for helping us with singing those songs this morning and that beautiful reminder that Christ is with us and will see us through. And it seemed to me to do good to turn back to the words of Christ in our upcoming studies. We've seen a lot of fascinating things and helpful things in the Old Testament recently. Also going through the book of Ruth and a lot of different things on Sunday evening. And I was praying about where to go next and realized that I had not preached through the Sermon on the Mount with our folks since we've been back. And there's some such amazing important truths in this sermon that Jesus gives to his followers or to those that he's calling to be his followers. That certainly it is beneficial for us as well. So we get to hear direct from the teacher of all teachers this morning not pastor Brock Let's be clear But our Savior Jesus Christ you can't go wrong with that And we're going to see here these first passage we're just going to make our way through the first half of what are called the beatitudes this morning and But as we work through those, and as we work through the Sermon on the Mount, I think a valid question is, what is the purpose of all of this anyway? These are well-known passages. There are important things that I'm going to impress and highlight in these passages, but we know them well. What is the point what is Jesus Jesus just in a general sense saying hey you need to know something about this and then hey you need to do something about this and make sure you don't get angry and make sure you don't be fearful and you know kind of like a list of things we give to our kids before they head out the door don't forget to do this don't forget to do that is Jesus is giving us a list of good things to remember Well, I think there's much more involved here. What Jesus is actually doing in this first full, and this is really the only fully recorded sermon, if I can put it that way, or a message of Jesus that will continue. We have a shortened version of this in the Gospel of Luke. and other teachings of Christ that were told, but this is a full text of an actual message that Jesus preached, and I believe that it's a message that He often preached. This wasn't an only time thing. This is representative of the message that Jesus would teach on a regular basis. Well, as I was studying for this, I remembered a story. The Lord's been giving us some great times in our youth group here at Upper Crossroads. I had the privilege of being a part of a very good youth group going up, at least a memorable and vibrant youth group where the pastor kind of took it on himself. He was very creative and very passionate about reaching young people. So we did all kinds of crazy things that I don't have time to go into today, but very memorable. But one thing that we would do, we had a patch of woods behind the church property. And every so often on a Wednesday night after youth group, or we'd cut youth group early, we'd go out and play capture the flag. Now this is when young people played really cool games, right? Really hard games. I don't know that you can even get away with playing Capture the Flag today. But Capture the Flag, back when I was your age, involved running through the woods, not being careful if the thorns grabbed you or if a tree was in your way, you tried to dodge it real quick. If there were swamps and there was this big old swamp in the middle of this patch of woods, man, you'd just plow right through it. And the whole purpose of this was each team would get on either side, and they would have a flag, and they would hide that flag on their side. Those of you that played this before, you know how this goes. And then they would set some people to guard that, and then they would go try to sneak over to the other side and discover and grab the other team's flag, and then run it back to go over the line of safety, which was that middle line that divided the woods right in half in between. And you would win if you were able to pull the flag from the other team over onto your side. Well, in the midst of all that, in the midst of that excitement, there was a lot of unfortunate things. You know, you could also tag people, that was expected. And then the tagged people had to go to this jail area. And basically, you were at the mercy of maybe one of your teammates coming by and tagging you again. But you didn't want to get tagged because you wanted to find the flag and you wanted to stay in the game and have fun. And so, yes, we were at times guilty of also acting like we were on the other team. And you would kind of you'd run and then somebody would kind of jump out from behind a tree and you'd be like, oh, is that one of my team members? And so we'd look, and we weren't really wearing color-coded sashes or anything, so you just kind of had to guess who was on whose side. And so there was always that moment of, wait a minute, are you my enemy or my friend? Whose side are you on? Because you didn't want to get ended up in jail for the rest of the game. And so you wanted to be sure as soon as you could. And then once you figured it out, the flight would ensue and you'd run around and it was just a lot of fun. But the main question was, as we were playing is whose side are you on? Because you could get confused about who was on whose side. Well, folks, in a sense, I think that's what Jesus is calling