Matthew 5:6-12 Who Are You Going to Be?

Intro

Elder Installation

Today we are going to install two new Elders

Elders are overseers of the church

We form a board that oversees the financials, staffing, ministries, and facilities

For the last two years we have had four elders: Dave Morse, Ed Almanza, Butch Hilliard, and myself

Ed is stepping off of the Board because He and his family will be moving to Tennesse in March

We thank him for his years of service

What do we look for and how do we elect Elders?

First, we look at the Biblical qualifications found 1 Tim 3 & Titus 1

Then we look for men who are already doing the work of an Elder without the title

That means they are participating, serving, leading, and teaching in the ministries of the church

We have two men who more than fit that description

I want to ask Mike Smith and his wife Jennifer to come up

I want to ask Jason Byard and his wife Sandra to join them

Mike has lead our men’s ministry for several years, fills the pulpit for me when I am gone, helped do deacon stuff when we were under the tent, and is a regular at our Midweek study

Jason has been a leader in our D-group ministry, teaches our youth Sunday School class, led our Season of Hope Xmas campaign, helped in several other areas

They are here to serve the church

Pray for the Building

We have an exciting opportunity

Three months ago Cindy Eisen called me and expressed that God had put a property on her heart for the church to buy

In that process God had given her this vision of what the property could be

Being a realtor she also found out the property might be going on the market

She called me and asked if she should pursue it

As she pursued it she found out that the organization that owned it had just leased it out to a church and weren’t interested in selling

Something in her told her not to stop and I told her to go after it

She went by the property at all different times trying to find someone there

She finally was able to talk to a cleaning lady, who gave her the names of two pastors and contacted them

Through that she got the contact info for the organization that owned the building

She called them every week, only leaving messages and getting excuses that the guy who made the decisions wasn’t in

Finally, this week she got an very short email that said, “Hi Cindy. Please have your church submit an offer.”

On Tuesday we are going to submit an offer for the Mission Hills Baptist church

There is no guarantee and we are trying hard not to get our hopes up, but we are asking you to pray with us for the next week that God will give us favor as we submit the offer and they consider it

Read Matthew 5:6-12

Transition

We started our Sermon on the Mount series

A disciples guide to live like Jesus

Fittingly we started with the Beatitudes which look at the attitude a disciple should possess

The first three are foundational to a disciples success: Humility, brokenness over sin, and meekness

Last week I left off talking about meekness

I said I would finish it this week because it rolls into the 4th beatitude

Meekness is not a personality trait

The meek personality suffers indignities without complaint, always aims to please, and never asserts itself

For Jesus, meekness is a character trait, not a disposition

It is the opposite of ambition and envy

It is gentle, humble, unassuming

The mark of meekness is not the absence of assertiveness. It is the absence of self-assertion

Successful and forceful people must learn how to use their strength for others, not themselves.

If we love the Gospel, if we know our spiritual poverty and sin, we know that we have no right to exalt ourselves

The forceful person is still meek if he uses his powers for God and neighbor

You need to understand this to understand the next Beatitudes

The next 5 beatitudes ask “Who are You going to be?

Be Hungry vs. 6

Now we start to build on the strong foundation

These ask the question, “Who are you going to be?”

The first one we look at targets our ambition

It has to do with ambition—ambition of the right sort—whose object is to honor, obey, and glorify God by partaking of His righteousness.

This holy ambition is in great contrast to the common ambitions of men to gratify their own lusts, accomplish their own goals, and satisfy their own egos

Jesus declares that the deepest desire of every person ought to be to hunger and thirst for righteousness.

This beatitude speaks of strong desire, of driving pursuit, of a passionate force inside the soul.

Jesus wants his disciples primary ambition to be for His righteousness

That is the Spirit-prompted desire that will lead a person to salvation and keep him strong and faithful once he is in the kingdom.

It is also the only ambition that, when fulfilled, brings enduring happiness

It doesn’t mean that we can’t be ambitious in other areas but this need to be the primary

Here is the paradox

Happy are the Hungry

A starving person has a single, all-consuming passion for food and water.

Nothing else has the slightest attraction or appeal; nothing else can even get his attention

The heart of every person in the world was created with a sense of inner emptiness and need.

Yet apart from God’s revelation men do not recognize what the need is or know what will satisfy it.

Though God has created men with a need for Himself, they try to satisfy that need through lifeless gods of their own making.

