Seeing Jesus: The Beatitudes

I love, I know how Bob's doing on a Sunday morning. The rest of you, big mystery, that's okay. I'm sure I'll find out later. Well, okay, we are going into the Sermon on the Mount. We've been in the Sermon on the Mount. This is week two, right? We've been picking back up in our series called Seeing Jesus in the Book of Matthew, in Matthew, Seeing Jesus in Matthew.

And we've been focusing on this gospel. We've gone all the way through up to chapter five, and then we hit chapter five, and just the way the narrative works is, you know, it kind of sets up Jesus's backstory story. And then chapter five, Jesus finally, like he's beginning his public ministry and we're getting a glimpse of what it looks like. And at this point, Jesus has gotten kind of famous overnight. People are coming from all over the place, from within Israel, from outside of Israel.

They're bringing people, he's healing them. And he's telling them about the kingdom of God. That's his message, this blaring message. He's telling about the kingdom of God, which is at hand as a result of him being there. And so he's going out and here we have in the Sermon on the Mount, this first and definitive, complete sermon that Jesus gives.

And we read the whole thing last week, right? And we've been thinking about the Sermon on the Mount because it's been a compelling thing throughout church history for Christians to read the Sermon on the Mount. It's also been a little bit of a complicated thing throughout church history because, number one, the sermon is itself structurally—there's a lot going on here—and there's a lot of people who don't really know what to do with the Sermon on the Mount.

And so as we dive in, that's my hope, is that we could get a sense of what Jesus is talking about, that it could become less of a mystery and actually become more clear, because I think it really matters. Throughout church history, and particularly in the early church, everyone, pretty consistently, early Christians, look to the Sermon on the Mount as being the definitive presentation of Jesus's message. And I honestly don't think we spend enough time in the Sermon on the Mount.

We don't pay enough attention to it. So that's what I want us to do this morning. Just pay attention. So we're going to dive right in, right into the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount and probably the part that's most recognizable. I bet you have heard these words before. So here they are. 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, 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.

So Jesus' first words here as he's gone up to the mountain, just like Moses did to present his definitive argument or presentation about what he thinks is true and right and good, like his definitive sermon begins in this really unexpected way. It's unexpected by way of contrast, right? And we talked about this last week, that little phrase went up to the mountain is really distinct.

It's exactly the phrasing of how Moses's journey up the mountain where he receives the 10 commandments and then brings those down to the people of Israel. It's the exact same phrasing, right? And so it's a really clear illusion that is being drawn here, just like Moses went up to the mountain and he brought down his thou shall nots, right? The series of commandments and then his explanation of righteousness and how the Israelites were to worship God.

Jesus does the same thing. And yet he comes down with, I mean, at least his initial words are very different. Instead of thou shall not, it's blessed are. Blessed are these series of things. And before we get talking about the content here, I mean, it's pretty straightforward. Forward, we have to deal with that little word blessed.

The thing about the Bible, and you probably just know this, but it's relevant, the thing about the Bible is that it was written in, it was not written in English initially. It was written in the kind of form of ancient Greek, which was common in where Jesus lived, right? And where Alexander the Great had conquered, right? Alexander the Great conquered the whole world, the ancient world. And in the areas where he left behind, he left them with the Greek language.

It was the lingua franca for the whole Mediterranean area. And so everybody who wrote things down, they wrote in this Greek language. So whenever we read the Bible, like we're reading it in translation. In the New Testament, we're reading it from Greek. And the challenge with translating words, right? If anyone here is bilingual, you know this. A lot of words, there's a one-to-one equivalent. The word for apple in English, it means the same thing as apple in Spanish.

Like when there's a highly referential word, they're very clear. But abstract words become more difficult. Abstract words become more difficult because they don't quite translate directly. The way we use abstract words in one language doesn't have all the same meaning in another language, just because there's different context, right? And different ways of understanding words. So abstract words are difficult. So the word blessed is a pretty good translation

of the Greek word that Matthew is using here, okay? That word is makarios. You don't need to know this. There will not be a test, but it's the word makarios, and it's commonly, this is the common translation, it's pertaining to being fortunate or happy because of circumstance. So fortune, happiness, blessing. There's another Another scholar that we've talked about, you know, shared some of this stuff, and we'll share a few of his arguments here to go along.

