Well, tonight we want to turn to Matthew chapter five, Matthew's gospel and the chapter number five, and we welcome you in the Savior's name. Lovely to be back again at the prayer meeting. You miss it whenever you're not here. And I trust that that's always the case. Maybe sickness comes upon you and you miss it awake. I trust you miss the place of prayer. It's lovely to be back with you again. And as I look down, even as we were singing tonight, I thought there's men and places that I suppose we attended over the summer period. and they would love to have a congregation this size on the Lord's day and yet here we are with so many gathered together and if you're at home and as I've always said if you're able-bodied we encourage you now to return to the place of prayer and to gather again with the saints of God. We're glad that you've made that effort to come. Now you'll know that we're into the Sermon on the Mount here the Savior is speaking And this is Matthew's account of that particular sermon. And we want to begin at the verse 38 of Matthew chapter 5. So Matthew chapter 5 in the verse number 38. And we read the words of Jesus Christ himself when he said, you have heard that it had been said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. And I say unto you that ye resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee in the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him to him, give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee, turn not thou away. Ye have heard that it hath been said, thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy, I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you, that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven. For he maketh his Son to rise in the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain in the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them, which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? Do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. We'll conclude at the end of the chapter, the reading of God's precious word. Honeybees are an integral part of our natural world. They pollinate the majority of the crops that we have and also the trees. And as a result, food is produced. They say that 70% of the food in the world would not exist apart from the pollination that is produced by the honeybee. The honeybee is an integral part of the natural world. The hive, the home of the honeybee, is a marvelous structure for a person to study. Within the hive, the various roles of different bees is an intriguing study for individuals and for us to look at. Some bees are like nurses and they care for the brood. Others are caretakers and they clean the hive. Some regulate the hive's temperature by employing their wings and flapping them at tremendous speeds. And other bees, they're sent out into the world and they gather the nectar and they bring it back into the hive in order to make honey. And all this from an insect whose brain is only the size of a sesame seed. You think of those burgers that you get and the little sesame seeds on top of them. This little insect has a brain just the size of a sesame seed. These flying insects, honeybees or bees, are mentioned a number of times in scripture. And I suppose the most familiar one is there in Judges chapter 14. You'll remember how the swarm of honeybees housed themselves in the carcass of the lion that Samson had previously killed. And in the intervening time between him slaying the lion and him revisiting that particular spot on his journey, we find that those little honeybees produced honey, so that out of the strong came forth sweetness, according to Samson's cryptical Riddle. Honey's mentioned 95 times in scripture, while the honeycomb, that in which the honey is stored, is referred to nine times. I believe bees are mentioned four times in the word of God. Now you may be thinking to yourself, I didn't come here to hear a lecture about the natural world and about honeybees. What has all this got to do with our Bible study tonight? Well tonight, and probably for a few weeks, I want us to look at a hive full of bees. hive full of bees, but it's not bees in the sense of insects, but it's rather bees as in the sense of B-E-S, not B-E-E-S, but B-E-S. You see, over and over again, preachers and inspired writers in the New Testament employ a certain phrase, B-E, B-E. And they use that phrase to inform their hearers and their readers how they are to live the Christian life. You see, the Christian life is simply not trusting in Christ, repenting of sin, and trusting in Jesus Christ, and that's it. Rather, the Christian life is literally that. It's a life that needs to be lived. How do we live that life? Well, we live that life as God directs us in his word. And these little be ye statements tell us or inform us how we are to live The christian life and tonight we're going to look at a number just a number of these be statements and learn from them What god expects of though of us as we follow? After him and you're going to see and i'm going to see That god sets the bar very high He doesn't set the bar low But he sets the bar very high not for the sake that we would despair that we would never attain to that which God expects of us, his children, but that we might set ourselves to the task of striving after that which will see us conform more and more to the likeness of Jesus Christ. One preacher put it like this, every heaven-bound son and daughter of God is to stretch towards the highest conceivable standard and not be satisfied until they reach it. Every son and daughter bound for heaven is to stretch towards the highest conceivable standard and not be satisfied till they reach it. Unfortunately today it seems to be that we try to set the bar so low and if we can at least get to