Gateway Church Sermons
Alder Road Site | 8th September 2024 | Carlos Bertrand | Living Without Worry (Part 2)
Okay, okay, okay, okay good to see you here today, so lovely to say hello to everybody. Glad to be here, such a wonderful, you know, pleasure to be able to open the Word of God with you this morning. It's always exciting to preach the Word of God. So, hopefully, and we pray that God is going to be talking to us this morning. So, we've been, we started a new series last Sunday, Living Without, Without Worry. And we've been, this series is based in the book of Matthew chapter 5 and from 1 to 12, we're going through what we call the Beatitudes, that's just a list of things that Jesus was teaching to the people then and obviously to us now about how to live our lives well. And interestingly enough, we said last Sunday that there's an upside-down world, the way that Jesus is telling us to live our lives in that list, sometimes, and most of the time, you know, goes against what the world out there is actually telling us how to live our lives. And that's very interesting. The book that we're reading through is Psalms and thus we've been using Psalm 37. That's David's Psalm and the Psalms start with an advice of do not worry, do not fret. Then we go through the Psalm and give some advice. The Psalm is about how the wicked sometimes gets stuff. And we don't, even when we do things right, why is that? But at the end, David says, you know what, don't, you don't need to worry because God is in control and He's our refuge. So the combination of those two things are the basis of this series. And last Sunday, we talked about the first two, blessed are the important spirit for this is the kingdom of heaven and blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted, recognizing these two in our lives, you know, when we recognize sin and we actually get sad because there is some sin in our lives, when we do that, Jesus, and we come to Jesus, we recognize that we cannot do anything without Him. That is not us really, that has the ability to say that ourselves, but it is Him. His power, when we recognize that His power come to us and changes and that allows us to live the life, you know, in the way that He has called us to live. So today we're going to be reading Matthew 5, 5, and 6. So if we open your Bibles, let's read it all together, we'll read it once and then I'm just going to be mentioned each of them while I go through my notes. So it says, Matthew 5, 5, and 6, blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth, blessed are those who hunger and first for righteousness, for they will be fields. Yes, we live in a world today, you know, that worship's power and we cannot deny that. And anything that smells like weakness is rejected, but Jesus is saying here, blessed are the meek and they shall inherit the earth. I think this is one of the most difficult probably beatitudes or items in the list to live out because people usually, you know, have this idea that meekness is weakness. Someone once said, meekness can take you to heaven, but it will never get you a promotion. I don't know if that's true. But if you work long enough in the corporate world, you know, you realize that the general philosophy out there is still more or less the same. If this is to be, it's up to me, unless I sound my own horn, I wave my own flag, I talk really loud, I promote my own worth, I look down on others, I will never get anything in this competitive world. Suddenly is how it is. I was reading a book, the author is called A.W. Toes, I don't really know what A.T. stands for, but this is a really good book. It's called, I'm sorry, I forgot now, the pursuit of God, the pursuit of God. If you haven't read it, it's a small book here you can read in one sit, but it's absolutely wonderful and it was funny to, he was talking about this and how man and woman and how we were worried sometimes, and one of the bits he says this, "The man of culture is haunted by the fear that he will someday come upon a man more culture than himself. The learn man fears to meet a man more learned than he. The rich man sweat under the fear that his clothes or his scar or his house will sometimes be made to look cheap by comparison with another rich man." When I was reading that I thought it was a little bit funny, but in reality some people lives with those kind of worries. Some people live with those kind of worries, it is true. We worry about these things and about these situations what's going to happen later on, about what the others are saying to us. We worry about what the others will do to us. We worry about the way they're going to treat us. We worry about when people look down on us, we worry. But these worries little by little can't kill us as big as this unnatural way of living because that is not the way that Jesus intended us to live. But notice what Jesus is saying here, "Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit earth." Jesus is quoting Psalm 37 1, literally, and he's saying that the meek ultimately will get it all, will get it all, and that's good news for us. They shall inherit the earth now. The word meekness, the word meekness is not weakness as I said at the beginning, so we need to think about that. What is God saying here that the meek actually is going to inherit the earth? It's not frail, meekness is not frail, it's not fragile, it's not timid, but meekness actually is mildness of disposition, gentleness of spirit or if you like strength on the control. Blessed are the meek, blessed are those who have mildness of disposition, blessed are those who have gentleness of spirits, blessed are those who have the strength and their control. The words inherit in Greek, I'm not super fluent in Greek, so I'm not going to say the word either, but what it means is to receive gay position, so they shall gain position. Blessed are the meek because they shall gain position, they shall receive the earth. That's what this