MK040 Sermons
Blessed - Part 1 (Audio)
of your spiritual journey to providing encouragement for you on the road. Well, if you've been paying attention to the news the last two weeks, one of the things that you know for sure is that the NFL has certainly taken a hit pretty significantly because of all the allegations that have come about. And I heard one individual say, well, don't judge everyone by what you've heard on the news because that's only four players out of 2,000, you know, one in every 500 that this has happened with. But it's hard not to do that when you think of someone that may be between 6, 2, and 6, 5, and maybe half or more double your body weight that's fully trained and very muscular that they could create harm to someone much, much smaller than them. But the truth is we all have this sense where we get exposed to individuals or we meet people and we come up with conclusions about those individuals. We make assumptions about them. And this summer, I had the opportunity to be down in Nashville, North Carolina. I was at this place called the Billy Graham Training Center. And I was there for a conference. And at this particular training center, there's multiple conferences going on. And everyone eats meals together in the same location. So you have this fabulous dining hall and this unbelievably southern style meal three times a week, and your group has tables that you sit at to eat these meals. And so I was sitting at my table one day and one of the individuals at our table, her name was Rachel Krab, her husband Larry, was leading the workshop that we were doing. And she's a very outgoing, vivacious person. And she's sitting there and she's like, who's that big, huge guy walking through the line? I bet you he's a football player. And as soon as I saw him, I knew right away. And it was this guy, and then some of you will be watching him this afternoon on TV. James Brown, who's one of the guys, the host, for the CBS football programs. And so she stands up and she starts waving them over. You know, waving them over. And when Rachel waves you over, you can't say no. That's just kind of the person she is. And so she waved them over and he sat down at the table with us with his wife Dorothy and introduced himself and said, yes ma'am and no ma'am and yes sir and no sir, just unbelievably polite and hospitable and gracious, a man of strong faith. And we just had a wonderful time getting to know him and spend some time with him. And you find out that he was actually a star basketball player, not a star football player. And when he got hired for this job, he had to gain 60 pounds so he looked like a football player. And he really does look like a football player, one of the guys on the set there. But you also find out about this guy that he has a deep concern for families and for people. And he said to us, this was back in the beginning of August, he said this issue with domestic violence is gonna explode on the NFL scene this fall. And if you paid attention to the news, you watched him being the interviewer on many of these interviews that have taken place. And he said to us as we sat there talking about the roles of a man and a woman in a relationship and God's designed for that and what it should look like and he articulated in a crystal clear way. He said, I have this amazing privilege to drop seeds on the national network about what this should be in contrast to what often is seen and experienced. And so when you meet someone like this who compared to me feels a little bit like a giant, as you'll see in this next picture, he kinda towers over me just the tad, just the tad. You may draw some conclusions about him but when you sit down and spend some time with him, you realize he's a very, very different person than maybe what you initially assumed. And we can find ourselves in that situation often in life, can't we? For those of you that are married, take a moment and remember back the first time you met your in-laws and what were your impressions of them? I see some grins, some eyes rolling out there, all kinds of things. The first time I met my father-in-law, he had been instructed by my, trying to remember if she's my girlfriend then or not, my future wife, not to meet me. And so that's another whole long story. But so he was pulling away in his van and I was walking towards him. And those of you that know me know I'm just a little bit persistent. And so I chased after the van and knocked on the window and my father-in-law is a very gracious man. He can't be rude to save his life and I can't drive away and ignore him. Like he didn't see me and blow dust all over me. But so he stopped and wound down the window and had to try to talk to him, even though he wasn't supposed to. But those first impressions, what are those first impressions? What's the first impression that you had of that guy that girl that your son or daughter brought home and they were going to go out on a date with them? And what was the first thing that you thought about them? What about your current boss? What's your first impressions of your current boss? And are those impressions holding true for what you're experiencing right now? What about your first impression when you walked in here, you know, to CCC? Or your first impression listening to me speak? Or maybe your first impression about a guy who loves you so much that he would give up everything, even what he treasures most, his son, for you. This morning, we're gonna look at some people that upon a first glance, they might not be the people you would be drawn to, but Jesus was drawn to them for some reason. And we're gonna spend some time looking at that this morning. If