Amen. Thanks, JT. Good morning. Good to see everybody this morning and just great to be able to come and join you again to worship.
It is super for us, too, just to be partners together, partner churches.
There isn't just one local body. There's one church. Right. And we're all part of it.
And it's there's a great expression of that in Edinburgh growing.
So it's just been super to be a part of that over the years and just to work together for the for the for the cause and for the kingdom of Christ in this great city.
Amen. Just be able to do that together. And this is a part of it.
This is just gathering regularly like this is what we need. We need to be here.
We need to be together. We need to encourage each other all the more.
Don't we as we see the day approaching and with all the craziness in the world going on right today?
I don't know. I don't know. Might be approaching fast.
And there's loads to do. There's loads to do.
And it's just to be it's super to be able to be a part of it astounds me every time I think of the fact that God would invite me into that.
And I hope you feel the same way, too.
So I'm just great to be able to worship and be a part of this kind of weekly reminder and encouraging and equipping that we get to do as we come together week by week.
There's there's I don't know if you know this or not, but there's a there's a group, a fairly large group of Americans here today from the States who have come from from our church plant in Wallaford and come to do some ministry here.
And they didn't come to Corroboros this morning because they didn't want to hear an American preacher.
And so they came to Brunsfield where they could hear a good Scottish guy.
But Graham's not here today.
I'm so surprised for you guys.
But I'm sure great to have you here.
They're over here. Get to know them after the service.
They're as weird as anybody from the States, but I'm sure you'll enjoy their company this morning.
All right. So back to Matthew.
You guys are back to Matthew, obviously, after taking a break and picking up here in chapter five.
If you if you flick back through your Bible, through the first four chapters of Matthew's gospel, you realize that by the time you get to chapter five, things are just beginning to take off.
It's really kicking off now.
The first four chapters of Matthew are very early on in the life and the very early ministry of Christ.
And so you've got all the events surrounding his birth.
And then you have the events surrounding his his baptism and then the choosing of his first disciples, the beginning of his ministry.
And now Jesus is back to Galilee.
He's come back to Galilee.
And that's kind of where it picks off here, picks up here in in chapter five.
Jesus is back in Galilee.
He's he's just I mean, it's crazy stuff is happening.
Wonderful stuff.
Wonderful.
But great.
I mean, if you were there, if you were a part of this and things have been silent for so long for the for the Jews, they haven't heard much from God.
400 years or so.
And and and the prophetic word was absent and there was they were still waiting.
The faithful among them knew something was going to happen, just like probably us.
I'm not saying the prophetic word is absent today, but we're waiting.
We're waiting.
Lord, come on.
Come on.
The world is just the world is is is so tough.
It's so hard.
It's so misguided and misled.
Lord, please come on.
They were probably in some sense feeling that in these early days.
They were feeling that what's going on.
And then all of a sudden it begins to happen.
And the word comes and and and Jesus is born and the word is beginning to spread.
And then there's some quiet years as he grows up and now he's back.
He's back and he's baptized and he enters the scene and he's tempted and he he begins his ministry and and wild stuff is beginning.
And I'm right at the end of chapter four.
He's going around Galilee and he's teaching and he's preaching and he's healing and he's he's he's he's delivering.
And and and and and and word is beginning to spread is something's going on.
That's right.
Something's happening.
And I'm sure there's loads of people who are asking the question.
Who is this guy?
Right fair.
Who is I don't know what your story is.
But my story is that that when I was 19 years old, I was really introduced and and and in a in a in a in a in a big sense really to Jesus.
And the more I began to read the word of God and and journey in the direction of Christ, I began to ask this question.
Who is this guy?
And I don't know about you, but I even find myself now, 46 odd years down the line of following Christ.
I find myself when I get to a point where I'm really, really praying.
It doesn't happen as often as I'd love it to.
But where I'm I really feel like I'm connecting with God.
I find myself just looking up, asking a similar question.
Who are you?
You know what I mean?
We tell people we know God and I'm supposed to come here and I'm supposed to teach you about God.
What's that all about?
I'm supposed to teach you about God.
All I can do is I can try to tell you what he said about himself.
Right.
That's all I can do.
Teach you about God.
Who am I?
I'm going to teach you about God.
Right.
The eternal creator and sustainer of everything.
And we got to be really careful just that we don't become, I don't know, too blasé or too familiar or whatever it is that we know God.
Really?