Jonathan Pennington, very good scholar, and he argues that the word could be translated as flourishing. Flourishing, okay? So flourishing, happy, fortunate. Obviously, those are connected with our ideas about blessing. I mean, you know, you wish someone a blessed day, you wish them a happy day, a fortunate day. We wish them to flourish, you know, absolutely. Absolutely. But it would be easy enough to believe that what Jesus is doing...

Okay, so my point is, the word mostly works, but there's a risk, one risk of using the word blessed here. And this is what I want us to avoid, because it would be easy for us to believe that what Jesus is doing is kind of setting up or presenting heavenly calculus. If we do this, then God will owe us a blessing. Like, like kind of like a, like a chain reaction. Like he's saying, man, all you got to do in your life, if you want to be blessed, you become a little, have a little poverty of spirit.

You add in a little bit of gentleness and bam, God's going to owe it to you. He's going to bless you, right? Because there's that sense in the way we use the word blessed that it's like, man, God is actively changing things or transforming things, right? Jesus is not presenting a formula to earn special favor with God. It's just not in that word, makarios. That kind of way that we might use blessed is not in there.

Or he's not trying to put God under some kind of debt to certain groups of people. The gentle, the merciful, the poor in spirit. See, all these people, the poor in spirit, the mourning, the gentle, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, are not, by virtue of them demonstrating these characters, are not. Earning God's favor because of their virtue.

That's not what Jesus is saying. Nor is Jesus presenting for us kind of a life strategy so that we can navigate our way out of these conditions, right? He's not saying, oh, I know you're poor in spirit now, but if you just do the right things, then God's finally going to bless you, and then you won't be poor in spirit anymore. He's not presenting some kind of a strategy that we can take up and just say, so that we can avoid these things.

Jonathan Pennington, who uses that word flourish, he says, he explains this way. He says, what Jesus proclaims as being a state of flourishing includes many things that humanity naturally and even vehemently seeks to avoid. The overwhelming sense of the Beatitudes is that Jesus is authoritatively yet perplexingly commending states of being in the world that are the opposite of flourishing despite introducing them as such, as flourishing.

It's a little bit of a paradox. I was listening to a podcast the other day, and a musician that I like was talking. He's a Christian, and he was talking about how he hopes to be the sort of person who is able to welcome reality. To welcome reality. See, Jesus's introduction here is, I think, what he's doing is he's inviting us to just welcome reality. Just welcome it as it comes, reality as it is in the kingdom of God.

See, it seems like most life strategies involved, at least the way that I see it, most people's life strategies involve avoiding difficult realities, getting out of them as soon as humanly possible. We tend to measure our lives and the success of our lives and our happiness and our flourishing by how little we go through difficult things, how successfully we can avoid discomfort, pain, shame.

But Jesus commends a life strategy that can welcome reality, any circumstance, because our well-being, his well-being, the well-being of the person he's calling us to be is not dependent on what comes our way, not dependent upon chance. And Paul understood this really well. I mean, he lived it out and he kind of explains his life strategy, which is, I think, what Jesus is really outlining in Philippians 4.

Paul says this, right? This guy who super understood Jesus and went around preaching to me says this, I have learned to be content in whatever circumstance I find myself. I know how to make do with little, and I know how to make do with a lot. In any and all circumstances, I have learned the secret of being content. Content whenever well-fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need, I am able to do all things through Christ, through him who strengthens me.

See, Paul understood what Jesus is trying to offer to us. And that is that there is a real possibility of living a beautiful, flourishing, happy life in any circumstance because a new reality is possible in the kingdom, which Jesus is bringing about. Paul knew it because he had learned, like he says, the secret of being content. So like, what is that secret? What is the secret of being content? A lot of you guys know Eli Gilbert. Eli.

Came up in youth as a youth here, and he's just gone off to become a pilot, which is awesome and terrifying. Because you know what pilots do? They fly airplanes at 600 miles an hour, 30,000 feet in the air. And not only that, what pilots do in order to be successful, they can land and fly and take off in a fog, which I find particularly terrifying.

