The Sermon on the Mount, Part 3

Last time I was with you, I took us into the sermon series that I have begun here on the Sermon on the Mount. And I'd like to pick that up here at this time and get us back into it. We're not going to get very far. We're going to finish the Beatitudes here today. At the rate I'm going, it may take a year or two before I finish the Sermon on the Mount, but I decided after I got into it that it was such a vital topic that it might as well be done right, rather than just try to skim the surface of things and move through the events and the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount in a surface manner.

Rather than do that, I wanted to go into it into a deeper way. And so that's the approach that I'm going to take as we move through this very interesting and very important sermon that really establishes the essence of Christianity and our duties and responsibilities in the Kingdom of God.

Let's turn over to Matthew 5 and pick up where I left off last time. The Sermon on the Mount covers Matthew 5, 6, and 7. It was one sermon, remember, given by Jesus on the northern shore of Galilee, or at least the traditional site is on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee. It could have been possibly on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee as well. But at any rate, it was given in one setting by Jesus to His disciples, and it is, at least in the Gospels, it is the first major sermon that is given.

And it was one whole sermon. It is not something stitched together from several discourses of Jesus. By the context and everything, the evidence seems that indeed this was one complete sermon that He gave. Last time I took us up through the attitude of the merciful through verse 7. So we want to pick up in verse 8 and begin to talk here about these blessings that come upon us because of the way we are and because of things even that happen to us.

And these are blessings that deal with the essence of life being poor in spirit, mourning for sins, mourning for what has been lost, a meekness, and a hunger and a thirst for righteousness. But let's begin with verse 8, where He says, Blessed are the pure in heart. The pure in heart. This is speaking of an inward purity. Purity is a very important topic to religion and to the Bible. When you look in the Old Testament, the tabernacle, the priesthood, the sacrifices, and all the rituals that went along with that, purity was very important.

A priest had to purify himself before he went in to do any type of service in the temple before God. If you had gone to the temple as an Israelite to worship in some form, you would have had to go through a ritual washing yourself. If you ever go to Jerusalem and the environs of the temple that have been excavated over there, you will see even where they had little places that people went into, ritual washing places that people went into. It was very interesting how they would go in.

They would go down one little flight of stairs on one side into a pool of water and ritually bathe themselves. They didn't take a full bath. But then they would come up the other side out of that pool of water, symbolizing many things that we see in baptism of purity and the washing away of sin. But they had to do that before they would go into the temple precincts to do any type of worship there.

And of course, all the other priests and Levites had to go through some even more rigorous washings through their various courses there. So purity was a very important part of approaching God, being in God's presence, worshiping God. And Jesus mentions it here in terms of not outward purification, but inward purification.

He says, blessed are the pure in heart. And that is completely different and far more important than anything dealing with the physical outward washings that come from anything that we can do. We baptize individuals. We put you down into a pool of water, and that is a symbol of going into a grave, a watery grave, but it has that same connotation. And when literally we believe from what the Bible tells us, when you come up out of that pool of water, you are pure spiritually before God.

Your sins are forgiven. Repentance has taken place. And that is a major step in life. But there is a purity at that point. But as we know, it doesn't always endure because inside lurk other attitudes, emotions, problems that we wrestle with that cause us to be impure. And we have to struggle against sin. We repent and are forgiven and all, but we sometimes have those things come to the surface. But Jesus strikes right to literally the heart here. He says, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. It's worth spending some time on this and looking at what we should learn from being pure in heart.

It is an inward purity. It's something that takes place far beyond anything that we will do and should do outwardly. Come back to that thought in a moment. But hold your place here and swing your ribbon around and put it into Matthew 25. Let's go back to Psalm 24. And verse 3, here in this psalm is described the attitude of one who stands in God's presence. Psalm 24 and verse 3, he says, who may ascend into the hill of the Lord?

Who may stand in his holy place? The hill of the Lord here is speaking of where the temple would be where God's presence dwelt among the people. Who can go there? He who has clean hands and a pure heart. And so again, this is the essence of the requisite for standing in the presence of God. Now we don't go to a temple today. We come to church, but we stand before God every day.

