Passion City on the Hill: Who is Blessed?

throughout history there have been leaders who've issued declarations of their vision of what humanity should be like manifestos of how society should be organized declaration of independence communist manifesto jerry maguire's internal memo all kinds of leaders declaring this is how society should be organized and if they're leaders they're not just giving you philosophy of like wouldn't it be nice if society was built this way they're also saying and here's how we're going to put it into practice it's not just idea it's intent this is the way this world should be and this is what i'm doing to bring that about right so it's it's got vision to it this is where we're going and it has values and this is who we are meant to be along the way someone issues a manifesto it's got cause here's where we're meant to go and it's got culture and this is what it's like to be one of us right and so all through history men women have issued manifestos statements like these declarations of what a culture a society should be and they've met various degrees of success they've forged nations inaugurated massive social change launched movements all through history but what we're looking at today and over the next couple weeks that i'm excited about is we're looking at the greatest of all manifestos this is king jesus giving the manifesto of the kingdom a kingdom is a system of rule it's a way humans operate with one another organized under a king and here we have jesus saying i am a king and i am building a kingdom a society and this is how i want us to live in the world now to give you context we're in matthew chapter five this is early in jesus ministry jesus arrived on the scene about 30 and he started preaching and the text tells us he would go from town to town to town and say the kingdom of heaven is at hand that was the theme of his message which is interesting because he doesn't say uh some ideas i had or here's an idea of what we could do he says it's the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of god that's at hand these aren't just man's ideas it's not some leader's ideas this is god's idea of how a human being should relate to each other and he was going around and saying that the kingdom is at hand it's here it's present why because i'm here and he sets himself apart as king which quite honestly any person can do that anyone can say hey i'm a leader now everyone follow me and people may or may not believe you but then jesus would couple it with miracles the blind would see the lame would walk the dead would rise and let me tell you something if you're preaching a message we may or may not be interested but if you raise someone from the dead afterwards we're all going to perk up all right and the miracles authenticated the message and the messenger suddenly they're like this dude's saying it's a new day for humanity and he's got the juice to back it up and so people start to invite their friends they start to call people they start to come and so by the time we get to this passage it says people are coming from jerusalem judea the decapolis across the jordan all of a sudden masses of humanity coming out to listen to this man who has the power and the words of god with him and when we arrive at this moment his popularity hits critical mass and so jesus goes to the top of a plateau and he sits down and he issues the manifesto of the kingdom this is what it is to be the people of god in the world and this is what i want to look at together how do we become a city on a hill because that's what he says here and you know we had to move on to the hill here so we're doing passion city on the hill so i thought ah it makes sense to read this passage on a city on a hill that feels good but he says we're meant to be a city on a hill and what does that mean well back then you would build with white limestone white limestone and if you did it on top of a hill a bunch of buildings it would reflect the sun and so these cities would shine even during the day it was obvious to see where they were and at night they'd be lit up by candle lights you could see a city that was perched on a hill for miles it's the same today if you've ever flown on an airplane at night you know when you pass over a city because it's lit right or if you look at those nasa world at night photos you know instantly where the population centers are on the planet it's all lit up bathed in light and he says i'm building a society a community that's meant to be a light to the world and then he says so that they will see your good works and glorify your fathers in heaven jesus says i want you to work with each other in a way that's good that the world would see it and say you know what i'm trying to figure out my way in the world those people got something going on those people the way they're doing things works i want to be near them i want to move into their society i want to be under their king i want to go there for safety and stability in life i'm moving towards them like someone out of darkness into light that's what we are meant to be as a culture as the people of jesus right that in many ways we will look like the culture jesus dressed like a middle eastern man spoke aramaic used illustrations anyone would get back in those days they're primarily agrarian but then when he started talking about but there are other ways we will be very much unlike the culture and as the sermon progresses past what i read today he starts saying hey the way we process anger very different than the world the way we handle our sexual impulses very different the way we keep our word the way we handle anxiety and it's interesting in his sermon like a good teacher he doesn't just present philosophy he starts to get very practical in this sermon stuff that would apply to their lives then and our lives now he said