How well do we know God?
And I do.
I find myself 46 years down the line.
I still find myself looking up into the sky thinking, who are you?
Who?
Anybody with me here?
You guys.
Right.
You understand American.
You talk to these guys later on.
You got to understand what they say.
Who are you?
And so it's all happening.
That's I got get a sense in the Bible when I try to read this and put myself in their shoes.
I get a sense.
That's a bit of what they're feeling.
What's going on?
Who is this guy?
And so he begins to gather them together.
In fact, he's not going to have to gather them together.
They just follow him.
They just start following him wherever he goes.
They follow his crowds.
Of course there's crowds.
There's stuff going on here that people have never seen before.
Never experienced before.
Maybe they've heard some of it in the stories of the past.
Moses and the great miracles.
And now it's starting to happen in their day, in their time, in their place.
It's here.
It's happening.
And so he sees this.
Chapter 5.
He sees the multitudes.
And he goes up on the mountain, we're told.
On the side of a mountain.
And disciples are sitting down with him.
But the crowds are there as well.
And he sits down, we're told, and he begins to teach them here.
And it's probably one of the most well-known, I think, passages in the Bible.
This first bit of Matthew chapter 5.
Even for people who don't normally read the Bible.
I think that probably people are probably just familiar in one sense.
I imagine most of us have heard these verses before.
This is the first part.
This bit, and JT just read for us, is the first part of the first sermon that Matthew records Jesus preaching.
He kind of revolves a bit of his gospel around these five big sermons that Jesus preaches.
And this is the first one.
And these verses, they're often referred to as the Beatitudes.
The Beatitudes.
Beatitudes.
People kind of probably heard this before.
They're referred to as the Beatitudes because the word blessed.
Right?
Blessed are the poor in spirit blessed.
The word blessed that Jesus uses here nine times in 11 verses comes from the Latin word beati.
Beati.
Which is the word for blessed or for happy.
Except as the Lord begins to unpack this here, you realize that what he's talking about here is infinitely more profound.
You know, we just think of happy, happy, happy, happy, you know, happy days.
Right?
How you doing?
Happy days.
We just throw it around.
Whatever.
Infinitely more profound and rich in meaning than what we often think when we normally use the word happy.
One commentator says that the word Jesus uses here is miles away.
It's miles away from just a good miles that we've just been, you know, Artemis and Splashdown.
Right?
You all been watching that.
What was I think was 695,000 miles.
Was that what they did?
You think you've been on a long trip?
You think been on a long trip?
695,000.
That was 695,000 miles they put in.
This guy says here in a spiritual sense, this is miles away what Jesus is talking about here from just a good feeling that comes from the pleasant circumstances of our lives.
Happy.
Miles away from that.
And you got to get your head around that.
Instead, he says what Jesus is talking about here is it's not a feeling.
It's a reality.
It's a blessing bestowed.
It's not something that people do and then feel.
It's a blessing bestowed.
It's a reality.
It's an inward state of truth, he says, no matter how you're feeling.
You guys ever get that with your Christian life?
You ever get that with your Christian life?
You just kind of, you're there with something.
There's something that you get, something that you know is real and that's true.
No matter how you're feeling.
Anybody?
Happens from time to time.
An inward state of truth no matter how we're feeling because this is describing a state of being in relation to God.
That's what the Beatitudes are.
It's a state of being in relation to God, independent of how we're feeling at any given moment in time.
And so I'd suggest to you, I'd suggest to you because that's what it is.
It's not just a feeling.
It's not just something that you kind of go for or whatever.
It's something that God bestows upon you.
I would suggest to you that these Beatitudes, they're not about how a person gets to God.
That's not what Jesus is about here.
He's not telling you how to get to God or how to become a Christian or whatever.
That's not what's going on here.
It's rather about what kingdom citizenship looks like.
Kingdom citizenship.
What kingdom citizenship looks like for those, as Paul puts it in Colossians,
have been delivered from the kingdom of darkness,
which is where it all starts for us as we come into this world.
Those who have been delivered from the kingdom of darkness
and transferred to the kingdom of God's beloved God.
And so, guys, this is kingdom living.
This is a picture of kingdom living at its best.
At its best.
And it blows your mind.
It's why many have called this passage here or this first sermon,
chapters 5, 6, and 7, that you're going to look through.
It's why many have called this first sermon and this first bit of it,
the manifesto of the king, because it's about kingdom living.