And every day our lives should have a purity. We should strive for that through repentance and through clean living and right living. That's how we stand in God's presence. And we sense that presence. We look for that. The question still stands for us today. We don't go again. We're not going to some building to stand before God, but we come into his presence in prayer. We stand before God when we are living our life because we represent him and he is aware of what is taking place. But the answer to the question of how do we stand in God's presence? How do we come into his holy place where he is? It's through having clean hands and a pure heart. He who has not lifted up his soul to an idol nor sworn deceitfully. He will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. And so here David refers to not just an outward cleanliness, but an inward purity. David knew this quite well in Psalm 51, the prayer of Psalm of repentance.

As David was wrestling with his personal sins and wanting to expunge them from his body and his life, Psalm 51 verse 6, he said, Behold, you desire truth in the inward part and in the hidden part. You will make me to no wisdom.

The thoughts, the emotions, the imaginations of our heart. That's where truth resides.

Then in verse 10, he says, Again, a pure heart. And blessed are those who have a pure heart. This is really what God always wants. All the other rituals and physical things that we do have a deeper spiritual meaning, and that's the essence of Christianity. And that's probably the single most important lesson for a Christian to learn.

That it is far more than just outward obedience, ritual observance that is important.

There are certain rituals we have, and there are points of obedience that we are bound to.

But if we never go beyond that and understand the why, and it internalizes in our hearts, in our life, then all we are doing, all we are, are a bunch of rulekeepers. And we can have ten of them on our wall, and if they're not written on our heart, it's all outward. We can do whatever we want to do. As Paul said, we can spend our life with the poor, giving to the poor, serving the poor.

But if we don't have love, he said, we're just so much emptiness. Jesus looked at a group of people in Luke 11 who had it all together in terms of rules and rituals and outward forms of righteousness. And he knew that inwardly they were pretty corrupt. In Luke 11 and verse 39, he said to the Pharisees, this religious group who, again, were clean outwardly, and they had it all together outwardly. They had their rules, their policies, their regulations, and they were all lined up in notebooks on their shelves with little thumb tabs that they could turn to policy 7, sub point A, number 1.

What to do? How to handle this? You can formulize everything into a notebook.

And I threw away a few notebooks this week too from my office. None that still were pertinent or whatever. But you can put everything in one of the surest ways to institutionalize and kind of rip the heart out of any type of project, whatever it may be, is to, in my years of experience, is that when you get it to the point where it's all in a notebook, it's time to move on. It's just literally time to move on in a lot of ways. The Pharisees had their notebooks, and they had policies and rules for everything, and Jesus said to them here in verse 39, You Pharisees make the outside of a cup and the dish clean, but your inward part is full of greed and wickedness. Foolish ones! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also? But rather give alms of such things as you have, then indeed all things are clean to you.

But woe to you Pharisees, for you tithe, mint, and rue, and all manner of herbs, and pass by justice and the love of God. Those you ought to have done without, leaving the others undone. They should have continued to tithe to God and to give what is God to him, but they should not pass by justice and love. And he goes on to talk to them in the same way. They appeared outwardly to be righteous, but inwardly they were full of corruption and intrigue, and they were responsible for Christ's death, these religious leaders. They stunk inwardly, but they looked very fine outwardly as they appeared to others. This is in line, this message right here, this particular beatitude of the pure in heart is in line with the whole sermon on the Mount of all three chapters of this sermon.

Because the thrust of this message, as we will go deeper and deeper into it, is really Christ is aiming at righteousness of the heart rather than rule righteousness. Righteousness of the heart rather than rule righteousness.

This is what he's getting to. That's why when he will later say, you've heard it said, don't commit adultery, but I say, don't, when you even look upon someone to lust after that person, you've committed adultery in your heart. It doesn't say that the literal act of adultery is done away and whatever. You still don't do that, but you also change the way you think about people, the way you look at others. And it gets to the heart. That's the thrust of the whole message. And that purity of heart is what he is striking at. We still need rules. Yeah, we still need the ten rules on the wall that we may have if you have those plaques of the ten commandments. We still need those. We don't do away with any of those. But the new covenant is the writing of those laws on our heart. And we understand why, and the spiritual application, the rules should speak to the heart and the why of doing right. And that is one of the biggest lessons for us to learn as a Christian, is to move beyond the outward. It is more than just setting aside 24 hours as the Sabbath and keeping the Sabbath. It's then moving to understand the full meaning of the Sabbath and how and what it applies to the heart and to the future and to our lives and how we use this time. It's far more than just some physical ritual that we do. It is the essence of a relationship with God. It is the essence of the vision of the future. It is the essence of who we are and what we do, not just on one day but the rest of the days. And that is the point with every aspect of our life. God tells us, remember the Sabbath day. He says, thou shalt not lie or steal or any of the other points of his law. And our job as Christians is to come to a point where we understand why we don't lie, why it is better not to steal, why it is better to keep the Sabbath. It's the why that begins to move it from the outward imposition of a ritual that someone has put over us, whether it's a parent, you know, and you're a kid and you're struggling with this way of life and this law of God that seems to be so confining and irrelevant to 2008 and our life. It was irrelevant in 1968 as well, or I thought, that's the way I looked at it and had to struggle with it, too. So it's not just 2008. It was 1968. Some of you might have been 1908 when you had to, you know, struggle with it. Not just kidding.

