of Matthew's, what we call the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew's version of the Sermon on the Mount. Luke has the same sermon. It's later in Luke's gospel, chapter 11 or so. In Matthew's gospel, it is very early on. As I said, it's natural that Jesus would bring people to himself, sit down and begin to explain to them the kind of people they are to be and what it means to be a part of his kingdom. And so in verses two through 12, we have what are known as the Beatitudes. You're familiar with that terminology, most of us, if not all of us, the beatitudes. It's a statement of blessedness. In fact, the word beatitude comes from a Latin word that refers to blessedness or happiness. And we see that there are eight specific statements of blessedness or happiness in these verses. First of all, Jesus says in verse three, blessed are the poor in spirit. Secondly, blessed are those who mourn, verse four. Thirdly, verse five, blessed are the meek. Verse six, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Verse seven, blessed are the merciful. Verse eight, blessed are the pure in heart. Verse nine, blessed are the peacemakers. And verse 10, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake. There are eight. We can add a ninth in verse 11, but I'm just gonna stop with verse 10 with those eight this morning. I'm gonna take a moment to explain what Jesus is teaching and what Jesus is doing. All these people have gathered with him. We know up until this point, I said it a moment ago, but we know up until this point Jesus has called four disciples. He's called Peter and Andrew, James and John. And he was able to call them out of their lives as fishermen, very good lives that they were leading, very prominent lives and very capable men. And he calls them and says, I'll make you fishers of men because his call on their life is for them to become followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, his followers, his disciples. He's called those four. Perhaps there are others. We know that Philip and Nathaniel are also called in John's gospel early on at the same time, Peter and Andrew, though Matthew doesn't tell us that they were called. So we're looking at six, maybe seven, maybe eight, maybe nine different disciples that Jesus has called at this point. We know there are huge crowds that are meeting, following Jesus, as you would or as I would, because he is doing amazing things. And we want to make sure that we're following him. We're seeing all these miraculous signs. People are coming out. It is a time of great revival and upheaval in the land. People are coming to see Jesus. And Jesus sits them all down, presumably on a mountaintop, looking down the mountain, which is the opposite of what we would expect. We would expect an amphitheater setting Jesus down No noise going up, but Jesus is actually on the mountain. He's on the top. His disciples, those four, if not more, are sitting close to him because they're the ones that he is really speaking to most clearly. He has called them to be his disciples, and then the crowd fills in after them and down the mountain, and he is teaching from this mountaintop what it means to be a part of his kingdom and the kind of people that is required or the characteristics of those people to follow him. For three chapters, he will teach, he will explain the requirements of following him. In this particular case, he is setting a stage, as it were, he is setting the sermon in the context of explaining the kinds of people he expects them to be as they follow him. Blessed, he starts with saying, are those who are poor in spirit. I wanna take a moment and go with poor in spirit and the characteristics before I jump into blessedness and what that means. But blessed are the poor in spirit. Here, Jesus is referring to those who are impoverished of spirit. Now we understand what poverty is. We now understand what being impoverished is. Some of us have experienced that in our lives. Maybe some of us experiencing that now, and maybe others of us have experienced it in various degrees. But impoverishment means that we are without. We are without and dependent, right? So we are incapable of being independent. We are without so that we are dependent on someone else or something else. And so in this particular case, Jesus says, Blessed are those who are impoverished, that those who would come after me are impoverished, particularly not of material things, but of spirit. In spirit, what does he mean by that? Simply this, we are those who recognize that we need Jesus because we have nothing to stand upon in the presence of God. There's no righteousness in ourselves. There's no righteousness in us. We don't deserve to be in the presence of God. We must come to him through Jesus Christ. There is nothing that I possess that will make me right in the presence of God. I am totally dependent upon the grace and mercy of Christ. Only to the cross of Christ I cling. Nothing in my hand do I bring. Poor in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn in the context of poverty of spirit or impoverished spirit. Blessed are those who mourn in this particular case. We use this when we deal with loved ones who have lost friends and family members. And certainly it is certainly applicable that when we mourn the loss of loved ones, we indeed will receive the comforting gift of God's grace. But in this particular instance, Jesus is referring to mourning the sin and the brokenness that that sin has caused in our lives. You and I were created to live in a relationship with God. We are committed, we were created to be the recipients of God's love and to reciprocate that love that he has given to us to him by acts of service and the way we follow after him and enjoying a fellowship with him. We lost all of that when Adam fell. And we've inherited a sin nature, and as a result of that, we live separated from God, and we mourn that lost relationship. And so we recognize that there is nothing that I have done that makes me worthy of the presence of God. I'm gonna confess that. I'm gonna depend upon the Lord Jesus and his grace, and I'm gonna mourn the fact that I have done what I have done to cause that brokenness. Mourning the reality of a sinful spirit. mourning the reality of the consequences of the sins I have committed. Blessed are those who are impoverished in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn their sins and the effects of that sin. Blessed are the meek. The word meek is a hard word. It's notoriously difficult to define in our modern society, primarily because we have very little