if you don't have a Bible with you, and the Bible that is in front of you in the chair back, page 809. Otherwise, Matthew chapter 5 is where we're going to be going this morning. Before we get there, let's pray. Father, You say in Your Word, that your word is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit of joint and marrow, and able to discern the thoughts and intents of our hearts. I pray this morning, Father, that you would renew our minds by your spirit so that we can appreciate that scripture about your word, and that you would give us a Godward aspect looking up to you and appreciating your word. I pray, Father, for both myself, your strength, and for your enabling of everybody who's sitting in here this morning to be able to receive from you specifically and individually what you would have each of us hear and share with you. So bless this word in Jesus' precious name with thanks. Amen. Thank you, sir. If you all are like me, you've probably been through the Bible X number of times, and you come to the Beatitudes. And you can look at those and take them as just random, spurious one-liners and not really get an idea of how those Beatitudes fit together. The Sermon on the Mount starts in Chapter 5, goes all the way through Chapter 7. It is the biggest section of red letters in the Bible. Red letters being if you have that particular version of the Bible where Christ is speaking. And so in this case, for no other reason than that, you should be paying attention to the Sermon on the Mount. That is God speaking to the people of that time and speaking to you right now. The Sermon on the Mount, and specifically the Beatitudes, address Christian character. It's the attitude of a Christian. A very important reality here is that this section of the Sermon on the Mount starts with the Beatitudes. So, what Christ is establishing here is who a Christian is, what a Christian is supposed to behave like, and that leads in to a whole bunch more teaching as you go into the rest of the Sermon on the Mount. Christ, when He is sharing this, is in actuality, if you look at the Beatitudes, preaching a radical message. It is, if you will, a Christian counterculture. The things that he says in here don't really register with the natural man. And I want you to put, we'll be putting ourselves into the shoes of the average Jew at that particular time period. And I'll challenge you to respond, how would you or how would a Jew in that day respond to this radical message that Jesus is passing on? For us to be able to understand what Christ is saying right here, you have to be born again. You have to be a Christian to be able to understand what Jesus is teaching right here, because it is radically different from what the natural man would interpret to be what he is saying. A.W. Tozer has a really good one-liner, and he says, a believer, a born-again Christian, believes so that he can understand, whereas a non-believer wants to understand so that he can believe. And so the challenge for each one of you right now, examine yourself. Are you born again to be able to understand and allow the Holy Spirit to interpret this message of the Sermon on the Mount, specifically the Beatitudes this morning? Saints of old said that You should be reading the Beatitudes every day. They are created to be obeyed, and they are not just spurious one-liners. And so that's the challenge for you. Great things to remind yourself and to read on a daily basis. The framework that we're gonna be working from in Matthew chapter five, we're gonna be looking at verses one through 12. And the way we're going to break it up is for us to look at eight Beatitudes. Some people think there might be 10. But in our case, I want you to take a look in your Bibles right now and notice that The first blessing, the first beatitude, is verse 3. And it says, Now look down to verse 10, which is the eighth of the beatitudes. And you'll see the same verbiage as far as the blessing is concerned. It says, Now look at the six beatitudes that are in between those two verses. verse 4, 5, 6, etc. And all of those say, using number 2, verse 4, as an example, blessed are those who mourn for they shall. Every one of the rest of the Beatitudes uses the verbiage shall. So you've got present tense on each end, if you want to make those your your bookends as far as the eight beatitudes. And then the six beatitudes in between all say shall, which is both present and future tense, kind of like prophecy. So that's what we'll use framework-wise is those being the eight beatitudes. Now I want you to take those eight and divide them in half. So we're going to address them as being two sets of four. So you're gonna have blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the meek, and blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. That's gonna be our first four, and then the next four we'll address as we get there. A couple weeks ago, my cousin, Pastor Gary, did a good leading for our men's group we met Saturday morning. And he used an analogy. Actually, he actually had the glass of water sitting in front of him. And the topic is different this morning, but the word picture is really good. And so I want each one of us, to create in our mind that glass of water. And that glass of water is you. And what I'm going to encourage us to do is, as we go through that first set of four beatitudes, you're going to be pouring out some of that glass. Eventually, that glass is going to be emptied. And then we're going to start refilling the glass, okay? So, middle picture, that's