verse is saying. Now think about how the people that the Bible describe as meek. We have examples like Abraham, Moses, David, Paul, Jesus himself, the Bible describe all of these men as meek. So can you really thinking about these guys, you know, compare the word meekness, meekness as weakness? Do you think that these guys were actually weak? Probably not. Do you think that someone that led mammalian people, rebellion means of people in the desert to 40 years could be weak? You think that someone that became the greatest king of Israel could be weak, that we're talking about David? You think that someone that is weak could become the father of faith? That's Abraham, I don't think he was weak. You think someone that is weak can actually be the king of kings and a lot of lords can be weak, so meekness cannot be weakness. So meekness really is power on the control, strength on the control. And this is the key thing I want you to remember this morning, that meekness is actually strength that recognizes its need, it needs and God, for God. It's strength that recognizes its need for God. It could be strength that says it's rights, but chooses not to. Let's look at some meek people, this week I was going through some of these guys and finding situations where they were living and they were actually showing what meekness was. So I would like to talk about Abraham first. If you remember Abraham, God called him and he said, "Abraham, I want you to move from this place to this other place. Leave everything behind. Leave the households there, your father's household. Don't take anything, just move because I'm going to give you all of this." And Abraham had a fantastic idea and he said, "Oh, you know, I love so much. I'll do it God. I love so much my nephew that I'm going to take him with me." God already said to him, "Leave everything behind," but he did anyway, he'd take lots with him. And at some point, lots of horsemen start quarreling with Abraham and horsemen and there's a fight. And Abraham said to Lot, "You know what, Lot? We brothers, we don't need to be quarreling and doing all of these things." Abraham was the oldest, Abraham was the one that was cool. He has all the rights to say to Lot, "You know what, I don't like this. Can you go back to where you came from?" But the Abraham actually chose to be meek. Abraham chose meekness instead of doing something else. And he said to Lot, "Look, Lot, let's sort this out and look all of these in front of you. If you want to go left, I'm going to go right. If you want to go right, I'm going to go left. Let's take whatever you want and I'll follow." So that is what meekness is. You can have first choice, he said. How many of us would have the gods in the character to do that? To give others first what is rightfully ours. Will we have the faith, and this is the important point, will we have the faith to trust God enough to feel secure in him and allow other people to have first choice? We worry, we worry that we're not going to get anything of this world if we don't fight back, if we don't fight against everybody else. And that is what meekness really is, is the ability to trust God goodness, to trust that God is in control in any given situation. Not all is in control because when we try to be in control is when worry comes. Abraham knew that his inheritance was secure in the Lord. And so he's not afraid to say to Lord, you know, take this and take what belongs to me. Abraham had power, Abraham had strength, but he was on the control. He was meeked towards God and God kept his promise. And if you remember actually God caused Abraham to inherit the whole earth till today. Another one is David. David was one day, you know, in a situation where soul the king wanted to kill him. And he's a fugitive and he's in the desert and he's walking around and he finds himself in a cave with some guys in there, one of his followers. It turns out that one day if you know the story, soul was walking around and David had the opportunity to kill David, to kill soul. He was just there, soul was doing what he needed to do at that moment. For more details you can read the story. If you're really interested in what he was doing at that moment. Anyway, David had the opportunity to kill soul, to do something really bad. First of all he had the power, he had the strength, but he decided to choose meekness instead of something else. And what he did just to cut a little bit of, you know, soul's garments just to let him know that he could. So David, David had the opportunity as well. So Abraham, you know, knew that God was in control. David knew that God was in control. So the situations that they were facing were not easy. They were super worry, but at the same time, you know, they didn't react in the wrong way. They knew that God was in control. Finally, I think it's the best example of meekness in the Bible. Jesus is in the garden of Gethsemane, and all of these guys, soul just coming to arrest him. And Peter goes, cuts are soldiers here. And you know, it's a big problem. And God and Jesus decides that, you know, instead of calling hundreds of angels and kill everybody, just right there and save himself, he decides not to. And he picks the ear up, put it back, heal the soldier. And the moment that Jesus, you know, should have been more worried about his own safety, he decides to use his power to serve others. God was in control. So that is what meekness is, strength on the control, the strength that needs God. This week has been an interesting week for me. I was preparing for this, I was going to talk about worry, and it has been the week I have worried the most, if not in the last five years, in the last 35 years. It's been a difficult time for me at work. And I was away in Birmingham and thinking, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? The pressure was just enormous and things were just going wrong. And every hour, more things were going wrong. And I just, you know what? I