The Blessed And Happy Life (5)

Be Comforted And Controlled By God

This morning we continue our study about the blessed and Happy life.And what we have seen each week is that the Blessed and Happy life according to the Bible is when you become stable or have the ability to stand firm during the storms of life.The way to get to that stability is by having God in your life.Now today we will go back to the New Testament to the Beatitudes.They are actually the first sermon that Matthew records for us.And this sermon was given to people that were very much in the same place that we are find ourselves today.They were in very trying times, they were overtaxed and they lived with corruption and oppression all around them.I find it so interesting that Jesus didn’t come onto the scene and start addressing any of those issuesBut what He did was taught them on The Blessed and Happy life and how to live in God’s Kingdom.So if you want to know how to live right now in our trying situation, what we are learning will show us what to do.Let me tell you our take home for today.If you want the Blessed and Happy life then the next step is we need the Comfort of God and we need to be controlled by God.We will learn about those.Let’s read

Matthew 5:2–10 ESV

And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

As you can see each of these Beatitudes start with the word Blessed.As we have learned that word Blessed in it’s simplest definition means: To be Happy, fortunate and satisfiedThis week a dug a little deeper into that word and found you can actually add a little more to it when Jesus used the word.Not only does it mean that you are happy, fortunate and satisfied but on top that you are a person that others would envy and congratulate.Meaning in some way that when people look at the way you live your life they would recognize that your life is working pretty well.Not because you have no problems or because you have a lot of stuff but because of the way you handled life.Using the words we have been looking at through this study you would probably say this is the person that can handle the storms of life in a way that keeps them happy and satisfied and so people may come and say well done, you’re doing well.The reason I wanted to dig deeper into that word is because of this first Beatitude we look at today.Blessed are those who mourn.What a funny statement.Out of curiosity how many of you like to underline or highlight things in your Bible?Do any of you have this underlined who didn’t just underline all of the Beatitudes?I didn’t think so.We envy and congratulate people for a lot of reasons.Like when people get engaged or married - everyone says congratulations we are so happy for you.When people have a baby people are excited and congratulate them.But for mourning? Who does that? Like at funeral, congradulations.So what Jesus is saying.Here’s the thing with this one.All these Beatitudes are what are called a means to an end.That means the poor in spirit, mourning, meekness, hungering and thirsting or persecution is not the goal its the way to get there.Think of it like this.Once a year Tammy and I HAVE TO go back to the States.That’s not a want but a need.We need to get out of the cold and we need to go see my grandkids.Now if you came and told me ok I’ll get you there but you will have to go to Dubai, then the over the North Pole and drop down to LAI could argue and say that’s nuts. That’s not the right way.I’m not going to do that, I want to do it my way. Just go up and turn left.If I look at the map that might sound right but unless I want to walk and swim it nobody goes that way.But Emirates Airlines they do just what I told you.They leave Joburg, you fly to the Middle East, you go up literally right over the North Pole, You see Santa’s Workshop, and you drop back down to LA.It doesn’t make sense but guess what, it’s the route that gets me to the destination of my Kids and grandkids.That’s kind of like this one.To think that mourning is part of the route to the Blessed and Happy life, it doesn’t make sense BUT it is part of the process.So first we need to see it’s not the mourning like you would think.See right now there are many people that are mourning because of life in Zimbabwe.We mourn because we are disappointed, we mourn because everything is expensive, we mourn because of the money, we mourn because of the demonstrations and how they were handled.That’s not the mourning here.That’s that storm again. That’s what is testing our faith.The mourning here is part of the route to the Blessed life because it drives us to God.The mourning that is talked about here is dealing with the root cause of all the issues not fruit.All the frustrations I just mentioned those are fruits.The root of all of those is sin.You can sugar coat and call it something else but the world’s problems including Zimbabwe’s are due to sin.And you have to realize that includes your sin too.You can’t just blame and think all these problems are due to other’s sin you have to put yourself there too. Read Nehemiah or Isaiah. See the people of Jesus’ day would have blamed everybody for their unhappy lives. It’s the Romans, the priests, the ZealotsJesus didn’t want them to look at it that way.He wants us to know it starts with us.So what does He want us to see about sin?Let me put this in the most simple way.Sin has to do with missing the mark.The mark is connecting with God and living the way that God wants us to live.So this mourning is seeing that your just not living in thought, word and deed the way that God wants you to live.And because of that your life isn’t Blessed and Happy.If you come to the point that you can admit this it will drive you to God.The realization is not to drive you away from God but to God.Then as you come to God you once again see your absolute need for Him.As we come to communion table today we see that the only way to come to God is through the cross of Jesus.But as you come before Him, you mourn your sin because it’s keeping you from having God in your life THE WAY YOU NEED HIM. It’s called repentance.You don’t mourn how bad things are you mourn the part you play in this sinful world.And you ask God to forgive you and help you change.Then He comforts you.The mourning is what leads you to God but the result is to get the comfort of God.I love this word comfort here.It’s easy to miss it’s meaning if you think of our concept of comfort.We might think the picture is of God as the Father saying come here, let me hold you, pat you on the back and tell you everything is ok.That is not the picture here. There are other’s that Show God like that but not here.This picture is way stronger than that, its of Him being the encourager.It is the same Word but in Verb form of what is used of the Holy Spirit in John’s Gospel where He is called the Comforter.It’s where God is with you to help encourage you in the journey of life.Last week we learned three truths of what to expect when God is with you.We learned because He is with us we can make it through the stormBecause God is with us we can prosper in the storm.Because God is with us we can lead others through the storm.Well one of the ways He does this is to encourage us through it.We learn we don’t need to carry our guilt but He forgives us.We don’t need to live as slaves to sin or any stronghold because He will encourage us through it.He is with us where deep down He has this way of letting us know that WE CAN DO THISBecause of this we become stable and have more of the realization that God is with us.We become like that strong tree planted by the water.Then the storm can come but we know God has a tight grip on us.I love that feeling.Remember Mourning is the route to get there.But we can’t stop there.To get to my grandkids I fly over the North Pole I don’t stop there.It’s just the strange rout to take.Mourning gets you to God, it gets you to change and it gets you encouragement.Now comes the big challenge.We must stay in the place of God’s encouragement and comfort.This is where the next Beatitude comes in and why we look at two together today.Now we need to learn to control our emotions so that we don’t react but stay in the encouragement and comfort of God.That’s where Matthew 5:5 comes in.