The manifesto of the king or the manifesto of the kingdom.
Because contrary to what so many today think about power and promise and prominence,
Jesus says, this is what life looks like in the real world.
Not in this real world, but in the real world.
You know what I mean?
Sometimes we see somebody who looks a bit spacing.
We tell them to get into the real world.
And what they mean is our world.
Guys, this world, it's not that it's not real,
but it's not the real, real world.
It's not the real, real world.
The real, real world is one that actually we can't see.
It's beyond us.
Is that fair?
I'm not being heretical here this morning.
It's beyond us.
And this is what it looks like, Jesus, in that real world.
This is the world where God rules and God reigns and God dwells.
All right?
And so let me give you three observations in the time that we have this morning
about what this world looks like.
Because that's what he's going to tell you.
It's just, he's going to tell you what kingdom life looks like.
Give you a wee picture of that.
Three observations about what he says here.
The first one is that it looks like the opposite.
It looks like the opposite of what our fallen world thinks about greatness in particular.
It's the opposite of what our fallen world thinks about greatness.
And please tell me that you picked this up as JT read that.
Right?
Please tell me as he read that that you picked up, this is very different from where I work.
Right?
This is very different from kind of the ideology that's just kind of swimming around me in this world and in this life.
Fair?
Please tell me that as he read that you picked that up.
The Roman dominated world into which Jesus spoke these words was not really a whole lot different in this sense
than the world that we live in today where power, birth, economic status, education, gender, race, influence, looks, physical strength, intellect.
Probably some combination of all of those things was and is how most people viewed greatness.
That was the world into which Jesus spoke these things.
And in that sense, is it very different?
Is our world very different?
No, it's not.
It's not.
It's exactly the same.
And then Jesus comes along and he preaches the Beatitudes.
First thing, first part of the first big sermon.
Here's where he lands.
Here's what he says.
Right?
Must be significant.
He's just beginning.
People are still, I don't think everybody's got it yet.
I don't even think a lot of his disciples have got it yet.
It's just beginning, but they're seeing, they're following.
Some of them are believing, but it's all just beginning to come together.
It's all just beginning to come together.
And this is the very first part of a huge journey.
And he comes and he preaches the Beatitudes.
And you hear that and you just think, what?
Well, it's kind of like watching a movie where, you know, it kind of ends.
You hit this point where there's this shocking twist in the plot that nobody's expecting.
I think that's kind of how it fell on most of these people.
They weren't expecting this.
They weren't expecting.
They knew Jesus was great because he was doing great things.
They knew he was a guy to follow because he was followable.
And he still had a lot to learn.
He had a lot to learn.
And boy, I think this one hit him right between the eyes.
Nobody expected this.
And that's why it's often referred to as Jesus' upside-down kingdom manifesto.
That's how it's often referred to.
Jesus' upside-down.
Because this stuff that he's preaching just seems upside-down.
From everything else that they kind of were prone to believe and to follow and to everything else.
It's upside-down kingdom manifesto.
Or maybe even better, how Jesus takes the upside-down, inside-out, wrong-way-up perspectives and practices of this ridiculously miscalculated world.
And he puts them right back to...
He puts them right back right-side up, really, to where they belong in the value system of God.
Alexander McLaren, Bible scholar, says that the Beatitudes are a set of paradoxes.
There are a set of paradoxes to the mind of the flesh.
They were meant to tear away the foolish illusions of the multitude as to the nature of the kingdom.
And they must have disgusted and turned back many would-be sharers in it when they heard this.
They're like a dash of cold water, he says, on the fiery, impure enthusiasms,
which were eager for a kingdom of gross delights and vulgar conquest.
You got it?
Polar opposite of what the world thinks about human greatness.
And without being too dramatic, I would say...
I don't know how you pick up the vibes of the world in which you live.
But without trying to be too dramatic, I would say that probably a good 95%, maybe even more.
A good 95%, maybe even more of what Sarah and I have kind of flicked through on our TV or our computers or our phones over recent years,
have left us utterly flabbergasted that anybody would be drawn to it.
And yet, obviously, they come in droves.
Right?
Because it works.
People buy it.
They buy it.
They pay for it.
They buy into it.
Ideologically, they buy into it.
Fair?
People that you work with, live with, maybe people in your family.
They buy into it.
And yet, as believers, when we look at this, we're just thinking,
why would anybody want this?
