August 16, 2026 |
Sunday Morning
Matthew 5:3-6 | The Descent to Delight
John C. Majors |
Matthew 5:3-6
Facebook
Twitter
Email
Print
Good morning.
It’s great to be with you.
Awesome morning
to start by celebrating baptisms.
Love that.
As we’re going into a new series
we started last week on the Sermon
on the Mount.
We get to experience
new life that the Sermon on the Mount
talks about.
So we’re going to continue
working our way in.
We’ll be in this
first section of the Beatitudes.
If you want to turn to Matthew
chapter five.
We’ll look at that in just a second.
And as I was thinking about what
this passage is trying to drive at today,
I was thinking just about the world.
If you’ve traveled anywhere in the world,
you’ve seen all different
kinds of people,
all different kinds of cultures,
buildings, the way people act,
what they value.
There’s just such a wide diversity
of personalities and food and culture
all over the world.
Anywhere you’ve gone, you experience
these new things and oftentimes their eye
opening and shocking
and and you just wonder,
oh, that’s not how they do it at home.
That’s not how my mom did it.
And so they’re wrong.
And so you wrestle with all that
and you wonder
how can there be so many different
people in this world?
One thing that’s interesting,
no matter where you go,
there’s there’s one
constant among all of humanity,
whether they believe
in any religion or not.
There’s one thing
everybody is searching after,
and everybody just wants to be happy.
Everybody, even if they do things
we would consider evil.
It’s their way
of trying to find happiness somehow.
Find significance, find purpose.
Everybody is searching after that.
This is what the Beatitudes
are going to address today.
There’s a lot of different ways
you can pursue happiness,
and the world gives you
a lot of methods for that.
The problem is they don’t really know–
they’re taking their best guess.
And so they’ll say, get money,
get pretty, get accomplishment.
That’ll make you happy.
You’ll find significance in that.
I saw an interview with Tom Brady.
This was years ago,
I saw it,
I can’t remember
exactly when it was or who it was with.
I just remember the gist of it.
Here’s Tom Brady
just won his first Super Bowl,
married to a supermodel.
And of course, now,
as accomplished of an athlete
as you can possibly be, very wealthy,
well known.
And he said,
and I don’t remember the exact
time frame, but it was very short.
He said.
I was happy for about a day
after winning the Super Bowl.
It was about a day.
And then I thought, this is it.
This is where significance is found.
This is it.
All this I’ve been striving for,
this is the finish line. Really.
It didn’t satisfy.
Where do we find happiness?
Where do we find joy?
If you want to know where it is,
we’re going to look at where it is.
We’re going to look at
what the Scripture says
about what it means to have true joy
and true happiness.
So if you would turn to Matthew
five and stand while I read the verses
we’re going to look at today,
we’re going to look at the Beatitudes.
We’re going to focus on the first half.
I’m going to read Matthew
five, verses one through 12.
Here we go.
Matthew five, verse one.
Seeing the crowds,
he went up on the mountain.
And when he sat down,
his disciples came to him.
And he opened his mouth
and taught them, saying,
blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for
they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for
they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst
for righteousness, for
they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, for
they shall receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for
they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for
they shall be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted
for righteousness
sake, for theirs
is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when others revile
you and persecute you,
and order all kinds of evil
against you falsely on my account.
Rejoice and be glad, for
your reward is great in heaven.
For so they
persecuted the
prophets who were before you.
You can be seated.
Famous section.
Well known
section of Scripture
referred to as the Beatitudes.
And I thought growing up
that was just the combination of the word
be and attitude.
Makes sense.
These are the kind of attitudes
you should be.
You should have.
And I think that’s partly, partly at play.
But that’s not
why they’re called Beatitudes.
I’ve listed in your notes
this verse or verse three in Latin.
Of course,
the New Testament was written in Greek,
not Latin,
but it was translated to Latin.
And that was the dominant
Bible of the Catholic Church
for 1500 years,
I think still the official Bible
of the Catholic Church today.
And the first word there
of that translation of verse
three into Latin, from the Latin
Vulgate is the word beati, or be-a-tie.
