The Village Church
Blessings of the Kingdom, Pt 1 - Audio
Over them to Matthew chapter five Matthew chapter five Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand These were the words that Jesus preached when he began his earthly ministry in Galilee that's recorded in Matthew chapter four almost like a street corner preacher Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand after that proclamation here Jesus then moves on to call his first disciples and they followed him He told these men I would make you fishers a man and after he called them he went throughout all Galilee preaching in the synagogues teaching in the synagogues but claiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people great crowds followed him many people flocked to him in Jesus looking out over the crowd he went up on a mountain and he sat down and disciples came to him and he opened up his mouth he opened his mouth and he taught them on this mountain he taught them as one who had authority so authoritative teaching of Jesus that he gave to his disciples that day that he gave to that crowd that day is known as the sermon on the mountain it's a sermon about the lifestyle of the kingdom the kingdom of heaven so what is this life within the kingdom supposed to be like what does kingdom lifestyle look like on this side of heaven this fall we're going to answer those questions as we work our way through the sermon on the mount and the sermon on the mount it is more than just the beatitudes it's more than just the beatitudes this sermon covers chapter five six and seven of Matthew it's one big sermon divided up into three chapters so that means it's all connected can't oscillate statements within these chapters it's all one big sermon that Jesus preached and in this sermon he teaches us what life in the kingdom is supposed to be like for you and me on this side of glory so if you have your bibles open them to Matthew chapter five we're going to look at verses one through ten this morning seeing the crowds he went up on the mountain and he sat down and disciples came to him he opened his mouth and he taught them saying blessed are the poor in the spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted blessed are the meat for they shall inherit 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 poor in heart pure in heart for they shall see God blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven please pray with me Father as we come before your word as we come to receive a word from you we pray that your spirit will take what is preached and apply it to my heart my heart and apply it to the hearts of your people as well I pray father that that my pride and my self-reliance will be suppressed your spirit will suppress it really really low and that you will be glorified your name will be great that I will move out of the way and let the spirit bring glory to your name to your kingdom and you will receive the praise father as John the Baptist said I must increase I must decrease and you must increase in all things especially here the preaching of your word and crashing my prayer amen this week we're going to look at the the beatitudes of the kingdom our happiness in the kingdom this is how Jesus began the sermon on the Mount and the first blessing I want us to look at this morning is kingdom citizenship citizenship within the kingdom which is seen in verses 1 and verses 2 blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven I'm sorry verse 3, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven in verse 10 blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness for theirs is the kingdom of heaven the blessing in verses 3 and verse 10 is not being spiritually poor the blessing is not being persecuted for righteousness sake the blessing is found in the phrase for theirs is the kingdom of heaven the reason the spiritually poor are blessed the reason those who are persecuted for righteousness sake are blessed is because theirs is the kingdom of heaven the kingdom belongs to them they are citizens within the kingdom of heaven it's theirs and notice that this phrase for theirs and the kingdom of heaven is that it begins the first beatitudes and it ends the beatitudes theirs is the kingdom of heaven I want to thank of it as two slices of bread on a nice club sandwich theirs is the kingdom here theirs is the kingdom here and then y'all in the middle you have all the lettuce the cheese the tomatoes the meat y'all you can't forget about the bacon it's in there too but in the top of that sandwich for theirs is the kingdom and in this sandwich the bread is important you gotta have the bread if you want the sandwich meaning what you have to be in the kingdom if you want the kingdom benefits you have to be in the kingdom if you want the kingdom blessings citizens should within the kingdom it's necessary if you want all the perks that come with them in other words you gotta be a believer to get the benefits of being a believer the only Christians can say for theirs is the kingdom of heaven who else can say that can anyone else say that statement and it be true for theirs is the kingdom of heaven now what does that actually mean? I know this is the question that may be running through your mind what does it mean kingdom of heaven it refers to the sovereign rule of God the father over all creation his kingship his lordship his control Jesus ushered in the present reality of this kingdom with his first coming but it wasn't a full expression of the kingdom one Christian said the kingdom has come it is coming and it is to come it was there when Jesus was exercising authority and it is here in us now and yet it is still to come it will come when this rule and reign of Christ it will be established over the whole world even the physical in a physical and material sense Revelation 11 says the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of the Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign forever and ever we know that that would be true when the second coming when he comes back for the second time the kingdom will come and all of his fullness and all of his authority will be established over everything and yet the kingdom