A successful pilot will learn to navigate, go through their work, taking off, flying, landing, without needing to look at what's outside of the window. They'll actually learn the discipline and the skill of just looking at the instruments so that they can just like, they can just navigate no matter what. See, Paul learned the secret of being content. He's able to do all things through Christ who strengthens him.

If Paul had little, if he was hungry, if he was in need, he says, that's okay because I'm able to do all things through Christ who strengthens me. But pay Pay attention, because actually the secret is not that. The secret is of how he could be content in any situation is because yes, when he had little, when he was lacking, when he was hungry, he could do all things through Christ who strengthens him.

But the real secret is even when he had a lot, even when he was well-fed, even when he was in abundance, even then he can do all things through Christ who strengthens him. In other words, he learned to stop looking out the window and just pay attention to a new set of instruments, whether he needed to or not, whether it was a beautiful sunny day or a foggy day, whether things were great or whether things were terrible. He says, I'm just like measuring everything by a different standard now.

I'm looking at a different set of metrics and whether it's good on the outside side or bad on the outside, my metric is I can do things through Christ. I will rely on him, whether it's beautiful or whether it's terrible. I will rely on him when I'm feeling great. I will rely on him and his strength when I'm feeling awful. The secret is not, oh, well, I'll just employ a different strategy to manipulate my way out of the difficulty. And when I'm good, I'm on my own. Thank you, Jesus.

It's good or bad, always trusting, always finding my strength in him. I'm not a runner, but if I were, I would run when I feel like it, which is never, but when I feel like it and when I don't feel like it, and I'm told that to really be good, I'm told to be good at athletic things, you have to do it whether you like it or not. Doesn't matter if you, you're not going to get good. You're not going to develop the skill if you only do it when you feel like it. That's the secret.

Whatever comes, we're looking at the right measure. We're pressing through and we're learning to develop those muscles and those skills of trusting in Christ in the good or the bad, no matter the circumstance. So why is this true? Well, Jesus, I think, makes it clear. Why is it that the poor in spirit are able to flourish? Not because they're able to manipulate God and he owes them and he's going to do something for them because they're just like poor enough and it's all good.

Not because of those things. Not because God will reverse their circumstances, but because to them, the kingdom is wide open. Because to everyone, the kingdom is wide open. To those who want to come in, they can receive all that the Lord has. We can live now in the supply and empowering of God. We can live now in the forgiveness and acceptance and love that Jesus offers. We can rest on that for our strength always.

Always each of these beatitudes is followed by a because right why can they flourish because god will in the kingdom be their a consolation and the their guarantor their deliverer god will be the one in all circumstances to bring about his purpose to bless and encourage them those who trust in him are always met by him it's just he's just saying like this is just the nature of the kingdom. God doesn't forget them even as they mourn. He doesn't abandon them even as they hunger.

He doesn't let their mercy and their gentleness like sidelined them. He doesn't let that like, let them get abused or taken advantage of. He makes those things their strength because he's always present and he's always at work. So people can be happy and they can flourish whatever comes in life because God is looking out for him. That's the reality of the kingdom that Jesus presents. And that's where he begins. He's just saying, this is the way it is now.

If only we would go ahead and step into it. Jesus goes on, picking up in verse 10, he says, blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs. You're blessed when they insult you and persecute you and falsely say every kind of evil against you because of me. Be glad and rejoice because your reward is great in heaven. For that That is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you. So this is his final beatitude, his final blessing.

He wraps up these beatitudes, and he begins to really, actually, if we think about this as a whole, as a sermon with structure, this is the transition from the introduction into the rest of the body of the sermon. And he begins to introduce the main theme of the sermon, which is righteousness. This is a sermon about righteousness. You can't read it and not pick up on that, right? Especially not the rest of chapter 5 here. It's a sermon about righteousness.

He's already talked a little bit about righteousness in verse six, right? But he's bringing it back. And then the rest of the sermon, just bang, bang, bang, all about what it looks like to be righteous. And I mean, in case you don't believe me, like, I mean, just skip ahead to verse 20, okay? For Jesus, righteousness really mattered and it really was his focus.

