Greetings in the name of the Lord Jesus to all of our friends watching and listening around the world. We love you very much. Take great delight in welcoming you in. You are our priority here. Thank you for joining us, some of you, for so many years now.
We think of you all the time, pray for you all the time. Thank you for communicating with us. Today we will proceed in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 5, and we'll resume in verse 5. Of course, we're in the first section of the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, and we'll resume just now in a few minutes in verse 5, where we left off last week. However, to refresh ourselves with the text, I'm going to go ahead and start with verse 1. But today, I'm going to go ahead and read down to verse 9. So, would you stand, please?
pleased to honor the reading of the word of the Lord. Matthew chapter 5 verses 1 today verses 1 to 9. And when he saw the multitudes he went up on the mountain and after he sat down his disciples came to him. And opening his mouth, he began to speak, and to teach them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the gentle, for we begin today.
Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful. merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons and daughters of God, or children of God. These are, of course, the very words of our Lord. Thanks be to God for them. Thank you, folks.
Please be seated. Lord God, our Heavenly Father, ruler of heaven and earth, maker of all that exists or ever shall. God the Redeemer, God the Creator, God the King, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we pray in the name of Jesus for those who need prayer, the prayer requests we received this morning.
We pray for each and every person, each and every situation and circumstance. Reveal yourself to them, heal them, help them as you see fit. And we pray that each person and each request will be obedient to your will as you wish to reveal yourself to us and transform us in each and every situation and circumstance we encounter.
We pray for those who are traveling. gone on their way home. We pray for our brothers and sisters overseas who are suffering persecution. Preserve them, bless them, keep them safe, and may their efforts to preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus be Bear great fruit for the eternal kingdom of heaven. We ask you to forgive us of our sins and our faults and our daily failures.
Clean us up by the power of your Holy Spirit and by the truth of your word. Help us to be people. whose lives show the characteristics of the kingdom which Jesus is preaching. In this particular passage, we're journeying through now. And bless this, O living God, the humble proclamation of your word.
May it achieve exactly what you wish, with whomsoever you wish. wherever you wish, about the world. And we thank you for this opportunity of reaching people, of reaching brothers and sisters, and helping them by the teaching of your word on the far side of the world.
Thank you for this technology and this opportunity that you have made available to us and for us. Bless the worship here this morning. May the meditations of our hearts and the words of my mouth be pleasing to you, O Lord our God, our Rock, our Redeemer. In Jesus' holy name we pray.
Amen. Now, I've gotten some good feedback from you folks last week. I'm really happy about that. And one of the things I'm happy about is that some of you are realizing that the Beatitudes are to be taken as a whole.
As J.I. Packer would say, who's now in the Father's house, this is all of one piece and it all hangs together. A lot of folks make the mistake... of treating the Beatitudes as if, as isolated statements, all unto themselves, disconnected from one another. But you can't do that.
You have to follow Jesus' reasoning. You have to follow his train of thought from the beginning to the end. That's the proper way to interpret this. They're not disconnected statements, one from the other. Let me give you an example.
Before we... Dive into verse 5, blessed are the gentle. Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who Realize their total spiritual poverty and therefore their total need and reliance upon God, who go to Him, His Messiah, His Son Jesus, to help lift us up out of our spiritual poverty. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
And for those who have done this, then therefore they will be blessed, because they mourn for their sin and their guilt and their wrongdoing. And they go to God with their mourning and their spiritual poverty, and He will lift them up and they will be blessed. And if they do this, and they have that state of blessedness placed upon them, then therefore they will be gentle. And more upon what that means, that will be a characteristic of them. And they will also inherit the very earth.
And if they have been lifted up out of their spiritual poverty because of the mourning of their sin, the blessedness of God rests upon them because they have come to the Messiah. for their spiritual poverty, and they have been given the gift of gentleness or forbearance, then therefore they will be those who truly hunger and thirst after righteousness. That will be a characteristic. And if they do so, they most certainly shall be satisfied. You see how it works?
