#blessed beyond measure #1

Northside Christian Church 10/25/2020

Blessed Beyond Measure #1 Jamey Mills

It’s good to be with you all this evening, my name is Jamey Mills and I am the lead pastor here at Northside.

Illustration: Hardest time

Several years ago I came to the conclusion that I was unhealthy. In fact, I am still not where I need to be. I weighed in at just under 250 pounds… I couldn’t keep up with my kids… and in my attempts to get healthy I took up mountain biking. It sort of combines a ton of things I love with one thing I hate… working out.

I’ve had two good crashes… one was not all that long ago, got my first concussion and sprained my neck.

The other was a while ago, I was with a kid from the youth group and we were going pretty fast. I was coming up to a steep corner and realized he was going to try and pass me which… wasn't going to happen.

As I rounded the corner, i sort of looked back just to make sure, and as I looked forward I saw the trail right in front of me had washed out… so, I tried to jump it. My back tire came up short and it ended up popping up over my head… it was crazy because it was like everything was in slow motion… I tried to pick a good place to go down, but there wasn't one. I threw my bike and ended up landing on a tree that had blown down beside the trail… and that’s about all I remember.

A few seconds later I woke up and the kid was standing above me crying… he said I thought you were dead… And I did one of those systems checks right… It hurt… but I could move my toes and fingers which meant we could ride… I got up… fixed my bike… and started out when I noticed a large amount of blood running down my leg… the screen from my bike computer broke off and slid under my skin.

Turns out, biking goes better when you stay on the wheels or at least wheel side down. I’d write that down… its gold.

Broken ribs, a tree limb in my back, and a nasty gash on my leg… a crash like that they call a yard sale… because your stuff ends up everywhere and it literally looks like a yard sale.

And sometimes like feels that way… our not so great moments, circumstances, our own mistakes, bad choices, chasing the wrong things… even watching those we love make bad choices… sometimes our lives feel like a yard sale.

Last week I mentioned how the brokenness in me, in us, and in the world around us is one of those things that is constantly heavy on my heart… has been for a long time. I told you sometimes it’s hard for me to understand how more people don’t come to this place of saying… you know, I’ve had enough… I’m done with this vicious cycle of captivity and brokenness that sin creates in me… I’m tired of the distrust that lying creates, captivity addiction and lust brings, I’m tired of living angry, I’m tired of the broken relationship that gossip brings or the loneliness that selfish living creates.

Today we are starting a new sermon series called #blessed beyond measure…

Looking at the first part of the most influential sermon ever preached… the sermon on the mount… and in it Jesus speaks life changing truth into the perpetual brokenness that comes from turning our back on God… and going our own way.

Before we dive in, lets look at this…

Psalm 14:1–3 (NLT)

1 Only fools say in their hearts,

There is no God.” They are corrupt, and their actions are evil;

not one of them does good!

2 The LORD looks down from heaven

on the entire human race; he looks to see if anyone is truly wise,

if anyone seeks God.

3 But no, all have turned away; all have become corrupt.

No one does good, not a single one!

This was written by David… one of the King’s of God’s people… Who God Himself said was a man after His own heart.

David said… that God searched for anyone that was truly wise… for anyone that honestly sought Him… and found no one. That even among His people… they were chasing their own things, making their own way… throwing aside their identity as His people… and sort of creating their own… Brokenness was the rule of the day

Just a few verses later… David says this.

Psalm 14:7 (NLT)

7 Who will come from Mount Zion to rescue Israel?

When the LORD restores his people,

Jacob will shout with joy, and Israel will rejoice.

That despite their choice to wander… there would be a day… that the Lord rescuers and restores His people… and in that day everyone who read what David wrote knew exactly what He meant… The long awaited Messiah… the one the Old testament predicts and points too would come… and restore His people…

In the first few chapters of Matthew, you read about Jesus’ genealogy, His birth, His baptism, and the beginning of His ministry… and we realize that Jesus was doing incredible things… he was teaching and healing people… Jesus found Himself in this sweet spot… some had seen and believed, others had heard and were curious, and others still (religious leaders) had heard and seen and were furious, but something must have been happening because everyone wanted to listen.

People were coming out to see and hear Jesus for themselves… and it says Jesus took them up on a Hill…(Show picture from Danna)… and he sat down and began to teach…

Jesus started with several simple phrases that start like this… Blessed are those…

And right away, we realize we need to understand what this word blessed means if we are going to understand any of it.

One author said it like this… I want you to go ahead and pull up everything you know about the word blessed… Got it… now throw it out.

I decided to do a search on #blessed and the way we use it… It tends to revolve around comfort, money, or circumstance. We are #blessed if we get a promotion, if we buy a new car, if we have a good hair day, if we have a good workout, if we meet someone new, if our kids do better than other kids…

And most of these things aren’t necessarily back, heck no one knows the importance of a good hair day more than me, but Jesus' point is… they are counterfeit. That is not what it means to be blessed.

The Greek word is Makarios… and it

Blessed literally means fortunate, joy filled.

In Greek culture it was often a word reserved for the gods… It was the kind of fortune that was beyond the grasp of humanity… beyond worry, hate, money, sorry, loneliness, death, and disease… things that the gods didn't have to worry about so they were #blessed.

When Jesus used that word, he used it on purpose. He was saying this contentment that you all thought was beyond you reach… is not only possible… it’s at your fingertips… it’s not some far off future things… it here.

And in these things, Jesus isn’t telling us how to act better… how to earn God’s blessing, but He is telling us where a blessed life is found.

#Blessed is a sense of overwhelming peace and contentment that is untouchable by others or circumstance that is impossible to find in and of ourselves... meaning… we can’t produce it or provide it for ourselves.

