Beatitudes 3 and 4

No, it's not about how to be a better husband. Two weeks ago, I gave the sermon on two of the Beatitudes, and she said, I want you to cover two more. So I said, well, okay. So she said, I want you to cover... She said, in fact, you've got to cover all eight of them here, but, you know, do two of them right away.

So we're going to talk about that. We talked about receiving blessings from God, and what we think are blessings from God. And they are blessings from God. We receive a lot of physical blessings, and God gives us a lot of things. God takes care of us. God heals us. We don't get all the physical blessings we want, but He gives us a lot of physical blessings. Of course, all the physical blessings we want aren't necessarily good for us, either. Just like a child wants three pieces of cake, and that's not good for them, and they don't understand. But I went through how Jesus talked about being blessed from God, in what is called the Beatitudes.

And Beatitude is an Old English word that just means perfect happiness. And that's why they became known as the Beatitudes, because if we could think like this, and be like this, what Jesus says at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, we would have perfect happiness. And yet when you read them, that doesn't seem to make sense. In fact, it doesn't make any sense. I mean, if you just look at them humanly, and it doesn't seem like there's blessings involved.

And yet, these are the greatest blessings that God wants to give to us. We went through two of them. We talked about, blessed are those who are poor in spirit. I talked about how that means literally understanding your absolute poverty before God.

Spiritually, we are nothing, and we have no hope for eternal life. And this little piece of life we have is all there is. So if we have this poverty of spirit before God, we will receive His blessing of the Kingdom, which is everything He has to be part of His family. And we also went through, blessed are those who mourn, because mourning is part of this life. Mourning is when you lose anything.

I mean, you lose a loved one who dies, a friend who dies, you lose a friend who just turns against you. You lose a job. You lose your health. We lose things all the time, and it causes us to mourn. That's part of life. We mourn because of the world that we see around us. It's a dysfunctional place. We see all the hurt and the agony and the war and the suffering. Excuse me, we're supposed to mourn that.

We say, was that all Christianity is? Is He saying, blessed are you who mourn? No, He says, blessed are you who mourn because you will be comforted. God's blessing is the comfort. The mourning is actually something we have to go through. So it becomes a blessing because we're comforted. See, we don't think that way. He's saying, no, blessing are you if you never lose anything. Well, you learn very early on when your first puppy dies, you know, that we mourn. And blessed are those who mourn because they're comforted.

So this all has to do with the relationship with God. So we're going to look at a couple more blessings. The next one in Matthew 5, 5 says, Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Now, it's easy to look at that and say, blessed are the meek. We just said blessed are those who are poor in spirit. Is He repeating Himself?

And He's not. The Greek word her meek has a different meaning than the phrase poor in spirit. There's two words in Greek that are translated meek and meekness, and they're related to each other. So we don't have to go through the subtle meanings between the two of them. But the problem is there is no exact English equivalent. We say, oh, this is what it means in English. Well, partly, but it also has different nuances of meaning. When we look at the word meek in English, here's what an English dictionary says, Webster's enduring injury with patience and without resentment, submissive, not violent or strong.

Now, part of this is very true in what the Greek word means. It means enduring injury with patience and without resentment, being submissive to God, and working with other people. Not being strong isn't what the Greek word means.

So we have to understand what Jesus means by, although He wouldn't have said it in Greek, He would have said it in Aramaic, but it's recorded in Greek for us. So we need to know the subtleties of the meaning. Here's what one Greek dictionary says. Meekness is a condition of mind and heart which demonstrates quietness, not in weakness, but power. It is a virtue born in strength of character. Now, I gave a sermon not too long ago, well, in the last six months, where I talked about we make a great mistake in our Christian lives if we only center on sin, sin, sin.

So all we see is sin in ourselves and sin in others, and we try to not sin, but true Christianity is more than just not sinning. It's living in virtue.

And we described and gave a definition of virtue and some of the virtues that are in the Bible. The Bible's filled with virtues. Those are the good things you do. We have to talk about a little more about that even today. It's the good things that we do. It's the good things that are part of our character. Meekness here is a character trait that says I'm not going to approach all the time in anger or violence or confrontation. I'm going to quietly try to handle situations with the proper emotions. Keep my emotions in check. That's a strength because it comes down to controlling your emotions.

And sometimes, humbly standing there while somebody else is being absolutely rude or terrible or mean.