That's his train of thought. That's his reasoning. The one flows right into the other and grows right out of the other.
They are all of one piece and they all hang together. Don't forget that. Now, verse 5. Blessed are the gentle, praous, in the Greek, for they shall inherit the earth. Those of you who have your ESV study Bible, I'll just read the textual note that you have there before you.
Although we've got a number of Bibles in the room, that's why I like to... Make sure everybody understands where we're coming from, from the original language to the English and any other language you can translate it in Greek into. The meek are the gentle.
I think that's a good translation. As I mentioned to you last week, I think in closing, traditionally, The old traditional English translation is meek. That's an all right translation, but I have to describe for you what Jesus really means by meek.
It's not what you're thinking of. I really have to explain this because in 21st century, to English speaking people, the word meek has almost an all negative connotation, and it is not that at all. So we really have to... discover or explain exactly what Jesus and Matthew mean by blessed are the gentle or blessed are the meek.
Now, the meek are the gentle, that is those who do not assert themselves over others in order to further their own agendas and their own strength. Exactly. But those, they will nonetheless, they of all people, will be the ones who really inherit the earth.
Because they trust in God to direct ultimately the outcomes of any and all events. So, you can translate verse 5 into English also as, Blessed are the gentle, blessed are the meek. The word in the original Greek is praous. It means really mild-mannered.
A humble person or a gentle person. You know, we in the Western world, so to speak, used to use the words gentleman and lady or gentleman and gentlewoman. Now, of course, in centuries past, that was literally a title.
But now we just use it as what? It describes a quality of a person. It's the quality of a man's character. It's the quality of a woman's character. This, what Jesus and Matthew are describing, blessed are the gentle, that is, I think, what we now would perhaps want to say, what we classically mean as a gentleman, a true gentleman, a true lady.
a true gentle woman. It is a certain attitude, it is a mindset, it is a character trait, and it is a very strong one. Praus means mild-mannered, humble, or gentle, forbearing, self-controlled.
A person who exercises self-restraint. That is what Jesus means here. Let me give you a further explanation from my Hebrew-Greek study Bible.
This really is what Jesus means. It's not negative at all. It's a strength. It's not a weakness. In the New Testament, this word expresses a so-called meekness, if you will, which differs from the usual connotation of the word in English.
It is the result of a strong person's deliberate choice to control their reactions in submission to God. My, my, my. That's interesting. It is a balance born in strength of character, stemming from confident trust in God, not from weakness or fear. Aha!
So it is not at all what most English-speaking people would think of as meek, forbearing, self-controlled, self-restraint. It is not weakness. It is not cowardice.
It is nothing of the kind. Actually, some Greek New Testament scholars argue that the word has a moral meaning. Ah, there we are.
That's what Jesus is after. It has a moral meaning. The word doesn't just mean to be non-aggressive. It means that, perhaps at times, but more.
The word suggests a certain freedom from pretension and arrogance and self-serving pride. A lack of personal vanity. A lack of personal self-absorption or selfishness.
Isn't that interesting? A person capable of patient endurance. That's what the word means. I quote G.A. Buttrick, a theologian, when he writes or wrote, Jesus is describing, I love this, I love this.
Jesus is describing a person who is more concerned about doing their duty before God than claiming their rights. Isn't that interesting? A person more concerned about doing their duty before God than claiming their rights.
How about that? Now we here in America are very, very concerned about our rights. Now aren't we? Oh my, I could preach this whole series of sermons on that, because there's a lot of wicked people claiming a right to immorality that they really don't have, that doesn't exist. Jesus is speaking about a freedom and liberty that allows you to do the right thing, not to do any old jolly thing that you please.
The real concept of freedom and liberty, according to the Bible, And the concept of freedom and liberty according to our founding generation, who gave birth to this country, their belief in freedom and liberty, personal freedom and liberty, is that of the Bible. Let me to repeat it. It is the freedom and liberty to do the right thing.