us to do with the Sermon on the Mount. He's calling for us to choose sides. And he's calling for us today to reflect and say, whose side am I on? Whose team am I playing for? And if you're on Jesus team, then the Sermon on the Mount is how the citizens or the team members. It's a code of conduct for how we're supposed to act as a part of God's team, as a part of God's kingdom. And so the question that I'll continue to ask throughout this series is, What kingdom are you living for? Are you living for the temporary kingdom of this world? Are you hoping that somehow we'll be able to develop this present world into some sort of utopia or paradise? Or do you believe Jesus' words that there is a better day coming and a better kingdom coming, and we need to prepare for that kingdom rather than the current kingdom that we're living in? Whose side are you on, folks? Whose kingdom are you living for? That is the main question, I believe, of the Sermon on the Mount. And so Jesus begins his ministry after his temptation in Matthew chapter four. He calls his disciples after that, and he starts to draw large crowds. It's interesting in Matthew four, twice we're told the topic that Jesus is preaching on verse 17. It says from that time, Jesus began to preach, saying, Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand and verse 23. And he went through all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. Jesus is teaching and preaching of the kingdom. And it says here in verse 33, the gospel of the kingdom, the good news of how we can have entryway into his kingdom. The Jewish people have been waiting for this for this kingdom for a long time. And Jesus was announcing that he had come to eventually inaugurate this kingdom. But the people needed to prepare themselves for this. Now we call this the Sermon on the Mount. That's because look at chapter 5 in Matthew chapter 5 verse 1. It says, seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. So what's the mountain? Well, it's probably the hill country here, just north of the Sea of Galilee, near Capernaum. And that's probably where this took place. And again, this is the only full text of Jesus' message given in the Gospels. And he is describing the members of the kingdom of God and he's describing their actions. And he's calling these that are here listening to decide whether they're going to follow him or not and reflect his kingdom conduct in their lives at that moment. And he calls to us today. Are we even able to conduct ourselves in this way that Christ calls us to? We are followers of him If we desire if we truly desire to be kingdom citizens Then this is the covenant that we have to agree to to sign on to is the Sermon on the Mount A friend of mine, youth speakers, put it this way. Jesus declares that being a true follower requires a different radical way of living. It demands commitment. And Jesus in these first few verses, as he begins to teach the Sermon on the Mount, he starts with what we call the Beatitudes. And that's termed from the beginning of each of these phrases. Verse 3, blessed, blessed, verse 4, blessed. That's a that's from the Latin word. The Beatitudes is a Latin word that means blessed. And so that's why it's referred to in that way and Jesus is going to in these first few words as he begins this sermon turn the world's idea of success totally upside down as he teaches this Really, you could call this blessings in unexpected, unexpected places, the Beatitudes, because as Jesus talks about how we can be blessed or the people that are fortunate that are part of the kingdom, it's going to be in a totally different way than the world's expectations. And even as the world reads these today, they sound nice. They sound ethereal. They might go nicely on a plaque. but the world really doesn't understand and is actually in total contrast, living in total contrast to the spirit of these beatitudes. In fact, the very first verse, it says, verse two, he opened his mouth and taught them saying, blessed are the poor in spirit. What does that word blessed mean? Well, in one sense, you could say, if you look in a Greek translation, that word could mean in a general sense, happiness. But I don't want us to misunderstand, because Jesus isn't saying here at the beginning that in this life, if you want to be a kingdom citizen, that God is going to make everything happy and everything work out for you in this life. And it's just it's just going to be kind of a cakewalk until the kingdom is inaugurated. That's not what he means by blessed, because look what he says, then blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn. Well, they don't sound very happy at all. That doesn't make sense. Jesus is actually using that word blessed to really say something like you are fortunate ones if you fall into these categories. Yes, you are happy, but in a deeper sense, a sense of spiritual strength and deep joy that God provides. To these who will be willing to follow him regardless of their circumstances. Remember later on Christ would call his followers to abandon all to follow him. And here he says it's going to be hard but it's also going to be blessed and there are deeper spiritual joys that you will experience and you will experience an eternity of marvelous wonderful things. The people of the kingdom of Jesus Christ are very fortunate and blessed indeed. Now, these