you have your Bibles, if you would turn with me to Matthew chapter five, Matthew chapter five, if you don't have a Bible, our guys have some, they're gonna pass those out to you. It is page 958 on the Bibles that they're gonna pass out, just to get their attention, they'll give one of those to you. We began last week talking about this sermon that Jesus did, and we tried to set the stage a little bit by highlighting the fact that this sermon was not just one that Jesus stood up with a group of people that he had not been talking to before, but he was preaching a very different kind of message, and his first word was repent. Repent, his first word was, his first call was for them to go the opposite direction that they had been previously going, which didn't make sense to the average Jew, because they read the Torah, they went to synagogue, they prayed, they were doing all the things that they were supposed to doing, and now Jesus is saying repent, go the opposite direction that you're supposed, what is that all about? Then he says, 'cause the kingdom of heaven is near, it's not here yet, but it's near a different kind of kingdom that he was offering to them, and then he proceeded to invite some uneducated fishermen, young guys, probably teenagers, to come along and discover this message, and pass this message along to others. And as he began to do that, to begin to teach and preach, and people responded, they heard, and they were healed, and their lives were changed. And so as Jesus has this experience, he sits down on a hillside, and his disciples are there, and there's crowds of people around him, and he begins to talk to them. And before we dive into that, let me just ask you this question, how many of you can't watch a movie or TV show unless you watch the beginning, and kind of know the foundation of what it's about? Let me see your hands, how many of you? Okay, a few of you out there, you're being honest, all right. This next few minutes is for you, because I wanna lay this foundation about this sermon, about what it really is about, because there's a lot of confusion and misunderstanding. I talked to a very good friend, far more intelligent about understanding the Bible than I did, and I said, you got anything for me on the sermon on the mountain, he said to me, I don't understand, and I don't know if I ever will, so sorry, no. I was like, well, that's not very helpful. So we're gonna dive into something that is considered one of the most beautifully written pieces of literature in all of the Bible, along with Psalm 23 and the Lord's Prayer, but incredibly difficult to understand. And to understand it, we have to make sure that we pay attention to the culture in the community in which Jesus is living, and the way Jesus communicated. Often when people read the Sermon on the Mount, they feel a lot of guilt. I was talking to someone between services, and they said, I did what you asked me to do, I read the Sermon on the Mount this week, and I gotta tell you, after chapter five, I was feeling really guilty. I said, did you do anything wrong? They said, no, I said, why are you feeling guilty? But for some reason, as this has been looked at, and we've talked about this, it's produced an incredible amount of guilt, and it doesn't seem to be very clear what Jesus is doing with this teaching. Jesus chooses to make this something for everybody to hear. There are other places in the gospel where Jesus will take his disciples and go away, and he just talks to them, but this is for everyone. It's for everyone. And the way Jesus teaches is a little bit like show-and-tell. It's a little bit like show-and-tell. Jesus doesn't tell everybody, now I want you to watch your notebooks and turn to page seven, and this is what I'm gonna tell you about, and they start to write. Remember, these were illiterate people. Most of them could not read or write. Only the rabbis could read or write in that culture. And so they had to hear it and remember it. So how do you hear something and remember it? Well, one of the most powerful ways that we hear something and we remember it is when an experience in our lives is connected to that thing that takes place. And if you think about it, that's what Jesus did. Jesus was walking along and he saw a little short guy in a tree and he started talking to him. Jesus is walking along and a woman grabs his cloak and he turns and talks to her. Jesus is walking along and he sees some wheat and he starts talking about the wheat. And the disciples and the people following remembered. It's true for us, isn't it? How many of you remember where you were when President Reagan was shot? A few of you, okay? How many of you remember where you were when the challenger, space shuttle, blew up? Few more. How about when 9/11 occurred? Majority of us, yeah. You see, you have these events that take place in our lives and when these events are attached to some truth, whether it's an, and often it's tied to a tragedy, we can't forget 'em, we can't forget 'em. I never understood this when I was a kid and my dad would say, I remember exactly where I was when President Kennedy was shot and I didn't understand that until I experienced some of those same kinds of things. And so when Jesus teaches, he doesn't say, take out your notebook and I want you to write this down because you're gonna need it in a few years and weeks and months, he's teaching them and he's talking about something that just happened to him. And so as Jesus says, blessed is, he's probably describing someone he just reached out and touched and healed and changed. It's very real, it's right there in front of us. And the thing we're gonna discover