Why would anybody want this?
That anybody would be drawn to it.
And obviously, they come.
And I wonder if any of us can remember the last time we saw anything close to the ethos of the Beatitudes in something we were watching.
Can you remember the last time you saw anything close to the ethos of this, the way Jesus puts it?
And in the world's media or what you were watching,
I'm not even sure I can put the great British bake-off in this category anymore.
Right?
You know what I mean?
The presenters, just the ethos, the stuff that's said, the way it's said, or it's just...
And then Jesus comes in and he flips it.
He flips it.
Because I don't think we're often aware of the immensity, of the extent to which the world that God lives in and the world that we live in are different.
Fair?
I don't think we're aware of that.
A.W. Tozer.
He says that...
Listen to this.
Look at where he puts it.
He says,
A fairly accurate description of the human race might be furnished to one who is unacquainted with it by taking the Beatitudes and turning them wrong side out and then saying,
Here's your human race.
You get it?
You get what he's saying?
Amen.
And so instead of our normal...
So he starts to list it out.
He starts to list it out.
I don't have time to go through all the Beatitudes.
But take your time.
Pour through them.
Work through them one by one.
But instead of our normal self-sufficient, self-reliant, self-dependent ways of doing things, Jesus says it's the poor in spirit.
It's the poor in spirit, he says.
The opposite.
Who are blessed.
Because these are the ones, the poor in spirit.
These are the ones who perfectly understand the devastating implications of their own terribly limited and utterly imperfect humanness.
Anybody?
When you understand how limited you are, just how utterly imperfect you are, how human you are, and that gets you, you're poor in spirit.
You feel it.
That's what it means to be poor in spirit.
Jesus says, good.
He says, good.
Good.
That's what the kingdom looks like.
That's what it feels like.
Instead of minimizing our sin with the kind of self-justifying attempts that we often use in justifying ourselves, to convince ourselves that surely we're not nearly as bad as the guy down the road.
Jesus says, blessed are those who mourn over the interminably foul nature of their depravity in the sight of an infinitely holy God.
How different is that?
Where do you see that?
Where do you see that in your world?
Where do you see that?
I hope we see it a bit here in places like this.
I hope we see it a bit here where we really feel the burden of our sin, where it really affects us when we sin, where if we sin against somebody in this church, we can't wait to just go and get it right.
Anybody?
Right?
I hope we see that a bit here because it's what kingdom life looks like.
And we say we're part of the kingdom.
And this is what kingdom life looks like.
Instead, he says of the impulsive and the brash and the impetuous, he says it's the meek.
It's the meek who inherit the earth.
You know what meekness is?
I'll give you a hint.
It's not weakness.
It's actually great power under perfect control for ultimate good.
I think that's a really good definition of meekness.
It's great power, not weakness.
It's great power under ultimate control.
I'm sorry, under perfect control for ultimate good.
All right.
Check me out on that one.
Come back to me if you want.
But listen, is that not exactly the character of Jesus on his way to the cross?
It's exactly what he was meek.
Come to me, all you are heavy laden.
Right?
He's meek.
And yet, who has more power than him?
Who has more power than him?
It's exactly what it was like for him on the way to the cross.
He had more than 12 reasons of angels, he says, to Peter in the garden at his disposal.
Guys, that's 72,000 angels.
That's 72,000 angels.
According to the Bible, it only took one of these guys to obliterate 185,000 Assyrians in 2 Kings chapter 19.
And yet, Jesus keeps that infinite power under perfect control for the ultimate good of bringing salvation to the world.
Wow, that's meekness.
That's meekness.
I hope that overturns your understanding of what it means to be meek.
God calls us to be meek.
And he stays on the cross.
And so every single one of these lists, every single one of these in the list,
these kingdom attitudes that Jesus presents here,
hungering and thirsting for righteousness,
mercy, purity, peacemaking, persecution taking,
demonstrates with infinite beauty the character of kingdom life and living.
That's what he's doing.
That living that belongs to those who belong to Christ.
You get that?
It belongs to those who belong to Christ,
who've been delivered from the domain of darkness,
kingdom of darkness, to the kingdom of God's beloved Son.
And so listen, is this upside down or is this right side up?
All right?
Is it upside down or is it right side up?
You scratch your head.
You read this.
And I think it all depends, how you see this,
all depends on which kingdom you're in.
All right?
And so I'll just ask you this morning.