what should you preach a sermon on you probably say anger and anxiety everyone's scared and upset jesus is gonna do that because he's irrelevant to the human experience and he says there's a way to navigate the world that works not just for you but could make you a bright beacon of light to the world that desperately needs to know how to move how do i become a city on a hill now it's important as we jump into this to give you some context right and so jesus was the jewish messiah coming to the jewish people at a critical moment you know they they had been their own autonomous nation in the old testament and yet here in this moment they were ruled by a foreign power the city of rome uh the empire of rome through external control of rome but they also knew they didn't just have a political problem they had a moral and a spiritual problem because in the old testament god told them i'm making you a nation and i'm going to bless you and god said i will be your king and he said so i want you to obey me and then he warns him if you won't obey me if you don't submit to me if you don't want to for me to be your king when i say if your enemies donkey runs away go get it for him like if you don't like those rules then i'll let you be ruled by somebody else i'll put you under foreign domination and you'll figure out pretty quick what it's like to have a human ruler they will use their power to explore you exploit you they'll take whatever they want from you and you have to figure out how to deal with it and so they persisted in disobedience and he did and you saw in the old testament babylon wiped them out and the persians ruled over them and now they're ruled by rome so you get the sense of the people of god looking and saying there's a restlessness in us we're not fully who we're meant to be under god and we don't feel good about that and here jesus comes and says but the hope that was sprinkled to the old testament of one day redemption coming it's here it's here with me and we find out later in the bible that the gentile the non-jew any gentiles in the house we get to be grafted into the same kingdom that there's a message here for the people of god back then and for us if we have ears to hear it and so it's going to get very practical by the way we're going to get deep into your life so if you're like man i need this guy to get my grill don't worry about it we will but i can't just start with the practical stuff because that that's about uh skipping about a third of the sermon because at the top of the sermon he's going to tell us who gets in the kingdom how do you get in and then he tells us how the people of the kingdom behave right there's all kinds of societies the different barriers to entry who gets in right uh you want to get into a certain club you got to be attractive you want to get into a certain restaurant you have to wear a coat and tie right you want to get into this society you have to give some certain amount of money there's all kinds of clubs and societies that have different entrance fees what we're looking at here is how do you enter into the kingdom and then we'll look at next week in the next couple weeks how do the people of the kingdom behave and let me just make this note before we jump into the text this is great timing to do this for us because coming out of covid no one knows how to act we have no idea what to do people are fist bumping elbows and dodging hugs like no one knows what to do do we make eye contact now does that spread a disease no one knows and we're all sort of emerging from our holes going how do i interact with another human we have no idea how to function as a society and so i think there's no better time for the people of jesus or if you wouldn't call yourself that just if you're curious about him to say well how does he say we're meant to work not just as individuals but as us how do we work together and he says i got away i know a way and when you do it this way you will shine you will be blessed and others will be blessed too see it so we'll get a running start in the philosophy here and then we'll jump into it later how does a city on the hill how do you become a city on the hill today and then how does the city on the hill look the church in the modern age through the sermon about the kingdom so he begins with this famous segment you probably recognize it even if you don't read the bible much it's called the beatitudes which is latin for blessed because he's saying blessed is this person blessed are these blessed are these and then he tells you why uh blessed there some people say means happy this is about how to be happy you follow these steps you'll be happy and that's true ish it is true that it's talking about how to experience an internal sense of peace and joy but that's not all that it is an internal feeling of happiness to be blessed has an external component that an outside being here god extends towards you love approval kindness grace and that extension externally of blessing to you becomes an internal sense of joy and peace because you got it so the word blessed there encompasses both god wants to bless you externally send his approval towards you so you can experience the wonderful cognitive release of knowing the maker of the stars knows me and likes me that's what's so crazy about today you can walk out of this space today and no i am blessed by god who does god bless hashtag blessed why how you're about to find out from the king and so he goes through these who is blessed and here's what's interesting it's none of it based on your practice what you do it's not based on the possessions that you have or don't have it's all about posture the posture of the people of god is in this text right and so verse three you see the first one blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven what does poor in spirit mean is this talking