examples, very few examples of meekness. In fact, it's not considered a virtue at all Western society of power and of pride. But meekness is not weakness. Meekness is one who understands that it is OK to submit oneself to God, even in difficult circumstances, because he or she is trusting that God is working all things together for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purposes. Meekness means submission. Trust that God's at work. That's hard in our society, but it's a society of pride and arrogance. Because we want to establish ourselves, and we think we need to do it ourselves, but if you're impoverished in spirit before the presence of God, you're mourning that brokenness that comes as a result of your sin. Then you're gonna learn to submit yourself to the King of glory and his grace, and you're gonna trust him in all things. Mental toughness in the midst of hardships. It's one of the defining characteristics of maturity. As we age, we should be growing in our ability to be mentally tough and overcome the challenges that the world puts upon us. And certainly as we spiritually mature, we should learn to trust the Lord more fully in the most difficult of circumstances. Fourthly, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. This is the idea of hungering and thirsting for the justice of God, to live in a right relationship with God, a faithfulness that God has given to us in his covenant promises, but in our faithfulness to him. In the Old Testament, the idea of righteousness is faithfulness and justice. So we should want to live faithfully under the Lord in a right relationship with him and in a right relationship with one another, which necessarily means we have to learn to forgive. which necessarily means we have to have and possess the next three characteristics. Mercy, blessed are the merciful. Merciful is relieving the consequences and the burdens of sin. If we are going to pursue a right relationship with God and a right relationship with one another, we have to be merciful to one another. I'm not going to hold your feet to the fire. I'm going to forgive you. And not only am I going to forgive you, I'm going to do what is necessary to restore your dignity and to restore you in relationship with God and with me. We get on our hands and knees to serve and submit to Christ in meekness and trust. We must possess mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, those who are pursuing purity. As a member of our congregation, if you are a member of our congregation, you have affirmed a question you've answered in the affirmative, that you will indeed pursue the peace, purity, and prosperity of the congregation so long as you are a member of it. The peace and the purity. We must pursue purity. We must put away falsehood. We must put away sin. We must have our eyes set on excellence and the purity of God. The way we keep ourselves pure is by pursuing purity and pushing away and keeping at a proper distance that which is impure. We do it through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, but in our pursuit of him, we must pursue in our hearts a relationship with God and a desire to be pure before his presence. Seventh, blessed are the peacemakers. Again, we must be those who are willing to make peace. Peace in the Bible means wholeness, bringing people together, making wholeness, not divisive, but making things whole. Not saying that's mine and what is mine is mine and I'll do what I want to do and I'll do how I want to do it and you do you and you do your thing and we'll just live separate lives or I'll just be satisfied with living a separate life. No, we want to be united together in the grace and mercy of Christ. Blessed are those who seek peace with one another, peace with God, peace and pursue peace with others and help others find peace with those in their lives with whom they have broken relationships. And lastly, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake. The idea of loyalty to God and pursuing God and living a life of purity and peacemaking and being merciful when the world doesn't expect you to be merciful. is going to rub the consciences and it's going to strike the consciences of everyone. And you've got two options when the conscience is pricked. Number one, you can trust and follow Jesus. Or number two, you can seek to silence him and his people. And there are some who will run to Christ when challenged with the gospel. And when they see it lived out in the lives of men, women, and children, they lived out in the life of a church, And then there are those who would cause divisions and gossip and be prideful and run away and seek to silence the truth of the gospel. And Jesus says, you're blessed when you are persecuted, for you will receive the kingdom of heaven. The benefits of each one of these beatitudes is, the first one is that you will receive the kingdom of heaven. You will receive that by grace through faith in Christ. This is a current as well as a future dimension. You'll experience it now by faith and you will experience it then in eternity with the presence of God. If you are mourning your sin, you will be comforted because you will know the grace and mercy of God that forgives you of your sin. You don't bear the burden of that sin into eternity. You are comforted by the grace and forgiveness of Christ that is taken from you. If you are meek, you shall inherit the earth. You will dwell with the Lord eternally in his presence. I want you to understand, brothers and sisters, that when we think of heaven, we often think of something off into the sky. I'll fly away. And certainly there's a sense in which if we die before the Lord returns, we will indeed, our souls will go be with the Lord, our bodies will put in the ground. But we understand that the scriptures teach us that when Christ returns, the great Trump resounds first Thessalonians four. that when the Lord returns, that the spirits of those, the souls of those who have gone on to be with him will return with him and the bodies will be raised, united in the air and then we will all descend upon the earth and we will dwell with the Lord in eternity in utter perfection. The world will be redeemed in its fullness. And those who are meek, who submit to the Lord in the midst of the hardship have the fullness of understanding in part now by faith that we will inherit in eternity with Christ, but we know that one day we will stand in his presence on the earth, this great as we have sung terrestrial ball, that as the book of Romans says, is crying out daily to be redeemed. And when it is redeemed in the fullness of the