first four beatitudes focus on an attitude or mindset. Those are the four that we're going to look at today, and the rest are more the actions of the citizens. So Jesus starts out saying, this is how kingdom citizens think. If you're going to be a part of this kingdom that you've been waiting for, that I'm going to inaugurate, this is how we think. The rest of the Beatitudes talk further about how we're supposed to act in our code of conduct. So we're going to see here at the beginning, kingdom citizens have a different mindset. They think differently than the world. Now, see how our Sunday school lesson ties really nicely into this this morning, as that's exactly what we've been talking about. A different mindset from the mindset of the world. And this is the mindset that we should have. Again, back to verse three, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Who are these poor in spirit? And how can those that are poor be happy? Well, again, the world reads this and they misunderstand and the world many times tries to put a political emphasis on this. You see, we need to do all that we can to help the poor and then God will allow us into his kingdom. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't be helping the poor folks. And we know even in this world today, there's a lot of folks that are poor, that don't have a lot. But there's such a deeper meaning that Jesus is actually referring to here than those that just don't have as much money as others or maybe don't have as much to eat. Now, that being said, we need to understand that the poor in Bible times, folks were in much more desperate straits than even what we see maybe a lot of times in our country today. We were coming back from a Orioles game Thursday night, and it was the only game that they won against the Red Sox, so we were excited. We were happy. But as you know, trying to get out of inner city Baltimore has its own challenges. And of course, as we were trying to get out, it was dark, and we were going past alleyways, and there were people there with signs. that came up and they held up their sign and they were, you know, calling to you, can you do something? It was, you know, I'm a veteran and I need this or I'm out of, I'm down on my luck and I need some food or I need some money and different things. And so we were exposed to this quite a bit. As many of you who are in the city know, this is a common thing. It's actually kind of common all over, right? And really in our minds, we're kind of stirred up in our souls. What do we do about situations like that? Because we wonder, you know, are they, can we help them? Do we have the ability to help them in those situations in the way that they truly need help? Now, guess what? I hope you don't think we're too unsensitive, or we're not sensitive enough, excuse me. But there was no way I was gonna pull over in the dark, with a dark alleyway on the side of us, and somehow roll down, or let my window down, at that time of night, because it was a little intimidating. And I had my family to protect. But at the same time, These are people that have needs. And we don't have time really to get into today what all of that, what the Christian response is to that. I will say I'm so thankful for people like the Lashleys and Mary Lashley, who has a part in helping up Mission, who has some great solutions and some ideas on how to help people like that. And we need to be compassionate toward the poor But anyway in old in New Testament times or in Bible times if you were poor what that meant was you weren't sure How you were going to survive the next day? You weren't sure that you were going to have enough food to survive or to live or to fill your bellies so that you you could continue living and you could continue to have sustenance and You weren't sure if you were ever gonna have a roof over your head. You were, in every respect, totally helpless and totally dependent upon everyone else. That was what it was like to be poor in these times. And we still have, around our world today, many situations where people suffer in that way, and it truly is terrible. But there's even more than that, what Jesus is saying here, is that these may include those who don't have a lot, and who need help in that way from a riches standpoint and from a sustenance standpoint. But more intuitively and more important is these are people, these that are poor in spirit, are recognized, they recognize that they have nothing and are unworthy before God. In other words, they recognize their spiritual poverty before God. A picture that I just described of people who financially who may not have much and need help these that Jesus describes here are people that spiritually realize I have nothing to offer I Have nothing to depend on in my own strength and in my own spirit I And so I am totally dependent on someone else for sustenance and for help. And Jesus is describing those that are poor in spirit as they recognize their great spiritual poverty, even beyond any physical poverty that they might experience. Folks, these are people that recognize I need God. Because my sin is such that it keeps me from him and my sin will always keep me from him. And therefore I am truly wretched and poor and needy because my sin keeps me keeps me a rebel with God. And it means that I am broken. And it means that I need him in order to