In verse 20, it says, I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven. He's talking to a bunch of religious people, mostly Jews, and they knew who the scribes and the Pharisees are. If you don't, they were just like the religious leaders of the time. They were the people who, if anybody was thought of as righteous, it's the scribes and the Pharisees.

And what Jesus is saying in his sermon on righteousness, he says, look it, I really care about this so much so to the point what I am telling you is that you have to be more righteous than those people in order to get into the kingdom of heaven. Now, hold your thoughts for a second because we're going to talk about what this means. But this is a sermon about righteousness. I want that very clear. To live according to Jesus's call, right?

What he's saying here in verse 10 is that that's going to invite persecution and insult and slander, right? That's pretty crazy. Jesus is telling his disciples, look, look, I'm calling you to righteousness. Everything else that I'm about to tell you is about righteousness. And as you step into righteousness, like as you continue to trust in me, what's going to happen is people are going to persecute you, insult you, and slander you.

He's telling his disciples to be prepared for that. That's part of the reality that they need to be welcoming as well. But it does seem a little weird, right? I mean, it seems a little bit weird. Who would persecute you for righteousness? That shouldn't happen. Well, I mean, in Jesus's day, he experienced this and the people who were persecuting him and who went around persecuting the disciples were actually people who already thought they were super righteous.

They already thought they had everything figured out. Jesus says right here, verse 11, I think, he says, that's exactly what they did to the prophets who were before you. When the prophets went to Israel's leaders, right? If you know your Old Testament, Testament. The prophets, I mean, honestly, probably like the largest section of the Old Testament is the prophets, and it's already along. So there's a lot of prophets. When the prophets went to Israel's leaders, what did they tell them?

What was the fundamental message that the prophets told Israel about and that caused them to be persecuted? I think they mostly said things like what Hosea says in Hosea 6.6. What Hosea said to the religious leaders at the time was this. He says, speaking on behalf of God, he says, I desire faithful love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

I know I'm asking you to think a little bit about some context, and I'm presuming that you understand a little bit of prophets. And if you don't, look, I just want to make it clear. The prophets were people who went to the religious establishment establishment, and they called them to greater faithfulness. Because what we see over and over again is that in Israel, God's chosen people in the Old Testament, right? There was a group of people who they were all like, everybody was like,

yeah, we want to follow God. We want to follow God. And the leaders of that, they said, we're going to follow God by following the most rules in the best way. We're going to do all the stuff that Moses commanded us. And not only that, out. We're going to go above and beyond so that we can be careful not to break any of these commandments that Moses has called us to. And what the prophets would do is they'd be like, okay, I get it.

It's a good thing to go ahead and honor God. He says, but God wants something else. Like the purpose of the law, the goal of the law, it's not just to have rules be followed. The goal of the law is to see faithful love, knowledge of God spread throughout all of your lives. The goal of the law is that people would come and turn. Jesus calls out the Pharisees, like in the same way that the prophets called out the Old Testament Israel.

In Luke 16, he says this, told the Pharisees, you're the ones who justify yourselves in the sight of others, but God knows your hearts for what is highly admired by people is revolting in God's sight.

The message of the prophets, Jesus's message to Israel, and what he's saying, as you go out and you pursue true righteousness, this is gonna be your message and it's gonna be the sort of message that's gonna invite persecution, you're gonna go out and you're gonna say, look it, we understand all the ways that we try to make ourselves feel okay and feel like we have our lives sorted out and all the strategies that we have to sort of earn God's favor and to manipulate things in life.

He says, but here's what's true is that God knows your heart. God knows what's really inside of you. God looks at you and he knows exactly all the stuff that you're hiding behind. That word right here in Luke 16 is justified. It's the same word that we translate as righteousness. Everybody's after righteousness. Jesus knew that righteousness mattered. People need a sense to know if they're doing right or they're doing wrong.

And what he's saying is that we have all of these artificial ideas about what makes us good people, but God knows the heart. I like, it's funny. I think that's very clearly what Jesus is saying. Throughout the gospels, right? He's talking about the heart, the condition of the heart. But it was so funny. This occurred to me yesterday. The way we talk about the heart, which is like, you don't know my heart. You don't know what's really inside of me. It's so defensive.