grace, mercy, and perfection of God, we will stand in the presence of Christ. And that new Jerusalem will descend from heaven, and we will descend with Christ, and we will be with him on this renewed earth into eternity, and we will inherit it fully. Blessed are those who trust and hunger and thirst for righteousness, Oh, I wanna live in a life of faithfulness to the Lord. I wanna live in united relationships with each other. You will be satisfied. Oh, you've experienced that, I'm sure, if you've tried to follow Jesus. I pray that at times in your life, you've realized that the hunger of your life has been satisfied, the thirst of your life has been satisfied, and restored relationship with God, and you restore relationship with each other. And you wonder, why are all these people walking around here mad at everybody? Why are these people angry all the time? I don't have that many broken relationships. I have very few. Maybe that's your testimony, and the reason for that is because you were experiencing in the present, at least in part, that which God is working, and you will experience in full when Christ returns. Blessed are the merciful, for we receive mercy. We give mercy, we receive mercy. We receive it from God, we give it to others, after we've received it from God. And here's the crazy thing, you will receive it from the people you give it to most often. If you're a merciful person, people will be merciful to you. If you're a harsh person, people will be harsh to you. You know that. You will reap what you sow. Blessed are the merciful. Jesus says, my people are merciful. They are demonstrating my mercy and you will receive that mercy, not just from the Christ, but you will receive that mercy from other people. Blessed are the pure in heart, for you shall see God. We see God in his purity. And when we are pursuing purity, we see him as he is. He cannot be involved with impure peoples. And so if you want to see and live and experience the wonders of God, you see him in his purity. It's not just as King George would say, that I saw God today when I saw a flower in a sidewalk. You truly see God in the life and the experiences you have because you are pursuing purity and enjoying the benefits of God's grace. Blessed are those who are peacemakers for they will be called sons of God. Those who are the children of God will seek to make peace with other people. Peace with God and peace with other people and you will be known as a peacemaker. You'll be known as a good person. You'll be known as one that people can trust and people love. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake. Yeah, this is a reality. As I said, it's gonna prick conscience. But in my experience, maybe it's been yours as well, it's been my experience, I get a lot less persecution than I do mercy. But there are times when we are persecuted. I've been persecuted, you've been persecuted, we've been pushed aside for righteousness sake. There's a desire to silence those who are pursuing Christ. It's gonna happen, but guess what? You will have the kingdom of heaven. This is the only, I say this all the time, one of my favorite lines is, this is the only hell you will ever know. It's a pretty good hell. Because you will go be with the Lord. For those who do not know the Lord, this is the only heaven they will ever know, and that's a pretty bad experience. because they will spend an eternity separated from the Lord. Yours is the kingdom of heaven. Last thing I'll say this morning is that Jesus says blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed. Some of you may remember this from your Bible studies in the past called happiness, depending on what translation you have, blessed or happy. The same concept is here. It's an eternal objective reality with reference to our relationship with God. What does that mean? It means simply this. Dear brothers and sisters this morning, friends, let me say this to you. You will never, ever, ever be happy in this life. You will never, ever, ever understand the fullness of blessedness in this life until you submit yourself to Christ. These are those who have answered his call on their lives. These are those who have walked with him and live in relationship with God through him. Outside of him, you will never know happiness. Outside of him, you will never know blessedness. You might experience some joy, you might experience some happy times, but you will never have that life-sustaining joy that keeps you at all times satisfied in Christ. You'll always be longing for more. For you are created by him, through him, and for him. And until you submit to him by faith and walk with him, you will never know happiness in this world." That's the testimony of Jesus. So I challenge you, if you have never received Christ as Lord and never submitted yourself to him, please know that that dissatisfaction, that longing, that brokenness, that misery that you feel deep within inside will never go away until you do. And when you come and submit yourself impoverished in spirit, mourning that sin, trusting and submitting yourself to him regardless of what is happening in your world, start hungering and thirsting for righteousness as he works that within you, pursuing mercy and being pure and wanting to make peace instead of division, you will never know the fullness of satisfaction in Christ. You may ask the question, how can somebody be so joy-filled and so satisfied and so happy when their life is falling apart? You just don't understand. And the reason maybe you don't understand is because you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ is Lord. And you've never submitted to him. And you don't have the meekness necessary to trust him whenever life is hard. As Nehemiah tells us, the joy of the Lord is our strength. And we know that joy by faith in Christ. So I call you to faith today. I call you to live lives devoted to the the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ that are characterized by these eight things, so that others will see Christ, but more than that, you will know Christ in this fullness, and you will experience his grace as he offers it to you. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this word. We pray that you will help us to learn to follow you more faithfully. We thank you for these words, and we ask, Lord, that you will challenge us from when we all have sinned, We're not where we need to be and so Lord we pray that you begin working, continue to work in our lives to bring us to a point of greater submission to you, greater faith that we may pursue you more fully. For it's in Christ we pray, amen.