Counter-Culture Christainity

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INTRODUCTION

This morning we are going to begin studying the Sermon on the Mount. This is one of the most famous sermons of Jesus that was recorded in the gospels. There have been many books written on it and many opinions formed about what it means for us today.

The reason it receives so much attention is because what Jesus teaches is so counter to our culture and our human nature that we have a hard time accepting it. This is why we are calling this message today, “Counter-Culture Christianity”

God’s people are called to be set apart from this world. This is why John the Baptist preached “repent” from our way of life. And that means to be counter-culture people who do not conform to the modern culture that we live in. And so what we will read today is not a radical form of Christianity, but what our lives should look like under the rule of God.

The Beatitudes describe what the Christian Life Looks Like

Matthew 5:1–2 NASB95

When Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain; and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him. He opened His mouth and began to teach them, saying,

Notice that Jesus went up on a mountain and began to teach His disciples after He has broken away from the crowds.

This instruction was meant to be for the disciples only.

Do you know why?

Because the crowds could not understand it and could not follow it even if they tried.

1 Cor 2:14 “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.”

This scene parallels Moses going up on Mt. Sinai.

Here we have the Son of God giving instruction to His new followers

There we had God giving Moses the 10 commandments to show them how to live.

Heres the point: Jesus expects us to live this way

These are not ridiculous requests

These are standards for the Christian life

Some people believe these things are just unattainable in this lifetime

And they are correct, these cannot be lived out by every person who reads them.

But they can be lived by those who have experienced the new birth and began to live a new life.

The word “teach” means “to provide instruction”. This was the way Jesus expected His disciples to live. This instruction was not for listening purposes only but expected to be carried out in their lives.

And He also expects us to live these out as well. These are not for our viewing pleasure, but for our digestion. To be put into action! Do not be hearers of the Word only, but be doers of the Word! And we are to be doers of these words!

Here is what we like to do. We like to pick and choose which ones fit us. We say I have humility and I thirst for righteousness so I‘m doing pretty good!

These are not eight separate and distinct groups of disciples, some of whom are meek, while others are merciful and yet others are called upon to endure persecution. They are eight qualities of the same group of people who have experienced the new broth in Christ.

If you were to extract the DNA of a ChristIan, these 8 characteristics would define that person. These are the standards for Christain righteousness; not what we hope to become, but of what we already are.

Think about the fruit of the Spirit which Paul explains flows out of our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These eight beatitudes describe the way these ideal for every citizen of God’s kingdom.

Unlike the gifts of the Spirit which he distributes to different members of Christ’s body in order to equip them for different kinds of service, the same Spirit is concerned to work all these Christian graces in us all. There is no escape from our responsibility to covet them all

There is a close relationship between our happiness and holiness

Notice what begins each verse word in these 9 beatitudes: ‘“Blessed”.

The word in Greek is makarios and it means happy, fortunate, privileged.

The word means to experience divine favor upon your life.

To be blessed means to enjoy favorable circumstances

We look a these as a list of difficult rules, but we ought to be looking at the pathway to blessedness

The man who experiences divine favor is not spiritually arrogant

The man who is privileged is gently, and humble

The man who experiences God’s blessings in his life is merciful and a peacemaker

Tied to every quality is the promise of blessing and happiness

The most miserable man in the world is not a lost man, it is a saved man living out of fellowship with God

It’s one who completely ignores these beatitudes and lives life like the rest of the world

It’s someone who believes that these beatitudes are not for us and never even attempt to live them out.

Instead of having mercy they retaliate or hold grudges

Instead of being poor in spirit, they do not think they need God

Instead of practicing humility, they are prideful

If we are not living holy lives, our quality of life will be greatly affected

The current state that we live each and every day will be misery

The way that we live greatly affects our state of joy.

Now lets go over each one and talk about them briefly. We are not going to study these in depth, but I would highly recommend that each of you do. They will bless your life, and they will give you life.

Matthew 5:3-12 “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 gentle (meek humble), 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 have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

Those who are poor in spirit: means to understand our desperate need of God

We are all sinners, under the wrath of God, and deserving nothing but the judgment of God. We have nothing to offer, nothing to plead, no way to buy ourselves into heaven.

Listen to what Jesus said to the church in Laodicea, “You say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing; not knowing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.” (Rev. 3:17).

Do you know what His rebuke was of this church? It was Lukewarm. Like a hot bath that sat empty for about an hour and wasn’t yet cold, but was no longer burning hot.

Don’t let your flames burn down for the Lord Jesus. We must never forget how hopeless we are without Him, and that we need Him like the ground needs the rain.

Those who mourn: This brings blessing because it shows contrition for sin

2 Cor. 7:10 “For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death.”

It is one thing to be spiritually poor and acknowledge it; it is another to grieve and to mourn over it.

When we come to the place where our sins produce grief and mourning we are living a blessed life. To grieve over sin is not in fear the consequences of sin, but because we know we have sinned against God.

There is something else I think this verse means: It means we should weep over the sins of the world. Jesus wept over the sins of the world and hardness of their hearts. It should bring sorrow into our hearts when we see those around us who do not see their need of God.