Again like the prodigal son, men are prone to take good things God has given—such as possessions, health, freedom, opportunities, and knowledge—and spend them on pleasure, power, popularity, fame, and every other form of self-satisfaction.

But unlike the prodigal, they are often content to stay in the far country, away from God and away from His blessings.

If you seek the things of the Lord first He will address the other areas

Matthew 6:33 ESV

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Jewish people understood that God would also satisfy his people’s needs in the future kingdom, as he had supplied for them in the exodus when he first redeemed them

Be Hungry for the righteousness of the Lord

Be Merciful vs. 7

The fifth Beatitude is to be Merciful

The first four beatitudes deal entirely with inner principles, principles of the heart and mind.

They are concerned with the way we see ourselves before God. The last four are outward manifestations of those attitudes.

Mercy and compassion denote care, concern, and empathetic feeling for another person.

In the Bible, mercy and compassion are most perfectly demonstrated and characterized by God’s own merciful and loving care for his people, and in particular by the gift of mercy through Jesus Christ.

We are in need of God’s mercy everyday

Fortunately, His mercy renews each morning

Lamentations 3:22–23 (ESV)

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

Because we receive that mercy we need to show it to others

Matthew 18:33 ESV

And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’

When we recognize our spiritual poverty, our weakness and sin, we see the weakness and sin of others differently

When we extend mercy we receive it ourselves

The benefit from showing mercy is that it makes us happy

Happy are the Merciful

Mercy is a gift to mankind, yet a demand from God

Luke 6:36 ESV

Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.

It covers those who have been marginalized by society

It covers those who are bankrupt by their sin

Those lost and hurting

Let us ask, when we see the needy How can I give?

Hebrews 6:10 ESV

For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do.

Be Holy vs. 8

To be pure in heart means to live without compromise

Psalm 24:4 ESV

He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully.

Purity of heart has two senses in Scripture

First, it is that inner moral holiness that is the opposite if external piety

Second, purity can mean simplicity and freedom from double-mindedness

Jesus promotes both

He expects our inner purity to match our external

He expects our motives to be pure

Here is the paradox

Happy are the Holy

You can be happy because your heart is free from the burden of sin

2 Timothy 2:22 ESV

So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.

The second and sixth beatitude form a pair with the second one

The disciple who mourns over sin will desire to be pure in heart

When you are pure in heart it directly affects how you treat others

Our motivation in dealing with others should be out of pure motives

Be a Peacemaker vs. 9

The seventh beatitude is Be a peacemaker

Scripture contains four hundred direct references to peace, and many more indirect ones.

The Bible opens with peace in the Garden of Eden and closes with peace in eternity.

There is no peace now for two reasons: the opposition of Satan and the disobedience of man.

The fall of the angels and the fall of man established a world without peace.

Satan and man are engaged with the God of peace in a battle for sovereignty.

In 1968 a major newspaper reported that there had been to that date 14,553 known wars since thirty-six years before Christ.

Since 1945 there have been some seventy or so wars and nearly two hundred internationally significant outbreaks of violence.

Few people would claim that the world or any significant part of it is more peaceful now than a hundred years ago.

We do not have economic peace, religious peace, racial peace, social peace, family peace, or personal peace.

There seems to be no end of marches, sit-ins, rallies, protests, demonstrations, riots, and wars.

The seventh beatitude calls God’s people to be peacemakers.

He has called us to a special mission to help restore the peace lost at the Fall

God’s way to peace is through purity.

Peace cannot be attained at the expense of righteousness.

Two people cannot be at peace until they recognize and resolve the wrong attitudes and actions that caused the conflict between them, and then bring themselves to God for cleansing.

Peace that ignores the cleansing that brings purity is not God’s peace.

Romans 12:18 ESV

If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

Peace is more than absence of conflict. It is maturity and well-being.

Here is the paradox

Happy are the Peacemakers

Jesus promises a blessing to those who are peacemakers

James 3:18 ESV

And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

Our mission as peacemakers isn’t to make two sides get along, but bring the truth of God’s word to show them that they need mercy

Happy are the Harassed vs. 10-12

Rejoice in rejection

Most Jewish people did not believe that prophets still existed in the Old Testament sense, so Jesus’ comparing his followers to the prophets indicated that they would have an extraordinary mission.

Here is the final paradox

Happy are the Harassed

1 Peter 4:14 ESV

If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.