The Summer in the Sermon - Counter Culture Life and Influance

OPENING Prayer–

Father we come to you this morning alive in Jesus. Alive in Him because of Your Grace, Because of your calling, because of your gift of faith that you give by the power of your Holy Spirit. Father you are calling and saving a people to your self to accomplish your will through them. That is us the church. The people you have called to your self for the purpose of declaring the Gospel of your Kingdom to the ends of the earth. Father you have called us to new life. Regenerated by the power of your holy spirit. The life you have called us to is different, counter cultural, transformed. Not a life that is based on principles and philosophies of this world but a life based on Jesus. Lead us besides the still waters and empower us to live this life that you Send Jesus to give us.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight today Father. I pray all of this In the mighty and holy and abundant Name of Jesus.  - and all God’s children said?

If I have not had a chance to meet you;

 My name is Scott and I am a follower of Jesus and have the privilege of serving Him as the Lead Pastor among the people of Stonewater Fellowship. 

If you have a copy of the Bible in either electronic version or the actual book kind -

Open it to Matt Chapter 5 and verses 3-16 as we continue our Summer in the Sermon series as we walk together thorough the Gospel of Matthew chapters 5 6 and 7 known as Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount.   Our prayer over this series is that based on the Sermon on the mount we would read and understand the Scriptures in a new and different way. That we would know the person of Jesus in a more intimate way and that the the very words of Jesus would provide a collision with our lives and the choices we make in such a way that we would be transformed into living differently as each week goes by.

SPEAK and WELCOME UNBELIEVERS – NON FOLLOWERS And THOSE who struggle in their faith –

Every week that I or someone comes and participates in worship through the declaration of God’s word our desire is that we acknowledge that all of us are in different places in our journey of faith of following Jesus. This morning I have this desire to say that I hope all of us are overwhelmed and in awe of God as he had ordained in His sovereign plan, that each of us are here, whether in person or on line. IT is NO accident that we are connecting together. Worshiping Jesus and hearing His word declared openly is an awesome thing for everyone to do even if your not really sure who Jesus is or what being His follower is all about or even if you have BIG questions about God and all this Jesus stuff. IF this is you man oh man are we are so glad we are connecting and this is a great Sunday for us t connect together.

Engagement –

The issue of Mental Health is an issue that effects all of Us. Be it depression or anxiety bi polar disorder or something much more serious such as schizophrenia or borderline personality or some other kind of mental health condition.

IT is really unsettling that the statistics of mental health issues are not improving but rather getting worse. Every year a Percentage of more Americans are effected and treated for mental health issues that the previous year.

In 2017 Research of over 600,000 people was published by the Journal of abnormal psychology and the statistics among young people under 25 years of age were alarming. Major depression had a 63% increase form 2005 to 2017

71% increase in major physiological distress.

with increases across the board of other Physiological disorders including alcohol, substance, and major issues such as bi-polar, Borderline personality and Schizophrenia are all on the rise but with lesser severity.

This is a serious problem for Sure - As a person whose life has been severely effected by mental health issues I do not wish in any way to subtract from the severity, the complexity, nor understate the suffering that we who have dealt with it, been effected by it, or care for those with it suffer, for the suffering is great.

TENSION

Today and we see the brokenness of humanity play itself out in both peaceful and violent ways, over racial issues that have not been truly solved for all people. We see this on every news source. Every Social Media site and personal video blogs and in every print media available today. We see people shouting in various ways “ this is the important issues that needs to be fixed” wile others are refusing to listen to the voices that are screaming and trowing red herrings out in the debate by saying “there are other issues in the world that are equally important scream about those first” and in reality those that counter the argument with these red herrings are simply saying to those in our culture who are truly dealing with the issues of racism “shut up”.

As we see this we can really think that the world has Gone crazy and these trends of mental illness are much more severe than they report.

The other question that I think is brought up by these events is “where is God in all of this? and “is the Gospel really transformative?” Let me just share the truth in this issue of Race - Historically in america - The church is currently and has been the most segregated institution in our country and has been since the origins of our country. This segregation is on both sides of every color.