Every generation has to go through that. Every one, every Christian has to learn the why. We've been going through this series of the Growing Kids God's Way classes and the very first one, really, that we had, the first lesson that we had, had a session talking about in the training of children, the importance of moral training, training a child to the moral principle of child rearing. Again, more than just do's and don'ts, but helping them to understand why they should do a certain behavior and why it is important. And the author, as they wrote it here, couched it in terms that if you're not careful, you can, you know, you've got to understand how to use the terms, but he, but he's nonetheless true. His point was avoiding legalism in parenting.

Legalism is a, you know, is an issue that really we should understand and know that we move beyond legalism when it comes to God's law. We know how, you know, we know what God's law is and we keep it, but we don't keep it in a legalistic fashion. Let me read just what this, the author of this series on Growing Kids God's Way, said in regard to children. I think it helps to illustrate the point. In developing common moral ground, one thing to guard against is crossing into legalism. A legalistic approach to parenting is very dangerous, especially in the teen years.

It leaves in its wake a frustrated child, for the form of truth is elevated above the substance of truth. The form of truth is elevated above the substance of truth. The form could be the rule, the law, but there's a substance to it. Mercy, love, justice, that is really the deeper part that must be understood. Legalism creates prohibitions by elevating the rule over the principle.

The legalist sees all decisions in life as either black or white, immoral or moral. He or she acknowledges no heart or motive areas. No room is made for individual strengths and weaknesses.

The legalist tends to demand that the consciences of every believer be identical.

Conformity. You know, do it this way. Why? Because I said so with no explanation to go further as to the why. We've all, you know, as parents, I think every parent has made that mistake in working with kids. You know, as Christians, we have to learn when it comes to the law of God, the teaching of God, to recognize the spirit of the law. And so many matters beyond just the rule itself. The rule still stands. That's never done away with, but it's understanding why we live it and how it is applied. It goes on. We've heard the exhortation, let's keep things in context. The most notable aspect of a legalist is that he or she rejects context. Responding to the context of a situation does not mean we suspend biblical truth or principles, but that we apply it in the most appropriate way. And he uses the example of, in the particular movie we saw where there was a father and son, and the father was working with the son on a particular point. And he said, when Ryan's father said, stay in bed and leave the light off, he was expecting a total compliance. When Ryan's little brother Nathan fell out of bed in the middle of the night, Ryan got up and turned a light on to help him. The legalist would see that as a clear violation of the father's instruction, but his behavior was not in violation of his father's instructions because in this vignette, and thousands like it, context qualifies the original intent. It was never the father's original intent to keep Ryan in bed under all circumstances. It's context that allows a child to do the right thing if trained to the principle and not the rule the principle represents. And this is a very important point in regard to child-rearing that has its application in helping us to at least understand how we work with a child to train their heart, to understand the why of our direction and teaching that we give to them in life. And that helps to create, if you will, a purity of heart when it comes to an approach to righteousness and to living, each other, and to God. This concept of the pure in heart that Jesus is talking about speaks to relationships. It speaks to our relationships. The pure in heart are those who are free from the tyranny of a divided self.

They have a single heart. It's honest. It's uninhibited. It's pure. It's kind of like the single eye. Over in Matthew 6 and verse 22, Jesus talks about having a single eye in terms of the light and the lamp of our body. If the eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. If your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.

Here, again, this connects to the pure in heart back in Matthew 5.8 because the pure in heart is a singleness of heart. We have a singleness of focus. There is no hypocrisy.

We read back in the Psalm about the person who goes into the presence of God does not lift himself up to an idol, doesn't worship something that is false. To have a pure heart, we don't lift up our eyes to anything that is false. No lie. Nothing falls in any aspect of life. We don't lie.

