Experiencing Kingdom Blessings
Kingdom Living

Transcript

All right, good morning church. We're beginning a new series today. So you're here at just the right time. We're starting a sixteen sermon series. We'll only take one break, one Sunday break, and that's for Easter Sunday.

Obviously, we have to preach resurrection on Easter Sunday. So, we're excited to begin this series, through the three chapters in the middle of Matthew. Matthew chapters 5 -7 is better known as the “Sermon on the Mount.” Some have said that this is the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest preacher who ever lived. We want to take our time going through it and thinking through it. It's more than just a collection of wise sayings.

It's more than just like the “Proverbs of the New Testament.” It's a call by King Jesus to live under the rule and reign of King Jesus. And so we want to take our time going through it. It's a kind of description of what it would look like to be upside down from the world, to live opposite of the world.

John Stott writes about this in his commentary on the sermon. He says, “The Sermon on the Mount is the most complete description anywhere in the New Testament of the Christian counter-culture. Here is a Christian value system, ethical standard, religious devotion, attitude to money, ambition, lifestyle and network of relationships – all of which are totally at odds with those of the non-Christian world. And this Christian counter-culture is the life of the kingdom of God, a fully human life indeed but lived out under the divine rule.” n

This is how we're called to live as kingdom citizens, living out a counter culture upside down from the world's perspective. Let's make no mistake. Let's not misunderstand this, that this is somehow rule keeping or Jesus has given us more rules to follow.

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones warns us. He says, “In other words, we are not told in the Sermon on the Mount, ‘Live like this and you will become Christian’; rather we are told, ‘Because you are Christian live like this.’ This is how Christians ought to live; this is how Christians are meant to live.” We've entitled this sermon series, “Kingdom Living.”

”Kingdom Living.” It's because in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus describes how Christians ought to live. This is what it should look like in these three chapters. This is how Christians should live in the world, so that the world sees how God would have us live. And so I hope you picked up a copy of our little note taking guideline here, our little booklet.

I had so many people say, ‘Hey, we love the booklet you had for the previous series. So, we put together a little something here so you could keep all your notes in one place. There is an introduction at the beginning to help you do further study. And so we took some time to do that.

You'll notice our bulletin still has a place where you can take notes every week. Some prefer that. But if you want to keep all your notes in one place, we're offering that little booklet today. So I hope you picked up a copy as you were coming in. We want to be careful as we go through this message, as we preach it, and as you hear it, that we don't fall off the path that Jesus is taking us on, the journey He's taking us on.

We could fall into one of two ditches very easily. I see people do that when they read through the Sermon on the Mount. One is the legalistic kind of ditch; that's where you begin to think, as Lloyd Jones warns us, that somehow I canI earn the right to be in the kingdom.

That would be a misunderstanding completely. Okay, so this is not about earning. We are not to look at this sermon from an Old Testament perspective. It's not about earning. But then many swerve into the other ditch, which is they see it as kind of a utopian kind of idealized view that no one can live up to and therefore, maybe if we get to heaven, but there's no sense trying now because nobody can do it.

That's the two ditches. I think there's a better path down the middle that Jesus teaches us. He teaches the Sermon on the Mount and this is what it begins to look like, that this kingdom of God, this kingdom of heaven that's coming is already here, but yet it will not be fully fulfilled until the end times.

We see the beginning of it. Our lives as Christians should begin to look like this in growing measure as we follow Jesus. Somehow, we want to preach and we want to study this so that we stay on the highway, we stay on the path that Jesus has given us. That's my desire for this series.

How does Jesus begin the sermon? He begins it with a blessing. He begins by describing the blessed state of those who are kingdom citizens; what wonder this is. He begins it with a declaration of blessing.

This passage is often referred to as “The Beatitudes.” Where does that come from? Well, it comes from the Latin word, “beatus.” “Beatus” just means blessed.

So, if you're reading the Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible, these would be The Beatitudes. It comes out of that Latin word. Did you ever wonder about that? I used to wonder about where that came from.