It's interesting that you say, okay, when you look at words sometimes, you have to look at, especially words in the ancient society, how was it used then? We see that all the time in our society. I mean, if you lived in the 1920s, gay meant something totally different than gay now, right? A totally different meaning. So we have this English word that's changed meanings. Well, how was the Greek word meek used in the ancient Greek world? And there's something Aristotle said. I don't like to quote Greek philosophers, but Aristotle explained what meekness is. He described it as the middle ground between being angry for no reason and never getting angry at all. In other words, it's about getting angry at the right time and controlling your anger. That's meekness. You're not angry and upset over things you shouldn't be upset over. You're not causing strife all the time. And it doesn't matter sometimes that somebody else is wrong. Sometimes it's like, eh, you know, it's not worth creating a confrontation over. And there are times when you should be angry, but the anger is controlled. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the kingdom of God, or inherit the earth, which is Christ comes to earth, so you inherit the earth. That's because he'll be reigning on earth at the time. So he's teaching about something that's inside the inner person.

And it's not just as the English definition is, just being weak, but it doesn't mean, okay, I'm going to be strong and I'm going to go around and force my will on everybody else. No, it's not forcing your will when there's no need to, or you shouldn't, or it won't be good because you have the strength not to do it. Now, because you're weak, you just have the strength not to do it. The strength not to be in this confrontation. The strength not to drag this beyond where it is. Even though that means you may be submitting to somebody you don't want to submit to, but you submit for the right reasons. It never means submitting to evil or submitting for the wrong reasons. Oh yeah, my boss told me that I have to lie to make this sale, so I may have to go lie. That's not meekness. That's weakness. Those are two different things. There's two different things.

It's knowing when and when not, and being humble enough to live in that. Jesus talks about meekness.

Let's go to Luke 6. Luke chapter 6 and verse 27. You know, we don't read from Luke 6 too much because it's very uncomfortable.

It's very uncomfortable.

This is actually Luke's version of the Sermon on the Mount. It appears that Luke wasn't there. Luke gathered information, and he gathered information. When you look at what Jesus covered there, and then you see other places in the Gospels, he covered that material in numerous ways. Some of the same material over and over again. The Sermon on the Mount seems to be a very compact way he said it there. So Luke puts it together. Sometimes he adds things, and he leaves out a few things because he's gathering things from all these sermons of Jesus, and he has sort of the outline of the Sermon on the Mount, and he puts them all together. Luke did that with some of the parables. There's parables that are given by Mark and Matthew that are different times in Jesus' ministry, and Luke just put them together. He knew people would say, well, he didn't just...

But it makes the same point. He does that on repentance. He takes three of his teachings on repentance that you find he gave at different times, because he's not trying to be chronological. He's trying to teach or show. This is what Jesus taught. So that's why people say, why is there differences between Luke's version of Matthew? Matthew's is probably pretty accurate. Luke's is a compilation of things. It's not wrong. It's how God chose to collect this stuff and keep it for us. And he did it through the personality of these men. So some of this is said in Matthew's version, some of it isn't. Verse 27, but I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. This is meekness. Now does that mean that we are to just, no matter how bad someone treats us, we're just to let them take advantage of us over and over and over again? Is that what he's saying?

No, we'll see he's not. But at the same time, he is saying to show love towards your enemies. You know, I've seen people try to explain around this, well, you know, you love your enemies by just praying for God to punish them. That's not what he says. Because he says, do good to those who hate you. So if your neighbor is really mean to you, if your neighbor hates you, if the neighbor is one of those people that's always calling the police because, you know, they go to bed at nine o'clock and at nine thirty you still have lights on in your house. I mean, people actually do that, you know. And then one day they have a flat tire. Do you walk out and say, hey, nice to see you're getting yours? Or do you go help them change the tire? This is meekness. You only do that out of strength. You'd never do that. Oh, I got to go help you because, you know, I don't want you to be mad at me anymore. No, you can only do that out of strength. But that is meekness. Bless those who curse you and pray for those who spitefully use you. And once again, what do we pray for?

God, please help that person to change. Please help that person to repent. You could pray that.

It doesn't do any good. I mean, we're not supposed to say, God, I don't want you to do, you know, I don't want you to do much. Maybe a just a small case of leprosy, you know, just, just...

Do him who strikes you on the one cheek, offer the other also? And from him who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either. In other words, even if someone is doing something that's taking advantage of you, be generous. He didn't say give them everything you have, but be generous.