be a part of his kingdom, that I can't have citizenship apart from dependence upon God. These folks realize I am truly dependent and I'm impoverished spiritually because of my sin. What does Jesus say these people will receive then? It says those that feel and sense that and understand that, that they need God, that they need Jesus Christ, theirs is the kingdom of heaven. For those that realize their need for Jesus, Jesus says here, they will receive the kingdom. Because they're trusting in me. And not themselves. Those that are truly poor and desperate find all their sustenance and all that they need in Jesus Christ. And so Jesus says we must all have a mindset that all of us are needy, independent and impoverished in our sin. And we need a savior who can provide us the way to be a part of the kingdom of God for all eternity. Poor in heart people are needy people who know it. Do you know today, folks, how needy you truly are? How poor and impoverished you really are in your sin? When you have that understanding and you're willing to turn to Jesus Christ in repentance and turn to Him in dependence and help, Jesus will supply all that you need For citizenship into the kingdom of heaven. So even in the first beatitude, we have the seeds of the gospel, don't we? And yet we have still a few more here to go through this morning. So blessed are the poor in spirit. Those that realized how spiritually impoverished they truly are. They will have a part of God's kingdom, but then those verse four who mourn for they shall be comforted. Those that mourn will find lasting comfort. Another story of when I was in my younger years, but out of all the classes that I had in high school, I had some that I really enjoyed, as many of you did, and some that I just endured, and some that I just detested. And my typing class was one that I endured. I was never very good at it. I didn't really practice much. And I usually ended up getting many times the lowest score in the class on projects and things. And it was just frustrating. But we had another scenario where we had two individuals in the class that as they were able to multitask, which I have never been able to do. And so these individuals were able to type, but they were also able to talk. And they talked and talked and talked. And what they would talk about was all the difficult things that they had to go through. And all the difficult things that they had to go through in their lives. And one would tell a story of something difficult that they had to go through. And of course, this person was all of 17 years of age. They lived a long, despairing life. But she would talk about things, and then the other person would then say, oh, well, I know, I had to go through this. And it was a common thing that at the end of class, these two individuals were in tears, and they were weeping over their misfortunes in life. Which, you know, I don't want to be unkind. They obviously had needs. But I did think as a young man, you know, is this really helping me type faster? Maybe I was just insensitive. But here was a thing where you had two people that were constantly talking about sad things and they were crying. Is that what Jesus is talking about? Blessed are those who mourn. Is he referring to somebody that likes to watch sad movies all the time? You know, the sadder the better. Get the Kleenexes out. Oh, here comes another one and you weep through the whole. Well, that's just Little House on the Prairie. Let's just watch Little House on the Prairie. We can cry every episode. You know, something bad happens, somebody cries in every episode. Is Jesus saying, watch the little house on the prairie and cry more, and those people are blessed and they shall be comforted? Well, I think you know there's something deeper going on here. We don't want to be insensitive to those that are going through difficult things, but what is Jesus really talking about here? Those that mourn Jesus is actually saying those who are sorrowful over their sin and unworthy before God. That of those who recognize that they are poor in spirit and because of their sin they are separated from God. They mourn over that. They weep their dismayed it bothers them. And Jesus says, blessed, blessed are those who weep and are bothered and are aggrieved. That sounds so strange to us. How can that be? Happy are those who are aggrieved and sorrowful? And he says, no, no, they will be comforted. And Jesus, in a deep sense here, is saying that if you are a member of the kingdom or want to be a member of the kingdom, you must recognize your sin grieves God and it must grieve you. And you must seek out God. To do something about your sin. The point is, is Jesus isn't saying that those are kingdom citizens world for eternity. Be crying all the time on the streets of gold. That's not what he's saying here. Folks that those tears will have an end. We're told that at the end of the book of the Bible in Revelation, all tears will be wiped away, right? This is a limited time thing, but it is important because it is people that recognize their need for God and what kind of comfort will they received. Well, I have to admit, I wasn't very comforting in that typing class scenario. I was a little frustrated and irritated. I wasn't a very good comforter in that. There are some people in our church ministries and in your families that are very good