And of course, that’s
where we get the word beatitudes,
beati would have been the Latin word
for what we translate as blessed.
And don’t worry,
I know
you see some other foreign languages
there.
I’m not going to
spend a ton of time on this today.
We’ll get to why I put that in there.
But this is why these are called
the Beatitudes, the blessings.
Now many when they look at this list,
even though we read down through
verse 12,
most say this is probably
just a group of eight main beatitudes.
There’s a couple of clues to that.
And this is important
part of the part
of how you understand
the meaning of something is to understand
how it’s grouped together.
Why are certain verses
put together and others aren’t?
And the way they’re grouped together
often tells us some
about what the intended
meaning is of them.
First thing to notice
is it’s interesting
that Jesus, in
starting his Sermon on the Mount,
isn’t starting with action.
Here’s what you’re supposed to do.
Here’s the things you’re supposed
to make sure to carry out.
Here’s how to act.
Instead, he starts with,
here’s who you are.
This we saw in the epistles.
We saw with Paul, we saw in Ephesians
the first half of the book of Ephesians
all about be.
Here’s who you are.
Over and over again
in Christ, in Christ, in Christ,
you got to start with who you are.
So then you know how to act.
You act out of who you are.
Then he follows it up.
The second half of the book
is 40 commands,
and we’re going to see
a lot of direction, a lot of action.
But he starts here with who you are.
And most believe
that there are just eight beatitudes,
even though there’s ten, 11 verses
that we read through.
And here’s the clues we get to that.
Look back at verse three.
Each blessing follows with a promise.
You know,
it starts with, here’s who you are
and those who are this way,
here’s the reward that follows.
And in verse three he said.
Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Only in verse three and only in verse ten
do we see that phrase.
Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those
who are persecuted for righteousness
sake, for theirs
is the kingdom of heaven in verse ten.
And so you have those two phrases
as bookends.
You want to know
what the kingdom of heaven looks like.
Here it is.
This is an envelope around the ideas
that are the kingdom of heaven.
And notice
that both of those
are in the present tense.
This theirs is the kingdom of heaven,
whereas all the verses in
between are future
future tense just scan down through them.
Verse four.
Blessed are those who mourn, for
they shall be comforted.
Each of them in between.
The beautiful part of that is
this reminds us
that the kingdom of heaven
is both present and future.
Jesus announced this
in chapter four, verse 17, repent,
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
It’s here.
So we’re not waiting fully
for some, hoping
that someday the kingdom will come.
The kingdom is here now.
Yet there will be a future
when it’s here in full.
It’s been started.
It’s begun.
When Jesus showed up,
he launched us
into the kingdom of heaven.
It is here
you can experience the realities
and the joys of living
in the Kingdom of heaven.
Now we don’t have to wait,
but yet it is fullest.
When sin is cast out
and death shall be no more,
neither will they be mourning
or crying or pain anymore.
For the old is gone. The new has come.
There will be a day where everything,
all sin is cast out.
Death is gone.
Everything will be made
right in its fullest.
But now,
in this present reality,
the kingdom is here,
but it’s also in the future.
This tells us
we have these eight verses together.
The other interesting dynamic of these
is that they really can be broken
into two halves.
That’s
why we’re going to focus
on the first four today.
And that’s the reason why
I put those Greek words in your notes.
You don’t have to know Greek.
The only thing I did here
was to highlight
or bold
the first letter of each of those words
that come after after blessed.
I don’t know if those ended up
on the screen or not,
but if you have your notes, you’ll see
verse three,
verse four, verse five, verse six,
the third word listed there.
They all start with the letter pi.
You know that letter pi
that is used in math to describe
how many times the radius of a circle
can go around the circumference?
I hope I got that right.
I did take a lot of math in college.
You’ve heard that letter Pi.
It makes the same piece sound
we use for the letter P.
Each of those start with that letter.
And that’s a common way.
I mean, Baptist preacher,
do it all the time.
Let me start every main
point with the same first letter
to make it memorable,
to group them together,
to hopefully say, these go together.