But they don't deserve that. Meekness isn't about deserves. It's about, I am strong enough to be, to treat you right, even though you're wrong here. You know, it's like the one person, you know, it was one of the movies, I can't remember what was, I don't think I saw it, someone tell me about it. The guy, they were taking advantage of the guy over and over and over again. And he said, I, I turned the one cheek, I only have four cheeks, you slapped all four of them, got a shotgun and went out and killed the guy. Okay? No, that's not what this means either. Okay? Okay, just two cheeks, you slap two cheeks, I can hit you back.

The point he's making here is not about getting in a fight. The point he's making is, you know, he's using hyperbole. The point he's making is, step back, even from the person who's mistreating you, and treat them the way you want to be treated. Now, sometimes you have to break off a relationship. Sometimes you have to say, hey, I'm not even associating with that person anymore. He didn't say go back into the situation all the time. He said, in the situation, be meek. But that takes a strength, an inner strength, to do that.

Give to everyone who asks of you, and from him who takes away your goods, do not ask them back.

He says, you know, once again, give to people who are in need, if they're really in need.

Now, we can't give everything we have. He doesn't tell us to do that, because we have responsibilities to our family, but we can give. He says, give to people in need, even those who don't sometimes seem like they may deserve it. And just as you want men to do to you, you also do them likewise. That is meekness. That summarizes everything he's saying right there, and all this hyperbole, and using these examples that seem absurd, but they're really not when you think about it. He gets down to just treat other people the way you want to be treated. Well, I will treat them that way if they treat me that way. And he says, no, you treat them that way, even if they don't treat you that way. That's meekness. This is in the Bible. It's teachings of Jesus Christ. It's hard. But if you love those, because here's the this point here, is really important. But if you love those who love you, what credit is that of you? For even sinners love those who love them. Right? You would find the worst Nazi loved his family.

One of the most bizarre things I've ever seen is Buchenwald, the concentration camp. And outside the concentration camp, there was a zoo where the SS guards' wives would bring the little children to play in the zoo. Well, 50 yards away, there's all these people in a concentration camp.

They love their children. They had a zoo built just for their children.

And he says, why are we different than them if that's all the people we love? We hate everybody else. He says, and if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is it to you? For even sinners do that. And if you lend to those whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back. Are we any better than a bank system? Hopefully we're a little better than the American bank system.

But love your enemies. Do good and lend, hoping for nothing in return. And your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For he is kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore be merciful, just as your father also is merciful. Remember, I said, when we get through these, eventually we end up with some character trait of God. And what Jesus says is, and in Matthew's, he says, he even brings rain on bad people so that they can grow food. Now, we do know that God will cause a drought to get people's attention, to get them to repent. But throughout history, humanity survived because God continues to give blessings on the world. Even in the most pagan countries, they'll get some blessings. And so the point being here, if God can let an evil person be blessed and have some physical blessings, because we see life as so much greater than physical blessings, you know, we could be nice to him.

Now, this is a character trait of God. And blessed are we when we do this.

That doesn't seem like a blessing, does it? Man, alive! To be nice to the people that I don't like, because they're mean? Yeah.

Oh, we don't understand blessings. We don't understand blessings. But the ones God really wants to give us.

Once again, he doesn't support evil. I mean, Jesus goes into the temple and physically throws out the people who are making money off of God's people. Physically throws them out. And that was meekness. You know why it was meekness? It was anger at the right time and controlled. Notice he didn't take a sword and slay them. But it was violent. That's meekness.

But it wasn't violent where he was had someone down on the ground and punching him and kicking. That no, he drove them out. They left.

Because he made a little whip and started cracking it. And the animals started running and everybody ran out. You see, well, that's not meekness. It's not a meekness in English. It's meekness in Greek. He's angry for the right reason under proper control.

So meekness really comes from humble submission to God. So we're receiving a blessing for... Anytime we submit ourselves to God, we're receiving a blessing. The greatest blessings. Because the greatest blessings really come in forms of love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, mercy, faith. That's all the things we really want. And we're doing all these things to create that and we don't. And those are the blessings he gives us. And blessed are those who are meek. Because they can learn love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, mercy, faith, and self-control. They can learn those things. It is waiting on God sometimes instead of trying to impose our will or fix everything. Sometimes we have to wait for God. So in the greatest lessons, I was looking through funerals when I did Richard's, Kim's dad's funeral. I was looking through some old funerals. I had stacks of them. And I found one I did for Burke McNair. And how many remember Burke McNair? Some of you do. He was one of the first classes at Ambassador College. And he was taught personally by Herbert Armstrong. But Burke and I became good friends later in his life. And I had written down some wise things he had told me. And one of the things he'd written down was, or told me, I wrote down, was, you learn after a while that many times when you don't know what to do, and a situation is just you don't know what to do. He says, stand still and wait for God.