It's like such a veneer, such a way to avoid accountability. But funny enough, Jesus seems seems to believe that you can actually know what's in somebody's heart. And he calls these people out. He says, man, you're just trying to manage, like you're trying to approach God and you're trying to attain righteousness, but you're trying to do it by just kind of managing outcomes. You're trying to turn my invitation to know me into kind of like a life strategy to get ahead.

And it might sound good to people, but this is the sort of stuff that God hates. When God says, I want your love, like, I mean, that's the greatest commandment. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, reins with all your strength. And we just say, well, I went to church or I gave you some money, Jesus, you know? And it's like, it's like God looks at that stuff and he says, no, that's not.

He wants this righteousness exceeds like, just like the measuring things or the artifices and the things that the veneers that we put up to kind of like the ways that we try to hide from what's real, what's actually going on in our hearts. Jesus says, you need, you like are called to this kind of righteousness that exceeds the scribes and the Pharisees. And that's the kind of righteousness that's real and it's in your heart. You need a transformed life.

He goes on right after this as he's rebuking the Pharisees for their ways that they're just relying on things that revolt God. He says this, the law and the prophets were until John. Since then, the good news of the kingdom of God has been proclaimed and everyone is urgently invited to enter it. What Jesus is saying is that because he's here after John, this is John the Baptist, right?

John John the Baptist came along, he kind of prepared the way, and we talked about this when we looked at Matthew 3. Like, John is coming along and he's saying, you got to prepare the way, someone's coming, this person's going to come, he's going to fulfill all these promises. And what Jesus is saying is, since John was taken off the scene, John is now in prison, I'm here and I have a new message.

I have a different message than what the law and the prophets were, which was that you can sort of like kind of prepare your way for God by obeying all these laws. It says, I have a new message. It says, it's the good news of the kingdom of God and it's been proclaimed. And he's there doing the proclaiming and he's saying, everyone is urgently invited to enter in. So Jesus is here. He's giving this righteousness sermon. He's saying, you got to be called to a greater righteousness.

It's a matter of the kingdom. It's a matter of what I have come to do. It's all, this is like legitimately important for you. It says, and now the kingdom is open and everybody's invited. We're invited to get past all the veneers and all the ways that we kind of put up fronts before God and get to the truth of what's really going on inside of me. That's the nature of the kingdom. It gets to the reality of things of what's going on in your heart.

And he really means it. I mean, look at, we looked at Matthew 5, 13, these verses, right? A couple of weeks ago. So I'm not going to spend too much time in them. But he says this, like, he's like making it really clear that he's not just talking about some sort of artificial righteousness or some sort of abstract righteousness. Like it's going to be transformative as you step into the kingdom.

And as you kind of receive this kind of righteousness, this true righteousness of heart that he's calling you to. And we'll get to what that is in just a moment. but here, look at verse 13. He says this. He says, you're the salt of the earth, but if the salt of the earth should lose its taste, how can it be made salty? It's no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. You're the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden.

No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lampstand. It gives light for all who are in the house. In the same way, let your light so shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to the father who's in heaven. So Jesus is saying, I'm talking about righteousness. I'm talking about what's really I'm calling you to.

And you're gonna have this kind of righteousness as you follow me, as you're a disciple, as you step into the kingdom, receive this invitation where like it's gonna be transformative to your life to the point where other people look at you and they just say, wow, something's going on in there. God's really changed him because we knew him. He used to be a loser, right? this guy used to be a schlump. Is that a word? Yes, it is now.

But suddenly, like glory to God, something's been transformed in this person. And like, you know, as Protestants, I don't think we lean into this enough. We want to say, oh, yes, yes, we're righteous and forgiven. It's sort of abstract though. You see those bumper stickers? Christians aren't perfect, people are just forgiven like yeah but also we're called we're called to something greater but how but why by. Jesus says this righteous stuff is really serious. But what do you do if you're

like me and you don't know how to do it? You're actually not that righteous. I know my heart. Jesus knows my heart. And if I'm 100% honest, I'm pretty lazy. Sorry, Bob. I'm not supposed to say I'm lazy. Bob doesn't like when I say I'm lazy. But that's my wife. No, you know, I just like am the way that I am. Yeah. And it's just Jesus calling me to just be better because I'm honestly not good at just being better and really bad at it. So what do you do? Look, understand this.