There are really eight blessings, eight beatitudes here that we'll be “unpacking” here in just a moment. When we think about blessing, we throw that word around a lot these days. I've talked about that in recent times, that it's not just the lady at Walmart as you're leaving who says, ‘I hope you have a blessed day,’ which is a sweet thing to say.

Sometimes it's an actor in Hollywood that will stand up and say, ‘Well, I've been blessed’ and they might all be talking about different things. Maybe, you have a translation of the Bible today that is one of the modern translations that says “Happy are…” So, it's translating the word “blessed” as “happy.”

It's not a bad translation, but it's not a great translation either, because here's the thing about happiness. Think about this just with me for a second. Happiness is a subjective feeling. It's a thing that you feel.

You feel happy. Happiness is based on favorable happenings, which means it comes from an external circumstance. So, if I ask you, ‘How are things going?’ You go, ‘Man, I've had a great week’

and you'll probably smile and say, ‘I'm happy because I had a great week.’ But then, if you had a difficult week, you'd say, ‘Oh, man, it's been hard’ and so, your happiness then is dictated by your circumstances. It's more than happiness, this blessing that Jesus is about to declare to those that are in God's kingdom. It is more of an objective reality.

It's not a subjective feeling. It's an objective state of being, so that those that are in God's kingdom are under God's blessing, which is God's approval, God's favor. It comes from a deep place of Christ inside of us. Joy is better than happiness, because joy comes from the Lord. This blessedness, you could maybe say, is completely content and full of joy under God's approval are those who are poor in spirit.

Now, you're beginning to finally understand what we mean by “blessing;” it's a state of being for those that are under Christ, that are under God's kingdom. That's what we're working out right now in this passage today. I'm glad Jesus starts off with this blessing, these Beatitudes, because as we go through these three chapters, He's going to hit us pretty hard. He's going to really raise the bar of what it looks like to live this Christian counterculture, this upside down, which is a really right side up kind of living. Do you know this state of blessing that

Jesus talks about? Have you experienced this kind of blessing in your life or is your happiness still dependent on favorable circumstances? Are you still seeking the world's kind of happiness? Would you say, ‘Do you know what I want?

I want to know what it means to experience God's blessing, to experience kingdom blessings.’ That's what we're talking about today. In the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5, verses 1 through 12, Jesus began His sermon on the mount by declaring that God's kingdom citizens can experience these kingdom blessings. They can live under these blessings. As we look at the text today, I think we'll see three ways we can experience these blessings of being kingdom citizens. We're going to look at these 12 verses beginning this sermon.

Matthew 5:1-12 (ESV) 1 “Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2 And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: 3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. 5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. 7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. 8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. 9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. 10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” This is God's word. So we're looking for three ways how we can experience these kingdom blessings that Jesus describes here.

I want to look first of all at the first four Beatitudes. You'll notice these first four Beatitudes are all paradoxical. Here's our first way of understanding this:

1. Understand the paradox of kingdom blessings.

Understand the paradox of kingdom blessings; it seems opposite of what would be true in the world's system. You'll notice that in these first four Beatitudes, in verses three through six. That's not the way the world works. I almost want to say to Jesus, ‘Jesus, this is not how things work in the world,’ but He's going to say this to us, ‘I know, but this is not how I designed the world. This is not the world I designed. This is the world in rebellion.’

Really, the metanarrative of the Bible, which is the overarching theme of the Bible, is that, in the beginning when God created everything, it was all under the kingdom of heaven. So Adam and Eve were living in complete harmony with God. But then they rebelled against God, right? When they rebelled against God, now we have a kingdom that's outside of God's will and so this kingdom, the worldly culture continues to be in rebellion against God.

But the meta narrative of the story is that God is bringing it back, that God's going to redeem His people and His creation through Jesus. We're in that season where that's happening; He begins to describe it. He says these upside down things. People that are poor are going to get the whole kingdom of heaven.

People that are mourning and crying are going to get their tears wiped away. People that are meek are going to inherit the whole earth. People that are hungry are going to be satisfied. It's all upside down, like a paradox.