We really are loosing our minds, we really are broken, We really are ill and in many ways mentally ill!

The question is really not where is God? rather “Does God have real and powerful answers to our brokenness, to our illness? NOT “does the Gospel change anything? Rather: What does a changed life by the Gospel actually look like?

With Those questions in Mind LET us look at our text!

TRUTH

Matthew 5:3–16 NASB95

3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. 5 “Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth. 6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. 7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. 8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. 9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. 10 “Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. 12 “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. 13 “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men. 14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; 15 nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. 16 “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

BACKGROUND

The Reality of the Gospel is that “We” as human beings in our natural state, the spiritual, physiological, mental, logical and emotional state that we are born with; Naturally desire and design for our selves a life that makes sense to us. It is a life of crazy, because is it formatted out out of the overflow of our broken relationship with our creator, It is a life that makes sense to us but ultimately it is a life that will end in death and eternal separation from God.

This is the design we see played out in our culture and all over the world. The real challenge is we don't even know what living the life God would have for us really looks like.

The Gospel is that God rescues out of this life and gives us a new life to live.

It bears repeating that Jesus is speaking to lots of people here in this “sermon” and we really need to imagine in our heads this more of a conversational style of Teaching rather than a lecture style. Imagine with me Jesus sitting up on a Rock and 70 to 100 other people sitting on the ground and there being this kind of back and forth, this question and answer kind of conversation from what these people could see is a powerful miracle worker and one who speaks with authority and one they are amazed at.

Matth 5: 3-12 are commonly referred to as “the beatitudes” meaning “blessings” or “Supreme Blessings”

Some people say these are “beautiful attitudes” that Jesus was talking about. Well here are some words you could substitute for “Beatitudes” - ecstasy, exaltation, supreme happiness, heavenly joy!

WHAT? ecstasy, exaltation, supreme happiness, heavenly joy!

IS it POSSIBLE that Jesus gives all of mankind a receipie for basic mental health?

Lets look - There are many way that theologians have attempted to look at the Beatitudes in and of them selves and we wont look at all of them but one way is particular important as it begins with the beginning of each beatitude.

Blessed - The 9 beatitudes all begin with the Promise of God - The declaration from Jesus the creator of all things - The one who has the name above all names - In one in whom the fullness of the God Head dwells. The one in who are all the treasures of all knowledge and wisdom.

All 9 Begin with The Promise - of the “Then” all 9 of these life giving declarations are “if then” statements and all of them begin with the “then”

Blessed -

What does blessed mean? Many people will tell you that Blessed simply means happy or filled with Joy - and that is true that the later use of the Greek word means Happy, Filled with joy, the most happy of men and the most joy. The reality is there are many things in this life ath can make us happy and joy filled.

There is also a deeper meaning than this to be found in ancient language of the Bible that separates this happiness and joy from all other forms of happiness and joy.

The Word Blessed in earlier Greek - Denotes a transcendent joy and happiness of life that goes beyond this life and the cares of this life, a happiness and joy that go beyond the labor and struggles of this life, A happiness that even goes beyond death. A joy and a happiness that are eternal!

The first 12 verses are the beatitudes - Definitions of hat an eternally happy and joy filled life look like -

Vs- 13-16 are the influence, the eternal influence a life lived with the maximum of happiness and joy, the impact with others around us -

Before we unpack and unwrap these verses - Let me just say that we must be reminded, that these are delineated to us from God - From His economy, from His way of thinking, from HIS path. We must be reminded that they are higher than ours ways and thoughts, that are His ways and His ways as far above ours as the heavens are from the earth different than ours.

To US this is life UPSIDE DOWN - THIS IS COUNTER CULTURE LIVING!

UNPACKING

VS3 Blessed are the Poor in Spirit for theirs IS the kingdom of Heaven!