Jesus begins this sermon, which is all about calling us to real, genuine, transformative righteousness, the kind that everybody can see. But he begins this sermon in a particular way. What he does, he doesn't say, take me really seriously, you know, watch out. What he does is he describes reality. He just describes what's different in the kingdom. He describes things as he sees the world. He describes the person in the kingdom and he does it for a reason.

It's because our righteousness, this kind of transformative work, heart work, true, meaningful life change, it exists only in the context of what God is supplying. Okay. Think about the most beautiful seed in the world. Maybe, what's a nice plant? A rose. I don't know what a rose seed looks like. Like, think of just any generic seed, right? If you have, or it's maybe a banana. Let's think of a banana seed, okay? Because I like bananas and you like, everybody likes bananas.

Nobody doesn't like bananas. So you have this banana seed. It is the most perfect seed. Man, it has so much potential in it. It's awesome. It's going to make the biggest, most delicious bananas. So you take this banana seed and you plant it in a desert. What's going to happen to the seat? Nothing. Zilch. Nada. But say you take the worst banana seed in the world, the worst possible one. It's going to make micro bananas, tiny bananas, like has very little potential.

But you plant it in the most rich, beautiful, nutrient-dense, perfect environment, all the right sunlight, whatever bananas need, I don't know, just imagine it. All the right kind of water, everything that it's need. What's going to happen to that awful seed? seed, it's going to grow, probably, unless there's some genetic problem with it. But again, for the sake of argument, it's going to grow, right? Why? Not because of itself, but because it is put in the context where it's nourished.

Its potential is not in and of itself. It's that it is flowering and flourishing and growing in good soil. And so we're called to this exceeding kind of righteousness, this real true objective, like transformative thing where people are going to look in and say, wow, that's a great banana tree, but not because we're so great, but because we are in this new place. We're in the kingdom. we are secure and blessed and at home and supplied for every one of our needs.

Everything we might need is given to us by the grace and kindness of Jesus Christ. And so we will grow and we will be transformed, not of ourselves, but because of what is true now in the kingdom. That's the kingdom of If you want the kind of righteousness that goes beyond the scribes and the Pharisees, get planted in the kingdom. It's the good soil. And rely on God who is able to, who wants to meet your need in any circumstances.

He says that in verse 6. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Not because they're so great. Not because they're serious enough about things. Why? Because they'll be satisfied. Their desire, their hunger, their need, what they're after is going to be met, not by themselves, but by God who will meet them in the midst of all that stuff.

Stuff worship team's gonna come up here but like this is like it's it's like real stuff and, what what jesus is confronting throughout his ministry and we'll see more of this as we go along here he's confronting this kind of like pride about being a good kind of seed like pride about us thinking that we really can do something for god he's gonna be super impressed by we're going to really show off to God and we're going to be righteous in and of ourselves.

What he's saying is, no, the kind of flourishing and righteousness that's going to come about in your life, which is real and it's really truly something that we're called to, it can only happen in the context of the love and provision and kindness of God. And just to wrap things up, I think really what we're called to here, this kind of ability to welcome reality, right? To just like, whatever's going to come, I'm going to be okay.

That's just the Christian word for that. The active word for that is just faith. Because it's just faith in the fact that what we really believe is that God is our supply. He's our sustainer. He's always nourishing us. He's always caring for us. And like, how do we know that? Well, biblically, at least what Jesus Jesus goes on throughout the book of Matthew to say, he says, you know that because I'm demonstrating the love and character of God for you.

Like what we believe as Christians is that we believe that we can be a part of this kingdom because we trust in God and we trust in Jesus. So you might come to God and you might think like, you know, what do I need to do? Like, what kind of things do I need to perform? And the biblical answer is this kind of like, it's confusing because the biblical answer to that is, all you need to do is have faith. All you need to do is trust.