There’s a point.
There’s why I am listing these this way.
And the reason he does that here
is this mimics
the structure of the Ten Commandments.
First half of the Ten
Commandments are all
about our relationship with God.
You shall have no other God before me.
No idols worship God alone.
And then the first four
beatitudes are heavily
focused on our relationship with God.
The second,
second half more in our relationship
with others.
Second half of the Ten Commandments.
More on our relationship with others.
And there’s
just a subtle nuance here of saying,
you already know what this looks like
in the Ten Commandments.
You already know that
our first priority is.
And I’ve listed in your notes
Matthew 22:36
first commandment love the Lord
your God with all your heart,
soul, mind, strength.
Second, love your neighbor as yourself.
You already know that those sum up
what it means to know God.
And so he’s taking us back
there by doing that.
And so today,
as we look at these
first four beatitudes,
we’re going to see,
and I’m using the phrase
a descent to delight.
You want to find true joy.
You want to find true happiness.
There is a descent to delight.
We’re going to see four steps
down to the Descent of Delight.
I’m going to talk
about why I call it a descent here.
In a minute we’ll get to that.
Well, let’s look at this
first one in your notes. We’ve said
what is the first step
towards the descent to delight?
How do we find joy?
How do we live out fully
the kingdom of heaven on earth?
Here’s the first one.
You must come to the end of yourself
if you want to find true
joy, true happiness.
If you want
to know what it means to be blessed,
you must come to the end of yourself.
Let’s look back at verse three
and we can talk about what that means.
Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed
are the poor in spirit, for theirs
is the kingdom of heaven.
Who is blessed in the kingdom of heaven?
It’s the poor in spirit.
Now what does that
phrase poor in spirit mean?
Some of the Beatitudes
have parallel versions
in the book of Luke.
In the book of Luke would get
what’s called the Sermon on the Plain.
This is called the Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus there is teaching on an open plain.
It’s a lot shorter.
And so we don’t get all the beatitudes,
but some of them,
they have parallel versions here.
This is one of them.
In Luke six it said,
blessed are the poor.
He leaves out the in spirit part in Luke.
Keep in mind
Luke and Matthew are both talking
to different crowds.
I’m going to talk more about that
next week.
Matthew makes clear
the intent of both Luke and Matthew.
We’re not just talking about money
poor in spirit.
This is really important
because it’s not your bank
account that determines
whether you get into heaven or not.
It that has no bearing, actually.
Now Jesus makes it clear
it might be hard for a rich man
to enter the kingdom of heaven.
Money can be a stumbling block.
But look,
there are rich people
who are very close to God.
There are poor people
who are very close to God.
There are rich people
who are very far from God.
There are poor people
who are very far from God.
Money doesn’t
inherently determine
your relationship with God.
In fact,
there are rich people
who take a lot of pride in their money.
Look how great I am
to make all this money.
Look at my self-reliance.
But you want to know what’s weird?
There are a lot of poor people
who take great pride in their poverty.
Look how spiritual I am.
I have so little
I don’t need much to get by.
Like like them.
Look how self-sufficient I am.
In both cases, the issue is pride.
In both cases,
they need to come to
the end of themselves,
come to the end of self-reliance.
That’s what this is talking about.
Poor in spirit.
I’m not just dependent on me.
By the way,
do all you can to be
a good steward of your money.
Scripture is clear about that.
On Wednesday night,
everybody, everybody should at some point
go through Financial Peace University,
and the younger you are, the better.
Julie and I went through
something like that
early on and it,
even though we made very little money
serving in ministry,
it made such a huge difference
in our lives.
We don’t have to become a slave to debt.
Side note
that’s offered on Wednesday nights.
By the way, you can sign up
out in the hallway.
We’re going through that.
We’re going to start it in September.
Financial Peace University.
Fantastic material on
how to be a good steward of the resources
God does give you.
But this isn’t talking about money.
Poor in spirit.
What does poor in spirit mean?
Let’s just talk about that word poor,
because it’s an interesting word.