felt that I wasn't a cave, just like David. But what I did was just to focus on what was going on and the work I was in my mind all the time. How am I going to solve this? How am I going to go out of this situation? How am I going to go through all of this? To the point that the eyes were so big that I really panicked. That was Monday night. I don't remember ever feeling how I felt. Lonely trapped in a cave, worried to the point that I didn't know what to do. That was absolutely horrible. So then I thought, well, I'm feeling in this cave, what shall I do? I'm going to call my Barn of Brothers, just like David did. And they were there with me. But was that enough? It was good, not to feel lonely, but that was not good enough. Because I still was thinking about the eye. It wasn't until I remember that, you know, I needed to look up. And I have the strength to throw the things. And I probably have the knowledge to solve the things. But I needed to look up and trust that Gosh was going to take control and solve that situation. Long story short, the week has been different. The problems are not gone. I still got lots of stuff to do. But the change in focus took me to that horrible Monday night to Friday feeling rested, even if I knew things were not finished. I couldn't, you know, rest it, throw it rested. So I had the strength. I could have reacted in some other ways. But knowing that God is in control helps. How are we reacting to worried? Oh, by the way, I want to say thank you for all the guys that were praying for me this week. It was, it was worry, it was encouraging, sorry, it was worry, and that was encouraging. I have another story, Becky, this week wakes up and we wake up and she said to me, I had a dream. And I said, oh, that's excellent. And I had a dream about your preach and I thought, bring it on, God, this is what I need. I've been in this situation. I need this encouragement. And I said, come on, baby, tell me. And she was like, ah, I dream that you were to walk to the pulpit and you couldn't talk. You were so worried that you couldn't talk and I was like, oh, the encouragement I need just right now. Anyway, I know it's making fun of it. But you know what, that tells me that, yeah, when I was thinking about it, the point is like I was so worried that I was actually transmitting those feelings to my wife. She was having those horrible dreams because she was worried as well. So even if it's funny now, it was not funny. So to be in that situation, guys, if you've been there, we have the knowledge. But sometimes when we're living, you know, we're doing things day after day, day after day, day after day, we forget that it's not in our own strength that we do things. Sometimes we just, we think that we got everything on the control and we don't. We need to look up, we need Jesus to use our strength in the right way and he is going to take control and he is going to give us the solution. How are we reacting to worry when in difficult situations we can react in three ways? We can give in to the close of worried and panic, you know, and just go into that cave, don't know what to do. We can fight back like the wickets and others. I could have, you know, I had so many things to say. I could have just go back to some people and say some lots of stuff and, you know, thinking that we are in control. We can fight back and hurt people. Or we can. And this is the way for all of us that trusting God, we and believing God and have God in our hearts. This is the way that Jesus wants. We can trust God that he is in control and that we cannot do anything without him. So this morning, I think it would be helpful, I thought, for us to examine a little bit, you know, ourselves and think, because during this week I had just been thinking about where my heart has been and how this situation has been and what has taught me. So I thought, maybe if we do a little bit of check on us as well, it will be good, you know, to tell if we are being meeked towards God or we need more meekness in our lives. So let's see a few telltale signs. Number one, what is the way that we are reacting to anger? You know, how are we releasing our anger? That is very telling. A man that has meekness or a man of meekness doesn't just blow up and rage. If you find yourself having an explosive anger, very likely you need the Holy Spirit toward this attitude in your life. You see, anyone can be angry, but to be angry at the right person, at the right time, in the right situation, for the right reason is really, really difficult. It's not easy, it requires the spirit of meekness. Some people, you know, can say, "Oh, you know, it's okay. When I'm angry, I just explode, so I just blow up and then it's all over." But think about it, just explode and then it's all over. It's not that dynamic, dynamic does that, right? That just explodes and then it's all over. But if you look back, you'll see all the damage that the dynamic has created. So it's not okay. In patience is the enemy of meekness. In Psalm 37, 34 says, "Hope in the Lord and keep his ways, and he will show you to inherit the land." Again, quoting the meek. Hope in the Lord, wait upon the Lord, be patient before God and keep his ways. You see, the meek person doesn't fret. His submeats and waits, his patience, knowing that God's timing is perfect. So have you noticed that? You're exploding a little bit lately. Number two, how are we receiving the God's word, his word? These indicate as well if we need a little bit more meekness in our lives. James 1.21 says, "Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and evil that is so prevalent and humbly received with meekness, the word that is planted in you, which is pure of hearts." If you remember in Samuel 12, after David has done something not really good, he has sin with Bathsheba and the Lord sends a prophet called Nathan, and Nathan is really intelligent because he knows David has authority. So he doesn't go just in telling off