It's not licentiousness. It's not I can do just whatever I want to whoever I want, with whoever I want, whenever I want. Oh no, it is not that at all. That's slavery.
Slavery to sin. Slavery to Satan. Slavery to self. Slavery to evil.
It will condemn you to hell in the end. But this concept of freedom and liberty, to be free from pretension, pride, all the, be free of the things that drag you to hell. Freedom to do the right thing. Because it is the right thing to do. Hope that settled the score on that.
Moving along. Jesus, however, is not speaking of a cowardice for those who are weak in character. Praus is not a weakness. It is an inner strength.
It is an inner moral strength. These are not cowardly, submissive, or fearful compromisers. I quote Mr. Buttrick again.
According to Jesus, Christianity, this beatitude, it's not a crutch. It's not a substitute for those who have no moral or physical courage. The gospel of Jesus is not a hymn in praise of people without any substance or strength.
End quote. He's exactly right. This is a state of blessing or blessedness for those who are humble before God, who exercise self-control, or better yet, This is a state of blessedness placed upon people who have realized their spiritual poverty, who have come to God, who have received His mercy, who have mourned for their sin and have received His mercy, this state of blessedness. Therefore, they will be self-controlled.
Because they will have the Spirit of the living God, because of the new birth from above, as Jesus taught in John chapter 3. They are controlled by the Holy Spirit of God, who is promised to all true followers of Christ. Again, those who are born from above. And I can hear the sweet sound of rain.
Wonderful sound this hot time of year. Pardon me, brothers and sisters. We have very hot human weather here today, and it's giving us some rain, so we're happy about that. All the farmers in the room are happy about that. Now, who is the perfect example of this beatitude?
Jesus. Jesus Christ, the God-man, the Messiah himself. He is the perfect example, the very personification of this beatitude. Jesus himself was the perfect example of his own beatitude, perfect example of one who is gentle or meek, praous, mild-mannered, temperate, self-controlled. And read the four gospels, for heaven's sakes, Jesus was not weak.
Jesus of Nazareth was the toughest man who ever lived. And Jesus was certainly no one's definition of a coward, now was he? He was the incarnation of God under perfect self-control. Jesus was literally the omnipotent power of God the Almighty under perfect self-control and restraint.
True meekness. It is a virtue of the strong. A virtue of the strong who have their strength disciplined and therefore their strength is used for good. for the will of God.
Those who willfully choose not to domineer or impose themselves upon others. That's what Jesus is speaking of. Those who willfully and deliberately choose to obey God and therefore choose not to domineer or oppose themselves in a sinful manner upon or over others. That seems to be all the rage in this wicked world now, isn't it?
This beatitude is describing those who can very well assert themselves if they want to, but out of obedience to God and to Christ, they choose not to do so when it is the right thing to do and because it is the right thing to do. This blessing is for those who follow Jesus dutifully and humble service and refuse to partake in selfish conduct or behavior that is interested in only pushing or advancing one's own personal aims, goals, or agendas. Needless to say, this is not the behavior of those of a fallen world, now is it? It is not the behavior of the unbeliever.
It is not the behavior of the worldly. And tragically, as we have seen ourselves, Sometimes it is not the behavior of those who claim to be Christians. This truly is, in every way, shape, or form, what we would call today counter-cultural behavior. Very much so. Folks, it's totally contrary to fallen sinful human nature now, isn't it?
And you are not going to be able to behave this way unless you admit your spiritual poverty and start at the very beginning and go to God to lift you up out of your spiritual poverty and all the rest will come. But what's the reward? The reward's pretty fantastic. It's pretty awesome.
And by the way, when Jesus spoke these words for the first time in the first century A.D., it must have just absolutely floored these people hearing this for the first time. Especially if there were any Gentiles in the crowd. For heaven's sakes, in the Gentile world, the pagan world might makes right. That's not what Jesus says. You really want to rule over this world?