Behind it is the idea of being in a
lowly position.
Kind of
the posture of a beggar
is behind that idea.
In fact,
the word it, it’s even pronounced like
the word, the sound you
make when you spit on someone.
It’s Patoka, so it’s you.
Just almost.
This idea of someone is so below me.
Someone that just is
worthless to society.
So the position of spiritually poor
in spirit,
that same idea attaches to that.
What does it mean to be poor in spirit?
I captured this quote from a theologian.
He says, those who stand
or we could say
kneel before God as poor in spirit.
They are those without pretense
before God,
stripped of all self-sufficiency,
self security and self-righteousness.
You see the picture there
of someone who’s poor in spirit.
They’re saying, God, I’m
before you, and it’s not about me.
I’ve got nothing to give.
I’ve got nothing to offer.
I’m empty before you.
This is in great contrast, by the way,
when we were studying Revelation,
the churches in Revelation,
you remember Laodicea.
You think you are rich
and are in need of nothing.
That’s what you think.
You think because you have money,
you’re in need of nothing.
But I’m telling you, you’re poor,
destitute.
Poor in spirit says God.
I’m empty before you.
I’m dependent on you completely.
I need you,
and I’ve got nothing to offer.
That’s what we’re driving at
when we talk about poor in spirit.
If you’ve been involved in the recovery
addiction community,
there’s a phrase
you’ll hear about someone.
When someone isn’t quite ready
to give up everything
they maybe think they are,
I got this, I’m managing this.
Well.
It doesn’t have control over me.
I’m good.
And you’ll hear this phrase of
that kind of person.
They haven’t yet hit rock bottom.
They haven’t gotten there yet.
They think they got it under control.
But they they don’t
they haven’t gotten to the place
where they say,
I don’t care what anyone else thinks,
I don’t care.
All I want is freedom.
They haven’t gotten there.
They still think I got this.
I can do it on my own.
I don’t need anybody else.
I’m not so weak
that I gotta have help
to get over something.
Okay,
listen, if you want to be poor in spirit,
you gotta hit rock bottom spiritually.
That doesn’t mean
your whole life has to fall apart.
That means you have to get to the place
where you go.
I don’t got this.
And, God, I desperately need you.
I can’t do it.
That’s a
hint of what it
means to be poor in spirit.
And this is where it starts.
And this is why
we’re using this word descent
to delight, by the way,
because the first step towards moving
towards God is moving
downward, away from self.
And it starts downward.
It feels like I’m going backwards here.
I’ve worked so hard
to build up my image and my abilities
and my self-esteem,
and those things aren’t wrong,
by the way.
If we do, we do need to grow.
We do need to develop our skills.
We do need to become strong people.
But yet also ultimately
our dependence is on Christ.
That’s number one.
Now look at number two.
The second step down
in the descent to delight is
there must be genuine sorrow for sin in
your life.
There must be genuine
sorrow for your sin.
I know plenty of people
who carry a lot of sorrow
around for the sin of others,
everyone out there,
and all the sin they do.
But we’re talking about your sin.
There must be genuine sorrow
for your own sin.
Look at verse four,
blessed are those who mourn,
for they shall be comforted.
That seems like a contradiction.
Some I’ve seen, some translate
this happy are those who mourn, for
they shall be.
Wait a second.
How have I seen this?
Happy are those who are hurting.
Is the way I’ve seen some worded. Happy are
those who are hurting.
And you go.
How can that be?
That didn’t make any sense at all.
You’re right. It’s very confusing.
We need to understand
some of these words.
This word blessed.
We keep repeating it.
We love to use that word
in Christian circles.
Be blessed
now live a blessed life full of blessing.
A lot of times
we don’t even know what that means,
but we love to throw it around.
I think it’s good overall.
It’s interesting.
When I looked at all
kind of the major translations,
15 or 20 of them.
Almost every one of them
use the word blessed.
When you look in
the Greek dictionaries,
you start to look at
what’s the word behind this word,
one of the translations
listed as very legitimate,
as legitimate as blessed
is just the word happy.