this morning is we look at these first couple Beatitudes, just the Latin word for true, for what God has to say here, is that, Dallas Woolard says, this he says, kind of says, I think what Jesus is saying is, blessed are the spiritual zeroes. Blessed are the people who you're probably not gonna find in church, probably don't know the Bible real well, probably not someone you would ask to pray 'cause you wouldn't know what would come out of their mouth. Probably someone who life has been pretty hard and you wouldn't expect God to bless them. But that's who Jesus chooses to bless. And remember what Jesus is trying to introduce to us is he's trying to introduce to us what this kingdom of heaven that is near is going to be like. And he's gonna crack the door open for us and help us to see that this kingdom of heaven that is near is gonna be unlike any other kingdom that you've ever known. Because in any other kingdom, you get positions and you get titles and you get authority and that gets you recognized and that gets you in and that gets you what you want, but not in Jesus kingdom. You see, in Jesus kingdom, it's the people you least expect. It's the people that you're surprised by. It's the people that the culture disregards. It's those people that there's something open in their heart to the God of the heavens. And Jesus knows that and he moves towards them and in moving towards them and reaching into their lives and coming to them at that moment in need. They become part of the kingdom of heaven. They say, John, don't they have to believe in Jesus? Just like, yeah, absolutely they do. But there's an openness in their heart in spite of their struggle that brings them to that place. You see, the beatitudes for us are Jesus's attempt to rewire the way our mind thinks about who is pleasing and acceptable to God. And that's why he calls the people of Israel to repent because what they thought according to law wasn't the way God's kingdom is designed and the way God's kingdom works. The first thing he says is you look there and just kind of glancing your Bibles are, and we'll see this in a minute, is you see the word blessed over and over and over and over again. I think it's eight times the word blessed is used. The word blessed is really not a word we use a whole lot in our culture today. Can you think of when we most say use the word bless you? When? Somebody sneezes, right? I think the word was gazuntai, may the devils be released from your head and some fundamentalists probably change it to God bless you. So it sounds better, I don't know. But, I mean, what was that all about? Saying God bless you when you sneeze, you know? That's about all we know about God blessing us. Now, some of you may have come from a church tradition where at the end of the message that the pastor of the speaker will say, you know, the Lord bless you and the Lord keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and give you peace. Comes from the book of Numbers. It's a blessing that the high priest Aaron would say to the people of Israel. But when we think about the word blessing, really it's, I think what we're saying is we just want good to come your way. That's really what we want to see happen. How is this idea of blessing found in the Bible? Well, historically in the Bible, the people who are blessed, if you take a look in the Old Testament, I'm in the book of Deuteronomy, and I'm not going to have you turn there, but you may just want to jot this down and look at this. In Deuteronomy chapter 20, let's see where am I, 27? 27 and 28, listen to these couple verses. All these blessings will come when you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God. You'll be blessed in the city and blessed in the country. The fruit of your womb will be blessed. The crops of your land, the young of your livestock, the calves and the lambs, your basket, your needing trough will be blessed. You will be blessed when you come in and you'll be blessed when you go out. So the people of Israel were taught that God's blessing would come upon you if you obey God. You do what God says and you would be blessed. Good would come your way. Blessing was also tied to their future. Listen to these couple verses from the book of Isaiah. It says, oh, wrong one. Let me go back and get a different one. Isaiah 61, when the prophet is talking about what's going to come in the future, it says they will rebuild the ancient ruins, restore the places devastated. Strangers will shepherd your fox, foreigners will work your fields. You'll be called priests. You'll be ministers of God. You will feed on the wealth of nations and in their riches, you, you will boast. What the prophet is saying, there's a time coming when you're going to experience this amazing blessing of God. So they believed it would happen if they obeyed God. They believed it was something that was coming in the future. But as you read these blessings, they're a little different because these blessings aren't tied to anything that they do. It's a little odd. These blessings aren't tied to them being loving or them being kind or them being gracious or them being generous. These are blessings given to people who didn't do anything. And the process, God seems to reverse their condition in a way that leaves us scratching our heads a little bit. Their conditions are not only in relationship to God, but also in relationship to other people. And the amazing thing that happens in these blessings is Jesus literally takes something in that culture that they viewed one way and He turns them 180 degrees around the opposite direction and say, "No, this is who God will bless." Completely turns it