is still present a present reality to it you see as believers there there is already not yet of the kingdom that all believers experience on this side of heaven if you are a Christian you experience the kingdom here in the here and now but not in his fullness that's still to come it's to already and not yet notice how the blessing is written notice what it says for the theirs is the kingdom it doesn't say the kingdom shall be theirs which would imply something in the distant future it says in the present tense the kingdom is yours if you have Jesus as your lord and savior then you are presently a citizen of God's kingdom in the here and now it's yours you know the weight on it Luke 17 21 says for the kingdom of God is in you Philippians 3 20 our citizenship is in heaven Colossians 1 13 says he delivered us to one of the million of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son it's yours all believers are presently adopted into God's kingdom by the Lord Jesus Christ and in this kingdom there is no such thing as green cards or work visas there is this not temporary citizenship it's permanent citizenship it's yours it's yours you don't lose it he's given it to you as a gift you are permanently a king you are permanently in God's kingdom through Christ many people in our country maybe even some of you in this room have what is called dual citizenship and what's dual citizenship it's a person who who's a citizen of more than one country many countries including our own it allows people to have dual citizenship but the kingdom of God does not the kingdom of God does not allow us to have dual citizenship you either in or you out you can't have one foot in on Sunday the money to Saturday you out you either in money through Sunday or you out money through Sunday where are you this morning as a believer are you a believer and if you are a believer where are you are you living as though you have dual citizenship I'm a citizen of the kingdom at times and then I'm a citizen of the world at times depends on how I'm feeling today where are you how can you know where you are here's how you see what comes with the blessings of the kingdom like citizenship or marks of the kingdom that is produced in us if you are a citizen of God's kingdom you're going to have certain marks that are produced in you you're going to have a character that is produced in you I mean citizens of the kingdom will have a kingdom character and we don't produce these things in ourselves these character marks are not talking about our natural character or our natural disposition but these are characters that are a result of grace these marks are a result of grace that are produced in us by the Holy Spirit and all believers have them not just some all believers don't care what denominates to you a part of or what theology you'll hold to every believer will have these marks if you're about this material or whatever you will have these marks produced in you by the Holy Spirit these kingdom marks kingdom character it changes it changes our being be I and G and it changes our doing D-O-I-N-G what's the first thing that's produced in us it changes our being that's what we see in verse 3 we see poor in spirit or spiritually poor it's not talking about being materially poor most people read that verse and that's what that's talking about blessed of the material poor for theirs is the kingdom of heaven it's not talking about that it's not talking about having a low self-esteem it's not talking about the things that come over you when life gets hard and those circumstances that make you feel poor in spirit no it's talking about your being this is who you are before the father you're spiritually poor it's a mark of the kingdom that all believers should have that when you before the throne of God you see your spiritually brain roped your spiritually poverty that you cannot work itself in the kingdom the kingdom was given to you as a gift you have nothing to offer that's what he's talking about blessed are those who have nothing to offer the father for theirs is the kingdom because the kingdom's been given to you not because of you they would cause a Christ it's a free gift that is eternally secure happy are those who continue to abandon their attempt to offer their 50 rags to the father in order 50 rags is your good works happy are those who continue to abandon their attempts to offer their 50 rags to the father for a favor that they already have think about that you're not happy when you offer your 50 rags to him because you don't have enough to offer their 50 but Jesus says happy if you no longer try to do that because you already have it for theirs is the kingdom are you happy this morning if you offer your 50 rags for approval you're not I guarantee you you live on the oppression you beat yourself up because I'm here to tell you abandon that continue to abandon that blessed are you happy are you when you live within the favor that you already have happy are those who continue to oh sorry happy are those who continue to abandon their attempts to fix their spiritual poverty do you try to fix yourself see we don't like being needy but poor in spirit that's what that's talking about be codependent and needy that's the kingdom mark we don't like codependent people because they're so needy but the father loves them know that we don't like them but the father loves them because we see we see our need of them we are humble before him but happy are those who abandon their attempt to fix their own spiritual poverty happy are those who continue to embrace and accept their spiritual poverty as a mark of the kingdom as a mark of the kingdom see all you need is nothing but not many people have it all you need is nothing but not many people have it because we want to always want something to bring we want to always have something to offer but the father says all you need is nothing and the kingdom is yours poor in spirit this humility this disposition before the father is produced in us by the spirit through grace and when it's being produced in us it squeezes out our pride it squeezes out our self-reliance our self-righteousness boasting in ourselves it squeezes it out like a lemon