Matthew 5:5 ESV

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

We have to get the right picture here.We usually associate meekness with weakness and therefore would never say that would lead to being happy, content or to be congratulated.Oh but it is.Meekness is when you are able to control your emotions not have your emotions control you.It’s where you don’t just react to life but that you can stay under the control, comfort and encouragement of God.A huge problem I think many of experienced over the last few weeks was that when things went crazy what took us out of being a tree and threw us right back to being chaff was that our emotions took over.We got angry, frustrated, bitter and on and on we could go.When you are meek you just don’t react.You can be angry and sin not.You get be frustrated and be driven to God.And so where mourning is meant to drive us to God and receive His comfort and encouragement that we can get going in the right direction.Being meek keeps us there.Then we are in a place to receive all that God has for us.If we separate them we are liable to just be up and down and that’s not what keeps us in the Blessed and Happy life.Here is the application that I would recommend to you.Are you sad, frustrated and disappointed about life?Don’t just blame everyone else for it.Go to God and let Him shine His light on you and see where your sin is.Ask Him to show you where you are not going the right direction in connecting with Him in thought word and deed.Then ask Him to forgive you and to help you go in the right direction.Don’t do it casually. Genuinely mean it.Then you will feel the comfort and encouragement of God.That gives you the power to powerfully move forward.At the same time ask Him to work on your character to make you the type of person that can stay God controlled not emotionally reactive.When you do this, it keeps God in your life.Without it you can believe in God but not connected to God like we need.The moment He is left out of the picture it falls apart.Jesus felt that’s what the people in His day needed here and start with in their trying times and I believe we need the same.