straight away. He tells him a story. King I'm going to tell you a story. And the story is about a rich man, a stool, a poor man, you know, loved lamb. In short, David was really angry. Who is this guy? Who is this guy? Such an injustice, David couldn't believe it. And at that moment, Nathan said to David, "You know what, Lord? That minus you." And David being the king, he could have just ordered Nathan execution at that very moment. Don't like your story over your head. But you know what David did? David actually has such a meekness heart that he recognized his own sinfulness immediately. And he received God's work meekly. And he was that, you know, not making excuses without arguing, without defending himself. David said, "I have sin against the Lord." David had poverty in the spirit like we read, that's the first beatitude. He was not afraid to mourn about his sin, that's the second beatitude. He turned around because of the hearts of meekness and meekness helped us to realize and to be able to respond to God when he's convicting us about something, when we have done something and really recognize that we are lowly in God before God. So the third one, this agreement. So the first one is, you know, are we being angry for no reason? Second one is, are we not agreeing with God is telling us, are we reacting in a bad way? Third one is, reaction to disagreement with others. Timothy 2, 24, 2, 24, 25 says this, "And the Lord, the Lord's servant must know quarrel, instead he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, nor resentful. Those who oppose him, he must gently instruct in hope that go we grant them repentance, leading them to knowledge of truth." You see, without meekness it's possible to win an argument and lose a friend or lose a relationship. Some of us here are like that's, well, hopefully just me probably. But we cannot just receive a good argument, we cannot just resist a good argument, we just want to be right all the time, right baby? We must speak, I'm talking about me, we must speak our mind all the time, we are so fast to draw a sword and because we are so good with words, because we can talk so loudly, because we can talk so fast our opponents don't even get a chance. That's a clear sign as well that we lack a little bit of meekness in our hearts. So Jesus said, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." You inherit something only when someone dies, right? When someone dies, you get the inheritance. But in this case, it's us, it's you, it's me who need to die. We die to ourselves so that we might grow in meekness. We die to ourselves so that all that is in the Kingdom of God can be ours. And as we grow in meekness, we share in the rich inheritance of Christ. We die to the need of a third ourselves all the time, sometimes we do that. We die to the need of impress others. We no longer need to be right all the time so that we can feel secure in ourselves. We just know that God has everything on the control. That's what we need to know and believe and come back again and again. Meekness begins when we put our trust in God. And because we trust Him, we can surrender all our anger, all our frustrations, all our impatience, all our anxieties, and all our worries. We can surrender all of that to God. And then we trust His timing. And we wait, then trust that He will work things out for us. We stop fighting hard for ourselves. We stop worrying about what we want. We stop worrying about what the wicked is gaining and we're not because God is our defender. He's our provider and He's the one who will fight for us. That is meekness. Number two, hunger and first for righteousness. Blessed are the ones who hunger and first for righteousness. I don't know if you've ever been watching a movie with your family. The movie is so good, you're like a gladiator, and you're there and your God starts rumbling and you're hungry and you're thinking, "I don't want to go to the kitchen because I'm going to miss the best scene ever." And you're thinking and you're thinking about, "Are they all this hungry?" No one is saying anything. There is a point that you cannot control your hunger and your thirst and you say, "Please just stop the movie. I need to go to the kitchen." And at that very moment, everybody goes to the kitchen because no one wanted to say anything. Yes. This is what's happening here. Matthew 5 has begun to link righteousness, hunger and thirst, together to show us that righteousness is as necessary for life as water and food. And when we're doing that movie, if you hunger or thirst, you need to do something, don't you? You don't just stay there waiting for something to happen. You really get out of the sofa and you do something. So this is the same. This is the attitude, it's telling us, "You know what? You've been focusing on your heart before, but now it's time for you to spring up into action." "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied." They're satisfied. The word hunger in the Greek means ardently crave, eagerly seek after. That's the intensity of desire. The word thirst means painfully feel the need for water. Imagine that. Have you ever feel that? Thankfully, the need, feel the need for water is very intense. And God is telling us here that that's the intensity we need to pursue, the intensity that we need to pursue after his righteousness. Now, what is this righteousness we hunger and thirsting, if that's our word, thirsting? Thank you, Vicky. Because I invent words, so I don't know if they, especially when we play banana grams. The word righteousness here, oh, and this is the, I went to say this word because I love it. From the word Greek, the word decizune, I love that word, decizune, so learn that. Which means leaning in the right relationship we got, in the right relationship with other people and all creation. That's the righteousness we're after. The good relationship we got, good relationship with other people and all creation. Does that ring a