Let's “unpack” the first couple of verses and then we'll dig in a little deeper. He says this in verse 1, “Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.” Augustine is the first person who looked at this and said, ‘Hey, this is the Sermon on the Mount because Jesus was seated on a mountain there at the beginning and it's accredited to Him. Augustine is the first guy who ever called it “The Sermon on the Mount.”

Let's talk about the supposed location for a second. Where did this happen? We know it happened in Israel. It appears to have happened on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee.

I've led several tours to Israel, and some of you have been with me in this location. This is a location here; there's a church that's built up here.

It's kind of a natural amphitheater. Jesus, who has all these crowds, thousands of people coming to hear Him, also has His disciples that came up closer to Him. He took His place up here. Currently, today, there's a church that sits up on the top of the mount. This would have made Him so He was visible

and people could see Him. They would be down in here and they could also hear Him because of this cup-like, amphitheater kind of shape.

(Next picture) This is the Church of the Beatitudes. When the mother of Constantine came to Christ, she had Rome's money, and so she started building churches in every location she could find in the Bible.

She built a church here at the supposed location of where Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount. Now, this is not the one she built. It burned down or something, but it was rebuilt on that foundation. The Church of the Beatitudes is at that location.

Go to the next picture.

That's on the “back porch” of the Church of the Beatitudes if you're looking at it like you were from the perspective of Jesus.

He's seated there and down before him are the disciples. Then around them is all of the crowd.

You can see the Sea of Galilee in the distance; the Golan Heights is over here.

(Next picture) That painting was painted by Carl Bloch. It appears on one of the walls inside the Church of the Beatitudes. It's just beautiful. It's huge; one whole wall.

I wanted you to see that. It’s an artist’s rendering of what that day may have looked like. So, that's where we are. Those are the kind of questions we should always ask when we're studying the Scripture.

A good reporter's kind of questions: Who, what, when, where… those kinds of things. The reason I'm telling you this is because the Bible is about real people that took place in real places and so I try to show you those places that I've had the privilege of visiting before.

2 “And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:” Let's “unpack” what He's talking about. I want you to take note, first of all, that He says “kingdom of heaven” in verse three. Do you see that? Then, He says, “kingdom of heaven,” again in verse 10.

In the Sermon on the Mount, He mentions the “kingdom of heaven” seven times, seven times in the Sermon on the Mount.

He was preaching repentance, “for the kingdom of heaven is nigh.” The kingdom of heaven is near. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. He preaches in other places that the kingdom of heaven is coming. In another place, He preaches that the kingdom is in the midst of you.

Well, which one is it? It's all of those, because the kingdom of heaven is already here. It was inaugurated when Jesus came. He's the king.

He inaugurated the kingdom, but it's also coming as it spreads. But it will ultimately be fulfilled when Jesus returns. Where's the kingdom right now? Where is it?

He says that it is near. It's at hand. In another place, He says that it's in you. Well, how does that happen?

Here's how it happens: it is when you recognize that you're a sinner, you repent of your sin and you choose Jesus as your Lord and Savior. You believe in Him, and then He becomes your king. So, if I ask you, ‘Where's the kingdom of heaven?’ You say, ‘It's right here. It's right here because Jesus is the king of my life.’ So, if Jesus is the king of your life, the kingdom has come to you.

If Jesus is the Lord of your house, the kingdom of heaven has come to your house. The kingdom is breaking out everywhere, but it's got this tension of being “already, not yet,” because the world is still in rebellion against a holy God. But a day is coming when that will no longer be the case. He begins to teach about this idea of blessing.

There are eight Beatitudes; I've already defined what it means to be blessed. It's kind of like you're under God's umbrella of protection and His favorite. What makes a believer feel joy is knowing that you have God's approval. For a believer, one of the things that we fear the most, I think, is God's disapproval. We're saved and we're forgiven, but there are things we can do or say

and we feel the Holy Spirit's grief. We say, ‘Lord, forgive me.’ So, if you look at these Beatitudes, these eight, they're kind of like eight steps in that progress. The first one begins with “poor in spirit.”