Sometimes you get out in front of God, and he says, and you end up in trouble. So stand still and wait for God. That's part of meekness.

Only be involved in conflict that is concerned with righteousness. We're going to talk about that in a minute, too. No need to always be the center of attention. Everybody gets to be the center of attention once in a while. Jude was very nervous about being the center of attention. But, you know, when he got lost in that music, he wasn't thinking about the being the center of attention. He was playing the music. That's when, that's when beekness comes out. And playing the music. The people are listening to this. It's a blessing to them.

It means not losing our temper quickly. If you do lose it, you get control of it very quickly. It means not always being defensive. It means controlling emotions. Eventually, it means putting the needs of others above yourself, even when it's painful because they're wrong.

It doesn't mean not confronting them. It means how you confront them.

The opposite of meekness is to approach life filled with strife and anger and arrogance, and a need to control. The more we have a need to control, the less meekness we can experience.

Sometimes it's just a personality thing. People are born with a need to control. Sometimes it's because early in our lives we have no control. And if you've had a lot of trauma early in your life, you need to control everything so you won't have any more trauma. And the more you try to control, guess what you have? More trauma. You create the trauma by trying to control everything.

A trust in God lets us be meek, but we don't have to control everything. Much is beyond our control, and we can find peace with that.

This inner blessing of meekness is inner peace, and that's the blessing. The blessing is the peace that comes with meekness. Blessed are you who are meek.

You inherit the earth. In other words, you'll be part of the kingdom of God.

You will be the children of God. This is what we're becoming now. That's what we're learning.

We're becoming the children of God.

Then there's one other, because we'll cover two of them today. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, so they shall be filled.

Now, wait a minute. Have you ever really been hungry?

Really been thirsty? I told this story a couple years ago. I'd forgotten about it, but my son's sitting here, so I'm going to see if he remembers this story. He and I were hiking in the Chisos Mountains, which is desert. We were climbing mountains, and we decided to just go out across the desert.

So we had our canteens and a nutrition bar, and off we went. We weren't out there very long, a few hours.

We came across—and it's funny, because there was no one else there. It's 103 degrees. There's a reason why nobody's out in the desert. We came across what was basically the ranger station that had a little convenience store in it and a shower.

We went in there—do you remember this? We went in there, had to spend 50 cents each to take a shower, and bought a drink, and we sat there eating some ice cream. We both started to laugh, and we could stop laughing.

Because we were so thirsty that taking a shower and drinking an eosum ice cream was the happiest thing we'd ever experienced. It was just amazing. Okay? So that's how—and that was small compared to what real thirst can be.

It's distressful to be absolutely hungry.

We experience some hunger after a tomelet or when we fast a day.

That's not starvation hunger. To be really hungry and thirsty is all-consuming. It's distressful. So wait a minute. Blessed are those who are filled with this distress.

Well, let's look at what David wrote in Psalm 42. Psalm 42. Isn't it funny? I still remember both of us sitting there laughing. Because, wow!

It is not smart, by the way, to spend hours hiking in the desert in 103 degrees. Okay? It just isn't, but we learned that.

David writes—well, actually, this is the sons of Korah who put this together.

As the deer pants for the water, Brooks, so pants my soul for you, O God. Have you ever seen an animal that was run? Mark's probably seen a deer that's been run, and their tongue will literally be hanging out. I've seen dogs—I've seen deer like that. I've seen dogs like that. Their tongue's hanging out, and you can tell they can't hardly move because they're dehydrated. And he says—are they right here? That's the only way they can express the thirst they're feeling for God.

As the deer pants for the water, Brooks, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, while they continually say to me, Where is your God? And when I remember these things, I pour out my soul within me. For I used to go with the multitude. I used to go to praise God and to worship God and to learn about God on the Sabbath and the Holy Days. And obviously, the point here is this person wasn't doing that anymore.

I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude, and kept the pilgrim feast, which would have been one of the Holy Days. Why do you cast down, O my soul? Why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance, His presence.

Blessed are we when we are in times where we are literally distressed in our desire to know God.

And when we don't experience that, we're not being blessed.

Now, sometimes you're so close to God, and that's the blessing. Because remember, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, so they shall be filled. There's times when you're full, but you know what happens? Think about it when you eat.