about being poor economically not necessarily although in luke's version it just stops at the word poor and there's a lot you can say about that but the reality is in the bible it's there's significant overlap in language about the people who are poor materially and understand their needs spiritually there's something about the poorest materially it becomes easier to understand spiritual poverty easier to understand a sense of lack or limitation the rich can get pompous i made some money i've been successful suddenly there's a halo effect i'm good at anything i'm good at everything i don't need god i don't need other people look at me go and so there's something about the external presence of wealth that can be internally corrupting to your values it can make you a jerk but it doesn't have to there's some rich people in the bible that are cool and there's some poor people that aren't nice and so it's not just talking about materially although there's big overlap to that through the scriptures what he's talking about here and matthew makes it explicit is the poor in spirit here's the thing because all these are connected how do you get blessed by god who is blessed by god who gets into the kingdom of god those who admit their need those who admit a spiritual poverty nothing in my hands to god i bring simply to the cross i cling the bible tells us we do not buy the approval of god through the things we do his approvals not for sale it is a gift to those who acknowledge their need i'm not good enough someone else has to be good for me i am not sufficient in myself though we're all beautiful in the image of god we're all broken there's something wrong with you and with me and when we acknowledge that we are positioned to the blessing of god when i admit my need and come with empty hands he's most able to fill it blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven how do you get into the kingdom you admit you need the king blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted now is this about people who've lost love loved ones not necessarily what he's talking about here is again in that old testament context the book of isaiah talks about the people in the old testament were meant to feel bad we walked away from god and we lost the blessing of our autonomy under him we're under foreign power we're dominated by powers outside of us that are ruining our lives they're meant to feel a sense of grief because of what they've done so you're meant to just not only realize i have a lack you're meant to feel bad about that lack i want my kids to feel bad when they do something bad if my son can punch one of my daughters and feel no remorse that's terrifying that's called a psychopath i want him to feel bad and when he does then i can offer grace all right buddy well what can we learn from that how can we live in a different way right but i need to see him mourn that i've gone astray and here he's talking about that hey blessed are the poor and spirit i know i'm not okay i know i'm lacking and i don't feel good about that i need someone to help me in in the book of isaiah he was telling the whole old testament that man you walked away from god and it's hurt you some of you know what that feels like you're here with just the tiniest motocrom of hope because you know i walked away from god and i've traveled down many roads that have led to no answers and you're here wondering if there's grace enough for you let me just tell you today there is it's when you admit you're poor in spirit and you mourn that's when the grace of god comes running towards you in the book of isaiah when the people realize that man we've made a mess of our lives isaiah 41 he flips and says comfort comfort my people and then he starts talking about the messiah the king that would one day come to comfort you and here jesus grabs his language on purpose i'm the comfort of god that's come to those who realize their need i remember when i first started in ministry i met this lady she did accounting for our church and i was asking her how do you become a church accountant i didn't even know it turns out that she uh had become a christian fairly recently she had been enormously successful in ministries successful enough to retire at 40. and she said you know is the interesting thing man i was successful she said but i just got to the point in my life where suddenly i realized i've got all this success but i don't feel right about myself i don't feel good about me i don't feel good about the way i'm living and i didn't know how to solve it and she said you know but ben i realized i knew i was lost even though i didn't use that language she said for years i knew i was lost i just didn't know how to get found she said but when i started mourning that and crying out to god she said a flyer landed in my mailbox and i showed up here came to faith became the accountant of the church i was like how about that right but she's living the beatitudes i come poor i come morning and his grace comes flooding in blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth this is not what most people meet think especially in this town might makes right right and in our culture today i don't defend my position i just steamroll opposition that's who we are in the world today the christian says something else the christian says i'm okay admitting my weakness i don't have to act like i got it all together i can come in small because when i come in small i get to acknowledge that the most powerful of all beings is my king i don't have to fight he fights for me blessed are the meek you don't have to act like you got it all together which can that just be a huge sigh of relief for some of you you don't have to act like you have it all together we don't want you to because we know you don't you're a mess but i know in this town so many of us feel like