that we're happy with ourselves. But you'll find that Jesus Christ sets the standard and the bar very, very high. And as I said, we're going over the next number of weeks before we return to our series in the book of Psalms, because we don't want to labor that series. But I just felt that the Lord would have us to go here as we begin again another season time with you Wednesday night after Wednesday night. I want to do this in a chronological kind of way. So we begin tonight, the first B.E. that we find in the New Testament. It was spoken by the Savior in his Sermon on the Mount. And so we want to look at the words of Jesus Christ that we find in the verse 48 of Matthew chapter five. Jesus Christ said these words to his disciples, be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. Our first be ye in this hive of bees is be ye perfect now you might read that statement as i would read that statement and you might be thinking to yourself well i may as well give up on my christian life now or how could i ever be as perfect as god the father in heaven is perfect these are the words of christ He says, be ye perfect. And then he explains, or he gives us an example, one to whom we are to imitate, in which this perfection is to be found, even as your Father, which is in heaven, is perfect. Now, some preachers will take this text, and they will preach that this speaks about perfectionism. or sinless perfection, that we are to reach a stage in our lives where we are sinlessly perfect, where we are beyond sinning. But that is not the case. You and I know that we live in bodies of flesh. Paul will say that there within him dwelleth no good thing the good that I would I do not and the thing that I want to do I cannot do because he lives in this old body of flesh and you and I know that living in these bodies of flesh is that a perfect life, a sinlessly perfect life is impossible to live. I believe that these words are not speaking about the perfection in the sense of a sinless perfection or a moral flawlessness. Sinless perfection was not envisaged by the Lord Jesus Christ for his disciples. You may say, how do you know that preacher? Well, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is omniscient, knows all things about his people. And later on in this sermon on the mount, he gives his disciples a prayer. And in that prayer, he teaches them how to pray. And in that prayer, one of the petitions is this, forgive us our debts, or forgive us our sins. And lead us not into temptation. Now if Jesus Christ envisaged that all of his people would be sinlessly perfect, he would not have included that petition. But knowing that we are sinners, yet saved by grace, Take take not for granted yet He knew that there would be times that we would send and thus he places that particular petition Within the disciples prayer forgive us our debts lead us not into temptation knew this word perfect in verse 48 it means complete whole full-grown mature To be perfect is to reach a point of spiritual maturity or completeness. And whenever you think of that concerning God the Father, there is a completeness to Him. There is nothing to be added to God the Father. There is nothing to be taken away from God the Father. There is a completeness to the Godhead And to God the father and thus we are to reach a place of spiritual maturity or completeness within our lives we are not to remain spiritual babies But we are to grow growing grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ Now they remember the context in which Jesus Christ says these words because that's always important You'll find preachers and they take a text out of its context and they will make it into a pretext in order for them to preach something that they want to preach. A doctrine that they want to preach but is not found in scripture. And many do that with this particular text. Jesus Christ is speaking here about the obedience to the law of God. You'll find, I believe it's five, six at times, I never counted, but you'll find In this particular part of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus Christ said, ye have heard that it has been said, or it is written. And so he's dealing here with the law. And so the Lord Jesus Christ, he's dealing with an issue. And the issue was that the Pharisees and the scribes, they were only giving a partial obedience to God's law. They were obeying it in letter, but they certainly weren't obeying it in spirit. And in distinction to the Pharisees who were only given a partial obedience, the Savior was insisting here that His disciples, Christians, are to give complete obedience or to comply entirely to the law of God. The standard of complete or perfect obedience to God's law was no different than the standard that Moses expected of the Old Testament saints. There in Deuteronomy 18 verse 13, Moses said, thou shalt be perfect with the Lord thy God. Now that was the standard in the Old Testament. Jesus Christ is not changing the requirement. He is simply restating what was expected in the Old Testament, that the New Testament saints, they were to give perfect obedience to the law of God. I ask myself, as you ask yourself, have we reached that perfection? in our Christian lives? Or are we giving compliance to God's law? Is it a perfect compliance? Is it a complete compliance? Or is it only half-hearted? You know, if we were honest with these dishonest hearts of ours, and that's a bit of a paradox, if we were honest with these dishonest hearts of ours, we would have to confess that we have not attained to the perfection that God requires of us. but let not the highness of the standard set before us inhibit our pursuit of it, or cause us to throw up our hands in abject despair and say, I could never reach that. It is a standard set before us that we