Poor in Spirit - As the First Beatitude we must understand the importance of What it is saying to all people. - Eternally happy are those who are “poor in spirit” Eternally happy and unshakable is the Joy of those who know they need God, who know they in and of them selves can bring nothing into their own lives that us ultimately good. They are powerless to effectuate their own salvation. That their relationship with God is broken and the effects of this broken relationship over flows into every area of their life and they are in desperate need of being reconciled, redeemed, restored and recovered back into a right relationship with God and they live a life of repentance from the moment of being reconciled foreward - opening acknowledging the battle of the flesh and the spirit and constantly and continually turning all of life over to God in continual repentance. THis is the POOR in SPIIRIT!

THIS IS WHO Come to Jesus with Open hands and beg - Save me, wash me and make me clean for you are my hope, you are my strength, you are my rock and the horn of my salvation.

Charles Spurgeon - Known as the PRINCE of Preachers would preach a sermon and place before everyone the opportunity to respond to the Gospel, the Salvation of Jesus. If you were sensing the Call of God he would meet with you on Tuesday afternoon and ask three questions: Are you coming to Jesus as a poor man with nothing to offer, completely open handed and in full surrender? Are the appetites in your life changing, In other words do the things you used to like to do now not appealing to you any more? and DO you have a thirst for the Bible that seems like it cannot be satisfied? if the answer to any of these three questions was NO he would send you back to Sunday school to learn more.

This is poor in spirit - And the eternal promise is theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

VS4- Blessed are those who morn for they will be comforted.

This is not talking about morning the loss of a loved one or suffering the losses that this life will bring to us. This is talking about the morning over the brokenness of our world. Over the Rebellion that we struggle with in our own life. This is talking about the right and appropriate response to the actions of others as they live a life that makes sense to them but is a life of chaos that leads to death and separation from God -

This is about the appropriate response to our own struggles with the areas in our own life that are lived out in rebellion against God.

This is about grieving and morning for the things that grieves and causes God to morn and what ultimately sent Jesus to the Cross - This is about the grief and morning over SIN in our own life and others.

For those who are followers of Jesus - The ONLY response to sin and rebellion in this world is Grief and Sadness and Morning. NEVER ANGER and righteous indignation. IT IS ALWAYS Sadness, grief and morning and contriteness of heart as these are the things that God despises.

When we are grieving over the sin in our own life and in the world and we are morning the sadness and pain it brings to our life and the life of others, we will cry out to God in our grief and in our lament and God will comfort us with His assurance that He is on the throne in the heavens and His sovereignty rules over all.

V5 Blessed are the gentle for they will inherit the earth - This is the heart of Jesus - Gentle is the servant who never considered being equal with God but was obedient - This is the heart of Jesus as He declares that He is Gentle and humble in heart. Gentle not a bully not forcing your own way, not allowing God wo use His tools to transform others.

You see when we learn who this Gospel if truly for and that transformation is Grace plus Truth plus Time. We will understand how important Time really is and we will be gentle in our hearts and gentle with our lives and gentle and forgiving others as we have been forgiven.

V6 - Blessed are those who Hunger and thrust for Righteousness for they will be satisfied - There is a congruence in what these beatitudes are in line with the character and nature of Jesus and with the whole of the New Testament. This concurrency gives us what they are and what they are not when it comes to how do we understand them. This is not a hunger and thrust for moral legalism - This is not a hunger and thrust for moralism. Not in our life and especially not in the life of others.

We need to remember that the Apostle Paul in His letters would address this directly when He would say. There is NO one righteous no not one. All of our righteousness is like filthy rags. and that the struggle is real that we do not do what we ought to do but we continue to do what we should not be doing.

This is a hunger and thrust for the spring of life that will satisfy for all eternity. This is a hunger and thrust for the person of Jesus, for HE is the righteousness of GOD, and through His spirit to overwhelm us and constantly and continually conform us into His image.

Hunger and thrusting for Jesus will satisfy everyone who hungers and thrust for Him. Hungering and thrusting for moral legalism will leave us frustrated and angry.