You have to get rid of that completely, utterly, and entirely, or you're not going to inherit, possess, or rule anything whatsoever in the end. Now, how counter-cultural was that to the mindset of everyone of the Roman Empire? And even, yes, the Jews of the first century AD. In particular, the corrupt Jewish leadership. Their political and religious leaders.
Not the behavior of the worldly. Totally counter-cultural, totally counter to fallen sinful humanity's personality, fallen nature, sinful desire. But what's the reward?
The reward for those who are proud, gentle, forbearing, humble, or meek. They shall inherit the earth. In other words, they'll rule the world. The world will belong to them.
They'll be cultivating it. They'll be ruling over it. They'll be managing it.
They'll be administering it. It will belong to them. Full possession. That's a pretty staggering thing. Now, I want you to be staggered all over again.
I know some of you folks have read this for a thousand times in your life. But this time, hear it as if you're hearing it for the very first time. If I'm gentle and humble and my...
mild-mannered and restrained and forbearing, I am going to possess the world. It will inherit the earth. That's pretty amazing.
Now the Jews of the first century A.D. would really have been shocked about this because they were all wrapped up in the inheritance of what? Old Israel, Old Canaan, the Promised Land. But that's not what Jesus says now, does he?
They shall inherit the land promised to Abraham. They shall inherit the land conquered by Moses and Joshua. Is that what he says? Not on your life. They will inherit the earth.
They will inherit the world. In the Old Testament, the concept of inheritance was that old promised land, remember? Of course you do. But that's all changed.
It's that, but it's oh so more so. In the era of the New Testament, because Messiah has arrived, in the era of the New Covenant, the final covenant, the last covenant between God and humanity, by way of His Son, the Messiah, now that that time has arrived, because Messiah is in the world now, in the time of the New Covenant, in the era of Messiah Jesus, these inheritance promises are now extended to mean the whole world, the whole planet. Those who are faithful to Christ, to what He promises, will rule the world under the rule of King Jesus for all of eternity. They receive the future world and everything that it is meant to be.
How's that? If you're not satisfied with that, there's no hope for you. And it is an ultimate promise.
An ultimate promise for the ultimate and final future, all of eternity. The new heaven and the new earth prophesied by Isaiah and by the Apostle John. Nevertheless, what does it mean for you now? It means for you now you better start acting like it. You know, he does expect you to be an overcomer, and to be purified, and be pruned, and groomed, and to be ready to rule and reign over the world that he's going to give you responsibility for under the reign of Jesus.
You better start living like it. You better start preparing for it. You better start making yourself ready. It should inspire everything we say, everything we do, everywhere we go, everybody we're talking to, right?
It is a very great encouragement and a very great inspiration for this present life, for all of Jesus Christ's true followers, especially those who are being persecuted in any way, shape, or form, because they know that all of their present earthly sacrifices, all of their restraint, all of their forbearance, it will be rewarded, and they shall be personally vindicated by God Himself. And the rule of God himself. Don't push yourself on and over others.
You don't have to. He's going to do it for you. And it'll be holy. It'll be pure.
It won't be sinful. It won't be self-aggrandizing. He's going to hand over the world to you folks.
And this verse, these verses we're studying here, chapter 5, the sermon, They're the first great reward and eternal reward passages in this gospel, aren't they? The Beatitudes as a whole. They're transcendent promises. What do I mean by transcendent?
It's something that goes above and beyond what we normally experience in this life. life. It is bigger and better than this life. It goes beyond this life.
By that I mean it truly is a transcendent promise. It's a transcendent promise because who promises it? God, who's above and beyond everyone and everything.
He promises it. He makes it possible. He brings it to pass.
Transcendent promises that directly relate not only to this world, your life in this world, on your journey to the final world, your eternal home. But it does relate to that final and eternal kingdom of God and His Christ, His Son. Now, a little bit about this word inherit. I really enjoyed this one. Do you know Jesus?
Matthew, who's quoting Jesus. Is using formal legal language of a court of law in the first century A.D.? He really wants you to understand exactly what this means. In terms of what we would call what?