We're going to have a great big meal. Sometimes I'll stay on the way home, man, I can't eat for a day. And sometime tonight, I'll probably go on, turn on the television set and say, what do we have to eat? And Kim will say, I can make some popcorn, or I can make you a sandwich. She'll say, you know, I'm hungry too. Isn't this strange?

Hunger and thirsting for God isn't a one-time event. It is a lifetime of going through periods where we drift from God and we hunger and thirst. I believe the church needs more hungering and thirsting for righteousness.

It's the only way we're going to stay sane and focused in a crazy world and stay right with God and receive these blessings.

Blessed when we are that way, because He's going to fill us. He's going to feed us.

If you're never hungry, you know, I've seen people eat junk food, nothing but junk food, and they're 38 years old and their lives are wrecked. I mean, their health is absolutely wrecked and they say they're full, but they're not. You can fill your life with junk food and you will die, and you will die spiritually if you fill your life with spiritual junk food. You'll die. We have to hunger and thirst for what's real. What's real. And it's distressful at times to hunger and thirst. Isaiah 55. Because it says the purpose isn't to stay hungry. The purpose is to be filled. The purpose is for God to come give you what you actually need. Oh good, if I hunger and thirst for a new job. He didn't say that. If I hunger and thirst for a better husband. He didn't say that. If I hunger and thirst for whatever. You hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Oh hey, I love this the way this in Hebrew, it's like I said, hey everybody, hey. Oh, everyone who thirsts come to the waters and you have no money. Come buy and eat. Yes, come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend money for what is not bread? And your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me. And this is actually God telling.

These are the words of God that Isaiah is writing down here. And climb your ear to me. Listen carefully to me and eat what is good and let your soul delight itself in abundance. Be filled. And climb your ear and come to me. Here in your soul shall live and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, the sure mercies of David. Which is a messianic reference. I will bring you to me. I will feed you. But notice you have to be hungry before you get fed. Because sometimes we just, you know, you can sit around and eat Twinkies and pretzels and drink Coke and fill filled and get sick.

Does anybody... I won't ask. I haven't had a Twinkie in 50 years. I didn't like him as a kid. I mean, I like different candy bars. Well, I just didn't like Twinkies. Anyways, so we have to hunger and thirst for righteousness. Now that's a relation with God, but righteousness and righteous are very important concepts. I gave a sermon in Nashville about righteousness here about a month ago, but I'm just going to give a little piece of that sermon here. Because we have to know what we're hungering for. We have to know what we're really thirsty for because we don't know it. You know, if you're really, really hungry, you can eat certain things.

If you're dehydrated, you can drink water and stay dehydrated. You have to have some electrolytes and things put in, right? I mean, dehydrated person, one of the things you do is you give them water and a salt pill because the water itself won't do it.

So we have to know what we're thirsty for. We're hungry and thirsty for righteousness. So what is it? Righteousness. When was the last time you said, oh, that was righteous? Now, sometimes you'll hear it on like a detective movie. Oh, that was a righteous shoot. You know, you use it. You'll hear that. Maybe they probably don't use that anymore. That's straight from the 80s, right? That was a righteous thing to do. That was a righteous shoot. But what does that mean? You know, it literally, the word righteous has a very simple definition. The definition means to be right as opposed to being wrong. That's what it means.

Righteous is right. It's not wrong. It is used, and it's especially interesting in the Old Testament, but it's used the same way in the New Testament, but you will find the word righteous, righteousness, justice, many times the word justice is righteous. It's the same word. And you'll find it translated different ways in English because, wow, it's covering a big, big concept here. Righteous is everything that God is right about. He himself is called righteous. And it has to do primarily with a legal term. You are right before the list of what is right. You do the right thing. We have to hunger and thirst for not only doing the right thing, which means we have to hunger and thirst for God because only God can tell us what righteousness is. We have to hunger and thirst for doing the right thing, and we have to hunger and thirst eventually for being right. Actually being right. So we're hungering and thirsting for rightness, being right in the way God defines it. It's very interesting. If you go to some of the oldest English translations of the Bible, righteousness is translated right-wiseness. It's being wise enough to know what's right. Very interesting translation. I mean, that word right-wiseness isn't even a word anymore. I don't even know if you can find it in a dictionary. But that's what some of the oldest translations in English, they translated it right-wiseness. So it's used three different ways. Let's just look at the three different ways. First of all, it really is used in terms of justice. Leviticus 19. Leviticus 19.

Yeah, let's go to verse 15. I mean, there's a lot of scriptures we could use. I'm just going to show one.