around. Completely turns it around. These blessings are not instructions for us to obey. Jesus doesn't say you do these things and you will be blessed. They don't indicate conditions that are especially pleasing to God. No one's told that you're gonna be better off if you're poor, if you're mourning, if you're meek. And they're not indicators of who is on top. But really what they are, they're illustrations, I believe, taken from the specific situations that Jesus encountered, that give us a glimpse of how a person enters the kingdom of heaven and can begin a relationship with God. And He takes the hopelessly blessables and finds it work a gospel for a silly world. Let me give you a definition of blessed on the screen. It's a little long, but I think it encapsulates that. It says, "A blessed person is one who because of a heart "for God is promised and enjoys God's favor, "regardless of that person's status "or counter-cultural condition." That seems to be what Jesus is talking about in these beatitudes. So let's take a look at the first one. Let's take a look at the first one. The first one is there in Matthew 5.3. He says, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, "for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor, not blessed "because they are poor." He said, "Blessed are the poor." He's not valuing people who are destitute, but he says, "Poor in spirit, poor in spirit." As I thought about, what does poor in spirit mean? I think I know what poor means, is someone who doesn't have the things that they need that are important for them to live, they're without them or have very few of those things that they need to live. So what is someone who's poor in spirit? As I thought about this, I thought, what's the one person, one thing that everybody needs to live and that one thing that everybody needs to live is hope, hope. And I wonder if the poor in spirit are people who have faced difficult situations in this life that have caused them to come to a place in which their spirits are literally crushed and they're poor on the inside. I remember an individual that I met a while back and lost both of his parents, didn't have a job, didn't have any family that would help him out, living out of his car, couldn't pick his head up and look at me, he always looked down. But that's someone that's poor in spirit. Their spirit is crushed. I think that might be who Jesus is referring to in this passage. It's difficult for us when we see someone like that because we often think, well, if they would have chosen this path or if they would have made this decision, if they would have considered that they wouldn't be where they are today. And that's the way the Jewish community viewed things. Cause and effect, cause and effect, cause and effect. Well, it's obvious why that happened to you. This is what you did. This is what you didn't do. This is what you should have done. But the truth is these are individuals who simply because of the circumstances of this life have been crushed. And Jesus says to them, if their hearts open to God, they're gonna have an opportunity come into my kingdom. Now, let me ask you this. Have you met people who have had a difficult experiences in their life and they blame God for it and they don't want anything to do with him? Probably most of us have. It's not what he's talking about. He's talking about people that in spite of all these difficult things, that when you begin to engage them and interact with them about their struggles and you talk to them about a hope that can help them live beyond what they're facing right now. They are open to consider that and they're open to receive what he has to offer. You see what Jesus is not saying is he's not saying you need to act like you're poor in spirit. He's not saying you need to appear spiritually incompetent or eggle in your face or some people think you're humble and then God will bless you. No, remember, these are not instructions of things he wants us to do, but he's inviting us to observe the people and the life situations where God reaches down and he extends blessing to them not because of anything they have done other than a heart that is open to God. You see, usually in Jesus' day, there were two groups. There were those who observed the Torah, followed the Ten Commandments, they would get their names in Hebrews 11 or those who just messed up, they didn't get it. They found themselves on the wrong side of the track and they had no idea how to get over it. And Jesus takes a very different approach because instead of congratulating the Torah observer or the extremely righteous, he says to the one that's marginalized that's open to God, I'm gonna bless you. Gonna bless you. And it leaves us a little surprised. What? Wait a minute, how did that happen? How did that happen? No, I took each of these and I just tried to put some words to what I think Jesus is talking about and my words for this one are blessed are those who've been crushed by this life but still find a glimmer of hope in God because God has a place for them in his kingdom. You see, the religious community of that day left large groups of people out of the system. They didn't fit. And Jesus said, not in my kingdom, not in my kingdom. There's a place for them. These people have gone to the place where they can't rely on themselves because they've tried and it has failed and they are in need of hope. You know, it's interesting because we have people that contact our church and want financial assistance from time to time, people from our community and years ago when people would come, we'd put them through a big rigorous interview and if they met our criteria, then we'd