Happier though
you could use that in place
and blessed all throughout here.
Now, there’s a challenge with that
for us as Christians,
because we’ve kind of developed this
competition or we’ve put against the word
happy against the word joy.
You may have heard this.
You know, you don’t.
You don’t want just happiness.
You want joy.
You don’t want
just to be happy temporarily
in the moment, temporarily.
You want full,
abiding, long lasting, everlasting joy.
And I agree, by the way,
I agree with that idea.
But we can’t always slice it
that finely, there’s plenty of times
where you talk about being happy
and you also are full of joy,
and there’s times
where you talk
about joy
and realize it’s
it’s passing, it’s fleeting.
Sometimes there’s overlap in those words.
The ideas are true.
So some have said even
blessed, even happy.
Neither of those words really get at
what is going on here.
Some have used the word like favored
but– or fortunate.
Both of those words
maybe feel like a bit of luck.
Like like you got lucky,
stumbled into it somehow.
That’s not true.
Jesus knew who you were.
He didn’t just suddenly appear.
He had forgotten about you.
Oh, there they are.
No, he knows your name.
He knows who you are.
He knows every hair on your head.
You’re not escaping him.
He didn’t forget about you.
I think a word I’ve seen some use
that I like the best
is the word flourishing.
Flourishing.
Fulfilled.
Experiencing.
I think we saw in John 10:10
the abundant
life, life to the full, life flourishing.
This is what this is talking about.
And so the person who is full, flourished,
abundant, and yet they mourn.
How can that be?
We tend to see those in American culture.
We do everything we can to avoid
being unhappy.
Do all you can to avoid that,
whether it’s a substance
or social media or whatever,
you start to feel a little unhappy.
Find something to numb that pain quickly.
We can’t stay there.
I think.
A side note for us, before
I really get into this idea of blessed
are those who mourn.
I think a side note
is just the reality that as Christians,
it is okay to be unhappy at times.
It is okay to be sad.
It is okay to cry.
What’s the shortest verse in the Bible?
Jesus wept.
Where does it say Jesus laughed?
Did you remember that verse?
It’s not in there.
That doesn’t mean he didn’t laugh,
okay?
But he is often described as, in fact,
a man of sorrows.
Point being, it is okay
for you to have grief, to be sad, to cry,
to have moments of sorrow.
It is okay as Christians.
But
1 Thessalonians
four, they’re quoted in funerals all the time.
We do not grieve as those without hope.
We grieve differently.
It’s okay to grieve.
We grieve differently
because we have hope in him.
And this is some of what this is driving
at when it says, blessed
are those who mourn.
We know
the context of the Beatitudes
is a spiritual context.
And so the mourning here is primarily
spiritual.
If you get to the end of yourself,
there should be grief for your sin.
And look, I can look back on my life.
Sometimes I don’t have to look back
very far and be very full of sadness
and remorse for the ways I acted,
for the ways I treated people.
I wish I could go back and change
some of that and treat them differently.
That’s not the person I am now.
I hope in general,
and it’s not the person I want to be.
You know, you’ve been there.
There should be genuine
mourning for
that sorrow for your personal sin.
And yet,
what’s the promise here?
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they shall be comforted.
This is the difference for the Christian.
We mourn, we grieve, but
we are not beat down by our sin.
The comforter comes and comforts us.
The Holy Spirit
in me.
You have hope.
You have eternal life.
Come to me.
So that’s the second step
down to the descent into delight.
Blessed are those who mourn.
Number three,
the third step in the descent to delight.
It is the humble that find
their true inheritance.
It is the humble that find their true
inheritance. Look at verse five.
Blessed are the meek, for
they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall–
this is the word inheritance–
inherit the earth.
The challenge, the big challenge
with this verse,
I don’t ever use the word
meek positively.
I don’t ever hear
anyone else use it positively.
If you call
someone meek, it’s not a compliment.
And if someone called me meek
and someone called you meek,
you probably wouldn’t think,
oh man, I’m so glad they called me that.
I feel so honored.
It would probably not be a compliment.