Leviticus 19 verse 15. Oh, in the wrong chapter. I mean, 1519. That's 1915. Okay, 1915.

You shall do no injustice in judgment.

Everything must be righteous in judgment. So you shall do no injustice in judgment. You shall not be partial to the poor nor honor the person of the mighty. In righteousness, you shall judge your neighbor. He says the point is right and wrong doesn't depend on the person's status, and it doesn't depend on the person's wealth. It doesn't depend on anything except what's right and wrong and what God says is right and wrong. So righteousness here in this this verse is an expression. Everybody's equal before what is right and wrong in the eyes of God. Everybody. So it is very much in the Old Testament a judicial issue, a justice issue, that, and interesting enough, mercy is part of it. In other words, a person can be wrong and still be given mercy. It's not like, well, righteousness means you're wrong, you got to pay. Not always. Depending on the attitude of the person, there can be mercy, and that's righteous also.

So see how righteousness is huge, and it's so much used in the in Genesis, or I mean, Leviticus Numbers and Deuteronomy, Exodus, Leviticus Numbers and Deuteronomy, in terms of the law, and that there are times to be merciful and times not to be merciful, times to be strict and times not to be strict. And it's understanding what's right before God and His interaction. The thing is, He's always right, and that's what we're seeking. We're seeking to be right with God. Hungry and thirsting after righteousness isn't about religious ceremonies. It's not about all the things sometimes we think is exactly important to us. That is our measurement. This is my measurement that I'm a good church member. Sometimes the measurement of being a good church member may or may not be righteous. We have to know what righteousness really is.

So first of all, it's often used as a legal term. Secondly, God is righteous. It's an expression of His character. The law of God is an expression of the character of God. Don't steal is an expression of God's character. We know that. And He is righteous.

Therefore, if we are going to hunger and thirst after righteousness, we have to understand something. Let's go back to the Sermon on the Mount here in Matthew 6. One of the most quoted passages in the Sermon on the Mount.

I haven't quoted this in over a year.

I always figured this passage has to, once a year, show up in a sermon someplace.

Verse 25. Therefore, I say to you, Jesus says, do not worry about your life, what you eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on.

It's not life more than food and the body more than clothing. It's sort of like Isaiah. Hey, hey, don't spend your whole life doing these things. He doesn't say it's bad to wear nice clothing. He doesn't say it's bad to not have good food. He didn't say that. He's saying don't spend your life. Don't be filled with anxiety. Don't let your whole life be filled with worry about these things. Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sown or reap nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you, by worrying, can add one cubit to his statute? He goes on and he says, what can you do? Be so anxious that you'll get taller? Can worry and anxiety and not be able to sleep at night give you better clothing?

Give you better food? He says set your priorities right. He doesn't say that we shouldn't, you know, have food. He doesn't say when you don't have money you're going to worry some. He's saying it's an issue of priority that makes you blessed.

Or if we're filled with anxiety all the time and worry all the time, we're not blessed, are we? And yet that's part of life. I mean, anxiety and worry is part of life.

So we're all going to experience that. But if we're not careful, it becomes the driving force of life. And when anxiety and worry and anger, when these things become the driving forces of life, we're no longer blessed. We're cursed. And God might say, well, I'm giving you blessings, but you can't experience them because you're not blessed in the way I want to bless you.

So let's hunger and thirst for God's righteousness. Let's do that first.

So he says, therefore, verse 31, do not worry saying, what shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear? For all these things, everybody seek. This is what everybody seeks, right? That's all Gentiles means. It means all the world. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. Now notice, He knows we need them. He doesn't say, go become monks, you know, wear nothing but burlap, eat dry bread and water, sleep on a bed of nails. That's not Christianity. He says, He knows you need these things. You have to work for these things. You know, we go to work every day so that we can have the physical things we need. He says, He knows that. He designed you to be physical. He said, but you want the real blessings, just beyond the physical blessings. Verse 33, but seek first. This is what you hunger and thirst after more than anything. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Now, He doesn't promise that we're all being millionaires, by the way. That's not the promise. The promise isn't that you might not have financial difficulty sometimes. The promise isn't that you're going to always drive a BMW.

In fact, for the great majority of us, we'll never drive a BMW.

I did drive a Porsche Halalva. Did I tell you that? Do you know that it goes zero to 70 in like, what, 2.1 seconds or something?

And it was a convertible.

I'll never own a Porsche. Actually, after driving it, why would I want all that? I don't want a Porsche. But I have to admit, going from zero to 70 in two seconds was a thrill.