V7 and as we hunger and thrust for the righteousness of God found in the person of Jesus and we are satisfied we realize the immense mercies of God that are ushered to us by the work of Jesus and we are merciful and receive mercy. When we realize the depth of our own broken ness that while were were enemies of God, Rebellious in every way , Sinners to the core, while this is us - Jesus died for us. When we realize the fullness of that, then we are merciful to those around us as we see evidence of the broken relationship with God overflowing into every area of life, and we receive mercy, and grace upon grace.

V8 and V9 - The pure in Heart and the peacemakers - Operating in this life with out malice or envy or strife or bitterness. Taking no offence no matter what the source or accusation. allowing NOTHING to take you off the ministry that God has given which is to engage all people into becoming multiplying followers of Jesus. Reconciles of God, used as His instruments to open the facts of being reconciled to God, being ambassadors of Christ because God uses Men to make His appeal, Crying out to those around you - I beg of you be reconciled to God today. Every person given the ministry of reconciliation of being the instruments God uses to reconcile people back to a right relationship with him - They shall see GOD - They shall be called the SONS of God.

VS 10 - Through 12 - You are supremely happy when you are persecuted for the Sake of the Righteousness of God, When people think your stupid, ignorant and irrational, and attempt to remove your voice from the public debate, and accuse you of all sorts of Evil that is not true of you. This is the struggle of Followers of Jesus. This is the persecution of the church, of those that have been called out of the darkness into His marvelous light to be used to build His kingdom. Your is the kingdom of God, as our reward in heaven is great.

How then do we collate these 9 conditions of Supreme divine happiness and eternal JOY?

Are these 9 Separate categories of life that Jesus is calling us to - some of whom are meek, while others are merciful and yet others are called upon to endure persecution.

Or are they the SUM of the new life that Jesus has called us into as His followers? Is this the representation of the heart of Jesus, and the result of our lives being conformed to HIS, Is this what the Apostle Paul would refer to as the Crucified life?

They are 9 qualities of the LIFE that jesus calls us to. Jesus calls His followers to be meek and merciful, poor in spirit and pure in heart, mourning and hungry, peacemakers and persecuted.

These are completely different than the gifts of the Spirit which He distributes to different people who follow Him in order to equip them for different kinds of service. The same Spirit of God, the power of the Holy Spirit works all these graces in us all.

There is no escape from our responsibility to strive for them all to define our life and to mark our way.

Jesus continues in the unwrapping of these eternally divine happiness and Joy when He says in

VS 13- 16

You are the Salt of the Earth, You are the Light of the World. Living with these Blessings… Living with these paradigms. of poor in spirit, morning over the brokenness of our humanity, in all gentleness of Jesus, Hungering and thrusting for Him in everyday, being merciful and living as ministers of Reconciliation to God with a pure heart, in the midst of insults, persecution, false accusation and the world constantly attempting to offend; the kingdom of heaven is ours, we are and will be comforted, the earth is ours as our inheritance as we will reign and rule with Christ, we are and will be satisfied, and receive mercy, seeing God, called His Sons, with and eternal reward that we will lay at the feet of Jesus eternally in worship - as such we are the world changers - You are the ones who effectuate movements that change the world and the culture around us by living life this way, they way Jesus calls us to live.

APPLICATION

This is the call to Holiness that Jesus calls His church to. AS we desire the Holiness of God to overwhelm us and over take us and change us We are the Salt and light. We are the world changers. When we reject the call to Holiness, when we make grace cheap and use it as a license to not be transformed and there for live under a false impression of what the Gospel is. Where we view our faith in the person and work of Jesus as simply a way to secure our seat in heaven in the after life and as such we take on the view and practice that we can live any way we desire with no worries.

This is the problem of our modern culture - The church at large has rejected the call to holiness in fear of being pharisees, or legalistic or hypocritical. Mainly because it has lost it poverty of Spirit. As such the church has lost its saltiness and the light of the Gospel has been diminished or in some cases extinguished all together.

Some of us this morning are responding to this message in one of two ways.