help them if they didn't, we sent them on their way and I said, it's probably not something very Christ-like about that and so we kind of lowered in and said, you know, anybody that comes to us and wants some help, we're gonna give them something. We give them some gift cards for gas and groceries and I don't know, about a year ago, I was thinking about this and I thought, you know, some of these people who come, they probably just feel like a number. And so instead of just having them come in the office and Jen kind of give them their cards, I said, well, I said, I'll sit down and talk with them. Some of our guys did that this summer when you sit down and talk to these people and you hear their stories of how life has crushed them. Did they deserve it? I don't know, I really don't. Did they make some bad choices? Join the human race, you know? But some reason life has crushed them and they're barely struggling to survive. Number of people we cross paths with just ask us money, can I have money to stay in a hotel one more night 'cause I'm gonna be sleeping in my car or I don't even have a car. And you know, apart from us me being in this role that I am as a pastor and I interacted, I wouldn't cross paths with individuals in that arena of life. But somehow Jesus found these people or maybe they found him. I'm not quite sure how. In some cases they found him and he moved towards him and cared about him. In some cases he healed him. In some cases he blessed him. Let's look at the second one. Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted for they will be comforted. Who mourns, who mourns? As I thought about those people that mourn, I thought about people that have experienced injustice, tragedy, loss, maybe their own personal struggles, and Jesus says blessed are those who mourn. And I think this is something that as a church, we have started to walk into and it become more and more okay for us to grieve the pains and losses of this life. But I wanna remind you about the Jewish culture of that day. Remember the Jewish culture? Remember that first passage I read in Deuteronomy? You obey God and what do you get? Remember blessings are cursing, which one? Blessings, you disobey God and what do you get? Blessings are cursing, which one? Blessings, you disobey God and what do you get? Blessings are cursing, cursing. So the people who mourn, the people that have lost, things that they are most treasured to them. If you're a Jewish outside, if you're a Jewish person, you look at them, what do you think? Well, I don't know what was going on behind closed doors, but obviously there was some stuff going on there's a little shady there, you know? What do you expect? The only time stuff like that happens to someone is because they're not coming to synagogue regularly, or they're not sacrificing their animals properly, or they're not tithing enough, you know? That's the only reason that stuff happens to people. That's what they believed. And so someone who faced tragedy, and someone who faced great loss, was often pushed to the outside. And that's why it's so significant in the stories of Jesus when he stopped by a woman who had lost her husband and her son. She was pushed to the outside, she was considered unclean, she was a woman in grief, and Jesus stopped for her. And our society today, you know, we're a little bit better about this, we're a little okay with mourning, but we only can tolerate it for so long. And if it kind of drags on for a period of time, then we're like, you know, maybe you should really see someone, or she should really get some help, 'cause it's kind of been a while. And it can be hard for us to stay engaged with people that continue to mourn. But what we know from research, as well as what we know from the Bible, and from what God says, is there's something significant that happens in our lives when we mourn. And we don't shut that door too soon. When we don't shut that door too soon, we experience, as it says in this verse, they will be comforted. It doesn't tell a by whom. They'll be comforted by God's truth, they'll be comforted by one another, they'll be comforted by the spirit of God who gives his comfort to us. Morning is hard. It is hard. Nobody wants to get hit by those waves of emotion. Nobody wants to get blindsided, just have tears while up when, I can't really explain why. So we mask it, we stuff it down, we push it aside, fine, fine, you know. As we've talked about over the last few years, wonder if something's lost. We don't mourn. We don't let our hearts grieve. The things that are not what God's perfect design had, but because of living in a broken fallen world, it happens. Luke says this. He said, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will one day laugh." You've ever mourned deeply here. You know what a gift it is to laugh. And Jesus invites us to be alert to and aware of that there are people in our lives, there are people that we will cross paths with that have experienced great loss in this life. And because of the great loss that they have experienced in this life, they will struggle to face things in life. And when he experienced that, he walked towards them, he didn't turn away from them. And he allowed their hearts to grieve. He allowed them to ask questions of him, Mary and Martha, that he could not answer, that did not make sense. And in the process, they experience this amazing kind of comfort. Now, some of you God has naturally gifted to do this. And some of you God has given you this amazing gift of mercy where you have this capacity to come alongside people who are hurting and to put your arm around them or just sit with them and not say