Don't know everybody here this morning,
but which kingdom are you in?
You're in somebody's kingdom.
Which kingdom are you in?
So number one,
the Beatitudes look like the exact opposite of what a fallen world considers to be
the path to greatness and success and distinction.
And that's blatantly obvious.
It's blatantly obvious here.
Guys, God has called us to swim against the tide, hasn't he?
It's opposite to what he's called.
It should look, our lives should in many ways look opposite to the rest of the world,
shouldn't they?
I'm not just saying be an idiot, right?
Or, you know, just make yourselves obnoxious to people.
I don't think that's what the Bible ever tells us.
But in some sense, in many senses, when we swim for Christ, we're swimming against the
flow, right?
And in a very strange way, I have found through the years, even to my neighbors, my colleagues,
unsaved family, there's just something very magnetic about that to them.
They don't like it, but they're really intrigued.
What happened to Wayne?
I don't know.
He woke up one day on the wrong side of the bed or what?
You know, and hopefully now over the years, they know what happened to Wayne was Jesus
happened to Wayne.
In some senses, my family thinks I'm nuts.
And maybe in some senses, I am, right?
But that's how they look at it.
That's the should be some, you know, it should be drastic enough being in this kingdom.
Come on, guys, right?
It should be drastic enough being in this kingdom that people, they may disagree with it from
where they're at right now, but they should just stand back in awe.
What's going on with this guy?
What is, who is this neighbor?
Who is this guy?
What, where are you from?
Are you a vegetarian or what?
You know what I mean?
What, where are you from?
What planet do you come from?
I think that's a lot of what he's saying here.
So that's the first thing.
Okay.
Opposite to that.
But it's also really important to note here, coming back to where we started in all this,
that the Beatitudes, and I think we have to get this, the Beatitudes are not a formula
for how sinful people can make their way to a holy God.
That's not what these are about.
It's not a formula for sinful people to make their way to a holy God, but rather a description
of the real life that characterize, characterizes the sanctified people of a holy God.
You understand the difference?
Because it's huge.
It's huge.
Or to put it another way, the Beatitudes aren't the way to righteousness.
They're actually the way of righteousness.
I think that's, and you have to get this because this is big.
People misunderstand what it means to be a Christian.
They misunderstand Christianity.
They misunderstand what following Jesus is all about.
And often it's far more about works than it is about faith.
And we even get caught up and brought back into this ourselves.
Maybe you just think I'm playing about words here, but I can absolutely assure you there
couldn't be a greater difference between these two things.
There couldn't be a greater difference in these two things because one of them has to do
with trying to attain or achieve the righteousness of God.
And I'll tell you something, a lot of people in our world are trying to do that.
They're trying to be good enough to make God happy.
They're trying to be good.
I lived that life for a long time.
Trying to be good enough to make God happy.
That's their view of Christianity, and that is not biblical.
We've got to tell them that, and we've got to show them that.
But that's the one side.
People trying to be attained or achieve righteousness of God,
while the other side of this is simply demonstrating the reality of the righteousness of God
possessed by his people in the form of the indwelling person of Christ,
who is righteousness.
Who is our righteousness, Paul says, to the Corinthians,
and comes by God's amazing grace through faith in his sacrificial death
and his victorious resurrection.
Can you see the staggering difference between the two?
Staggering difference between the two here.
If you can, then you understand the gospel.
If you can see the difference between these two,
then you'll understand the gospel, the good news that God gives us about Jesus and salvation.
If you can understand the huge difference between striving to attain righteousness
and possessing a righteousness by grace through faith.
This is massive.
It's massive.
It's what the gospel, it's the heart of the gospel.
It's at the heart of the gospel.
It's what it's all about.
Staggering difference between the two.
If you understand that, you understand the gospel.
If you don't understand that, then you're almost certainly,
I guarantee you're almost certainly going to misunderstand God's perfect means of salvation.
You're going to misunderstand that,
and you're going to be left with the absolute futility of trying to earn God's acceptance
through your achievements,
which the Bible says is never going to work.
It's never going to work.
Paul tells us in Romans 3 verse 10 that there's none righteous.
No matter what you think of yourself or all your good works,
there's nobody righteous.
He says, no, not one.
Do you get it?
How many are there?
Right?
Zero.
None inherently righteous.
Because, Paul says, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Romans 3, 23.
Or in the words of Tim Keller,
we are all more desperately wicked than we ever imagined.