we have to right you go man i gotta arm her up put on my power suit power tie power handshake i'm taking over the world right and you just armor up no weakness cry later now you can't put on your power suit you can't shake hands you're all destabilized but you come here and you're like religious people okay i got this hallelujah praise god and like you're trying to armor up like you got to put together stop stop you don't have to have it all together here nobody does god doesn't want you to do that he just wants you to be real and say i'm a mess he's like i'm aware but that's good when you say that because when you admit you need that mercy that's when mercy comes when you admit you're meek you you inherit the earth the whole kingdom's his and he offers it to his children who come humbly and ask right blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied it's not just that i feel a lack in me is i want it to be filled by what's right i go man i'm insufficient in me and i can't fix it no i'm out of discipline no self-help book i'm reading all these books about how to get more organized in my meaninglessness but i don't really know where it's all going i want to know what's right i want to know what's true i want to know what's beautiful not just so i can do the right things but so i can be a part of what's right in the world how do i get reconnected from being dislocated from the universe and what it's about and when i hunger for that long for that i want that i don't just want to wake up and rise and grind and make a paycheck and do it all for no reason at all i want to know where this is all going and i want to lock step in with the king when you hunger and thirst he says you be encouraged because i will satisfy that i would dare say he put that hunger in you that's what he does right and when you long for him he says that's who gets in the kingdom you want the blessing of god you long for him and he loves to give it to you uh i've told this story before my mom she was a school teacher and there was one day a student was crying in class kind of real disorganized kind of a mess and so my mom pulled her in the hallway and was like what is wrong with you what is going on and this girl was crying it was like said miss stewart do you know what happens when you die and my mom said no this girl was distraught about that for some reason my mom was like well hey look like you need to just eat all those feelings and go back in here like you can't have you doing all this you know went back in class about a year later this girl came back to school she had graduated she came back and she said ms stewart do you remember when i asked you that question she said i think i found the answer and she said i'd love to share it with you and and she gave her this little kind of copy of the scriptures with with kind of some guide and what it is to know god and she gave it to my mom and it offended my mom you trying to say i'm not a good person trying to fix me with your little religious pamphlet didn't care blew her off until about a year later when some things that gave my mom stability in life got destabilized some answers she thought she had suddenly felt more like questions and she looked up at her life and realized hey there's a lot of things i was counting on that are no longer here for me and she started to feel that need something's wrong here and i don't know how to get right so she started looking to all these different religions and different backgrounds and spiritual backgrounds and she said all of them quoted jesus like every spiritual movement was trying to hijack jesus and she said i found jesus's words more interesting she said so i just went to the source there was a tv show about jesus on so i watched it it was like a six part series she went and found her coffee table bibles the only bible she had in the house people used to buy those for people like to write down birthdays and baptisms and stuff so she got that like 50 pound baptism bible some of you all got those she just boom threw it on the coffee tables like okay she just kind of read along in her book he did say that that's crazy and she just followed along and without any prompting without being told it wasn't homework from her church she just wanted to know god that hunger and thirst led her to the feet of jesus when she saw what he was like and he was really like that she saw the way he lived how beautiful it is and how far it is from how we live when she saw him bleed out and die for us behold the lamb of god who takes away the sins of the world she said i want him and she knelt down and put her faith in jesus and a couple months later had me and i got to grow up in a home that knew the grace of jesus because my mom hungered and thirsted for righteousness and god satisfies that you don't have to have all the answers but you come hungry you come thirsty and i promise you he longs to satisfy you just keep coming back and when you do he changes us on the inside and it begins to affect how we act on the outside he says in the next verse verse seven blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy when you come to god and know you need mercy you are more apt to show it to other people it's the folks who think they have it all together that are arrogant right your favorite people it's the ones who know they're needy that can be the most gracious and he says when you come to god for mercy you can be merciful i mentioned sebastian younger last week one of my favorite authors he just wrote a book recently where he took some guys that had gotten out of the military and they went and had an experience together where they walked along the railroad lines from washington dc up through pittsburgh and went for miles uh it's illegal by the way to hike along railroad lines uh but they did it had loads of fun made a video about it but he said