where we're going as far as looking at the Beatitudes and how they fit together for each one of us in our lives. How many of you all, with that glass of water, have ever been talking with someone and as you're listening to them go on, you say, This guy is so full of himself. Or worse, your spouse might have thought the same of you. You're so full of yourself. Well, the reality of a glass of water that's full is he can't pour anything else into it. And so in that analogy that I'm encouraging you all to have of that glass of water, as you pour out of that glass, you're creating room for something else to fill it in. And so those first four B attitudes are going to get us to that place where we're empty, because of the need that is going to be expressed in those first Beatitudes. And then as you start pouring in the next four Beatitudes, you're gonna be filled up. You're satisfying the need, and in that, eventually, you're gonna be overflowing with the reality of what Christ has put in there. We have lots of teachers in our congregation, professors, et cetera. And so if you look at the very beginning of chapter 5, let's take a look at something. Jesus Christ is the greatest teacher who ever lived. And you don't even think about it sometimes, but this is a reality. Do any teachers go into a classroom without having a lesson plan, without having a plan for how these things are going to be laid out? Well that's the thing, as I used to look at the Beatitudes, just random thoughts as you go along, not. Jesus had a very specific reason for why he put the Beatitudes at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, and also the way the Beatitudes are linked together. So keep that in mind as you go to it, and let's start reading. Matthew 5, 1-2. And seeing the multitudes, he went up on a mountain, and when he was seated, his disciples came to him. Then he opened his mouth and taught them, saying..." Who was Jesus talking to? Who was he teaching right here? Okay? You see crowds, but that's not who he called. In verse 2, it says, disciples came to him. Then he opened his mouth and taught them." Okay? Who is Jesus talking to at the end of the Sermon on the Mount? Take a look at chapter 7, verse 28. A couple pages back there. The end of the sermon, next to the last verse, and when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at His teaching. As I mentioned a minute ago, the message of the Beatitudes is radical. It is totally different. We're studying the book of Acts, and one of the themes in the book of Acts is being a witness. If you are a witness to the radical reality of the life that Christ calls you to, you're going to attract people. The truth is people don't want the mundane, everybody sees things this way, same mode of thought, the way a Christian behaves with society. They will be attracted to you if you are displaying the life of Christ. Lesson number one there. First beatitude. Verse three, blessed are the poor in spirit. for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Since this word, the very first word, blessed, is repeated so many times, what does that mean to you? What does it mean to be blessed? On the front of your sermon notes for today, or just the cover of the bulletin, put on the Amplified Bible definition there. And it says, Blessed means spiritually prosperous, happy to be admired. The key right there is that it's spiritually prosperous. Blessed means to be in right relationship with God. I will be your God, you will be my people. I will uphold you with my strong right hand. Blessed means that you are approved by God. Now think about Joe, average Jew, listening to this, okay? What Jesus is saying as he goes on down through this set of Beatitudes is the opposite of everything that a Jew believed at that time. To be blessed by God was to have a sign of God's favor being material wealth, being prosperous. That is how people in that day looked at relationship with God. But Christ isn't talking about material well-being right here. He's talking about being spiritually prosperous. So what is it to become poor in spirit? The answer to that is that You don't look at yourself, but you look Godward. You look up to God. And as we start to do that and compare ourselves with the Lord and His standard, then all of a sudden, it makes sense what being poor in spirit is. This is probably the foundational, most important thing that you're going to build upon. And that's why Christ puts it first as far as the Beatitudes are concerned, to realize you are poor in spirit, means that you need something. If you're poor, You don't have money. If you're poor in something else, I'm poor athletically. Well, that means that something's wrong with my bod. But in this case, if you are poor in spirit, it is a cognizance that we have that I need something. And everybody in this room appreciates the reality that we are poor in spirit. So that's the foundational level where the Lord starts as far as being poor in spirit. The neat thing here is that if you have that cognizance, look at how the verse ends, yours is the kingdom of God. If you have that spiritual appreciation, in all likelihood, as we start developing this, you're born again. If you have that cognizance that there's something that you need, that you want, that you desire, you're blessed. You are in the kingdom of heaven. Okay? We're establishing ourselves in that eighth beatitude. This is the beginning of it. And you'll see it again as we close with the eighth one of the beatitudes. The second beatitude is verse 4. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Again, a Jew would respond, or a person who doesn't understand that this is a spiritual message, mourning means I'm sad, I'm bumming out. A mourning person is sad, they've got a gloomy face, because things aren't good. And so a Jew would be going, I'm supposed to be happy about being sad. It doesn't really fit. Why would the Lord say we should be mourning? Well, again, the Beatitudes build on themselves as you go through them, and the reason that you're mourning is because you realize you're poor in spirit. They're sequential. They're going to be building upon themselves. So here, What is the reality for why you know you're poor in spirit? What is going on where you recognize this lack that you have? You're poor in spirit because you recognize that there's sin in your life. There is a separation between you and God that is sin. And for all of us, as we gain a cognizance of that separation, of the sin that exists in us, It causes me grief. It causes me sorrow. It causes me to mourn. Mourning means I am analyzing the deep doctrine of sin. Unless you are convicted of your sin, of your separation from God, and mourn over it, you will not recognize the need to repent. You must be convicted of sin, and that is the work of the Holy Spirit. Because without the conviction of sin, you're only existing. You're not born again. You do not have eternal life. And if you don't have that, then you can't have what the promise of the verse is. You will be comforted. You're comforted in that you realize you've been forgiven of sin, and that is the best comfort any of us can ever have. Do you remember what the first words that Jesus spoke in his ministry were? It actually happens in the previous chapter, chapter 4, and he says, without having to go there, in verse 17, from that time, Jesus began to preach, saying, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. There are a lot of military folks in the audience. I see a couple of Zoomies over there. One of them is awake. And we had to learn how to march. And everybody who goes through the military has to do this. And so I had the misfortune, in one regard, of being the tallest guy in my element, which is about 10 or 15 people. And so I always had to be the one to respond to the commands that were being given by the upperclassmen or the supervisor. And so you're walking along, and right turn, harch. And I'd go like this. And then I'd be standing over here, and everybody else is going that way. And so having that predisposition and that ability to know the wrong way to go, they gave me a little Help. They gave me a rock, and they put it in my right hand and said, OK, along. R, right. R, rock. Squeeze when you hear right. And so I did that. Well, another command that you learned marching was about face. It means you go about face, and then you go 180, and you walk back the other direction. Do you know what the word for about face in French is? Repente. Repent. Turn around 180 degrees from where you're heading. And that's what we are called to do with sin. You are called in this development of mourning to do an about face from sin and go the other direction. One of the best tests, one of the best indicators of whether you are born again is that you hate sin. I so look forward to the day when I'm going to be with the Lord in heaven, because I will not have to deal with sin anymore. If you have that conviction of sin, there's a really, really good chance you belong to the Lord. He who has not the Holy Spirit is not his. If the Holy Spirit is not convicting you and doing his job in you of convicting you of sin, examine yourself. A Christian cannot continue to live in habitual sin. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Third beatitude, Matthew 5.5 reads, blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. Meekness is not a natural characteristic of any human being. What is meekness? Not weakness at all, and that's the way a natural person might look at meekness. Meekness is an inner strength. It's power. It's authority, but it's internalized. Since the fall of man with Adam and Eve, the religion, if you will, of mankind has been selfishness, self-reliance, self-ability, pride, satisfactions, whatever self you want to put on it, that has been our predisposition of where we come from. I remember when I turned away from Christ and rejected him when I was a young man, I said, Christianity is a crutch for cripples. That's the way I looked at it. And so that natural tendency that mankind has is just that. I don't want to be meek. Doesn't Christ help those who help themselves? That's about as much as I knew about the Word of God. But Jesus said in Matthew 11, 29, take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble, meek. in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. So meekness brings an absolutely key foundational reality to us, and that is humility. Humility is the opposite of pride. And it is only a humble person who is going to be able to be what Christ wants them to be. So we're pouring out another third of that glass of water, if you will, as we're starting to structure this in our mind. A man cannot be meek unless he sees himself as being poor in spirit. He cannot be meek unless he sees himself as a vile sinner. So again, sequentially we're building, we're in this case pouring out of that glass realities about who we are. And what's neat about meekness, and we'll be moving into it in the second set of four beatitudes, is that this attitude of yourself will give you the ability