it's not mine it's not me it's the father it squeezes my pride it squeezes my self-righteousness draining every drop of it out of me and guess what it ain't gonna happen to glory so don't think it's gonna lead you listen to one sermon all of a sudden it's gonna be good the squeezing is goes throughout your lifetime and sometimes it hurt but it's good for you it's good for you you see our spiritual poverty is about our continued need for Christ not just for salvation most people read that and think it's just for salvation are you just spiritually poor at salvation are you just needed at salvation no it's you always needed before the father you're never gonna be able to have anything to offer we're all just given to us you grow in this the spirit produces this in you you grow in the importance of spirit by looking at Jesus praying to Jesus depending upon Jesus and resting on Him the words of old him says nothing in my hands I bring simply to thy cross we claim naked would come to deep address helpless would look to deep for grace foul we fly to the foul we to the fountain fly wash us saviour or what we die that's the Christian life always going to Jesus only those who are content in being spiritually poor can say that and be happy Paul says in second Corinthians eight nine for you know that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich yet for your sake became poor is that good news to you? though you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich when was he rich internally when he was with the father and when did he become poor when in the incarnation he became poor realized that he became poor when he became man in his death upon the cross and guess what else he says here in that by his poverty you might become rich by his poverty we might become rich so what does that mean Alex? it means we are spiritually rich in Jesus even though we are spiritually poor within ourselves we are spiritually rich in him the riches that come to us kingdom citizenship is a blessing it's part of us being rich in Christ because we don't get there without him that's how we've been rich salvation the kingdom and all of its benefits to us are our riches in Christ offering nothing and yet giving everything you offer nothing and yet you're giving everything do you know that? do you live that way with that type of power that you have everything you ever need in Christ that you have a father that you no longer have to work for but you have all of his approval all of his acceptance he's given to you all you got to do is receive it and rest all you rest last week we we had a staycation me and my family you know we spent time exploring the great city of Huntsville so doing things we haven't really done before a lot of things that we haven't done so one of the things we did we took the kids out to Cathedral Caverns and we went through this is our first time being inside of a cave and it was awesome it was cold and wet but you know it was good it was a good experience for us it had a really good time and if anything the only thing about a cave is cold and it's wet and if you didn't have any likes in the cave you can't see anything and so we went through the cave with a bunch of other people we had good tour guide and he did a great job taking us through and in the same way apart from the Redeemer even blood of Christ our soul our heart is like a dark cold wet cave you know that right that's who we were before Christ spiritually a dark cold wet cave with no lights complete darkness even though your eyes are open you're still blind you can't see anything it wasn't until the Christ shined his light of the gospel inside of you he received it in saving faith that he brought lightness to your life for every believer that happened to every believer before Christ you were dark dead spiritually and he came and brought you life in the spirit he's given you to be your true God throughout this life that's what he's done for us and once you receive him in saving faith that light that light of the gospel just never grows down but it grows bigger and brighter bigger and brighter throughout your life you'll be your Christ you'll grow increase you should grow more independent upon him not less looking at him more and looking less at yourself in the spirit grows these things in us produces these things in us it changes us from the inside out what did you just say from the overflow of the heart comes all sorts of things and the spirit is working in our hearts this attitude of being spiritually poor before the Father resting independent upon him and eventually that stuff works itself out in the way you live your life but always starts here from the overflow of our heart we live for the kingdom we do for the kingdom and this is what verse 10 here I think is talking about blessed are you blessed are those who are persecuted for rights and the sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven persecuted for rights and the sake is talking about doing something you're being persecuted from doing something what does this mean for rights and the sake simply means being like Christ in every area of your life living like Christ loving like Christ serving like Christ living on the influence of his lordship throughout your life so remember the two slices of bread of the kingdom our being is changed and the way you live is changed as well but the first one always the heart is always God's focus because he knows if it has your heart certain things will overflow from that and the way you live your life and the way you treat your friends and the way you treat your neighbors you see citizens of the kingdom act and live like citizens of the kingdom as a believer all of us as believers are ambassadors of God's kingdom so you know that you are ambassador a God's kingdom wherever you are in life or their position you are in you're supposed to represent him his kingdom on earth you realize the lost world look to us to learn about Christ you realize that don't you? we're the only Jesus that's going to see the hymn that lives in us and when we're working and when we're in school and when we're serving who are we representing there we don't represent the village church