comforters. They know how to say just the right words. They know how to kind of they have a they're kind of like a spiritual tissue or Kleenex and they just help you feel better. But folks can you imagine is there anyone that's more capable of helping us to feel better and to dry our tears than our Lord and Savior. Then our Heavenly Father. And Jesus says here when we weep over our sin, our God will come to us and he will help us and he will provide us true comfort. There's no one that can give us a deeper sense of comfort and help than our Heavenly Father. And he would provide all that we need through Jesus Christ to be comforted because he would provide the solution for our sin and for the curse of sin that we face. Jesus would provide all that and we would for all eternity be comforted. Oh, what a beautiful comfort that is So blessed are the poor in spirit blessed are those who mourn Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth Now let's be let's be a little candid here as we think out of all the spiritual fruit that we'd like to see in our lives I You know, you think about, you know, as I'm growing in my relationship with God, I would like to see growth in this area and this spiritual fruit develop. And maybe it's a boldness for Christ, or maybe it's the ability to be compassionate or to show love towards others. But the characteristic of meekness, I want to be meek. That sounds like the characteristic for me. That doesn't tend to be on the top of our list if we have a list. In fact, meek almost sounds kind of like mediocre or milquetoast or someone who lets people walk all over them. So Jesus, in order to be a part of your kingdom, I have to let people walk all over me and I will inherit the earth? That doesn't sound like that's the right, that doesn't sound like that makes a connection, that that makes sense. Well, we need to understand, as you would expect, what the meaning of that word meek is. And in the Greek, it has a much deeper meaning than just being a doormat. That's not what that word means. Some people misunderstand. They say, well, the meek means that I just have to let people, you know, kind of walk all over me and take advantage of me and whatever. And that's not at all what Jesus is saying here. But he's saying the meek are those who are strong and who have gifts and talents and abilities because, folks, God has given all of us strength, talents, and abilities, right? We're not, unlike Charlie Brown from the Peanuts characteristic, there's none of us here that are total losers. We all have gifts and strengths, and God has given us those. And so we don't have to downplay those in any way. That's not what being meek's all about. But a meek person is one who is humble and submits their talents and their gifts back to the Lord to use as he pleases. Lord, you've given me strengths in this area, and I recognize them. But rather than use them for my selfish interests, I'm going to use them for your glory and to promote the kingdom. Here you go, Lord. All that I have, my strengths, my weaknesses, are all yours to use. It really is the idea, if you've ever seen, heard a picture, this is a great illustration of meekness, that it is a powerful horse that is under control of that little bridle, that little bit, excuse me, in their mouths. We had some former members here who were around horses a lot, and one person got, I remember one lady got kicked by a horse, and there was some very damaging repercussions from that. It looked very painful, and she took a long time to recover. A horse is a powerful animal. You want to be careful. You don't want to mess around with horses. You want to treat them respectfully. They're beautiful animals. They help, but they're powerful. And yet all that power, you put a little tiny metal bit in their mouth, and you can move them, kind of, wherever you want them to go. All that power under control. That's what meat people do. That's the description of me, people, folks. Power and strength under the control of the master, of the king, of the kingdom. And when you look at it that way, being meek's not such a hard concept to consider after all. In fact, it's something that we should want. Lord, I'll be meek. I'll be glad to submit for all that Christ has done for me. I'll be glad to submit my talents and my gifts and my strengths. to proclaim the kingdom, to proclaim Christ where you would call me to do so. Isn't that, I mentioned that these go the exact opposite of the world's values. Isn't that the exact opposite of the world's be your own bold self attitude for success? I saw some of these written recently. I thought these were interesting. Another way of describing that, you write your own script. Don't let somebody else write it for you. Earn the best days of your life get through the difficult days and plow through and you earn the best days of your life Because you're worth it. I Mean those sound great those sound actually very motivational And yet what Jesus calls us to is yes, you have strengths will you now use them for my purposes? And not your own I will say as a by note on that, write your own script. We do need to be careful about something. I think there's a lot of leaders and a lot of people that try to write our own scripts for us and they say, this is what God wants you to do and so you just need to listen to me and do what I'm telling you to