Some Christians seem to think that the Christian life is to be all joy and happiness and in fact it is not. Living the Christian life is living in a lost world, with a sinful nature, and having our ultimate hope in eternity.

Gentleness (meekness, Humility): This is to have an accurate view of ourselves

It means to realize that we are not as wonderful as we think we are! It means that we are not overly impressed by our own self-importance especially in respect to others … and towards God.

What this look like? It comes out as habitually put others above ourselves, to take the lesser seats when we enter a gathering place. It means to let other people elevate us, rather than elevating ourselves.

The opposite of this is pride. Pride is a dangerous thing because it is often undetected by us until it is too late. It is like a poison that rots the bones from the inside out and by time we realize its hold on us it is too late.

I have a solution. Pray for humility. Pray for God to humble you if you have a pride problem. In my experience, God is the master of taking a prideful man down to a humble man that he can use.

To hunger and thirst for righteousness is to have a passionate concern for doing what is right

It is our highest priority in this journey through life to do what is right. Jesus tells us to, “seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” It means we put God’s will first in our lives over our own wills.

Notice the promise, we will be filled. Do you know what we are all longing for? To be filled. We want satisfaction. We want to be happy and to enjoy our lives and so many of us are lookin gin the wrong places. We look to the pleasures of the world. We look to materialism. And Jesus said, “look to God”.

When your food is to do God’s will, you will be filled!

To be merciful means to have a concern and compassion for others

Mercy is to be reciprocal in our lives. Because our our sins, we deserve judgement. But God demonstrated love towards us by showing us mercy and offering us salvation. Since we recieved mercy, we must also show mercy to others around us.

This means that the people that we dislike should receive mercy from us. This means that our kids should be recipients of our mercy. And mercy should be a part of who we are as believers because it models to the world what Jesus did for us.

Those with a pure in heart are those who have an undivided loyalty towards God

This is is having a desire to obey Him, to please Him, which comes from a genuine love of Him. Jesus said “if you love Me, keep my commandments”. We show love to God by keeping His commandments, by walking in obedience to His Word, and treating Him as Lord.

What is the greatest command? It is to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, and mind.

We talked about sanctification the other night in our Book study. This is the progressive growth in holiness and that is what this verse is talking about.

Peacemakers are those who work to keep peace

We all know what a peacemaker is. It is someone who strives top keep peace. This seems to be a rare thing in our world today because mankind loves strife. But we must all become peacemakers, even if you are right and the other person is wrong.

Satan has an agenda to conquer and divide. And he does this by stealing away peace and bringing division.

Be the first one to ask forgiveness. Be the one who takes the effort to make things right and do it quickly. These are characteristics of a peacemaker.

The persecuted are blessed because it is tangible “proof” that we are pursuing the will of God

Throughout the history of Scripture, Gods’ people have been persecuted by this world. The prophets of the OT were persecuted and many of them killed, the disciples were persecuted and killed, and Jesus Himself was persecuted and killed. To identify with Jesus and live like Jesus is to experience persecution like Jesus did.

This does not mean that we should go looking for trouble...no we are called to be peacemakers. Each day will have enough trouble of its own…you wont have to go looking for it if you are doing what God wants you to do.

Think about this: Why would Satan attack someone who was not living for God? They are doing exactly what he wants them to do! But you take someone who is living for God, or who is trying to live for God, and he is going to to try to tear them into pieces.

Persecution for righteousness sake is fruit of our walk with Christ and is a good thing!

Now this sermon is titled “Counter-Culture Christianity”. Lets look at these beatitudes and see if we can see why they are counter-culture.

Jesus says it is good to be poor in spirit - the world says we should be proud of who we are

Jesus said blessed are those who mourn - the world says something must be wrong if you mourn

Jesus said be humble and inherit the earth - the world says be mighty and take control all that you can

Jesus said hunger and thirst for righteousness - the world says get all the stuff you can and then you will be satisfied

Jesus said blessed are the merciful - the world says get revenge and do not let anyone get over you

Jesus said blessed are the pure in heart - the world says the good life is defiling your heart

Jesus said blessed are the peacemakers - the world says divide and conquer

Jesus said blessed are those who are persecuted - the world says persecute those who disagree with you

JESUS SAID BE COUNTER - CULTURE

It’s only when we live out these Beatitudes that we become the salt and light of the earth

Matt 5:13-16 “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. “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; 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. “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.”

How can we be salt? Be going against the grain of this world! They cannot see Christianity if we live just like them! We cannot be salt if we persecute, cause divisions, live with a divided heart, live in disobedience to God! You will salt this world when you live these out!

How can we be light? Light illuminates the path that we walk on. When we live these out we shine the light for others to follow. What we are doing is shining light that leads others to God.

Question

Which of these characteristics do you struggle with? (If you need help ask your spouse)

Will you commit to pray that God will change this about you?

Are you living these out? Do you believe Jesus taught these to be lived out? If so will you repent of ways you have fallen short and put in the effort to practice these?

Are you living the blessed life? If not, are you living out these beatitudes? If you want that joy back in your life, commit to living counter-culture Christianity!

~PRAYER~