Blessed are those who are bankrupt spiritually and know it. There's nothing good in me if I don't get a Savior. If I don't get Jesus, there's no life in me apart from Christ. So, the entry point to the kingdom of heaven is not earning, but it's admitting that I need a Savior.

I'm spiritually bankrupt without God. That's the entry point. He said if you do that, you'll live under this blessing.

Notice the present tense language. There's an immediacy for the one who admits their spiritual bankruptcy. I'm a sinner apart from God. I need a Savior. The minute that they say “yes” to Jesus and “no” to self, the kingdom is theirs.

Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. It belongs to them. Then, we take the next step: Blessed are those who mourn. The idea here seems clearly to have deep grief over sin.

The reason I say that is because all of these Beatitudes have a clear foundation in the Old Testament. Jesus is not teaching anything brand new. He's taking that which was from the Old Testament and He's making it new, by the way He organizes it and by the way He says it. He describes it as being part of the blessed state of kingdom living.

Look at this in Isaiah 61:1-2 (ESV) “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor… to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor… to comfort all who mourn”

That's the Isaiah scroll that Jesus read in His hometown of Nazareth, announcing that He was the Messiah, that He was the Anointed One. Here, He is preaching what Isaiah said He would preach and what He would do. But what He's doing now is He's taking a step further and saying that those who are poor in spirit and will admit it, the kingdom is theirs. Those who are crying over their sin and they don't know how to get out of it, they're now comforted because He wipes away their tears and He forgives them of all their sin. So now, they have this comfort that comes to them.

He says, “Blessed are the meek.” Now, meekness is not an American trait, especially for men. It is un-American; that's not how you win the earth.

That's not how you inherit the earth by being meek. That's un-American. Jesus, have you ever lived in America? I mean, blessed are the ones who declare, I'm number one, I'm the greatest. The ones who toot their own horn are the ones who own the earth.

That's not what He says. It's upside down, but let me help you understand what meekness is. First of all, meekness is not weakness. Meekness is “strength under control.”

Jesus said that He was meek. He said, “Come unto me, all you that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” He said, “I am meek and lowly.” I am meek and humble. Is Jesus weak?

No, He's the God of the universe. He can do anything, but He holds it under control. The word, “meek,” in the original Greek comes from the idea of a horse. A horse was considered one of the most powerful creatures in the ancient world, but yet they could put a little bit in its mouth and control it so that a horse that had been broken, you could ride it. I'm not going to give you the Greek word, but in the translation of it, it was the idea of a horse that was still powerful but under control of the rider.

So, for the believer, meekness is not that you're weak, but that you're under control of the Master, so you don't go around declaring how great you are; you go around declaring how great He is. It’s a different way of thinking. He says that when you live like this, you live under God's blessing;

this deep sense of total contentment. “All things are well and all things will be well.” Yeah, but the world's going like this, and I don't know. I'm not riding that roller coaster anymore. “All things are well

and all things will be well” in Jesus. I'm getting off of that roller coaster. I'm going to live the blessed life. Now, how am I going to do it, how am I going to be poor in spirit and mourn and be meek? People in the world hunger for things other than righteousness,

but righteousness, simply put, is being right with God. No longer in rebellion against God, it means you've now come into God's approval. Now, how do you win God's approval? By faith in His Son, Jesus. Only Jesus.

Doesn’t God say, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased?” If you have Him in you, living in you now, He is well pleased with you, because that's why He gave Him to you and so you hunger after Him. I want to be right with God. I don't ever want to be “sideways” with You, Father.

I want to always please You. He says that for those who live like that and think like that, they're going to be satisfied. They're going to find that life seems paradoxical, seems upside down. Jesus said that the kingdom is like a mustard seed. It starts small, but it grows into a big tree.

Jesus said that the kingdom of God is kind of invisible, like leaven that you put in dough, but it transforms the dough. He said it's like a treasure in a field, that a man sold all that he had in order to purchase the field in order to get it, because it's the most valuable thing you could ever have. Life in the kingdom is a blessed life. You can understand. It doesn't look like the world, but it's the best life of all.