to relate to other believers. So you're moving out of identifying yourself as being poor in spirit, identifying yourself as being a sinner, and because you recognize that, you become humble, and you are able to extend that to other people. No one but the Holy Spirit can give you meekness. You're not going to be able to say this morning when I wake up, Lord, I'm going to be a meek person today. It doesn't work that way. It is because you're humble, because you're poor in spirit, because you know you're a sinner that you have the ability to allow the Lord to manifest his life in you. Now, there's a neat link there in verse 5 that you'd find. I'll just read it quickly to you. As you transition from, blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. What does that mean? Christ, again, is referring back Old Testament-wise. I'll just read you the verses from Psalm 27. He says, the Lord. No, this is the psalmist who said, he will make your righteous There's a word. Righteous rewards shine like the dawn, your vindication like the noonday sun. And then in verse 11, but the meek will inherit the land and enjoy peace and prosperity. So right here, look at the word righteous as being the link between the first set of beatitudes and where we're going to be going in the second four in just a moment. Verse 6 of chapter 5, fourth beatitude. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. The glass is now empty. You poured out the first three beatitudes, and those have created need. They're based upon the need that we have. And so now this fourth beatitude, which is the end of the first section of them, that need is going to be satisfied. We're going to start filling up that glass with the remaining Beatitudes. The first three Beatitudes we're concerned with our needs, this Beatitude gives satisfaction to that need, and the three Beatitudes that are a result of that satisfaction are going to be what we'll move into in the second set. The same way that, again, we're going to go to a little bit of structure right here. Same way that we had eight beatitudes as far as the bookends, the word righteousness is a key to understanding not only the beatitudes, but also the entirety of Sermon on the Mount. So we're going to develop that in a minute. But what I want you to notice right here is that in verse 6, the fourth beatitude, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. for they shall be satisfied." Now look down at verse 10, and the verbiage again using righteousness says, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake. So within that, those bookends for the eight beatitudes, now I want you to put in your mind that you've got a smaller sandwich, if you will. So you've got a slice of bread in verse six, another slice of bread in verse 10, and righteousness is the key for this next section that we're going to be looking at. In this fourth beatitude, however, where we're looking at righteousness, The question is, what is righteousness to begin with? And righteousness basically is just being rightly related to God. And obviously it's a theological word that you can get a lot of miles on as far as the righteousness of Christ, et cetera. But in this case, I want us first to look at what do you hunger and thirst for? Pastor Tom, a couple weeks ago, quoted C.S. Lewis. And the quote was from Lewis, if I find a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. And so when each of us takes a look at what do we hunger and thirst for, what do we wake up in the morning thinking about, what do we go to bed thinking about, is it something other than what is being presented to us right here? What do you genuinely hunger and thirst for? Again, in the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord said, but seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these other things will be added unto you. Psalm 42, good song. As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before him? It is only as you seek righteousness with your whole being that you'll find it, that you'll truly discover it. But the wonderful promise in a verse that I just love is from Jeremiah. It says, and you will seek me and you will find me when you search for me with all your heart. It's a wonderful promise. And really the keynote of this whole message this morning is the promises of God. Christ is speaking to you. He is giving you promises which are just priceless. It's a matter of whether we're going to embrace them and truly believe them. That verse ends with, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Now we begin to refill the glass. We've gotten through the first set of four, going into the next set of four. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. The neat thing right here is as you think about that glass of water, and what was the last thing you emptied out of there? Meekness. Meekness required humility. It required an appreciation for your stance as being poor in spirit, of being a mourner. And now you find yourself not emptying yourself, but filling yourself up and allowing that water to start to overflow. You're extending it back to other people because of your appreciation that you have of yourself. So in this case, that humility that you have from being meek is what you now begin to extend to other people. Because you realize that mercy has been given to you, and mercy deals with the sadness for the consequences of sin. And as you recognize that from mourning for your sin, now you see other people in a different light. You realize that they are having to endure the