do. That may or may not be the case. We have to be careful about letting other people write our life scripts and saying, this is what God has told me he wants you to do. All right, be careful of that. Meekness is not gullibility. But folks, at the same time, are we willing to take our strengths and as the meek, use them for God's purposes? You know, in the end, it'll all be worthwhile, right? Look at what it says at the end of verse five, for they shall inherit the earth. Because we may hear that and say, well, how does that help me get ahead? If I don't use my strengths and my abilities for my own purposes, who else? If I don't promote myself, who else is going to promote me? How am I going to get ahead? How am I going to have all the things that I want in life? You know? Well, the answer to that is our Heavenly Father already owns all of that. He owns it all. And what he says is you can trust me. You give me your life. You won't be in the end. You won't be disappointed in the kingdom to come. You won't be disappointed. It'll be worth your while. Jesus says you trust God with your talents and the gifts that he's given you and use them for his kingdom purposes. And folks, you won't be disappointed for you. God will give back to you. You will inherit the earth. So many people today in high positions that are using their money and their power to try to rule over the earth in some way or another, right? Secret plots. maniacal leaders, dictators, all of them have the desire to rule the world and all of them miss the point that it's God's authority in the end that decides who gets to rule and who gets to reign. God doles out those things. So folks, if you are following Jesus and you have a faith relationship with him that allows you to be part of the kingdom of God. You have wonderful things in store for you in the future. You will be the ones that will rule the earth with Christ and inherit the earth. You're not going to get shortchanged. You're not going to get gypped. No, the meek. will truly inherit the earth. Well, that's all we have time for this morning. And even as we went through those initial three, and even as we went through Jesus expectations for kingdom living, we look at that and say, well, that should be no problem, right? I could do that. Well, if you feel that way, folks, you've missed the point. Because even as we hear those things and as we continue to hear about the Beatitudes, we're going to come to the conclusion that you know what? I can't do any of those things perfectly. I can't be a fully committed citizen of Christ Kingdom. I'm not able to do that in and of myself. And that's why we're going to see as well that Jesus points us to having a relationship with him. and that only through trust in Him and faith in Him and reliance on His righteousness can we be a kingdom citizen and then live out these truths in our lives. Back to that first beatitude, those who are poor in spirit, those who realize their need for Christ, they are the ones that get the kingdom, folks. Do you have a faith relationship with Jesus this morning? Are you trusting in him alone and his sacrifice of himself offered up for our sin? Cleansing of our sin forgiveness of our sin that were offered when we put our faith and trust in him. Do you have that relationship with Jesus Christ this morning folks? If you do, you are a citizen of God's kingdom and you can live these values that Jesus is talking about, not in our own strength, Nobody wants to be meek in their own strength. But Jesus helps us to submit to the Holy Spirit and to submit our talents to him and to recognize our need of him. And we can live in all of these ways that Jesus will describe in the Sermon on the Mount through the work that he will do in us. A faith relationship with Jesus that enables us then to live out the conduct of kingdom citizens that the world desperately needs to see. If you have a relationship with Christ this morning as well, folks. The question is, are you living out the values of kingdom citizens? And as we go to prayer this morning, the final question is. Whose kingdom are you living for? Which kingdom are you a citizen of? And I hope that as we go through this, we'll see our desire will be to be a citizen of the kingdom of God through faith in Jesus Christ. Father, thank you for the reminders as we just get into the Beatitudes today, that we are helpless and impoverished and needy spiritually. And that yet Jesus has all that we need to be kingdom citizens, even though we have no ability in and of ourself to be a part of that kingdom. Jesus provides his righteousness. So that we can live in this way. Lord, if there's someone here today who is recognized their need and that their sin is keeping them from a relationship with Christ, help them to realize that they can trust him today. and they can be kingdom citizens through the work that Jesus has accomplished for us on the cross. Help them come to saving faith today and to talk to me or to someone else and get that shored up. And Father, for those who do have a relationship with Christ, help us to consider today, are we truly living like kingdom citizens? Do people know that we're different? Do people know that we're on God's side? Help us to live in that way as we go from here today. And we need your help to do that. So let's give some consideration to these things even now as Leslie plays.