In our American culture,
we’re not meant to be meek and mild.
You’re supposed to be the go getter,
the one out front.
You don’t wait around for others.
You go and get it done.
We don’t let someone push us over.
What are you talking about, meek?
Isn’t it interesting, though?
Guess who described themselves as meek
in scripture?
Take a wild guess.
Jesus.
Jesus referred to himself that way.
I’ve listed in your notes
Matthew 11:29, come to me,
all who are weary and heavy laden,
I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, for
my yoke is easy.
My burden is light,
for I am gentle and lowly of heart.
Where gentle is the same word
translated here as meek.
So who’s wrong about the word meek?
Is Jesus
wrong about the word meek, or are we?
Not
a trick question, by the way,
should be pretty clear.
We don’t understand
what that means.
That’s why I’m using the word
humble here.
There’s too much baggage
on the word meek.
We can’t get our minds around it,
but I think someone can speak
of someone having humility.
And we can go. Yes, that’s it.
I know I need that.
I don’t know how to get there.
I’m scared to pray for it
because I don’t want to be humbled.
But I want humility.
Now, what does it mean
that that person is the person,
the meek
are the ones who inherit the land,
inherit the earth?
Most believe, and it’s pretty clear,
this is a quote from Psalm 37:11.
I’ve listed it in your notes.
You don’t have to turn there right now.
The context of Psalm 37 is all about
how do the righteous endure persecution
from the wicked and still depend on God
through the midst of that?
How do you get through that?
How do you navigate that?
And Psalm 37:11, he says this.
It’s almost a direct quote
the meek shall inherit the earth
or the land,
and delight themselves in abundant peace.
It’s the meek shall that inherit the land
in the Old Testament,
a sign of God’s favor and blessing.
In fact, knowing
you were under
his rule
was to be in his land, to be in the land,
to have the land as an inheritance.
Part of the challenge is
that there were moments
where his people took it upon themselves
to get themselves into the land,
instead of waiting on the Lord.
That word
wait shows up over and over again
in Psalm 37.
Wait, wait, I got this.
But they don’t always wait.
Moses strikes the rock
instead of speaking to it.
Moses doesn’t get in.
The spies
said, no, no, no, it’s too scary.
We can’t go.
They don’t get in.
You can’t do it your own way.
You can’t
get into the kingdom in your own way.
It’s the meek
that inherit the land.
The picture we have of that
in the Old Testament is Gideon.
He came with 32,000 troops.
And God said, that’s too many.
You’ll get all the credit.
Okay. What about 10,000? Still too many.
300
There’s no way anybody
but God is getting the credit
when your army is whittled down to 300.
Blessed are the meek.
They shall inherit the earth.
Here’s the inheritance
that we’re looking for.
It’s not the land.
It’s the spiritual land.
We want to be in the kingdom
for all eternity with him.
And so it’s those who
say, I don’t have this.
You do.
I’m depending on you.
That’s the picture of meekness
here that we see.
I’m depending on you.
In fact,
the only thing I have to do to get
the inheritance is just to be a child.
That’s the only thing you can do
to get
an inheritance
is to be a child of the king.
It’s not about how great a child
you are, though. We want great children.
Of course, on the earth,
people mess up inheritances
and they fight about that.
And there is all that going on.
But in the spiritual realm,
you are my child and you are in
the kingdom
is what God says to those who know him.
Lastly, number four,
in the Descent to Delight, here’s
where it all comes together.
The first three steps
were really downward away from self.
This is the first hint
upward pointing back now to God.
We’re going to look up to him.
We’re going to read the verse first.
Verse six.
Blessed are those who hunger
and thirst for righteousness,
for they shall be satisfied.
Here’s the idea we’re going to unpack.
You will find happiness by pursuing,
not happiness.
But what is greater than happiness?
It’s a little bit of a conundrum.
It’s a little bit confusing,
but the pursuit of happiness itself
for itself doesn’t lead to happiness.
It reminds me of
there was this girl in high school.
Teenager always had to have a boyfriend.
Always.
And for her.