bell? Does that remind you about something else in the Bible? The great two commandments, right? Love God with all your hearts and love your neighbor as yourself. That's the righteousness that we need to look for. Jesus is calling us to hunger and thirst, a righteousness that is not, it's not our own because it's ours, it doesn't work. It's righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. It's rooted in what Jesus has done for us and the cross and we were just singing about that. So, notice that when our inner man is being satisfied with God righteousness, we'll become increasingly dissatisfied with sin and the other things that the word is offering. The more we embrace the righteousness of God inside us, the more repulsive we are towards the sin and the wrong things that are happening in the world. The more we feel our final satisfaction in God, the more we are dissatisfied with all of those offerings that don't bring anything good to our life and injustice. We see in Hebrews 11, 24, 26, this is Moses, talking about Moses and it says Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son's first daughter, but he chose to be mistreated. Look at that, who's going to do that? He chose to be mistreated along the people of God rather to enjoy the pleasures of sin. He chose to be mistreated. He wanted to be with the one sufferings, the word we're suffering. He didn't like the injustice done to his people. In other words, Moses began to know God and he experienced the goodness of God. He had such appetite to develop the spiritual things that he was willing to let God over the things of the world because he has found satisfaction in God and that's what we are called to here, to get up in action, to really crave for a good relationship with God and in relationship with others. So when we first come to Christ, it's because God has already given us some hunger and thirst. So as a result, we come to Christ and now we're safe and now we've got a good relationship with God. But that hunger and thirst must continue. It's not something that we're just going to experience once and we will satisfy as that said, but it needs to continue. We drink and keep on drinking. We believe and keep on believing. Why? Because this hunger and thirst are signs of life. As I said to you, now righteousness is connected to water and food, there's a signs of life. Having an appetite is a sign of life. That people have no appetite, right? When we have on confess seen in our life, we begin to lose the appetite for the righteousness of God. We have no more desire to fellowship or good relationship with others. You want to avoid church, a relationship with God, but once we repent and we come back to God and we experience this hunger and thirst, our appetite and thirst will return. And we're able to focus on God and in others and not just in ourselves or in our anxieties and worries. And this is another actually solution, not solution, but that's not the word I'm looking for, antidote for worried when we actually stop looking in and we look up and sideways. So God always responds to our inner longings, our deepened desires. And who hunger and thirst shall be satisfied, says the Bible. Anyone who hunger and thirst shall and will see God's victory in all situations. Let's remember that this morning we'll see God's victory in all situations. So maybe this morning, just to learn here, maybe this morning you came sad, disappointed, worried, as I was on Monday, asking yourself why the wicked has more than you, why there is some more injustice in the world, why there are so many situations in the world that make us feel, you know, feel us with fear and worry to name some, I don't know, persecuted churches, genocides, words, wars, poverty in the world, unfair pressures and run decisions at your workplace, unreached people by the gospel, all of those things. Maybe we came this morning like that and I think it's a good time today to reflect in how are we doing, are we looking up all the time, trusting God in all situations. This morning we can posture our hearts to hunger and thirst after God's kingdom and His righteousness and we will be satisfied. How are we going to be satisfied? Where are we going to see God's victory in all situations? We will see God's justice here and earth now and when He comes back. Let's pray, let's pray for justice, let's help for others, let's pray for others, let's forgive as we have been forgiven, let's get involved in community and trust God that His will will prevail. Let's come to God this morning knowing that He's in control of our lives and control of what's happening in the rest of the world. Just to finish Psalm 3740 and this is the last verse on Psalm 37 as well, it says, "The Lord help them and the live is them. He delivers them from the wicked and save them because they take refuge in Him." So brothers and sisters, this morning do no threats, do not worry because Jesus is our refuge. Amen. Shall we pray? But this morning we just want to come back to you, come this morning to you acknowledging that we cannot do anything in our own strength and sometimes we make the mistake of believing that. Lord we want to be me, we want to acknowledge that even if we have the capacity and the strength, we cannot really do anything without you. The strength we want needs you, needs your strength God. So help us to reset our hearts this morning if we have been failing or doing the wrong things, believing the right things, trusting the wrong things. This morning we want to come back to you. Lord, help us as well to really not to be like a potato and a couch, doing nothing. Lord, you calling us to really take action, help us to with big intensity to look after you and have a relationship with you and help us to have the right relationship with others as well. Help us to love to bless others and stop looking inwards and start looking atwards. Lord we want our hearts to be in line with your desires. Amen. (soft music)