penalty or the negative reality of sin. And so you have compassion for them. The key word for me in The concept of mercy is forgiving. Do I forgive somebody, a spouse, a child, whoever, a business associate? Do you forgive? It, again, is not a natural thing. None of us are born with a forgiving spirit. We've got six grandkids in our house right now, and watching little people run around, and they're all under four. And you just watch the nature of kids. And sin is... in the flesh. And so do they forgive? And you watch the parents trying to train them up the way they should go. And now, Dominic, apologize to your cousin for smacking them or whatever. So a forgiving spirit is something that we're not born with. And again, it is only by the Holy Spirit that we're going to be able to be merciful. And so, again, look back at the previous Beatitudes, and the one-liner is, the meek are the merciful. It requires you to have that appreciation of your stance in comparison to God, looking Godward, then looking at yourself and saying, God has got to be you, because it's sure not going to come out of my flesh to be a merciful person. One day, a good analogy a commentator gave was, when I meet the Lord face to face, he's not going to stand there and as I pull my punch card out and say, well, last Thursday at 3.30, I was merciful with my wife. He's going to want me to pull out my blank punch card and look into the reality of my heart and say, I see on that blank punch card the trust and faith you had in me to be merciful in your lack of mercy. It's depending upon the Lord to be the one who lives his life showing mercy in that I trusted Him and that I believed in Him. Continuing, verse 8, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. I think that this is probably one of the greatest utterances in all of Scripture. God, and Kara was so cool seeing the song. And it's fun, just as a little side note, when you don't coordinate particularly. I didn't talk to Kara about what the sermon was about or anything like that. But this particular beatitude was probably the keenest one of my heart. And to see that song, purify my heart, cleanse me from within, and make me holy, that's what this is about. So plant that song in your heart as you go through the day and the week. God alone has the ability to cleanse our hearts. And he has promised, again, these are the promises of God. He has promised to do this. Psalm 51, created me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of my salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. A clean heart refers to sincerity, to be free from falsehood. We often, Pastor Tom will point over at the cross often, and we use Matthew 22, 37 through 40 as verses, but the scribe comes to Christ and says, Master, what is the greatest commandment? And the Lord responds from Deuteronomy, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. That's the vertical relationship. But the key words right there, just think of it. Love the Lord your God with all your heart." And so in this verse, blessed are the pure in heart, it's a heart issue. It's our attitude towards the Lord. There was a Danish theologian, early 1800s, whose name was Soren Kierkegaard. And the one liner in there that is perfect is he says, purity of heart is the will to do one thing. The purity of heart is the will to do one thing. In contrast, James, in chapter 4, verse 8, says, familiar verse, Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. A double-minded man has his heart divided between the world and God. Purity of heart is the will to do one thing, full and total allegiance to God. No falsehood, no divided allegiance, no double-mindedness. Therefore, if you want a pure heart, pursue God with single-mindedness. And that is a challenge for all of us. The question would be, what do you hunger and thirst for? What is your heart set on as what is vital for your life and character? Does the list include poverty of spirit, of conviction of sin, of meekness, of mercy, of being a peacemaker? Is that your definition of what you really hunger and thirst for and pursue? Or do you think that there's real blessing to be found elsewhere? The question again, examine yourself. One of my favorite songwriters, singers, is a gal named Jenny Owen. She's a blind person. And the question on the second part of this beatitude is that if you pursue God with this single-mindedness, what is the result of it? You will see God. Owens sings of the day when her darkness will become light, when her faith will become sight, when she'll see the Lord face to face. So what is it to see God? For me, as I look at that, I came up with three possibilities. In Romans 1.20-ish, Paul says, for since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen being understood through what has been made. For me, when I'm up at Timberline in the mountains, I see God. When I see lightning, I see God. And so I think that through what has been made, that is one of the possibilities of what it means to see God. A second one that I've also known is that as I read scripture, the Holy Spirit allows me to see God. It's a different kind of sight, but it's absolutely true that as the Lord lives in you and he has given you the word of God, that for me is seeing God. But a third way is that as I have looked at scripture, and we have all, certain people have seen God. Isaiah chapter 6, Ezekiel chapter 1, John the Apostle on the island of Patmos saw God in one way. And I see Paul sitting here. Last week, just chit-chatting with him, works in hospitals, has up in