And then a curve came up. And I had to slow down. Right? I mean, it would go real fast. I'm not going to drive that fast. It's dangerous. But it was an interesting experience. It was fun. How did I get off? I get more like Fred Keller's every day. Anyways, and you can tell him I said that, by the way. I have no problem with it.

These things will be added to you. You may never own a Porsche. Your car might have smoke poured out of it and break down every once a week, you know? But you got a car.

That's what God promises us. Seek these other things first, and you'll enjoy your car.

Well, you may not enjoy it, but you'll live with it. Right? You'll live with it.

Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. See, these things tie together. Seek is distressful. You have to hunger and thirst for this. If you don't hunger and thirst for the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, get on your knees and ask Him to give you that hunger and thirst. And then be prepared for the distress, because it's distressful. And then prepared to be filled, which is worth it. It's worth it. But go ask for it. Go ask for it. Help me to receive the blessing of hungering and thirsting after your righteousness.

Ask for it. I want that blessing. And you'll say, okay, it's a little tough for a while, but you'll get the blessing.

See how this is totally different than what we think. You're never going to find a self-help book that says, go ask God to put you in distress, and He will fill you.

But it says, blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled, which means you have to do the first before you get the second. The blessing is the whole process. And the third, righteousness is expressed then in the way you live. It's not just a concept. Righteousness becomes the way we live. We live the right way. We do the right things. We learn to think the right things. We struggle with all that. We struggle with control of our thoughts and control of our emotions and control of our actions. That's part of the process. That's part of hungering and thirsting after righteousness. You hunger and thirst after righteousness when you do something, you think, I shouldn't have done that. You know, that wasn't honest. When I say to that person, really wasn't honest. I shouldn't have lost my temper with that person. I shouldn't have done this. I should have spent more time teaching my kids God's way this week, and I didn't. All these things we go through. That's hungering and thirsting. I want to be right, and we have to go ask God to help us to be right.

In the Sermon on Righteousness, and I won't have time to cover it here, but I did cover, it's interesting how it says that Abraham, because of his faith, righteousness was imputed to him. And that's misused sometimes to say that God imputes righteousness to us, so whatever we do doesn't matter after that. And when you go back and read what Paul says, that's not what he says at all, because imputation in the Greek means put on your account. So it's like, oh, Abraham, you don't have this right. Your account isn't very good, but I'm working with you, and he says, yes, Lord. And he says, ah, now that goes on your account. Accounts get erased by God. This goes on your account. You have faith in me. So that's imputed. That goes onto your account. Oh, that's a righteous thing right there. That's good.

And that led him to being forgiven by God.

So imputation of righteousness is real important, because, and God has to give us something we don't get. He has to put something on our account, even though mostly the account's bad. And mainly, it's debt. But everyone's not saved because it's imputed written on the account. Good act of faith.

Good obedience. Good whatever. It's not measuring up to give us salvation, because we can't measure up enough. But what it does is it creates this relationship. And in this relationship, we just keep hungering and thirsting for the relationship to go deeper. That's what this means. Blessed. It's a radical teaching here. The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount are the most radical teachings in the Bible. They are mind bending when you really get into them.

Romans 6. In Romans 6, and I'll just briefly go through part of this, because I don't want to go through all of it, because I want to make one more point here before we wrap it up. Romans 6.

The child is going to be a preacher. Romans 6. I'm sorry. I think it's so funny when they start talking. They don't know, right? Children don't know. We're all sitting around looking at each other. Why is everybody so quiet for it? It doesn't make any sense to them. I just, it's, I want to talk some.

I always, people say, I don't get upset when children talk in church. Little ones. When you're 13, you can't talk in church, okay? But that was my granddaughter I pointed out. I'm hard on her, you know? Only because she needs it.

She's special. Romans 6. He talks about just because we have grace, we can't sin. And he talks about baptism, about going into the water and coming out of the water, and we become a new person. And verse 13, he says, after we come out of the water, after we receive God's Spirit, he says, do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness. He says, you can't now say, I am right so I can do wrong. That's not how it works. Righteousness must produce right lifestyle, right action, right obedience. It must, or it's not righteous. Do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members, in other words, your body, everything about you, as instruments of righteousness to God. Instruments are whole... even our body becomes important in doing what's right before God. Our mind, our heart, our bodies all now are... we're trying to train ourselves with God's Spirit to do righteous, to be righteous. Righteousness is not just something... a big religious word about God. It becomes who we are. And that only happens when you hunger and thirst for it, because that's the only way you can be filled. So one last scripture, John chapter 6.