It says in the book of Romans 12:2 (ESV) “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect..”
“Conformed;” the word means to experience pressure from the outside that forms you into a paradigm. The world culture presses in from the outside and tries to get you to think, feel and believe like the world does. The world's in rebellion against God;

it's an outward pressure that pressures you to think that way, but Paul says, ‘Don't be conformed to the world any longer, but instead be transformed by the renewal of your mind,’ which is an inside out. The spirit of Christ comes and lives in you and begins to transform your mind. The word, “transformed,” is where we get the word “metamorphosis.” This new paradoxical way of living in the spirit is that He begins to “rewrite the hard drive.”

How does He do it? Through the word of God and by obeying the will of God. When Paul and Silas were traveling and preaching in different cities. They came to the city of Thessalonica and they began to preach there.

They always began in the synagogues. Every city they would go to, they would start in the synagogues and then they'd get thrown out, invariably from the synagogue. Then, they'd preach in the market, placed in the streets. Well, they got thrown out early in Thessalonica from the synagogue. The Jews, it says in the scripture, were jealous of the crowds that were gathering, and they turned them over to the city authorities.

This is what they accused them of, they said, in Acts 17:6, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also.”

That same group's been turning the world upside down everywhere they go. Well, that's our job, people; we are to live in such a way that we turn the world upside down by our very lifestyle.

If you look just like the world, you're not kingdom living. You're stepping outside God's blessing; you're stepping out there where you're putting yourself at risk in the world. Do you understand? These four blessings, they seem paradoxical from the world's perspective, but from God's perspective, they're the mark of kingdom citizens and He's putting the world right.

He's putting it right. Blessed are the poor in spirit, those that are broken with humility before God, those who mourn, blessed that have godly sorrow over their sin. Blessed are the meek because they've surrendered their strength to God and they depend on Jesus and they say, “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.” Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for their blessing comes from a true longing to know God.

This leads us to the second way. We've talked about the paradox. Here's the second:

2. Pursue the practices of kingdom blessings.

Pursue the practices of kingdom blessings. These three flow out of the previous four. As I've said, they're kind of like steps, as you move step by step. Now, we come to 7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” Now, these are not so paradoxical and they can be understood.

Merciful, receive mercy; pure in heart, see God. Peacemakers are called sons of God. These seem more one to one kind of. But the way they could be misunderstood is you could look at “blessed are the merciful” and say, ‘Oh, does it mean if I want God to show me mercy, I first have to earn it by showing others mercy?’ No. If we say that we've landed in this ditch, which is the “earning” ditch, that can't be it.

That can't be it. So how do we get it, because it sounds kind of like that. As we get to the center point, like the very center, the Sermon on the Mount is the Lord's Prayer. He says to pray like this,

”Forgive us as we forgive others,”

Is He saying, ‘Oh, you don't get forgiven if you don't forgive others?’ See that? That sounds like earning, but we know that salvation is by grace, not by works. So now, we have to think about it differently.

To be merciful means you have a willingness to forgive others, to show them mercy. So think about it like this; these are more like graces that God already gives the people that are in His kingdom.

Mercy, pure in heart and peacemaker are the three we're talking about. These are like graces. These are not paradoxical. These are possessions, grace, gifts that God gives.

So, if He gives you mercy, you open your hand and you say, ‘God, forgive me for my sin. I accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior, ’ that forgiveness flows to you and forgives you of all. Now you should have the ability to let mercy flow because you can draw on the reservoir of your forgiveness. This is why we see in the scripture that we are to forgive others as God in Christ has forgiven us. That's in the book of Colossians.

Here's more like what it's saying, I think: ‘Blessed are those who are merciful, for they will be shown mercy.’ Now, because you're merciful, the mercy is flowing like a river through you like that. The minute you close your hand of forgiveness to another believer, you're a believer, you've been forgiven, but now you're not forgiving others.

Bitterness grows in your heart. Now, God's mercy is still available to you, but because you're not forgiving others, you're really closing your hand toward experiencing that mercy. You're not letting it flow.