it was interesting as i walked these rail lines he said uh we noticed a familiar pattern he said when we walked through poor neighborhoods just a couple of dudes and backpacks wandering he said regularly we were asked are you okay do you need some water he said when we would go through more wealthy neighborhoods they would call the cops he said it was an interesting thing it was like the people who understood deprivation and the need for mercy were much more inclined to show it and spiritually it's the same way when i know my need i am more apt to meet need in other people it manifests in compassion blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see god there was a time in christianity where becoming a christian was socially advantageous uh it happened in ancient rome after the emperor became a christian people realized oh if he's a christian i need to act like i'm one too well holy sir because maybe i'll get a promotion i'll get more money i'll get more power and there were people that began to pursue jesus for mercenary motives happened in ancient rome happened in america that a lot of people here played the game of being christian because it had some social advantage right it was sort of a mercenary motive and it's a little less like that now some of you not scoring a lot of cool points by saying you're a christian at work but the reality is he says hey it's those who have a pure motive that you're gonna meet god so i don't know what drew you here if you're just here to pick up chicks it's fine i mean i'm glad you're here but uh uh you're probably gonna miss out on really knowing god all right because blessed are those with a pure motive i really want to know him that pure longing he's gonna satisfy that uh a scra scribes were always trying to trick jesus and one of them came to him once and said what is the greatest commandment and jesus gave the answer he'd given other places love the lord you're going to like heart soul mind love your neighbors yourself and this scribe said you're right he said if we do that it fulfills the whole law and and that's better than any sacrifice we could do and jesus looked at him and said you're not far from the kingdom you know what it is to have a pure motive i just want to love god i want to know him and i want to be affected by that relationship you're close blessed are the peacemakers they shall be called sons of god this isn't if you go make peace then you get to be a son of god it's you will be recognized as such right my son looks like me not in a desperate attempt to become my son but because he is my son god is gracious when you love him and he's gracious when you're a jerk god is gracious to those who pursue him and he's gracious to those who flee from him he is gracious to those who love him and he's gracious to his enemies that's our god and when you come to know god you become like that too that we can be gracious we can be peacemakers in the world right which is a fascinating thing to be right because the world is kind of banking on division right now you think we'll stand out if we're peacemakers i guarantee you if the people of jesus are about reconciliation and not division we will look different than the world right and what's interesting he moves straight from that to persecution verse 10 blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven i love the way d.a carson commented on this he said it's no accident that jesus should pass from peacemaking to persecution for the world enjoys its cherished hates and prejudices so much that the peacemaker is not always welcome isn't that a rough sentence the world enjoys its cherished hates we like hating some people i love everybody it's easy to love propositional hypothetical people but all of us have people in your life that you pray and never show up here because you can't stand them right and it's hard to worship when you know you hate that guy and he says but blessed are those who are peacemakers but it'll cause persecution there's people that don't want peacemakers in their midst blessed are those who are persecuted but notice it's not just people who go through hard times everyone goes through hard times those who are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven he says when you associate with me when you come poor and needy i'm gonna bless you it's gonna change the way you begin to live and as you do that you will become different than the culture and there will be opposition there will be friction because you'll stand out you'll be strange but how do you know you're blessed by god you stay you don't leave blessed are those when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven he doesn't just say you'll you'll get persecuted for being a nice person he said because of your association with me will cost you in some places socially but how do you know you're really his how do you know you're part of his kingdom how do you know you're blessed by him you will associate with him even if it risks costing you i remember when i was in high school i had a buddy he was in his homeroom class and he left and he came running up to me he wanted to tell me a story he's like hey man i gotta tell you this is awesome he said i was in homeroom class and the yearbooks had just come out he said and there was a page of all these people that had won different awards he said this kid sitting in front of me in class just started going one by one through the pictures and making fun of everybody on this page loudly for the whole class to hear just listening to him mock people he's just going like look at this look at this guy and he said he's just going down the list making fun of all these people and then he gets to my girlfriend he said he starts talking about her big head he said and i stood up and told him that's enough you don't get to talk about her like that in front of me and