In our dealings with God and our dealings with our fellow men, there is honesty. And in all of our dealings, there is honesty. Recognizing that all of our life is actually public before God.

There's no difference between the private and the public side of our life. There's a transparency.

What you see is what you get. There is no guile. All of our thoughts, motives are pure, unmixed with anything that is devious or transgresses God's way. It's really only that type of person, the pure in heart, with that degree of purity that is going to withstand the scrutiny that comes from the really piercing vision that we see of Jesus in Revelation 1. You remember that vision of Jesus there where he stands in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks?

And his face shines like the sun, his voice is as the thundering waters. That's a powerful image of Jesus Christ. And that is the Christ that should be the image in our eyes.

Every year we kind of have to deal with the image of Jesus in the manger during this time of year.

It should be all put away by now, but that image that is focused on at this time of year is not the real image of Jesus. It is the image that we see in Revelation 1 that is the one to focus on. And it's only the pure in heart that will withstand the vision, the piercing vision, of that Jesus. That's why this purity of heart is so vital and is so important.

Let's go on into verse 9 of Revelation 5. He says, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

I believe that was at the Colt 45 in the Old West that they called the peacemaker.

That helped to settle the West and settle disputes and bring about a certain sense of justice in Dodge and Laramie and Tucson and the various places of the American Old West and that part of our history. Well, I'm sure that it certainly brought a sense of order and maybe in some cases some needed justice in a carnal, physical way. But it's not the type of peacemaking that Jesus is talking about here. So let's put away our colts and Berettas and PPKs, whatever else we might have, and not look upon that necessarily as the ultimate peacemaker and the one that is spoken of here. But this is a challenging one here in verse 9. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. A son of God. Pretty coveted title. They called the son of God.

But you have to be a peacemaker, which I guess it means that if we're not a peacemaker, we fall short of being a son of God, don't we? To be a son of God is to reach, if you will, a divine status. Christ is the son of God. We look for our future at the time of the resurrection, to become a part of the family of God, and to achieve in that sense a status within the divine family of God. But he says right now it's time to focus on that. And to achieve this semblance of the divine as a son of God now is to be a peacemaker.

How many of us look at ourselves as peacemakers?

Nobody's raising their hand. I guess we're all troublemakers, then.

Well, we've all probably made our share of trouble and been involved in our share of trouble. Whether we made it or not, we were close enough to get involved in it.

How many of you have ever taken it upon yourself to try to be a peacemaker?

Just, you know, I'll raise my hand on that one. I say try. Okay, okay. How many of you succeeded?

Did you succeed? Good, good. How many of you didn't succeed? I'll raise my hand on that one.

You can have hits and misses if you try to inject yourself in certain situations and be a peacemaker. It is a challenging matter, but it is something that Jesus says, bless it, or you if you can achieve that status. You know, it's natural to move from the purity of heart to this idea of being a peacemaker, because to be a peacemaker, it takes a heart that's free of guile. To be a peacemaker, it takes a heart that is honest and open. There's no intrigue. To be able to deal with conflict and to create conditions of reconciliation and peace. If you don't trust someone, if you truly don't trust someone, you're going to have, and I will have a hard time, dealing with that person as a peacemaker in a situation, or maybe even having peace with that person, one-on-one. Or if they are coming into a situation trying to be an agent of reconciliation or create conditions of peace, if you don't trust them, if you think they're double dealing, and they have guile, there's a level of deceit, it will be hard for us to trust what they do. There are steps, there are directions in that. Trust me. I've been there, and you have as well, in many types of dealings. Now, this teaching from Jesus is telling us, number one, that as a Christian, we should never seek or create conflict. That should be obvious to us. Don't go out trying to create trouble.

We've done it, and if we've learned what certain things may cause us to create problems, hopefully we've learned to stay away from them. But it is a very clear teaching that we should not do that. Now, when we look at the Scriptures, we find that we are really, truly, we are called to peace. Let's notice 1 Corinthians 7, verse 15. 1 Corinthians 7, verse 15.