anything. And they are comforted in a way that words cannot describe. But for the majority of us, we either run our mouths or we run and hide when we meet people who are grieving. And we probably miss a lot of opportunities to walk towards and bless people who are hurting. They say, "John, doesn't the morning come to an end?" It often can. Someone said to me this last week that as they think about a great loss in their lives, they view it with warm sentimentality instead of tears and pain. And so God can do that in our lives. Romans chapter five, Paul says this. He says not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings 'cause we know that suffering produces perseverance, character, and hope. You don't read that verse to someone who's suffering. You read it through someone who is able to see some hope. And they believe what Jesus said in Revelation 21.4, when it says, "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes." There'll be no more death, no mourning or crying or pain 'cause the old order of things has passed away. Jesus moves towards the people who mourn, the people who did what God wanted them to and life did not turn out and they are living with great loss. And if you're living with that this morning and you've closed that door and you run from that, my invitation would be that Jesus has something more that he offers to you. And so blessed are those who allow their heart to break because of the pain and sadness of living in a broken world with heartache and loss because you will experience comfort that will satisfy your soul. One more that we're gonna look at this morning and that's in verse five. And Jesus said this, he says, "Blessed are the meek, "for they will inherit the earth." The meek are hard ones for us to figure out. And so let me give you an illustration that might help with this. Many of you know that I'm a runner and I'm doing a lot of long runs right now because I'm training for a marathon in about six weeks. And one of my goals in Lancaster County is where I live is to find long, flat distances without a lot of hills. And that's kind of hard around here where we live. But I found one. And on this route that I run on a regular basis, I was with Tim, we were running the other morning and we got up to this farmhouse and it was still kind of dark, the sun wasn't quite up yet. And I said, "Tim, let's move to the other side of the road." And he said, "Why is that?" I said, "Well, there's this very, very big German shepherd "that lives in this house." And he likes to come and visit me every time I run by his house. And but there's a good thing about this German shepherd because this German shepherd will come out right. It doesn't matter what time of morning it is, you know. And so I think it was about 5.30 or something like that in the morning. And he'll come full speed ahead, past the backside of the house and he'll stop right at the edge of the grass line. And there's the shoulder and then the road. And so I said, "Tim, how about we go "to the other side of the road?" And he said, "That's a good idea." So we went to the other side road and sure enough the dog came out. And, you know, there's been a few occasions where I've been running along that road on that side of the road. Not realizing where I was kind of lost in my thoughts or listening to some music. And the dog came out and I'm on the shoulder and the dog comes out and I'm soaked not just 'cause of sweat, you know, at that point, because it scares me half the death, you know. But that dog could do harm to us, but it knows that it needs to stop and it has a boundary right where that dog is supposed to stop, right? The edge of their yard. But that dog could, if he was free to, come over that line and do great harm. There's a strength and there's a power in that dog, but it is controlled by the edge of his yard. And that's really what the idea of being meek is. Meek is not someone who's weak, but it's someone who has a strength inside of them, a strength of character, a strength of will that doesn't cause them to force their way on others, but comes to the edges and stops. That's what the meek are. The meek often are people that are a little bit more shy and reserved. The meek are often people who don't seek revenge. The meek are often people who can appear intimidated and unassertive and mild-mannered. The meek do not run over people in Dick's sporting goods, trying to pass them. You know, the meek don't rush to speak. And the meek do not assert what often is their legitimate claim. They say, why not? Why not? Well, I think the meek are people who lovingly trust someone greater than them in his timing to bring about what is good and what is true and what is right. In Matthew 11, 28, and 29, Jesus says, "Come to me, all who are weary and having laden, "I will give you rest. "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me "for I am gentle and humble of heart." That word "gentle" is the same word as meek. It describes Jesus. Powerful enough to clear out the temple with the money changers, but humble enough to allow Roman soldiers to take him to the cross, even though he was God in the form of human flesh. Because of his incredible love for you and for me. You say, John, what was true about that culture in that day? Well, in that culture and in that day, the Jewish people lived with lots of laws. They had the 10 commandments and they had the 600 commandments that were in the Old Testament that they had to follow. And then there were several thousand more commandments on top of that that interpreted all of these laws. I mean, if somebody crossed you and you wanted to hang them out to dry, you just had to find