You think, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Wait a minute, Sutton.
You know, hang on a second.
You know, you might have some slip-ups yourself, but not me.
Not me.
Right?
I haven't ever made any mistakes.
Well, if you haven't made any mistakes, then you can please leave now.
You can leave because none of this is going to make any sense to you
if you've not made any mistakes.
But the Bible is very clear.
More desperately wicked than we ever imagined,
which presents a massive problem when it comes to being united with God
in His kingdom forever.
Right?
That's bad news.
We don't have what it takes.
What it takes is perfect righteousness, and we don't have it.
Even our good deeds, the Bible says, are filthy rags.
Oh, my goodness.
Like, what?
What?
That's the bad news.
However, the good news is that the Bible also teaches without a shadow of doubt
that even though we're more desperately wicked than we ever imagined,
we're also more dearly loved than we ever dreamed.
More dearly loved than we ever dreamed.
For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son,
that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
And through that sacrifice, giving His Son, through that sacrifice,
God tells us that He's facilitated.
Listen to this.
Through that sacrifice, God has facilitated,
through Jesus' substitutionary death.
You knew that was what I was going to say.
His substitutionary death on the cross and our faith in that sacrifice,
He has facilitated the transfer of our sin to Jesus and His righteousness to us.
What?
Did you get that?
It's facilitated the transfer of our sin to Jesus and Jesus' righteousness to us.
Is that not wild?
Come on, guys.
Wake up.
Is that not wild?
Incredible.
Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5, 21,
that God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf
so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
And I think,
I think that's exactly what the Beatitudes are telling us
about those who belong to God by faith
because there's no way I can live these things that He's just said on my own.
Can I?
I read every one of those and I feel like a failure.
I can't do that on my own.
But listen,
with Jesus living in me,
right?
Christ in you,
the hope of glory.
With Jesus living in me,
my goodness,
I can do all things through Christ,
through strength and strength.
Get it?
Okay?
So the Beatitudes look like the opposite
of what the fallen world
thinks about greatness.
righteousness.
They're the way of righteousness,
not the way to righteousness.
And then finally here,
I think there's a way you can look at this,
the Beatitudes and the Gospel of Matthew,
to see that these Beatitudes are actually a perfect preparation
for a life as an ambassador for Christ.
They're a great place to start.
And isn't it interesting?
That's where Jesus starts.
First part of the first big sermon.
And He says this.
You'd think,
you know,
it's over.
You'd think by the time people heard this,
they'd be heading for the hills.
No way,
no way.
But He's beginning to show them the way of discipleship.
He's beginning to show them the way of discipleship.
And I think it's a perfect preparation
for anybody who wants to grow
in their ability to live in this world for Jesus.
Fair?
And I hope we do.
I hope we're here this morning
because that's what we want to do.
It's really interesting how Matthew frames his Gospel.
Just a couple more things.
We'll finish up here.
How Matthew frames his Gospel.
Maybe I'm making a mountain out of a molehill here,
but indulge me for a minute.
Think about how Jesus,
how Matthew frames his Gospel.
Because just back in chapter 4, verse 19,
and if you're part of the Brunsfield family,
you must have done this at some point in time
because you did up to chapter 4.
And in 419,
you'll probably remember that Jesus chooses
His first disciples.
Remember that?
He chooses His first two disciples
who were Andrew and...
Good, you were here for that teaching.
That was great.
Andrew and Peter.
And He chooses His first two disciples
and He says that He's going to take
these fishers of fish
and He's going to make them,
what's He say?
Fishers of men.
He's going to take these fishers of fish
and He's going to make them fishers of men.
And then for the rest of the Gospel of Matthew,
that's exactly what He does.
It's exactly what He's doing.
Matthew traces it from the eyewitness accounts.
He traces how Jesus lived them,
what He said to them,
what He showed them,
how He corrected them,
what He prayed over them,
everything.
It just shows them.
It's exactly what Jesus does.
He teaches His men how to fish for men.
Right?
Tonight you're going to have a quip, I think.
Right?
It's a quip.
That's probably what it's part of.
We've been doing the same kind of stuff.
Passion for life.
Equipping.
Our churches should be about this.
We should feel as though week by week
we're getting equipped.
Not just placated or happy, happy.
Being equipped.
Equipped.
Right?
We're a part of a battle, guys.
That's going on all around us.
That has eternal consequences.