NT Wright calls it a supernatural contentedness based on being right with God.

Pursuing these things lead to true peace and deep contentment here and now… They are attitudes that God desires us to have if we are serious about following Him. By His design it's what leads us to being #blessed beyond measure.

Often you will hear it referenced as an upside down kingdom… for us being blessed often comes in being noticed, in having money, in being talented, in having hair… It’s just not the picture Jesus presents… in fact… it literally sounds like the opposite, so much so that many refer to it as an upside down Kingdom…

THE BLESSINGS OF GOD are not found when we often look.

Prov 14:12 says there is a way that seems right to people that ends in death.

1 Cor 1:18 says the message of Jesus and the cross is foolishness to those living outside of it.

What Jesus is saying is hard for the world to understand based on the values it embraces.

said it like this…

“It’s a mistake to think external things can fill internal holes in our lives. Physical things could never satisfy spiritual needs”. -John McAurthor

He quoted the Roman philosopher Seneca who said… you cannot meet a rational personal need with an irrational impersonal object…

Here are the first words Jesus spoke to the crowd that day...

Matthew 5:3 (ESV)

3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Untouchable contentment belongs to the poor in spirit… this isn’t talking about poverty in the financial or physical sense…

Being poor in spirit has to do with understanding your desperate need for God… for His intervention and His redemption… that we are literally helpless… ship wrecked on our own.

In Luke 18… Jesus told the story of the religious leader and a tax collector… one a person of respect the other the scourge of the earth… and upon walking into the temple… the religious leader prayed… THANK GOD I am better than everyone else… I don’t lie, cheat or sin…. And I do good things.

And the tax collector… realizing the truth about himself… looked up and in deep sorrow (being poor in spirit) beat his chest and cried out for God’s mercy and Jesus says he’s the one that went away right with God.

The poor in spirit are those who consciously realize their need and dependence on God.

… who are honestly and authentically seeking God… to be right with God realizing that it’s nothing they can produce or provide on their own.

It’s being honest with God… and honest with ourselves… that when David was talking about corruption… and God saying that people were far from God… and when Paul said that every single person is a sinner that falls short of God’s standard… he is talking to you… and to me. We are sinners in need of a savior…

Being poor in spirit is realizing your need for Jesus.

When was the last time you approached God like that? Being poor in spirit is not a woe is me kind of thing… it’s not about guilt and shame, it’s about acknowledging a reality… acknowledging a real and desperate need in our life.

When someone is drowning… fighting for their life… at some point they realize without help… this won’t end well and when someone throws them a life line, they don’t deny the need out of guilt and shame… but they grab it… and they cling to it like their live depends on it… because… their live depends on it.

The poor in spirit are those who realize their need for Jesus like that… Really… it's humility. Its realizing all we aren’t in light of all that God is…

Jesus says blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of God…

The blessing that comes with seeing our deep need for Jesus is the Kingdom of God…

And that phrase has to do with God’s sovereignty…. His being bigger than and above all things. So, part of the blessing is seeing Him more clearly… and in the right way. God… becomes God in our eyes.

The Kingdom of God as to do with Gods sovereignty, rule, and reign.

It also has to do with His rightful rule and reign… in you. We see Him correctly and experience or align with Him in the right way.

Jesus is saying… those who are willing fully embrace their deep need for God are the ones who will find Him. They are the ones that will experience the contentedness that comes from truly seeing and knowing Him, His rule and reign in us… and in doing so… Finding real life and real freedom.

It reminds me of this passage…

Deuteronomy 4 talks about a time when God’s people would turn from Him and it would get bad…

But in vs. 29 it says this…

But from there you will search again for the LORD your God. And if you search for him with all your heart and soul, you will find him.

Despite the yard sale we often make of life… God says if we are truly poor in spirit… if we realize deeply our depravity and helplessness… that there is nothing we can produce or provide within ourselves… and if we truly seek God with all of our heart…

What does he say will happen?

You will find Him.

God is not hiding… but oftentimes in the midst of our yard sale He is just very hard to see.

King David… had it all. He was a king… he had servants, armies, castles, gold… literally anything he wanted was at his fingertips. He learned the hard way the idle hands make for poor decisions… From His rood he saw a woman… and as King he was irresistible… she got pregnant. To fix it he put her husband on the front lines of their current war and told the generals to pull the rest of the army back… basically David put Uriah to death. You can read about it in 2 Samuel 11-12… and it's actually far worse than I made it sound… David is deceitful and Uriah was a man of high integrity…

Early I mentioned… he was known as a man after God’s own heart… how can that be? God confronted David… through his conscious and through others… as King David could have made it all go away… but instead… He broke. He cried out to God… He acknowledged his deep need for God…

David wasn’t a man after God’s own heart because he did everything right… but because he was literally a man after the heart of God… He was poor in spirit. He wrote the vast majority of the Psalms and you’d be hard pressed to find anyone then or now… that saw their need for God more than David.

Blessed are those who know and realize their depravity and helplessness; who see the reality of their deep need for God because they will find and follow Him. They will experience His rule and reign in their lives and the contentedness that is only found there.

Invite Matt and team back up.

Today I want to invite you to participate in communion it's a time where we pause to reflect on and remember God’s response to our deepest need.

Romans 5:8 says… that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Even in the midst of our need… of our yard sale… while we were living as enemies to the cause and cross of Christ, He did for us. It's the ultimate life line to a world that is drowning the brokenness that sin creates.

That is what Jesus accomplished on the cross and that is why we take the bread and the juice and reflect on Him… His amazing grace… that saves people like you and I.

Once far from God… but in Christ we have been brought close.

Pray