So, what we're saying is that Kingdom citizens can do all things through Christ. He has forgiven us. It's out of that reservoir of forgiveness that we forgive others that leads to living under God's blessing. Think of it like this: God forgave you, through Jesus, of all your sins, so all your debts have been canceled before God.

But, He's done even more than that. He's given you the ability to “write checks” on His mercy and sign the name of Jesus. So, you can write checks to people. People offend you. You can become unoffendable because your identity is in Jesus.

I don't care about anybody's approval except His. Then, if you come to a place where somebody offends you, you feel it for a second and you think, Oh, wait a minute. I'm gonna write you a “Jesus forgive you” check because I've got a reservoir of mercy flowing to me and through me.

I'm able to be merciful. Well, what about this pure in heart thing? I mean, it says that if I want to see God, if I want to experience God, if I want to know God, I've got to have a pure heart. Well, I can't clean my heart. I can't earn that.

But look how David prayed in Psalm 51. He wrote that psalm after he had committed adultery with Bathsheba and he felt dirty. He said, Psalm 51:10 (ESV) “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” He drew on that; he drew on God's mercy to get himself a pure heart. I believe that when you get knowledge of God, you'll have experiences with the Lord

when you just come clean with the Lord and say, ‘God, clean me up.’ Only the pure in heart will experience God with the eye of faith and His glory in the world to come. Then, He says, “peacemakers,” which is another character trait, that the citizens of the kingdom of God are merciful, they have a pure heart and that they're peacemakers. It's a mark of those that would be called sons of God or children of God. Now, there's a lot of troublemakers in the church.

Are you one of them? I don't know what it is about the church. The church just seems to attract troublemakers. Now, I see some of y'all looking at other people in the room. Have you looked in the mirror?

I don't know what it is about the church: so called Christians, the most judgmental, finger pointing, troublemaking group. They seem like they're attracted to church. I don't know if they come in on their own or if the devil sends them in here.

Are you a peacemaker or a troublemaker? Children of God are peacemakers. It just breaks their heart when things aren't in unity.

You have to be careful when you're a peacemaker. We'll see that in the scripture, because there's only one beatitude left. It's the one about, “blessed are those who are persecuted,” because it makes sense. If you know anything about this, peacemakers get persecuted.

Have you ever tried to separate two dogs in a dog fight? I have. You get bit by both. I used to spend the summers with my grandparents.

My grandmother's sister lived down the dirt road from the house. Often, at dinner time, my granny would make extra food and she'd say to me, “Carry this plate up the road to your Aunt Carrie and your Uncle Clifford's house.” I'd say, “Okay” and immediately my mind would go to the hound dogs under that front porch, on that house that was on the way.

I had to be quiet going by this house. The hound dogs would come out all over you. But, I had a problem. My papaw's dog, Jack, loved me and followed me everywhere.

So, here he comes, following me down the road. I'm walking down the road, I have this plate of food, and I was saying, “Be quiet, Jack.” But then, he started barking and here came the hound dogs, causing me to drop the plate. I have dogs all over me,and I'm trying to separate them, and they all bite me. The hound dogs bit me

and Jack, who was my friend and loved me, would bite me, too. This is what happens when you're a peacemaker. Sometimes you'll get bit. You'll say, ‘Hey, let's calm down.

Let's tone it down. If we're going to discuss things, let's discuss it in a nice manner.’ Jack, who was my friend, was thinking, Well, if you're going to be on their team, I'm biting you. See, that'll happen

and then you'll feel persecuted. But you shouldn't worry about that, because that means you're like Jesus. Look what they did to Him. The student is not greater than the teacher. The follower is not greater than the master. Well, Gary, that doesn't sound “blessed” to me.

We'll see why in just a second. We see these three marks, these three practices that we can pursue because Jesus lives in us so that we live the blessed life: to pursue mercy, a clean heart and to be a peacemaker. Everywhere you go, Jesus talks about the heart. He says the heart is like a spring of water.

Have you ever got a glass of water and you see a bunch of floaters in there? You say, ‘I don't think I'm going to drink that.’ You want pure water. You want it pure. But He says that out of the heart come the words of the mouth.