This is in the midst of Paul's teaching regarding marriages that are on the rocks, on the ropes, and specifically between a believer and unbeliever, he addresses here that if you have this type of marriage where one is in the church, one's not, one believes, one doesn't, and the differences create strife, there's a time that they need to separate. He says right here in verse 15, if the unbeliever departs, let him depart. A brother or sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called us to peace. I don't have time to get into all the teaching about marriage and divorce from this particular point, except that Paul is saying here, we're called to peace. And there are certain situations where even to the degree, even within marriage, there comes a time when two people just have to separate, because if one is going to remain a believer in this case, then there won't be peace. And it is grounds for separation. He says we're called to peace. This is what we are called to be a part of. In Hebrews 12, it says, Hebrews 12 and verse 14.

Hebrews 12, 14, it says, pursue peace with all people and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.

Go after peace. Seek to have peace. Good relations. Harmony.

The ability to walk up to someone and talk and engage at whatever level your relationship dictates, and not feel uncomfortable, not feel like you have to avoid somebody, or just create an uncomfortable situation to pursue peace. And there are many different ways that can be done far beyond the scope of it within the sermon, but it is what we are called to. Now go back to Romans 12 and verse 18.

Romans 12 and verse 18, Paul writes, if it is possible, if it's possible, as much as it is within you, as much as depends on you, I should say, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. If it's possible, which means we have to make the conditions that it makes that it's possible that there can be peace by what we say and how we approach people and how we deal with people, well, those are that's how we make it possible. If the other person chooses not to, or it's just not, if it's impossible, at least it's not because of something we've done. As much as depends on us, as within our sphere of influence, live peaceably with all men. Peacemaking is a divine work. Remember Jesus said, blessed are the peacemakers, they will be, they are the sons of God. It is a divine work to be making peace.

The same verb that is used in here in Matthew is used of the work that Jesus does in the peace that he makes through him. In Colossians 1 and verse 20, it's the same same word, same thought. Colossians 1 and 20.

Verse 19, it says, it please the Father that in him all the fullness should dwell, by him to reconcile all things to himself, by him whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of his cross. This is, peacemaking is a divine work. Jesus made peace through the blood of his cross, it says. He made peace for all mankind, peace with God on that realm. But it is, that's why it's a divine work. And it's the same verb that is used back in Matthew 5, blessed are the peacemakers. We're making peace. We're doing something that Jesus did. We're acting out in the same way that he did. When we engage in a work of peace, whether just being a peaceable, agreeable, easygoing person rather than a cantankerous, grouchy, obnoxious troublemaker, we're following after the blaze of Jesus and we're making peace.

You know, over the years, always within congregations and among us, there are things that flare up. We don't have peace. Member A against Member B, family, clan A against clan C, whatever, you know. Minister, I mean, in some cases, the minister has been at war with the whole congregations. We've all seen those situations, too. I've seen, I've known some ministers over the years who were not happy unless there was war. To be honest with you, peace was not in their vocabulary.

I mean, there had to be conflict, and it was even rationalized to the point of spiritual matters and whatever, but some function better when there's crisis, when there's war of various sorts going on. Fortunately, a lot of that is passed from the scene. But, you know, we have sometimes, we've had just mixed up topsy-turvy situations that have led to periods of conflict within congregations or within the church, and we've not always had that peace. It's nice when we do have it. It is certainly nice when we have it. And when we engage in a work of peace on the 101 level, among ourselves, collectively, we engage in the same work that the Father did through Christ, and it is a good work. Peace doesn't come easy. There's no such thing as a cheap peace.

Just isn't. Peace takes work. It can have a huge cost. At times, you and I may have to give up something. We may have to give up a piece of ourselves. There's a scripture that talks about time in the future when they will claim peace, peace when there is no peace. Really, that is speaking of a time when the false prophet reigns.

And at times, to proclaim peace, peace when there is no peace is to be a false prophet.

You can say we've got peace or we've got unity in a situation, whatever it may be, and if you really haven't addressed underlying problems, you don't have it. You might have what is called appeasement.

I just recently watched the BBC series that was done about 20 years ago on the life of Winston Churchill, where during the 1930s Winston Churchill was out of government. He was in a period of what he called his wilderness years. He was the only one that foresaw the rise of Germany, Nazism within Germany, and the conflict that that would ultimately lead to for Britain and the continent. But nobody else saw it. The other British leaders, prime ministers, didn't want to see it, turned a blind eye to it for a number of years, and probably then it reached its climax in 1938 when Neville Chamberlain, who was the British prime minister, you've seen pictures of him, he had this little mustache and, you know, a dark suit and bowler, and didn't inspire a lot of confidence, but he went to Munich, Germany, and met with Hitler, and over Czechoslovakia they made it. He thought he had a deal, and he came back and he got off the plane in England, and he waved this piece of paper, and he said, I've come back, I've got the Hitler's signature on this paper, and it represents peace in our time. Well, within a very short period of time, Hitler just tore up the paper and invaded Czechoslovakia, and the ultilator Poland and World War II was on.