A probate or an inheritance court or what you will here in America? It is a formal legal term in first century A.D. century law, Jew and Gentile, in the Greco-Roman world. It's Claronomeo. Cleronomeo, that's the word we translate in to English as inheritance.
And it was a very important word in first century law, certainly for anyone who was under the rule of the Roman Empire. So Jew and Gentile would recognize this word. Important legal term.
Let me describe it to you, because this is what Jesus is saying about you, the gentle. This is how he's promising this to you, in formal courtroom language. Claronomio means to be a full, lawful, legitimate, legal heir. To have full title or possession to something or a piece of property and an absolute sense of ownership, unquestioned. To own or possess with all attending rights and privileges.
Concerned about your rights? Well, here they are. According to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
To possess this world. with all rights and attending privileges under the reign of the true and rightful legitimate king, the Messiah. Jesus means all of this in regards to this world, this world made into his eternal kingdom. This is how the humble, gentle, or meek will inherit the earth, the future and final promised land, the entire world. It's a breathtaking blessing.
I probably should just stop right here and let you go home and stew on that for a week, but we'll go a little bit further. It's really breathtaking, you know, considering what's going on in the world today. We've got all kinds of people who act like they want to rule the world, here around the world, fighting and killing each other, carrying on like they always have, fallen sinful humanity. We've got tyrants here, we've got tyrants everywhere. What are they going to inherit?
Hell. But those who have recognized their spiritual poverty and have gone to the Divine Son for salvation and have received His mercy, who have mourned for their sin and have had their mourning lifted and have been given new life in His name, they are to be forbearing and restrained and patient. Because they will one day be in full possession of this entire world. All of creation.
That's pretty amazing. Amazing indeed. And before we move on, since I brought up that subject, a word of warning to the wicked, to the power hungry, to the tyrannical, to the abusive.
You're not going to inherit anything. You will not ultimately possess this world. You will not inherit this world or any other.
Now, I think we may have time to begin examining. Verse 6. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Well, we can at least begin this one.
If you are gentle and shall inherit the earth, and have received the blessedness of the other beatitudes in their order, then therefore you will automatically be a person who hungers and thirsts for righteousness. The hunger and thirst for the righteousness of God. The righteousness that comes from God. The righteousness that is a gift of God.
Bless you. And if you do so, you will be pleromah. You will be filled up to overflowing.
You will be perfectly satisfied. That's a pretty amazing thing, too. Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness recognize that God is the ultimate source of real righteousness.
Amen. That's a major theme in this gospel. So they long for His righteous character to be evident in people's lives on earth, most importantly their own.
And they shall be satisfied, Jesus says, they shall be satisfied by responding to his invitation to be in relationship with him. And only by being in relationship with him will you have your hunger and thirst for righteousness fulfilled. Will you be satisfied? The word for righteousness in the Greek is dikatsune.
It's a wonderful New Testament Greek word. I've given it to you before, I'll give it to you again. Dikosune, righteousness.
It means, yes, moral uprightness, a person of pristine moral character or integrity. You can also arguably say it is what? It is a state of holiness, to be holy.
And obviously the use of hunger and thirst here by Jesus is, of course, it's metaphorical. It's spiritual, isn't it? But nevertheless...
Jesus is speaking of a very real, a very intense, a very serious desire or longing for righteousness. In other words, a hunger or thirst for righteousness that obviously is likened to both the hunger and thirst of the body. So he's saying, as your body, hunger and thirst, desires, needs food and drink, so, well, your soul, your mind, your heart, should be hungering and thirsting after dikasune, moral uprightness, moral purity, moral righteousness, holiness, the righteousness of God.
It's a longing of the soul, or I don't mean to be cute when I say it's soul food. As your body needs food, your soul needs soul food, and its soul food is the very righteous character of the being of God. Longing of the soul, longing of the mind, longing of the heart, longing of the soul.