John chapter 6 verse 22.

Jesus got in trouble for saying this. In fact, he lost almost all of his followers.

Most of his followers left him after he said this. Only a few of them stayed with him. And what we have here is that Jesus had gotten into a boat and gone across the Sea of Galilee, because he was just being overwhelmed by people. He needed to get away from them for a little bit.

First of all... or 22 says, on the following day when the people who were standing on the other side of the sea saw that there was no other boat there, except that one which his disciples had entered, and that Jesus had not entered the boat with his disciples, but his disciples had gone away alone. However, other boats came from Tiberius near the place where they ate bread after the Lord had given thanks. He'd gone back to an area where those... Remember there are a couple different occasions where people came together, and with a little bit of food and a little bread, little fish, he fed thousands of people. A miracle! They all saw it. They knew this wasn't normal, and they ate the best bread and the best fish they ever could, and they could eat all they wanted, and there was still more left. More than they started with. Thousands of people saw this miracle. Thousands of people knew what it was. Thousands of people hungered and thirsted for physical blessings still. They wanted more food. And when they found Jesus, verse 25, on the other side of the sea, they said to Him, Rabbi, when did you come here? Jesus said, most certainly I say to you, you seek me, not because you sold the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. He says, you're still seeking me only for physical reasons. You know, it talks about paying tithes in the Bible, and it says if you tithe, you'll be blessed.

And sometimes you tithe, and you're not blessed physically. And we think God isn't fulfilling His end of the bargain. Well, God's priorities of blessings and our priorities of blessings many times are the exact opposite. We have it upside down. He says, I am blessing you. Well, you know, I just had to spend $400 because my car broke down again.

But I'm still blessing you. He says, 27, do not labor. And we're told to physically work. It's actually a command. We have to take care of ourselves. But He says, do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you because God the Father has set His seal on him. When they said, what shall we do that we may work the works of God? And Jesus answered and said to them, this is the work of God, that you believe in Him who He has sent. Therefore they said to Him, what sign will you perform then that we may see it and believe you? What work will you do?

For our fathers ate man in the desert, and it was written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. Now notice the argument from this huge group of people. They probably talked about it, and then they started people. Someone said something, and probably a bunch of people said, yeah, yeah, He's right. Prove to us by giving us more physical blessings. We already fed them, not too long before. And their argument is, okay, we'll believe if you're the Messiah, if you give us some manna. We've often wondered what that was like. We've read about it in the book of Exodus. We've been taught that in the synagogues, in the temple our whole lives. Give us some manna. Then we'll know that God sent you. The bread and fishes weren't enough.

But notice they're not asking for some spiritual blessing. Blessed are you who mourn?

No, no, no. Blessed are us if we can get manna. Now we'll be blessed.

And Jesus said to them, Most assuredly I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from life. He said, wait a minute, you're forgetting something. God gave that. Moses just prayed.

He said something here is even more important. God's giving you food for eternal life. This is what you have to hunger and thirst for. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives his life to the world. Then they said to him, Lord, give us this bread always. And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall never hunger. He who believes in me shall never thirst. In other words, you follow me and you may not have a lot of bread and fish. You may not have a lot of manna, but you'll never really hunger and thirst in a spiritual sense. I will fill that. That's the promise. Hunger and thirst for me and I will fill it because I have come from God. That's the message of Jesus Christ. Hunger and thirst after righteousness.

Well, I hope this sermon has caused you to want the blessing of meekness.

Receive the blessing of taking the wrong. Receive the blessing of not losing control when other people are mean or nasty or downright sin. Knowing when to stand up when not, when to show emotion when not, when to be angry when not, and to always know how to control that anger. That is meekness.

Once again, it's not ever showing that. It's not ever showing disappointment. It's not ever feeling bad when someone mistreats you. That's all part of the human experience.

It's knowing that God gives us something called meekness. And when we seek meekness, He says, I'll give you the kingdom. I'll give you the earth. I'll give you everything. I hope all of you are a little more hungry and thirsty than you were, and I hope you'll go seek it. Seek His righteousness.

Hunger and thirst for me, Christ said. I hope you will go pray for that.

God, give me the hunger and thirst I need to seek you because you will fill me. And then seek that and start to be filled. So that gets us through two more.

If my wife continues to have influence on me, there's four more of these, so we'll have to go through the other four.

And as most of you know, and I get teased about her as well, she does have a great influence on me. So we'll get through the rest of the Beatitudes here in the next couple of months.