And Neville Chamberlain, his name has been forever connected with appeasement, where he appeased a dictator who was bent on conquest, and he came back thinking that he had peace, and he didn't. You can appease a situation. You can paper over it. You can ignore some of the root fundamental problems or causes of conflict, and think you have peace. Think you have unity. And all you've reached is appeasement. So even in our one-on-one relationships, within our families, within the church, wherever it might arise, in your business, you've got to always be sure and understand that peace has a cost. Sometimes that cost may be, again, giving up of ourself, and then admit that we are wrong, that we made a big mistake. You've been in a quarrel with someone, even down to the fact of your husband or your wife, your brother, your sister, to get to a level of peace and understanding is going to, a lot of times, take the admission of a mistake and say, I'm sorry, I made a mistake. But for us to say that is a big step. If we are wrapped up in our own image, in our own thoughts, in our own righteousness, and we can't do that, pride, whatever, will not allow us to admit that. We would lose, inwardly, too much of what we think we have to maintain in terms of our own warped sense of self-respect, and we cannot, we would not be able to admit to a mistake. And that's a big cost on the individual level. And I recognize that, that's as big a cost for me as it is for you to, in any situation, say, I'm wrong.

On the other hand, there's another cost at times, if you're going to have peace. There may be a time in a situation where you have to rebuke someone who has offended, whether it's you or someone else.

You may be the peacemaker trying to rectify a situation, but there may be a time. And again, wisdom is going to lead us to understand, should lead us to understand when that is, and to be sure that it is. But there may be a time that somebody has to be rebuked.

And you, in a carefully thought-out, prayerfully approached way, have to say, you're wrong. You made a mistake. What you said, what you did, how you handled it, is wrong.

And here are the steps that you've got to take to correct it. You're rebuking in a tactful, gentle way, but it's still a rebuke. And again, you're taking your life in your hands in certain situations. So I say you don't do that flippantly without a great deal of investigation and thought and prayer, because you're taking a lot in your hands because you can be rejected.

You can be slapped down figuratively, maybe even literally. And so to be a peacemaker, there's a cost. That's what I'm saying. You might be rejected in a situation where you are trying to be a peacemaker. You may be rejected when you directly go in to try to even apologize or to admit a mistake. You might be rejected. But wasn't Jesus rejected too? Remember, being a peacemaker is a divine action.

Blessed are the peacemakers. They will be the sons of God. True peace, when it is finally achieved, in any situation, true peace costs a great deal. But it is a treasure when you have it.

It is a true treasure.

Even God forgives. And we have to realize, as we work through situations, that sometimes a person may not be ready to come up to the level where you've been or with the step that you've taken. Or the whole situation is not one that can at this point create peace. So recognize that when it comes to, you know, if you count the cost, I guess it's you want to be a peacemaker? And I was looking at this and thinking about it. And that of all the beatitudes, perhaps, that kind of stood out, at least as I have worked through it in this sermon series, and stood out in my mind and heart. And I'd like to be a peacemaker. I would love to have that be one of my, part of my epithet. But I also realize that it wouldn't come without a cost. So if you want to be a peacemaker, that's a worthy goal. Because it is a divine action. Recognize there's a cost, a multi-dimensional cost. But it is worth pursuing at whatever level, in whatever way, with all the mistakes that might be made. It is still worth pursuing because that is what we're called to. We are called to peace.

Now we move to the last of the beatitudes. And it almost seems like there's a word odds here because he talks about persecution. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And about this time in the Sermon on the Mount, you get to the point where you say, oh no, you can't go there. You don't want persecution. But it is another one of those matters for which there is blessing. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake. This is kind of a double beatitude here at this point. He says, rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Persecuted the prophets. Jesus was persecuted.

In Acts 5 and verse 41, when the apostles were persecuted for preaching the gospel at one point, they were hauled before the authorities, questioned, threatened, released.

And in verse 41, when they were let go, after they were told no more speaking in the name of Jesus, they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. Counted worthy to suffer shame. Not counted worthy to be praised before the authorities. Not counted worthy to get their name on the front page with a paper. Not counted worthy to get a medal. Counted worthy for suffering. Shame. Shame.