Why? Well, because by trusting, what we do is we're just realizing that. Oh, I'm just not called to be a better person in my own strength. I'm just called to give my life over to the one who's going to feed and supply and nourish me. And we live out faith in an intentional kind of way, by living from that supply, by trusting ourselves more and more to the Lord, by realizing what the kingdom means. It means that God is present, that he's with us, that he isn't angry at us anymore.

In fact, that anything that we've done, all the sin, all the stuff that we've think like, man, God just hates me for this. We can just give it to Jesus and say, okay, look, I'm not actually going to earn your favor by coming up with a good life strategy and being good, even though I can't be good. I'm just going to receive from you everything that I need. I'm going to receive forgiveness and I'm going to receive righteousness. I'm going to receive security.

I'm going to start to just understand that the world as Jesus sees it is true. It's that God is so present and that he cares for us. And so what we do as we come in and we start off in faith and we grow in faith is we just say, okay, Lord, I'm just like a seed.

I'm planted in the ground. Would you nourish me? And we just draw from those resources over and over and over again. And if we want the, like, okay, because if you've been a Christian for a while, I was a Christian for probably like, math, 10 years. And like, I had this confession of faith, which I think was real and genuine. Like I said, okay, I believe who Jesus is. I trust him. I'm like, not hung up. I'm not trying to perform anymore. I want him to do something in my life.

If I want him to change me. But for like 10 years, it was nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. 10 years just feel like, like, man, I feel like I'm called to more, but I'm just stuck. I'm just stuck in the same ways all the time, all the time, all the time. Unable to change, feeling like I wasn't changing enough, feeling like God was still mad at me or whatever, feeling like I was a failure.

And then something happened to me at some point along this life after a decade of trying to to follow Jesus. And I'll tell you what it was. I'll tell you what it was. God just gave me like, just like, like by, through some circumstances, he just convinced me and that convinced me like in my mind, but in my spirit, in everything that I am, that really and truly he was going to supply for my every need. And I can't prescribe that to you.

I can't make him do that the same way he did that to me, but I can just say, just lay that path out for you. Maybe you're in for a while and you're just straight and you're like, eh, I don't see any change. I don't see anything going on. The truth is that you can't do it on your own. But when God shows up and he makes good on his promises here. And when you look to him enough, this is why pursuing the kingdom of God is always just kind of like, hey, just look to God, seek him, put him first.

Give him a chance. Give him a chance to do the work, to nourish you. I really think that he wants us to, to like grow, but, but it has to be through this thing of giving up on the old strategy of doing it yourself and learning to rely on the power of the spirit, learning to rely on his word, because you cannot have righteousness that exceeds the the scribes, and the Pharisees.

In and of yourself, you as a little seed, you can't become strong enough or solid enough, but he can supply all that you need. And so I just want to pray for us right now. We're going to keep talking in the Sermon on the Mount here, but I just want to pray for us. I want us to pray for that kind of wisdom. So Lord Jesus, Holy Spirit, I thank you, Lord. I I thank you that you are present.

Lord, everywhere we go, you've already been there. Your word says so many things that seem hard to believe, hard for us to understand. But God, all of it comes down to this, is that you're inviting us into your presence. You're paying our way. You're forgiving our sin. You're supplying everything that we ever wanted, Lord. Lord, it's all in you. And God, we just need you to nourish us, Lord, as a church. Like, we don't want to strive. We don't want to just keep trying harder to put

it into higher gear. We want to be transformed. We want to be transformed by coming to know the blessedness, the flourishing life that you promise us. So, God, even as we come into your presence now and we worship God, would you draw near to us? Not even like, like so we can have a great experience, but Lord, so that you could do the work in our hearts. We're taking down all the false things that we hold up before you and we call them righteousness, Lord.

Lord, would you look into what's true, what's going on inside of us, Lord, and would you speak to us, God? Would you supply for us right now conviction, Lord, hope, Hope, joy, would you pour out in us whatever you want to do, Lord, and teach us to be people who continually rely on you, find our strength in you. So let's just stand up and let's worship for a little bit. I might have something else to say. I'm not sure. We'll see. Let's pray. Music.