God, clean us up. I want a fresh spring. I want to live under Your blessing. Now, let's go to the last; this is the third way.

We've said that you can understand the paradox of this other way of living. Living under these kingdom blessings, we can pursue these character traits, these practices, and finally be ready to pay the price of kingdom blessings.

3. Pay the price of kingdom blessings.

Kingdom living invites worldly opposition. If the world is in rebellion against your King, don't be surprised that they now will oppose you. If you've never experienced opposition at school or in the workplace because of your faith, chances are they don't know you're a believer because they can't tell by your lifestyle and by your speech you're living just like them. So, they can't tell you apart. But those that are living under God's blessed state are noticeably different and growing more and more different as they grow and follow Jesus.

Be ready that you will experience Kingdom blessings, but also, Kingdom persecution. But, you're still blessed. Now, notice that He says the most about this one, verse 10. He's still speaking generally - “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

But then, He takes it on a personal level: “Blessed are you…” I can almost see we're up on that mountain, right? The disciples are in a circle up close to Him. The crowds are in the distance.

He says, 10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The disciples are looking around. That's y'all; He's talking to y'all back there now.

I think he's talking to some of y'all. I know some of y'all. But then He says, 11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.”

When you're persecuted, blessed are you. Well, I'm going to get persecuted. If you live for Jesus, you will get persecuted. It's a certainty, because you're going against the world's kingdom. He says, “ Blessed are you when others revile you…” “Revile” is this idea of “hate;”

they don't like you. You might not even know them. They don't like you already because of the way you're living. You might not have ever had a conversation with them, but they just don't like you.

There's something about you; “goody two shoes.” They begin to utter all kinds of evil against you falsely. They begin to lie about you because of His account, because of Jesus in you.

That's what they say. Now, look, if you get persecuted or if you get in trouble because of something you did wrong. That's not what we're talking about. I sometimes have people come to me, say, ‘I can't believe God's letting this happen to me’ and they begin to tell me what they did.

I believe it. You brought that on yourself; you made some bad life choices. Peter talks about this in 1 Peter 2:20 (NIV) “But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God.” So don't get confused.

There are persecutions that come because you're a Jesus follower; because of His account. I remember when I was in college at Radford University, I got on fire for Jesus. I was part of a group called Campus Crusade for Christ. We were going door to door sharing our faith.

I was living in a dorm and I had kept a map of every door I had knocked on and shared the gospel with. Everybody was pretty good to me. Let me just be honest with you that I've never bled for Jesus.

No one's ever tried to kill me. No one's ever beat me up. Now they've made fun of me, which hurts, depending on who they were, right? They've called me names. I've had that.

So, they started calling me “Billy Graham.” Guys in the dorm I lived in would say, “Watch out… (I didn't know they were calling me this until I overheard him one day)... here comes Billy Graham. Lock your door. He's going to knock on your door.” l

I thought about that and I thought, I like Billy Graham.

That's all right. I'm not going to be “cool in school.” Looks like they're going to think I'm like Billy Graham and I decided to be okay with that. That's hard when you're 18 or 19 years old.

It's not hard when you get to be my age. I don't care what any of y'all think. I only care what Jesus thinks. But, when you're 18, you still kind of care, you know?

I've never bled; I’ve never been beaten up. So many people have. They revile; they persecute. Jesus was. But He says, ‘Here's how I want you to react.’

This is the only Imperative in the whole passage. We have twelve verses here where He's just telling us, here's the state of your life as a Kingdom citizen. You are blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed….eight times blessed and so, if you get persecuted because you're identifying with Me, it says in verse 12, “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

That's the only commandment in the whole passage. There's no commandment in there that says to be meek. No, you're supposed to be meek because Jesus lives in you and it's a result of having Jesus live in you. None of these are doings. The only doing is when you get persecuted.

Go ahead and be glad and rejoice because that means you're in the club. You're in the membership with all the prophets. With Jesus Himself and all of the apostles; they all got persecuted too. Rejoice and be glad because of that. Also, rejoice and be glad because your reward is great in heaven. Now that's in the future; that's sure.