And, you know, looking back,
I couldn’t see this.
You couldn’t see it at the time.
And I doubt she did either.
She didn’t care about the boys.
She just wanted a boyfriend.
She was in love
with the idea of having a boyfriend.
She was in love with love,
not with the people.
And you’ve seen that?
I mean, some adults end up there,
rush into a relationship
because I don’t want to be alone,
and this person
will finally make me happy.
That’s what
they’re there for, to make me happy.
That’s a bad formula
for starting a relationship.
I hope they do make you happy,
but if you put all that weight on them,
that is too much for anyone to carry.
Instead of
pursuing happiness for happiness sake,
you pursue
something greater than happiness.
And happiness becomes a byproduct.
And what we see here is blessed
are those who hunger
and thirst for righteousness.
Righteousness.
We’re going to see that word
a lot in the Sermon on the Mount.
I think for our purposes,
we can talk
about the pursuit of holiness,
the pursuit of what
honors God, the pursuit of him.
I want you to just think about it
for a second.
The time in your life
when you were hungriest
and most thirsty.
When was that time when you felt like,
if I don’t get something to eat or drink,
I don’t know if I can go on.
Do you remember?
Can you picture that time in your life?
I remember just a few years ago
I was so sick.
It was like for a day and a half,
I couldn’t put anything in me.
And the food wasn’t.
The issue was the water.
I was so thirsty.
My mouth was so dry,
felt like it was getting glued shut.
When I finally got
just that little thimble
full of water in my mouth,
it was like drinking electricity.
I mean, it was like
all the
flavors of the world,
all put together
in one tiny drop of water.
And it was unbelievable.
I couldn’t believe it.
How amazing it was.
I’ve never tasted anything as good
before or since,
and I was desperate for water.
Blessed
are those who are desperate
for righteousness.
We’re going to do
a little self-evaluation.
Do you find yourself, on a regular basis,
desperate for righteousness?
None of us do it perfectly.
But in general,
do you find yourself hungry
for the things of God,
longing for the things of him?
The Christian should have
a healthy appetite
for the things of Christ.
Here’s the challenge
I want to give you this week.
Most of us
wake up in the morning hungry physically.
Some of us wake up.
You can’t even think about anything else
to get that piece of toast down,
or that donut or whatever.
Here’s what I want to ask you this week.
This week.
The challenge is, before
you feed yourself physically,
feed yourself spiritually.
Before you satisfy
the hunger of your body,
satisfy the hunger of your soul.
Start your day every day this week.
And I get it.
Maybe I’ve medication.
Maybe you have health needs, I get
I get all of that. Okay.
You do what you have to do to adjust.
But for the person who just gets up
and mindlessly
eats and maybe forgets
about reading the Bible or prayer.
This is the week to make a change.
When you get up
and you feel that hunger pain.
You know I first got to feed my soul.
That’s where I’m going first.
I’m going to pray
that God gives you the strength
to do that all week.
Because here is where
this all comes together.
The Beatitudes start with these four.
The Beatitudes starts with this idea
that you better get your relationship
with God right first.
If you want to find happiness and joy
and blessing and life fulfilled,
you can do everything else
seemingly right.
And if you miss that,
you’ve missed it all.
This is why we are going down to delight
and looking up to Christ,
to find true joy
and true happiness in all we do.
Let’s pray.
God, I thank you
for your word that guides us.
Thank you that we can turn to it.
And as you preach to us, we can see
what it really means to live
fulfilled in the kingdom of heaven.
And we have our own ideas,
and this world offers ideas
and we take lots of guesses.
But you tell us,
and so help us to listen.
Give us ears to hear.
Give us hearts that want to obey.
And I pray this week, every day,
every single morning
that we would wake up
more hungry to meet with you.
More hungry to satisfy our souls
than to satisfy our stomachs.
Would you give us the courage
to put you first every day?
I pray that your presence
would be so overwhelming.
This week, every morning
we would wake up and know
you’re there with us
and it would bring comfort and delight.
Thank you for your word that guides us.
Jesus, we love you.
Amen.