the right law. There was a law there for it. And you thought we lived in a litigious society, you know? Especially if something happened on the Sabbath. If you broke the Sabbath, you were sunk. There was nothing you could do 'cause there was so many laws about breaking the Sabbath. And what Jesus says is, He says the people that are on the outside, the people that appear to be taken advantage of, the people that sometimes don't stand up for themselves. When you think, why don't you stand up for yourselves? Or why don't you just make a difference here? Why don't you do something? Those individuals are people that I'm gonna bless. Beyond what you can imagine. It says they will inherit the earth. And again, that doesn't mean a lot to us because we're like, I live on the earth. What does it mean to inherit the earth? But for the Jewish people, their land is a symbol of God's blessing in their lives. That's why they fight over it all the time. And God says, I'm gonna give you something that you will have, that'll be exactly what you need. I don't know about you, but I tend to be the kind of person that is always looking down the road, always talking about progress, what are we doing next? How can we grow, what's gonna happen here? And I tend to run by and pass and over and around those that don't. But Jesus says, blessed are those who don't demand their way. But trust their lives and souls to their good shepherd. And as a result, we'll inherit what is most desired in this life. Are you a little surprised by who Jesus is blessing? Kinda surprised you? An ancient document from the time the gospels were written, called the Syriac. It lists these people who are blessed in their culture. The ones who will be blessed are a man who can rejoice in his children. The ones who will be blessed is a man who lives to see the downfall of his foes. The one who will be blessed is the man who lives with a sensible wife. The one who will be blessed is the one who does not plow with his oxen ass together. I'm not sure what that means, but the one who will be blessed is the one who does not sin with his tongue. That's a good one. The one who blesses the one who has not served in fear. The one who's blessed is the one who finds a friend. The one who's blessed is the one who speaks to attentive listeners. You see, in that culture, and I think not unlike ours, we kinda have in our minds if we were to say, who are the people that God has blessed? And we would look at people with a certain way of life certain set of accomplishments, certain things that are true about their family, about their career, about their choices, about the things they don't do, about the things they do. And then Jesus says, no, no, no, no, no. In my kingdom, in my plan, you will be surprised by the people who are blessed. They may not be who you think they are. But that's because I can see something in their hearts. I can see an openness to God that starts to take place when they face these difficulties in life that isn't true of those who can make life work all on their own. And so for you students, as you head back to school this week, you might cross paths with someone whose eyes never come up, they always go down. And their spirit might be crushed. You might encounter someone who just seems sad all the time and they might be grieving something deep that they hardly ever talk about. Or you might cross paths with someone who doesn't seek to take advantage of others, sometimes gets a little mistreated, doesn't go out for revenge. And they seem strangely okay. Jesus moved towards them. They sat with them and he listened to them and sometimes he healed them and he blessed them. How about you? Maybe you know someone who can't get a hard head regardless of what they try. Ice has been really hard for them. Maybe someone who can't get over that loss. Someone who's gentle and gracious and sometimes seems to have taken advantage of. These are people Jesus blessed. I think the question for us is am I willing to love and serve them? Because in moving towards them in the way that Jesus did, I might not be able to put my hand on them and physically heal them. But if I sit with them and I listen to their story and I care about them, it might be able to give them a glimpse of hope and not a hope in me, but a hope in a God that's greater than all of us. And that can point them towards Jesus. Would you bow your heads with me and I just want to invite you to take a moment. Maybe as I've been talking, God's brought someone to your mind. And your thought is, yeah, that person there, kind of in rough shape, they're really struggling and you haven't moved towards them. God's convicted you and said, well, you do it. Not what you think about it. We do it. Maybe there isn't anybody specific, but you just say, God, I just want my heart to be open to the people. That you bring into my life. Not the people just like me, that it's real easy for me to love them and move towards them, but the people very different than me. (silence) God, as we think about, this kingdom of heaven that is near. It's starting to look a little different than maybe what I initially thought it would look like. God, I pray that as we leave this room, as we encounter people in our lives all week long, as we say, God helped me to live like Jesus would if he was in my shoes, that we would move to love and serve people that Jesus loved and served. And God, for some of us, that is gonna push us way outside of our comfort zone. We're not gonna know what to do and say. When that happens, we lean and we rely on you. So we can't do this on our own. And your name, amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]