Rejoice and be glad. It reminds me of James 1:2-4, “Count it all. Joy, my brother, when you encounter various trials and tribulations…”

Count it joy. Don't put it in the liability column; put it in the asset column, because it passed through God's hands.

If you're following Him, it must be for a reason. So, I'm just going to count it all joy. 2 Timothy 3:12 (ESV) “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”

It's a certainty, young person. Do we have some young people in the house? Maybe you're still in high school, maybe you're in college.

It's hard to be “cool in school” when you're following Jesus. You'll get persecuted. You probably won't get beat up. You probably won't get a bloody nose from it, but people might not invite you to the parties you thought you wanted to go to.

Besides, when you go to them, you will find out later, as a believer, that you probably shouldn't have gone to that party. That's what you find out as you get older. Maybe, for some of you single guys, you wanted to get that pretty girl as a date and then you find out that she doesn't love Jesus. Well, you need to run, man.

You need to run. There's no such thing as “missionary dating.” The Bible says to not be unequally yoked. So many of us have brought troubles on ourselves by pursuing someone who doesn't love Jesus.

They're not Kingdom citizens and we go after them for worldly reasons. I know I got down into your business now. I should stop. But, when you get persecuted because you're carrying your Bible to school and you have your Bible with your textbooks, you get picked on for it or because you go to the Bible club before school starts in the morning or you're at the business place and you have two or three Christian friends there who decide to pray during lunch and then you get talked about. That's kind of the persecution of living in America.

You know why that's possible? You know why we don't bleed? It’s because others bled before us, to give us a place like this to live. Others are still bleeding today so that we can have a place like this, right?

But, it's not like that everywhere. According to the World Watch List, which is put out every year by Open Doors International, one in seven Christians are persecuted. One in five live in Africa. Two in five live in Asia.

Last year, 4,478 were murdered, 7,679 churches attacked, and 4,744 are in prison for their faith. That's just in one year. David Curry's the president of Open Doors.

He says, “You might think the [list] is all about oppression. … But the [list] is really all about resilience. The numbers of God’s people who are suffering should mean the Church is dying—that Christians are keeping quiet, losing their faith, and turning away from one another. But that’s not what’s happening. Instead, in living color, we see the word of God going forth!” That's why they're being persecuted, because people can tell they're Christians.

Kingdom living invites worldly opposition, but oh, the blessings. Rejoice and be glad for great is your reward in heaven. 2nd century Church Father Tertullian said, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”

Wherever the church gets persecuted the most, the church grows the fastest. For us as Americans, these Beatitudes kind of fly in the face of so much of the American value system. Over these next few weeks, it might be a little difficult. Let's let it sink in and say, ‘God, where do You want me to repent? Am I meek?

Am I humble? Am I a peacemaker

or am I always tooting my own horn? Am I holding something against somebody that I should be merciful?’ It's holding back the reality of the blessing I could be living under today. Oh, God, I just pray for us now.

Let me do that. Lord, I pray first for the person who's here today. You came in far from God and you've never given your life to God. You've never declared Jesus king of your life and you stand outside the kingdom. Would you pray right now and say, ‘Dear Lord Jesus, I repent.

I've been in rebellion against You. I've been living my life by my own ways. I'm a sinner. I've been far from You. But I want to come into the Kingdom today.

I want You as my Savior. Jesus, I believe You died on the cross for me, that You were raised from the grave and that You live today. Come and forgive me of my sin. Adopt me into Your family.

I want to be a child of God.’ If you're praying that prayer of faith, believing, Jesus will save you. He'll make you a citizen of the Kingdom. The Kingdom of heaven is yours. Others are here and you've received Jesus and you're a Christ follower, but you're holding a grudge against someone. You're not letting the mercy flow.

There's a fight going on somewhere and you've decided to just stay out of it rather than to try to be a peacemaker. There's a place where you feel like you're being too brash. Whatever it is, think through these right now and say, ‘Lord, forgive me. I want to be more like Jesus, because these eight blessings are really a description of Jesus.’

We pray it all in His name. Amen.