Denver. And we were talking about Swedish and Craig hospitals up there. And this thought came to me, and I'll share this one with you all. I'm not a big advocate for near-death experience, going to the Lord and then coming back and giving this presentation of what someone saw there. But this is a real story for me. I have a friend in Alaska whose name is Wes Price. He's 35 years old. has two kids, two little boys that are under the age of four, married to a beautiful young lady named Jocelyn. And he's a CPA vocationally, but was an avid bush pilot. Several years ago, he went hunting with three other buddies in his Cessna 142, which is on floats. They went up to a mountain range and landed at a lake up in a region called the Talkitnas, and had a great fall weekend, bagged a couple of caribou. But when they launched off of the lake, because of the topography and the mountains that are around them, they hit a wind shear, because it was a windy day, and they crashed. Wes, as he tried to get out of his shoulder straps and just security to the seat, couldn't move, couldn't get the lap belt undone. They all had on crash helmets. I mean, they were serious bush pilots or bush flyers. But as Wes couldn't get out of his seat, he cried out for his friends, and he couldn't hear anybody respond to him. He was surrounded by the smell of avgas fuel all around him. The wreckage was smoking and smoldering, and he thought he was going to die. But at about that moment, his buddies were OK. They had gotten out of the wreckage. And they came and they pulled him out. But the reality was, Wes's spinal cord had been severed. In that moment, the friends were able to, like I said, extract him. They were prepared. They had a sat phone, a satellite communications phone. They got off a call to Flight for Life. Actually, I think it was the Alaska Air National Guard. But Talkeetna and the place that they were was an hour north of Anchorage. And so it took two hours anyway for them to get up there and bring him back. Remarkably, miraculously, Wes didn't stop breathing for over two hours. He stopped breathing right when the helicopter landed on the top of Providence Hospital in Anchorage. They had to do an emergency tracheotomy on him, and he went into ICU. Wes is convinced, and I totally believe it, that the Lord kept him alive for a specific reason. During that period, from the crash through unconsciousness until he regained consciousness in the ICU, he had a vision of God. And this is all back to, they shall see God. That's where we are as far as the message is concerned. I won't go into the description of what he saw, but it was fearfully awesome. It was from out of this world. It was vibrant and brilliant. But I do believe that a pure of heart can see God. I can still see Wes. I've got another buddy over here from Anchorage who is at our church up there. And I can still see Wes in his souped-up electric wheelchair going across the stage at our high school, GCS, Grace Christian School. planting himself there and talking to the high school students. And the reality of that message that he had that he believes God kept him alive to share was awesome. And when you look into Wes's eyes, you see the light of the Lord. You see the reality of a pure heart and the joy of getting to share that. So anyway, a little bit of a digression, and I actually made it through. I didn't even have to use my Kleenex too bad. So anyway, blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God. Seventh, the attitude. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Once again, peacemaking is not a natural disposition. We are not born. with a desire to reconcile, to get right. And I can get so stubborn in my mind as far as the easiest one for me to identify is with my wife. And I can just go, I don't feel like making peace. Period. And I'm going to be stubborn. I'm going to sit there and wallow in my sin until the Lord works through me and enables me to be a peacemaker. It's not an independent thing. Again, it's dependent upon me recognizing I'm poor in spirit, that I have sinned, and that I need to be humble and overcome that pride. Jesus thinks of peacemaking as all the acts of love by which we try to overcome this enmity between us and other people. Peacemaking tries to build bridges to people. It doesn't want animosity to remain. It wants to reconcile. That's a great definition for what a peacemaker is. Peacemakers are people who stand out from the rest of the world. And you don't have to turn on the evening news to realize there are a lot of non-peacemakers out there. The Bible identifies Jesus as a peacemaker. Isaiah 9, verse 6, For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulders and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Jesus includes us in peace and in reconciliation. of the world to himself when he says in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, all this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. As human beings, all of us, every one of us, takes on the DNA of our father. Maybe, no, I think it's a female gene. All of us have that physical DNA. As children of God, which is what this verse says, blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God. Well, a son of God takes on the spiritual DNA of our father God. And as I just established with a couple of scripture verses right there, if God is a peacemaker, and we are God's children, then we are peacemakers. That's the reality of how you should read that verse. An important thing right here, and this is going to be our link