are to strive after, not in order to obtain salvation, that's all been done through the crosswork of Jesus Christ, But in order to show that we are new creatures in Christ Jesus, in order to show that we love the Lord, because how do we love the Lord? We love the Lord by obeying Him and His commandments. By obeying His commandments, we prove and show that we love the Lord. The standard, though high, be ye perfect. Yes, spiritually mature, but also give a completeness to your obedience to the law of God, though the standard should be high and is high, that should not detract us from our pursuit of it. Let me give you an example I trust that will maybe help, maybe not help. Usain Bolt, in 2009, I believe it was in the Olympic Games, wherever it was, he ran the 100 meter sprint. in 9.58 seconds. From that moment, that world record has stood. But that doesn't stop other sprinters trying to beat Bolt's record. The standard's high. Maybe some would say it's unbeatable, but it doesn't stop the sprinters training day after day, week after week, year after year in the hope that they will not only reach the bar, but they will actually get over the bar that was set by Usain Bolt in 2009. And brethren and sisters, yes, the bar's high. Perfection. But that does not mean that we should not pursue after it. We should pursue after it. Rather aim at perfection than at nothing at all. Jesus Christ said, be perfect. Just as my father is, so be perfect. That's the first B. It stings you, doesn't it? You don't put your hand into that bee of hives or that hive of bees, but be perfect. But let's turn to the second B.E., Matthew 24. So we're still in Matthew's gospel. Matthew 24 in the verse number 44. Now Jesus Christ is speaking here about the signs of the times and when. what shall the sign of thy coming and of the end of the world and Jesus Christ he gives this discourse about all of the signs of the times and I suppose it reads just like a daily newspaper open Matthew 24 read it and then turn on the news tonight and you'll find that many things mentioned in Matthew 24 are being played out on the world's stage even tonight. But in verse 44 of Matthew 24, the Lord Jesus Christ, he's bringing it all together, he's summing it all up in light of all I've said because he uses this word therefore. And whenever you see the word therefore, you need to think what comes before. Therefore means what comes before in light of what comes before Jesus Christ said therefore Be ye there's a statement be also ready For in such an hour as you think not The son of man cometh now who is Jesus Christ speaking to? Was he speaking to the ungodly? Well, that's why we often apply the tax but you'll know that in verse number three of the chapter of We're told who he was speaking to. And as he said upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him saying, tell us when shall these things be and what shall the sign of thy coming and the end of the world? And Jesus answered and said unto them. And so he says to them, who's them? The disciples. Therefore be ye also ready. In such an hour as you think not, the Son of Man cometh. Be ye ready, be ye ready. As Christians, while we try and while we busy ourselves getting others ready for Christ's return, we often forget that we need to be ready. We need to be ready for His coming. Yes, we busy ourselves evangelizing. We're doing that this week with the boys and girls and thank God for that. We go out into the open air and we have gospel missions and thank God for that. We're trying to get everyone, the unconverted, we're trying to get them ready for the coming again of Jesus Christ. But Christian, we need to be ready. We need to be ready for his coming. Yes, we're ready in the sense that we've been reconciled to God by the death of his son. We're ready, yes, in that way. But are we ready for the returning bridegroom? Are our lamps trimmed? Are they burning? Are they full of oil? Are we among the wise virgins who's ready to meet the bridegroom on his arrival? Are we ready as Christians to give account of our stewardship toward the end of John Calvin's life when his friends wanted him to work less for the sake of his declining health He would often reply in this way, would you have my master find me idle? Would you have my master find me idle? He lived in light of the imminent return of the Lord Jesus Christ. Are we ready to give an account of our stewardship, those gifts and talents which God endowed all of us with? All of us with. Are we ready to present to God what we did with those talents while we served them here below? Are we ready to stand at the Bema judgment seat of Christ and give an account as Christians for every idle word that we have spoken and every deed that we have done? You know the way that we can discern that we're in a state of preparedness for the return of Jesus Christ? The way to do that is to ask ourselves the question, am I living as I am exhorted to live by Peter in 2 Peter 3, verse 11. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness? The one who is ready for the returning Christ will not be living a worldly, carnal, sinful life. The ready Christian will be living a life that is marked by holiness and by godliness. As we await the return of Christ, as we ready ourselves for his coming, let us walk as Christ walked. Let us walk circumspectly. Do you remember the series? Let us walk uprightly. Let us walk worthily. Let us walk as children of light. Let us walk in faith and in love and in truth and in wisdom and every other way we thought about in that series regarding our walk as a believer. Let us be like those servants who waited for their Lord and they served him as they waited. Let us adorn the doctrine of our Lord and Savior in all things. Let us give ourselves to the extension of His kingdom and not our own little kingdoms. Are we ready? Truly ready for the return of Christ as the children of God? Be ye ready? Here's another B. Let's look at a third B. chapter number six Luke's gospel chapter six in the verse number 36 Jesus Christ again as a speaker And this is what Your Savior says to you tonight, and this is what my Savior says to me tonight Listen to what he said he said be ye therefore merciful as your father also is merciful. If you remember back to the first B.E., the construction of this verse is very much like the first one. There is a instruction, I would put it more than that, there is a command that is given and then there is an example that is attached to that particular command of an individual who has exhibited to the highest degree what is being commanded of us. And what we had there in Matthew in chapter 5, we had the Savior and He said, be ye perfect even as my Father in heaven is perfect. And here we have the same construct. He speaks about the command, be ye therefore merciful. And now I'm going to give you an example. And this is an example wherein this is exemplified to the infinite degree. And the example I'm going to use is the mercy of the Father. Just as merciful as the Father has been to you, so you are. And so I am to be merciful to others. This command of the Savior must have startled his hearers. Why I say that is because the age in which Jesus Christ said these words, mercy was rarely practiced. We have mercy practiced on a large scale today. We have hospices and hospitals with doctors and nurses. We have carers, charity workers. But in these days, and especially in Roman controlled Judea, mercy was a unknown commodity. One preacher said, among the old Roman virtues, mercy held an insignificant place. The gods themselves were unmerciful. The savage instinct by which the sick and feeble are left to perish by the wayside, while the strong hurry on unheeding survived even among the comparatively tender-hearted Hebrews. Hospitals, infirmities, homes for the aged and the sick were undreamt of by the most enlightened statesmanship of the age. The extraordinary efforts which men made to secure the survival of the fittest froze their hearts and the fittest became themselves the most unworthy, end quote. And so this call to be merciful really went against the whole spirit of the age. It really went against the grain. You see, the message of Jesus Christ was a radical message in his day and is a radical message in our day. To show mercy? It's almost unheard of. And so they were startled. Now undoubtedly God the Father is merciful. Whenever Moses gave the second reading of the law, and you'll know all about the law and how it condemns us, but in the midst of him reading that second law, Deuteronomy means second law, When he read or when he was giving that second reading of the law, he placed a little statement in the midst of it. Well, it was really at the beginning of it in Deuteronomy 4 verse 31, and it reads like this, for the Lord thy God is a merciful God. He wants the people to know, yes, the law condemns, but there is one in heaven who delights in showing mercy. And the Lord thy God, not the Lord the God, but the Lord thy God is a merciful God. Now are you not thankful for that child of God because of the life you live today? Because I for one am. My God in heaven, my Father in heaven is a merciful Father. And the God in heaven is a merciful God. all who savingly know Christ are benefactors of God's abundant, rich, great, and enduring mercy. And as his children, we then are to resemble our Father in heaven, and being merciful to those undeserving of it is one way in which we can resemble our Father. Now, that can be difficult, very difficult. But remember, brethren and sisters, what I said at the beginning, the bar is set high. The bar's set high. It is a high ideal to aim for, but we're to aim for it. How has being merciful went this week, brother, sister? Showing mercy to those who have been undeserving of it, merciful to that brother who offended you, that sister who ignored you, that fellow believer who berated you before others, that sibling who annoyed you, you can't get them, that elder who failed to acknowledge you, that minister who wasn't there for you in your time of need and crisis, that work colleague who laughed at you, that school friend that spread lies about you, that employer who took advantage of you. Did we show them mercy? Merciful is what we are to be, not revengeful. Be ye therefore merciful. Jesus Christ said in the previous verse, but love your enemies, and do good and lend, hoping for nothing again, and your reward shall be great, and you shall be the children of the highest, for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be ye therefore in light of what he is. We are today. One last quick one. I didn't think I would be as long. Romans chapter 12. Romans chapter 12. Paul writes, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service, and be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed, be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is a good and acceptable and perfect will of God. That's our fourth statement, be ye transformed. Having taken great lengths to unfold the gospel doctrinally in the initial 11 chapters of the book of Romans, the apostle Paul, as you well know, as you well know, I was going to say you're long in the tooth, I better not say something, that's a bit offending, but you're well schooled in the things of God. You now know that Paul, he comes to look at how the gospel, this great doctrinal treatise is then to find itself outworked in the Christian life. You see, in light of God's mercies in the gospel, having redeemed us, having bought us, having filled us with his spirit and cleansed us and washed us and made