The Blessed And Happy Life (8)
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We are continuing in our study of The Blessed And Happy Life.Which we have learned comes from having God in your life.Honestly we could come up with all kinds of things to say about this but really there are only two types of people.Those that have God as part of their life and those that don’t.When God is part of your life according to Psalm 1 then stability comes to your life.It doesn’t mean you will not have trouble but what it means is that no matter what the trouble is you will be stable.You will not be like that Chaff that David talks about where you are blown around when trouble comes.But you will be able to stand strong through the storms of life.Let me even define standing strong.It does not mean that you are not affected by the storms of life.A Scripture I love to quote is the first part of
for the righteous falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of calamity.
The reason I like this verse is it is what your experience will be while your are on this journey called life.A storm will come and you may fall, meaning you may not react in the best way.It doesn’t necessarily mean you fall to some big sin although it could.It just means you didn’t react the best.Actually you didn’t display the fruit of the Spirit. love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control;But the key is you rise again. You don’t stay down or in that bad reaction. You recognize you didn’t do so well and start going again.Like perhaps this week when the new monetary system was revealed.Actually to be fair we should call it the new, new, new monetary policy. How many of you when you heard it maybe didn’t react in the best way?Made you felt like chaff for a bit?It did me. I fell, not to some big sin, but my fall was that for the afternoon I lost joy, peace and maybe a little kindness and self control. But I didn’t stay there very long, I just got up.I hope you did too.For me that’s Biblical standing strong. The wind blew, and momentarily I did too, but got out of the flesh and looked to God and got back up. Always the goal.Here is where we build in our study.If you did have a strong reaction to the new, new, new monetary policy and reacted in some less than “Fruit of the Spirit” wayWhat was it?Mine was that lack of peace and joy that comes from the Spirit.What was yours?Or if it wasn’t the money thing for you it could have been some other storm this week that took you from displaying the fruit of the Spirit.After all He is the proof that God is with you.What was that?Here’s the take home if you want to grow from that.I learned this from a message that I preached here 7 years ago.Once you don’t react the way you want, you see some bad behavior how do you deal with it?That message was called Deal with The Root not the Fruit.What we will learn today is way too often we focus on the bad fruit and not the root.I could focus on the discouragement I felt and try and self control it back but that’s dealing with the fruit not the root.The bad fruit shows you there is a root problem.We will learn about that and how to deal with it.The second part of our take home today will be to answer a big question that many ask when the storm blows:Where is God in all this? Why can’t I see God.Today’s take home will be:If you want the blessed and happy life, you will have to constantly be dealing with the root not the bad fruit that is causing you to be chaff and then you will see God.Deal with the root not the fruit and you will see God.We will see how and what that means.Let’s read
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.
Like all the Beatitudes the format is the same.Jesus tells that there is a person who is blessed, happy, fortunate, living life in a way that others would congratulate you for living well.Then at the end tells what makes them blessed, They shall see GodThat’s the blessing and then of course in the middle we are told how to get to that place of blessing.For today The best place to start is with the blessing itself. You shall see God.If we don’t get this right then it is possible that we could get a wrong expectation and be hoping for an apparition or something and that’s not the point that Jesus is making.Actually in a sense a lot of the people that Jesus was speaking to at this time probably wanted to see God appear to them.Remember these people that He was preaching to here were people that were first of all Jews and 2nd going through a very hard time.As Jews they had one huge hope, that God would come and rescue them from the bad situation they were in.That it would be like the time of Moses when they were slaves in Egypt, God came and miraculously rescued them and they hoped it would happen again.That’s what they wanted real bad.There is a reason they wanted this real bad and almost were at a point that they expected it.When they were slaves in Egypt we are told that they cried out to God for deliverance. They were in a bad way and were crying for help.One day Moses showed up and said God has heard your cries for help and He has come down to rescue you.It was not Moses but God rescuing them.At first they were all excited.Until things got worse.Then they quickly turned on Moses.Why? It’s because they didn’t see God in what was happening.They didn’t recognize that it was God that hardened Pharaoh’s heart.All they were focused on was that life was tough.And while God was doing an amazing work they never saw it.There are plenty of other stories in the Bible where we see the invisible God doing things but people didn’t see it.
Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.”
Then he came up and told his father and mother, “I saw one of the daughters of the Philistines at Timnah. Now get her for me as my wife.”
But his father and mother said to him, “Is there not a woman among the daughters of your relatives, or among all our people, that you must go to take a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?” But Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, for she is right in my eyes.”
His father and mother did not know that it was from the Lord, for he was seeking an opportunity against the Philistines. At that time the Philistines ruled over Israel.
You could also look at Deut and see where wars were of God in order to get them victory and train them for the futureand yet the people didn’t know it or see God’s hand in these things.Part of the blessing that Jesus is talking about is that we would start to see God in and through the circumstances of our life.Can you imagine what a difference that would make if you started to see God in your circumstances.We can even go deeper in this for you that want to learn something more here.When it talks about God here this is also God the Father.The way we know that is if you dig into the Greek language you will see that it says: ho theos. Meaning The God.It’s the same words that are in John 1 Where we are taught in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with Ho Theos or The God and the Word was God. A picture of the Father and Son.Why is that important?Because we are told nobody has ever seen God, meaning the Father.We have seen God in the Son.But Jesus is saying we can see and recognize the Work of The Father when we have a pure heart.We don’t see Him literally but we see and recognize His work.Which I love and find great comfort in.This week when I had my 1/2 day of flesh, quickly as I prayed and thought about it I saw God.Not God in the bond note, not God in the RTGS but I saw God was with me and that all is ok.Amazingly love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control all came back. Once again from Jesus, to people that are having a real hard time, He doesn’t say, “Let me tell you how to get God to make your trouble’s go away, He wants us to be able to see God in our trouble.”That is a real blessing.How do we get there?What is the path to get there? Like all of the rest they all have one to get to the blessing Jesus promises.This is where the problem with dealing with the fruit and not the root comes in.Many when we start following the Lord we truly want to please Him.For the most part when we accept Jesus as Lord and Savior we have the desire to want to please him and be right with Him.When we don’t we feel bad.Often where we get focused is on where we fail.It’s like, you got mad when you heard about the new, new, new monetary plan and said things you feel bad about.Or maybe you plummeted to despair and lost hope.Maybe you felt fear rise up and lost all of your peace.Maybe you went out and drank to wash away your pain.And because you are righteous and want to please God you realized that you fell but ready to get back up and going again.So you decide that I am going to make sure I don’t get mad again, lose hope, let fear take over or get drunk.Here is the issue. Those are the fruit and not the root.You can feel bad about those but that is not the problem.Jesus says LIKE ALWAYS, it’s the heart that has the problem.The heart is where the root problem is and what needs help.
For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.
These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.”
The root is the heart and Jesus said it needs to be pure.Which simply means unmixed.It doesn’t mean perfect it is unmixed and needs purifying.This is where the main application comes in.You can try all you want to keep dealing with the bad fruit, the anger, the fear, the discouragement etcand you will make progress but it will come back until you get your heart pure that’s where the root is.How does the heart get pure, how do we deal with root so that we have the right fruit and best of all become aware of God or get to see God?First I think you have to identify what has corrupted your heart, why is it not pure?Two places I usually look.#1 Who is on the throne of your life? Jesus or you. Who’s in control.If you are that is a problem and leads to all sorts of bad fruit.#2 What is ruling your heart? Is it faith in Jesus, He has my life under control or is it fear of your circumstances.Those are heart issues.That shows you need your heart purified.The only way that happens is through confession that you recognize there is a heart problem, a bad root.Then ask for help to change.Then recognize that Jesus died for that problem and can take care of it.It’s
The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.
As you do this then you have a pure heart and all of sudden you see God.You see Him working and His hand in control of your life. Stable, endurance.