to the last of the Beatitudes. You must love and work for peace, but never abandon your allegiance to Jesus Christ. no matter how much animosity it brings. And that's where we're going to be going with the last beatitude. It has to deal with persecution. Matthew 10, 34 says, Do not think that I have come to bring peace on the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. That almost sounds counterintuitive to what we just presented as far as Christ being a peacemaker, but the reality is, as far as it depends upon each one of us to have peace relationally with others, never sacrifice it as the reality of upholding and honoring Jesus Christ as Jesus Christ. So that brings us to the last one of the Beatitudes. And on that line of persecution, 1 Timothy 3, 12 says, indeed, all who desire to live godly lives in Jesus Christ will be persecuted. And so be a peacemaker. Try and live well relationally with others, but never at the sacrifice of being godly. Paul the Apostle says, anticipate, this is going to be the response. Because you have now filled up that glass with mercy, with purity of heart, with peacemaking, the world is going to respond to that overflow now of the life of Christ being seen in you. And it's not going to like it. It's going to be a negative reaction. This persecution isn't because you're a nice person though. So don't get that part confused. A lot of times you can look at yourself, I'm being a good guy, you know, but I'm getting persecuted for this. That's not it. That's just the way the world works. Take a look at verse 11 and 12 as we finish up here. Blessed are you," in verse 11, blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. It is because of Jesus Christ in you and what you are displaying, which is His life. We are Christ's image bearers. That is the job description for every one of us, to allow Jesus Christ to live His life in us. And as now you look at that life that is being manifest, that's overflowing, this is the way the world's going to respond. As we get to this point, I want you to look at that last set of four Beatitudes, that sandwich that I was describing. We described earlier the word righteousness being really key and central to the Sermon on the Mount. What I propose to you right now is that as you look at that sandwich from righteousness being what you hunger and thirst for in the fourth beatitude, and now righteousness being what you are persecuted for in verse 10, that is Jesus Christ's, the great teacher's definition for what righteousness is. It is being merciful. It is being pure in heart. It is being a peacemaker. That is what Jesus, right here, says is righteousness. As you reveal those, and those start to get poured out of you in life, the world is going to respond and persecute because of Christ. You've got a clash of two world systems. And there is always going to be a conflict between the two of them. And that is what happens in that clash of the two value systems. Last verse, and this is really an astonishing thing for us to consider. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Rejoice and be glad that I'm getting hammered, that people are telling lies about me, that they're saying false things about me. Again, the average person, the Jew of that day, is going to have a little bit of difficulty biting or embracing that one. What's even more astonishing in this verse is how it ends. And it says, for so they persecuted the prophets. Make no mistake, Jesus Christ is talking about death right here. The prophets were killed. We just got through chapter 7 of Acts. Stephen, martyred. All the disciples that Jesus is talking to right here, with the exception of John, would be martyred. How am I supposed to, I mean, do any of us say I should rejoice and be glad because I'm going to get killed? I mean, that's not really the way my flesh works. But the question, and the neat thing, is to ask yourself, could it be that Jesus Christ knows something I don't know? Does he know something about where you go if you are in, yours is the kingdom of heaven, as he concludes the Beatitudes? Does he know something about where each one of us is heading that makes death not even compare? That's an exciting thing to give consideration to. The last scripture for the day, 2 Corinthians 4, 17. Familiar, perhaps, for this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all conception. As we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. There's a mystery here, friends. Whatever you must do to get your heart into heaven and off of the earth, do it. Again, Pastor Tom quoted another martyr, Jim Elliott, a few weeks back. He is no fool who gives up that which he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose. Jesus has been teaching us, and this was the beginning of his earthly ministry. If all that Jesus is is a teacher, he can't change my heart. but he's not just a teacher, he's God. And he came to make us and enable us to be what he has taught us. Let's pray. Father, in the name of Jesus Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we come to you. And in the genuineness of our hearts, We embrace the promises that you've given us this morning. Your word is your promise. And as we look towards the end of the Sermon on the Mount, you say to us, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you for all who Ask, receive, to everyone who seeks, will find, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. We trust in you for the fulfillment of your life in us and your promises. In Jesus Christ's name, with thanks, amen.