we don't represent Presbyterianism we don't represent all these other denominations we represent Christ here we go his kingdom his business Jesus said I'm always about the business of who? Father always do what pleases my father that should be us being like Christ again is produced in us through the Holy Spirit through grace and we don't do it ourselves it's produced in us and it's talking about I think living with integrity living with integrity wherever you are kingdom and territory how is that looking? Paul says in 1st 3rd and 4th and 10 for the kingdom of God does not consist and talk but in power the kingdom gradually will spread through every area of your life and you will begin to be like Christ in how you spend your money and your material possessions and your jobs and your family and your race your government you'll be your culture you'll be your education this what I'm talking about the kingdom shapes all of you and all those things it will in 2nd Timothy 3 12 says indeed all who desire to live a god of life in Christ will be persecuted blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake so Jesus knows that for his disciples who are going to be living for him they're going to meet resistance you will face persecution but you are blessed for yours is the kingdom in Christ you see the kingdom of God is kind of cultural it's kind of cultural and the believers within that kingdom also are kind of cultural because of that because of that nothing in the culture should be influences influenced in us we should influence culture because of who we are because the power that lives within us through God's Spirit you see in the broken and fallen world in which we live there are going to be those who don't like that there are going to be those who persecute us because of who we are Jesus said they hated me first and you know what comes out to that don't be surprised they hate you too but they hated me first and so when we represent the kingdom and all these different areas of our life you made me you made me some resistance and guess what don't be surprised by it but blessed are you for yours is the kingdom of heaven and guess what Jesus also said I will overcome the world and so through him we have too and so as we going out and engaging in the different things that we engage in whether or not whether it's education or government or whatever it is that you serve or how on your own business represent God you represent Christ you represent him and all that we do and the Spirit produces those things in us so don't go out here and come up with all these different rules you got to do me leave here go to the Spirit say Spirit I work in a job where it's hard for me to represent please give me the power to represent give me the power to stand firm on my convictions to do what is right not to compromise but to stand up on kingdom principles and wherever I am and he will he'll give those to you because he produces those things in us recently I've been getting these emails from this organization I guess it's a Christian organization and I read it and I think it's funny so I'm going to read what this organization says about itself it says blank blank organization exist to help America return to our founding fathers vision for a Christian republic America was once a light to the world a place that God blessed with liberty and prosperity today Americans are taught that all mighty state has all the answers as a result our God giving liberties are being traded for imaginary sense of security it is our vision to see Americans once again recognize that we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights and that is creators to God of the Bible what's wrong with that statement do you think anything wrong with it what's wrong with it there's some truth there but what's wrong with it is anything in this world a Christian republic is there any country in this world a Christian republic would there ever be a Christian republic in this world the only thing that may be close to that is the church but there's no country that God has specially ordained to be a Christian republic no never will be this is what happens when believers mix and match the Christianity with the world this is stuff that's the kind of stuff that comes out of it all of a sudden my organization agenda has become God's agenda all of a sudden my political stance has become God's political stance the kingdom does not mix and match with anything it's not needy it stands above everything else you know the song farmer in the del the kingdom stands alone the kingdom stands alone it's not mixed and match with anything else it influences everything else through us through you and me it influences the world it brings light where there's darkness it changes communities look at this ministry you think this has happened because of us it's happened because God's spirit is that work is that work this is what we're talking about this is what happens when the kingdom goes out it changes things it engages it fights the kingdom stands alone let's pray Father God I thank you for the blessing of kingdom citizenship that as a believer as Christians as followers of Christ we experience those blessings here on earth low-night of fullness of course we live in a fallen broken world and a fallen broken world things happen we still battle sin we still fall short so now we're going to be perfection here and you know that you're not blind by that Christ died because of that your word says that you are mindful that we are but dust we're the only ones that forget it so far as we go out producing us this humility Father to embrace our spiritual poverty before you knowing that we are rich in Christ and not in ourselves and also give us integrity as we go out and live and I rose as fathers and mothers of parents or child or student or employees or employers give us character give us integrity and all the different things that you have called us to and how we live our life here even though we're not going to be perfect but you can have integrity and not be perfect so we're not talking about perfection here so producing us Lord those things we cannot produce in ourselves and Christ name our pray amen.