And we all know from the advice of the ancients, the mind, the heart, the soul, they're all intimately connected, interconnected with one another. It's a passionate concern, yes, for what is right, for what is upright, according to God, according to His moral standards that He has given to us. The word, this is interesting too, and some scholars argue over this.
There's a lot of people screaming justice this and justice that all over the place these days. Have you noticed? And sometimes, well, a lot of times, their definition of justice is completely and totally erroneous.
Or their definition of justice is, I need the right to persecute somebody else that I don't like who disagrees with me. Well, no, that's not justice. God's justice.
Real justice. That's how you can also translate this word. Dikaiosone, in a lot of contexts, can be translated as justice.
Justice or righteousness. So which is it? Righteousness or justice? I would say probably, to an appreciable degree, Jesus means both. If you hunger and thirst for justice, God's justice, you will receive it.
We know that. We are promised that on the day of judgment. That's an either.
a satisfying and rewarding thought to you, or it's a terrifying thought to you. But here, in this particular context, I think we should translate it as righteousness. Moral uprightness.
May include justice, but more importantly, moral uprightness. And by the way, this theme of righteousness, it's a major theme in the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew is saying God is righteous, God is holy, and we are not.
And God sent his son, the Messiah, who is holy and righteous, to place his holy righteousness upon us because we're not righteous. And we can't work up or earn or merit or manufacture our own righteousness no matter how hard we work at it because we'll hopelessly fall. fallen, flawed, sinful human beings. You have to have the righteousness of God placed upon you and in you as a gift.
Well, that's what Jesus came to do. Because of the finished work of Jesus, we receive this new birth from above. When you receive the new birth from above, because of Jesus' work, the Spirit of God enters your soul.
Gives you life, the new birth. That's your gift of righteousness, right? I've talked about one of the most important doctrines of the Bible, the Christian faith. The imputation of our sin upon Christ when He goes to the cross, and at the new birth, the imputation of His righteousness placed upon you, placed upon us. Righteousness is a gift from God, a gift of God, and without it, no one will see God.
Very important theme in the Gospel of Matthew, especially an important theme you'll find that runs throughout the Sermon on the Mount. So here... As all elsewhere where Matthew uses this word in this gospel, it always refers to a right moral and ethical conduct which reflects the character of God, or a right or moral ethical conduct in the eyes of God. So here Jesus promises blessing upon those and blessing for those who hunger and thirst or who desperately want or need this righteousness.
who desperately are hungry and thirsty for doing what is right, living in a right moral manner before God and according to God. That's the kind of person he's talking about. We cannot attain this, of course, as stated before, without God's help, without our salvation, without the help of God's Spirit.
But one day, well, upon the receipt of the new birth from above, the righteousness of God is given to you. And you're supposed to pursue it and live it out and cultivate it in your life the rest of your life through. On your way to your eternal home. But here's the good news about that eternal home. It shall truly permanently be attained in eternity.
What does Jesus say? You will be satisfied. You will be completely filled up to overflowing with the righteousness of God.
Now that's the one thing that we should be hungry and thirsty for above almost all things. Because that way you're going to be able to see God. That way you're going to be able to be fit and proper to live in His presence and in His kingdom and in the perfected, remodeled world to come. Without the righteousness of God, you're not going to be there. You're just not going to be there to begin with.
You know, a lot of people claim they look forward to eternity, they look forward to the new heaven and the new earth, the kingdom of heaven because they get a beautiful new body, they can't age or can't die, what have you. Well, do you ever think about being morally upright? At last? Really? I do.
I know I'm hitting the face with this every day, studying it. But Jesus says, hungry, thirsty for the righteousness of God. He uses intense words for hunger and thirst in the Greek. That's the only type of person that really is going to see heaven. That's going to see the next life.
That's going to see the next world. Nevertheless, as we journey through this life, we receive it. And we're to cultivate it. We're to work on it. We're to strive with all of our strength to obey God and put this righteousness that we have received from His Son Jesus to work in our life.