he told me that story to just kind of show me what a tough guy was so that i encourage him like you did good buddy then look at you stand up for your girl that's awesome and then i said to him wait a second uh my picture was on that page uh i said did he say anything about me and he was like oh yeah he was going off about your weird-shaped head i was like oh okay so you let that blow right on by you were kind of like well you know some people's heads were yeah i was like you didn't mind then i understand where your allegiances lie right apparently our tether is not as strong right how do you know you're really bound to somebody you'll take the hits you're not just with them for better but you're with them for worse how do you know you're with jesus because you want him even when it costs you something it's one of the ways you know i remember when i first became a youth pastor there was uh these two young high school kids that i didn't really know they weren't really part of our ministry asked if they could meet with me and i was like sure and so they set up the meeting uh at olive garden which was so strange i'm like why are we at olive garden then uh they told me later they're like well we didn't know what pastors eat and i'm like okay like uh this is these nervous high school kids and i'm trying to figure out like what do y'all want like what is happening and um they had had some kind of spiritual experience that had led to some conviction in their soul they knew i'm not right and i want to be right and how do i get right with god and they were asking me very sincere earnest spiritual questions and so i shared with them the gospel you're all beautiful in the image of god broken because of sin jesus christ stepped in live the perfect life you could not die the death you deserve he's the messiah the chosen one of god the leader of this human story you can be knit together with him by faith and i start talking about that what it is to know jesus and one of them looks over at his body and says if our friends find out we're christians they will never hang out with us again they were both in theater together and he just instantly put that together you didn't even have to get that far in the beatitudes he just felt it if we associate with jesus they will not call us to party with them anymore and he was like well i don't know we can still be cool with them we can just tell them we're on this journey but we can still be cool with him and he was like man i don't know and then they left and i watched him as they were leaving calculating is he worth it and one of them started coming back come back to church all the time and got to know him and ended up mentoring him and uh setting the bible with him and and i asked him kind of about his life and he was like you know what man i tried so hard to just be gracious be a servant care about this community and he said but then yeah they don't call me anymore i know they're i know they're hanging out they don't call me i said what about your buddy he was like oh someone else told me that he told them all about the conversation we had with you and he just mocked me to all my friends and uh it hurt him but jesus looks at him and says but you're blessed and your reward in heaven will be great has the kingdom started now yes you enter into the kingdom it's already but it's not yet there's more blessing in the future but there's some pain now will it cost you yes but when you take that hit let it be assigned to you i know i'm really his because i want him even when it's hard i had a friend she was a she was the sweetest human being i'd ever met in my life i don't think that's wrong to say she was just so not she was so nice we would play racquetball and she had a mean swing i mean she would hit the ball so hard to make that weird like high-pitched zinging sound it's like like you couldn't see it you just later the ball would land and i'm like what i didn't even see that coming and every time she did that and just aced me she would turn around and go i'm sorry and i was like no stop don't you pity me you win all right uh and uh hated playing against her she beat me all the time but she um left college and went to work for this consulting firm and i'll never forget her coming back and she was like you know i just really wanted to be friends with my co-workers and that was her she was like i'm like high up in this consulting firm and i've made brownies you know she's just the sweetest thing but um she wasn't uh she wouldn't criticize she wouldn't jump in on bad-mouthing people she was something else in the culture and she never judged them like hey y'all stopped talking like that she just wouldn't go with them and as they watched her live different she got rejected by a lot of those people she had people who would begin to mock her and make fun of her because her life was different and yet jesus says you're blessed great will your reward be in heaven because they persecuted the prophets the same way it's always been like that that god has called some people to walk with him and it may cost you but you won't change the culture by just swimming along in its stream you have to go against the stream will there be resistance yes but you can change the tide we can do that that's what he says in verse 13 you're the salt of the earth but if salt's lost his states how shall the saltiness be restored salt was common in the day most common as a preservative you would put salt on meat to keep it from decaying and he's saying i am taking my people and scattering them through the culture so that we hold society together that we have a moral preservative quality against the decay of humanity that's who we're meant to be you see that all through human history you see as the jewish people were carried away there was degradation in society but it was esther who showed up stood up and