Reproach. Being called bad things. Bad names. The things that you learn in the kindergarten playground not to do. And it hurts then and it will hurt now. This is a tough one.

This is really a tough one. None of us like dealing with any level of persecution, any form of ridicule for our beliefs, for who we are, for what we do. We don't like it.

We don't think it's fair. We want to pull out the peacemaker on someone who might. Call down fire from heaven. Pray God is cursed upon them. Some of us in this room have endured more than others. Some of you know truly the meaning of this word when it comes to your faith.

We're not talking about being persecuted for your dumbness.

Okay, there's the distinction here. You mess up. That's our mistake. We deserve it.

We do a stupid thing. We deserve it. That's not what Jesus is talking about. He's saying you're persecuted. You are spit upon. You're ridiculed because of your righteousness.

Not your stupidity. Because you're doing what you're supposed to be doing. Because you're honoring God. You're obeying God. And there will be those times. Now, some of you know full well what that means.

Others of you don't. Maybe you've lived a rather charmed life in terms of you've moved through jobs, families, the church, school, your communities, neighborhoods, and you've skated along and you haven't had any faults. And everybody thinks you're just a great person.

Good person. Honest. Hard-working. Whatever. You haven't had really major upsets because of your faith, your belief. But others of you have. Some of you've lost jobs because of the Sabbath, the Holy Days. Some of you have lost marriages. Some of you've lost the affection of family members. The relationship there. So there are varying degrees that we experience this and understand it. Some persecution is for the moment and passes. You know, somebody can make a comment to you in the office at school. You can blow it off and it passes. Some persecution is life-altering. It leads to separation and the dissolution of a marriage. That's life-altering. If it leads to someone turning their back on you and never talking to you again, that's life-altering. I've said this example many times before, but I'll bring it up again. My good friend Paul Kiefer, who's our minister in Germany, was kicked out of the home at age 17 because he came into the church, started to keep the Sabbath. His mother kicked him out of the home. He had to go live with some church members.

She disowned him. Literally disowned him. Now, you would think 10 years, a few years might go by and moms would forgive.

She still, as far as I am, the last time I ever broached a subject with him, she's still alive.

She won't talk to him. She's not interacted with his two kids, her grandchildren. They don't know her.

He became dead to her because he came into the church, started to keep the Sabbath and all.

This was in 1968, 40 years ago. I've got that counting right here. 68-69 when he came into the church and to this day. That's life altering, isn't it? When Jesus said, blessed are you for this, for being persecuted for righteousness sake, that's a tough one, but it is part of it. It is a mark of those who bear the gospel. It should be expected. And sometimes, maybe, if it doesn't come, maybe we should wonder why. Jesus said, woe to those who call you good. Let me get that quote exactly right. It's Luke 6 and verse 26.

Don't want to be accused of misquoting Scripture. Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for so did their fathers to the false prophets. You want to be spoken well of because of your actions, but there are times when that may not be necessarily the case.

A lot of Scriptures that talk of persecution, it is, in a sense, our Medal of Honor. In Acts 14, let's go back to Acts 14 and verse 22.

Acts 14, they had preached the gospel to that city and made many disciples. They came back to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith and saying, we must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God.

Many trials will take us into the kingdom of God. In 2 Timothy chapter 3, 2 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 12, They said, yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.

But evil men and imposters will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.

And so it's part of the promise. It's part of the calling. It comes along with that.

And yes, it's tough. It's unfortunate. It can be very traumatic. But it should be looked at when it legitimately happens because of righteousness. When persecution happens because of righteousness' sake, we should look at it as a medal of honor for a Christian. It is something that we have to deal with. It merits a double blessing back here in this sermon that Jesus gave, marking the boundaries and the outlines of those who would be in the kingdom of God, those who would live by the principles of the kingdom of God now, as we begin to move into that way of life that is going to be for all eternity.

It's a very powerful sermon. We've worked our way through the beatitudes. And we'll next, when we get back to it, we'll jump into the remainder of it.

But it's a pretty powerful message that begins right here right now with us.

To be a peacemaker, to be meek, to hunger for righteousness, to mourn, to be poor in spirit.

Blessings for all of us. It's quite a challenge right at the outset.

It's one to count the cost over. It's one to spend the time with. It's a sermon for the ages.