Being taught to fish for men.
It is interesting that it starts with this sermon.
And then how does Matthew's Gospel finish?
Think about how he frames it.
How does Matthew's Gospel finish this?
Remember Matthew 28, verse 18.
Jesus came to them.
He said, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.
I hope you've seen that now.
Right?
He can say that at the end.
He's resurrected now.
Right?
All authority on heaven and earth has been given to me.
And now they can nod their heads and say, sure he has.
We've seen it.
We've watched it.
We've been there.
All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.
Therefore, I'm sending you.
No.
I'm sending you.
You're going in my name.
I'll never leave you for safe.
To the end of the age, he says, I'm going with you.
Therefore, go, he says, make disciples of all nations.
We call it the Great Commission.
That's how it ends.
That's how Matthew's Gospel ends.
We call it the Great Commission.
Isn't it interesting that everything in between the Sermon on the Mount and the Great Commission
is a huge lesson in how to fish for human hearts.
How to be ambassadors for Christ.
How to fish for men.
And I wonder if the Beatitudes aren't given to us right up front to teach us how to live
as salt and light.
And that's what's coming next week, I think, for you guys.
Right?
I think Graham's back next week and it's salt and light.
How to teach us how to do that.
Does that make sense?
As you look at Matthew's Gospel.
I hope it does.
Because if you look really hard, and here we finish.
If you look really hard, I think you will find here in the Beatitudes,
I think you will find all the elements of a faithful life as a witness for Jesus.
I think you'll find them all here in these Beatitudes.
If you look really hard, slow down.
Go back home this afternoon, tonight, this week, whatever.
Take one a day or something for a few days.
And just soak in them for a bit.
I think all the elements here for a faithful life as a witness for Christ are present.
Recognizing our own need to be totally dependent on God.
Poor in spirit.
Has to.
We have to do.
We've got to live as servants of Christ, as witnesses for Christ.
We've got to live dependent on Him.
Have to.
Poor in spirit.
Constantly mourning over the devastating consequences of our own sin.
Has anyone ceased to sin since becoming a Christian?
Anybody?
Cease to sin since becoming a Christian?
Now, there is a transforming that goes on in our life.
And we often say that we don't become sinless, but we do tend to sin less.
Because we become more like Christ.
So that does happen.
But never to the point where you can't fall over or don't fall over.
It happens.
That's why we have to come and get our feet washed all the time.
Confess our sin and be cleansed again.
Right?
Fair?
So that's here.
That's here.
Keeping great power.
Christ in you.
The hope of glory.
Whoa!
Keeping great power under perfect control for the ultimate good of the gospel.
Hungering and thirsting for truth.
It's what we're doing here today.
Looking at God's Word.
Digging deeper.
Tonight, you come back.
Your own personal times in the Word.
Just soaking over.
We need that.
We need the truth.
It feeds our souls.
It's part of this.
Hungering and thirsting for truth and righteous living.
Having mercy on our neighbors as we lead them to Christ.
While being pure in our own hearts.
Open, honest about our own failures.
Our own sins.
Our own.
Just living with that reality in our hearts.
Helping others to find peace with God through faith in Christ.
Peacemakers.
That's what an ambassador for Christ does according to 2 Corinthians 5.
Helps others find peace with God.
Reconciliation, it's called.
Reconciliation.
We have the ministry, Paul says, of reconciliation.
Helping others to find peace with God through faith in Christ.
And then finally, all the while, enduring whatever comes our way.
Enduring whatever comes our way as ambassadors for Christ.
So that Jesus might be magnified, as Paul says, in my life as well as in my death.
Guys, listen.
Welcome to the beautiful attitudes.
Right?
Welcome to the beautiful attitudes.
What a recipe for gospel-centered living this is.
Right?
Let me pray.
Father, thank you for this time together.
Thank you for your precious word.
Thank you for Jesus and all that he's done to make this, all this that we've talked about
and thought about here this morning, a reality in our lives.
Thank you for the indwelling Holy Spirit who gives us all that we need to be able to respond
to all that you say here in your word.
Thank you for the promises that you give, that you began a good work in us.
You're going to complete it.
You are going to build your church and the gates of hell are not going to come against it.
But Lord, help us to be good and faithful stewards of this wonderful message that you've given to us
about our glorious God to both live in a way that pleases you and also in a way that brings the world to Christ.
We pray in his name.
Amen.