through her moral purity and faith rescued the jewish people daniel the same you see all through history through painful regimes there has always been a remnant of people who will stand up and say no love beauty and truth are worth living for and worth dying for and it's when someone stands up against the tide of hate and ruthlessness and judgment and presents a more beautiful way you'll be despised and you might just get followed and you might just be a preservative to a culture maybe if we're a church like this we see a city change but if you lose its saltiness how will it be restored it's no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet now i know there's just a handful of science nerds in here there's like technically salt never loses assault on yes it's a stable compound stop it um back then they would gather uh silts from marsh beds and so it had salt in it along with other things and they would spread it on meat and if it got in any way diluted you would have handfuls of stuff you would call salt but it lost all of its salt content and so it was no longer useful so they would take it and throw it on their roofs because it would prevent or kind of create a flooring on their earthen roofs that they would use as balconies to hang out and have parties in like we use our balconies and roofs here in dc so uh they said hey we just if it's not going to be a preservative in the culture you just throw it out to be trampled on and some of you feel trampled on in your faith at work and it's because you don't necessarily stand out and yet we're called to be something different a light to the world something that stands out a beacon your friends can come to when they're hurting i don't know about you i have many friends who've had that happen to them their friends would mock them shame them deride them and then come to them when they were hurting do you have the strength to be different let me close with this jesus ends and we don't have time to read it all but he ends by talking about whether or not he's come to abolish the old testament that would have been a tension if you were jewish you were feeling like man we had the old testament law the romans took over is jesus just like starting some news third thing and he says no i'm not here to abolish the law of the prophets he said i'm here to fulfill them i'm here to bring them into their full completion that's what i'm here to do and then he says but unless your righteousness surpasses that of the pharisees and the scribes you won't enter the kingdom of heaven it's a very disturbing verse i know some of you were kind of hoping i didn't read that one it's a bad place to end you know wait a minute the pharisees inscribed for the most religious people of their day took great care to to follow every bit of the old testament law and how they dressed what they ate how they walked while they spoke he said we got to be more righteous than them how is that even possible i heard a pastor say it this way it would be as if jesus said you got to be fast to enter the kingdom of heaven what's the natural question you would ask after that how fast i love that y'all answered that by the way yes not rhetorical uh how fast i got to be what if i said usain bolt let's do slow ego well then who can get in it's the fastest guy we got that's how they would feel scribes and pharisees yeah the most religious people i've ever seen yeah they're not righteous enough that's just okay all right well then there's no hope for me exactly and that's how you loop around this up i'm poor in spirit and i'm more than that and i come in meekness and i hunger and thirst for what's right and i find within myself the inability to be what i'm meant to be all of us have fallen short of the glory of god and jesus says i know and i haven't come to abolish this law i came to fulfill it down to the smallest letter i will obey it for you i will be the perfect emblem of humanity that you failed at i will fulfill the hope in the old testament of one day a king will come and bring peace with god again i'm that king i'll fulfill the sacrifice the old testament you brought the blood of bulls and goats to show i know i'm guilty and someone else has to pay for my guilt but the blood of bulls and goats can ever take away sin they're just symbols but john the baptist says behold the lamb of god who takes away the sins of the world that jesus christ could live the perfect life you and i could not and if the wages of sin leads to death he didn't sin so he didn't need to die but he did die willingly but he took on your death and mine so that when we come with empty hands we come humbly we come empty to that cross equal ground equal footing at the cross all of us rich poor wherever your background and experience religiously we all come with empty hands to the king and say will you forgive me will you love me will you rescue me and jesus says yes because it's the poor in spirit those who hunger and thirst for righteousness that will be satisfied called sons and daughters of god loved by him and inherit this earth do you know him he's what we're selling and when you come to know him he will change you and we'll look at that in the next couple weeks the way you handle anger resentment all different anxiety it's coming but the change has to start in here and it doesn't start by doing a thing it starts by receiving what he has done

Channel: Passion City Church DC

Views: 7,426

Rating: 4.9484978 out of 5

Keywords: Passion, Passion City Church, Passion Sermons, Ben, Stuart, Washington D.C., Passion D.C., christian, sixsteps, (six), passion conference, passion, passion city church worship, passion church, passion music, worship, jesus, ben stuart, passion city on the hill, sermon on the mount, kingdom

Id: m8-rZjz7We0

Length: 40min 1sec (2401 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 07 2021