us his own and adopted us into his family, made us an heir and a joint heir with Christ Jesus and removed the condemnation and brought us into a state whereby we are declared just before God. In light of those mercies, Paul now argues that the only logical and the only reasonable thing for any Christian to do is to present their bodies as a living sacrifice onto God. What does that mean? It simply means that you are to give yourself entirely over to God and do His will for your life. Not only are we to do that, but instead of being conformed to the world, instead of being squeezed into the world's mold, We are to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. Now, what does that entail? Well, the Christian must not allow the evil example of those that surround us to mar or to modify our devotedness unto God. In other words, we're not to be like the unregenerate in heart and in life and in our conduct. Instead, we are to be transformed into what? Into the likeness of Jesus Christ. The word transformed, it means to be radically changed from the inside out into Christ-likeness. You see, the Christian is not just someone who is out of step with the world. The Goths are out of step with the world. You know the Goths, those who dress in black, they're out of step with the world. And some other people, the Amish, they're out of step with the world. And the climate activists, they're out of step with the world. Many a people are out of step with, as it were, the overriding general trend and morality of the world. The Christian is not simply one who is out of step with the world. The Christian is not simply one who is unlike the world, but the Christian is to be like Jesus Christ. That's what makes us different. Christ-likeness. As followers of Christ, We are to be insulated from the world, but we're not isolated from the world. We're in the world, but we're not off the world. And notice where the transformation takes place within. It takes place within. Because the mind here, it says, be transformed by the renewing of your mind. It signifies the entire inner man. And that's where many, many people go wrong in their Christian lives. They focus on the outward rather than in the inward. And that's what the Pharisees did in the time of the Lord Jesus Christ. They got the externals right. Oh, they looked right. They sounded right. They behaved in the right way, but their heart was wrong. Their hearts were never cleansed. And Jesus Christ condemned them for it. The Christian is to have their mind transformed And how does that happen? How can my mind be transformed? It is by allowing the Word of God to dwell richly in you. What does that mean, preacher? Well, you are to submerge yourself in the Word of God, and then you're to live it out. And so we must read the word of God and study the word of God and we must hear the word of God in that we sit under its preaching and under its teaching we must meditate upon the word of God we must memorize the word of God and we must apply the word of God to our daily living if we are transformed by it now did you take time out today even if it was just a few minutes to saturate yourself in the Word of God. Before, your mind was bombarded with news headlines and your ears filled with the filthy conversation of the workplace or school. Did you spend time in the Bible, the Word of God? Did you take time to sit at the Savior's feet and hear His Word like Mary did that day in Bethlehem? Easy for you, preacher! Easy for you to preacher, sure you've got all day to do it. Do I? Do you think I have no pastoring to do? No hospital visits to make? No phone calls to answer? No sermon preparation to take care of? No family duties to perform? Life's busy for us all. But it is essential, if we are to grow as Christians, that we spend time in his word. If you fail to consume God's word, then you're going to grow weak and sickly in your Christian life, just as a person grows weak and sickly if they fail to consume physical food. So you will become sickly. if you fail to consume spiritual food. Have you lapsed in this area of your life? I'm not here and God's not here tonight to condemn you. Simply repent and re-engage. Repent and re-engage and God will meet you in the word. Time's gone. God willing, next Wednesday night, we'll look at a few more bees in this hive of bees. There's a study for you. Search them out. But let us work at these bees that we've already been thinking about and upon this evening. Be perfect, be ready, be merciful, be transformed. It's enough to keep us going for the time being. Just four of them, but it's enough to keep us going. May God help you, may God help me and these particular bees because these are what are expected of us as God's people. May the Lord bless his word to our souls for Christ's sake. Shall we stand for prayer? Would you do that for me? Let's stand for prayer. Change your position if you can, if you can stand, let's pray. Loving Father, we do thank thee for thy word. We thank thee, O God, that thou has given us high ideals by which we are to strive for. May we not sit down in despair and think, how could I ever attain to this? Help us with your spirit. Help us by thy spirit. Fill us with the Holy Ghost, we pray. May we remember these things, and may we practice them in our lives. May we show mercy. May we attend to being transformed in our minds by placing within our minds that which is true and honest and of good report. Help us, Lord, to show mercy. Help us, Lord, in being perfect. Help us to have lives and step with thee. And so guide us, Lord, in all of these matters. Help me, Lord, help me. Help every brother and sister. And may we encourage one another in this way. May we go on from strength to strength. We offer prayer through our Savior's precious name. Amen and amen.