1 - That there is possibly a way of entering into heaven by being merciful or suffering or simply obedience to these paradigms that Jesus has laid out. IF that were the case I would have to totally dismiss the 1st beatitude and the whole of the new testament.

Our poverty of Spirit drives us to understand we are not capable of living this new life without the regeneration of the Holy Spirit as this is not a life lived by works but rather one by faith.

2 - The other is that Jesus has laid down a “new Law” some sort of “new for of 8 commandants”

Jesus is laying down the paradigms of the new life that He has come to give us looks like. In order for us to view this in the proper perspective of the use of the Law whether this set or the original 10. we need to understand How God uses the law in our life in total.

The Law of God, the 10 commandments or the sermon on the mount and especially the beatitudes reveal to us our own inadequacies, our own brokenness, how far away from God we really are, How desperate we are for the transformation that Jesus and Jesus only can bring into our lives. IT displays to us in clear and living color that we are incapable in and of our selves of being anything that is ultimately good into our lives and that disrepair, drives us to Jesus.

ONCE regenerated unto New Life and Once made alive to Jesus, Jesus points us Back to the Law, Back to the beatitudes to delay His character and Nature and points us back to the Law so we know what being conformed to His image looks like. The conforming of our life to the character and nature of Jesus is called our Sanctification.

The Law displays our depravity and points us to Jesus to be Justified by faith and Jesus points us back to the Law to do the work of Sanctification in our lives that He began and will bring to completion.

IMAGINE and INSPIRATION

Imagine with me the transformation in our lives and in our families and in our neighborhoods that would happen as we cried out to Jesus to conform us to HIM. That the transformative power of the Gospel through the Person and Work of Jesus would bring us to yearn for the Life of the beatitudes. Imagine the lives and the eternal impact that God would have in the life of others as He used us to be the Sale and the Light of the world. World changers, building His kingdom as His people, empowered by His spirit to accomplish His Mission all to the Glory of HIS name.

Pray with me now!

The GOSPEL

In the beginning when this entire thing called life got started, many years ago, God created all things and He created man in His own image. God and man were in perfect relationship with one another. God gave man one boundary that they should not eat the fruit of a particular tree. But man looked at the fruit and saw that it looked like it would taste good and was told that it would make man like God. The instructions from God started to not make sense to the man and he made a choice independent of God to begin to live a life that made sense to man and took a bite of the fruit of the tree. In doing this he rebelled against God. When he rebelled against God his relationship with God was broken and with this rebellion came death. The Bible calls this rebellion sin.

Each one of us is born into this same broken state. Because of this we naturally rebel against God and because of our own rebellion against God we are broken and our relationship with God is broken. This brokenness overflows into every area of our life. This brokenness has broken our ability to have a relationship with God: our ability to have a healthy relationship with each other is broken. Our ability to have a healthy relationship with the created world around us is broken; Even our ability to have a healthy relationship with ourselves is broken. Because we all are naturally in rebellion against God, everything and everyone is broken and in desperate need of having this brokenness repaired and put back into right relationship with God our creator. The Only one capable of repairing this degree of Brokenness is God.

The Gospel, the Good news is that God is putting all things back into right relationship with Himself through the person and work of Jesus Christ. God restores people back into a right relationship with Himself by calling all men to faith and He restores, recovers, redeems and reconciles back into right relationship with HIM, those people who turn their whole life to Him in a living faith. Faith in what? Faith in the historical facts that God, in His loving kindness, provided all of mankind an open door of being back into right relationship with Him by taking on flesh and dwelling among us as a man named Jesus. Jesus, who was fully God and fully man, lived a morally perfect life, never rebelling against God, as a completely innocent person freely accepted the sentence of death on a roman cross. Faith in the fact that when Jesus’s blood was being poured out on the cross and He died; Faith that He, as God, paid the price for our rebellion and satisfied the Wrath of God and in doing so all of our sin and rebellion against God is completely forgiven. Faith in the historical event that three days after His death God raised Jesus from the dead by the same power that created all things and in those two acts of dying and being raised from the dead, Jesus defeated Sin and Death once and forever for all for those who believe.