We trust in God's mercy. We trust in God's grace in and by way of Jesus, and Jesus alone to help us achieve this. You can't do it on your own, folks. True righteousness, and all it means, and all it brings, is a gracious gift from God. I quote a theologian by the name of Alfred Plummer.
He writes, and he's right, to believe oneself to be in possession of righteousness is like the arrogant Pharisee in the parable of Jesus, and that is fatal. To know oneself to be lacking in righteousness is not enough. Not enough. One must keenly feel the lack of righteousness and have a passionate and persistent longing for it.
It is this longing, a longing that is genuine, it is this longing that God will mercifully fill. He will fill that longing. End quote. God will not disappoint anyone who has this deep, genuine desire to do His will. As Jesus promises, they will be filled.
They will be satisfied. So their need for righteousness will be completely filled, will be completely satisfied, and of course the language implies that it's God himself who does it. It's God himself who satisfies you.
It's God himself, the Spirit of God in particular, that satisfies you, that fills you up. Praise God for his righteousness and his mercy. That he's not willing, according to his divine plan, to let us filthy, dirty, little self-worshipping traitors just be wiped off the map of the divine plan. Oh no! He sent his Son, the second Son of his being, to take upon himself a human body and human nature, and to take our sin and dirtiness and rebellion and treason upon himself, so that you may receive the very righteousness of God in the depths of your soul, giving you eternal life.
making you a fit and proper companion to be in the personal presence of God like you have never experienced before. Remember, one of these Beatitudes will say, they will see God. Do you know how shocking that would have been to a first century A.D. crowd? Should be to us too.
Praise God for his graciousness and mercy. God himself satisfies this genuine need, here and in the end, as we say. Total, final satisfaction in eternity and for eternity.
But it is most certainly to begin in this life. It is most certainly to begin in this life. And if you don't have any awareness of this happening in your life, you better take care of it because something is fundamentally wrong.
Complete satisfaction of spiritual needs, that's what Jesus is speaking about, and all by God. This will most certainly be the case for us in the eternal kingdom of God and of His Christ. And yet, I feel like I'm being vindicated even as I speak. Someone else may be speaking as well. I don't know if you folks can hear that thunder, but it's quite beautiful.
Don't forget, brothers and sisters. Yes, all of these beatitudes ultimately find their completion and their total fulfillment in eternity. But it begins here. It begins in the here and now.
If you're born again from above, you have eternal life in you now. Sealed with the Spirit of God now for your eternal home. At least in part.
That being filled up with the righteousness of God should be taking place now in this life. In the spiritual kingdom that Jesus has already brought into this world. Right?
That's one thing that... really scares the tyrants of this world in the here and now in 2025. I look for it. I watch for it. I listen for it because it's my job to.
They're terrified. They're terrified of the kingdom of Jesus, which is inexorably spreading all over this world. They've tried to stamp it out and kill it for 2,000 years, and they have utterly failed. They're trying to stamp it out now, and they are utterly failing, and they will utterly fail. They're terrified of it because in spite of their self-worship and their self-absorption, they see it, they hear it, they sense it, and it terrifies them.
Live your righteousness. Scare them to death. You might even scare them. into being interested in hearing the words of Jesus and believing and have life in His name and really inheriting this world one day and all that it's meant to be. So yes, your being filled with righteousness is supposed to take place now in this life, in the spiritual kingdom of Jesus that's in this room, that's in this state, that's in this country, that's all over this world.
As God, in this age of grace, Continues to pour out his spiritual blessings on those who receive this new birth from above in Jesus. We'll end there for the day. Let me just read what I hope you'll be reading and studying and thinking about for next week.
We'll resume here with verse 7 when we come back next week. Blessed are the merciful. for they shall receive mercy. I'll just leave you with this one thought.
Most people think that what Jesus is speaking about here in verse 7, blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy. Most people think that Jesus is just speaking about forgiveness. Well, he talks about forgiveness later on. I challenge you, he's speaking about something else here as well.
He is speaking about forgiveness, it includes that. But his concept to be merciful, Matthew's concept to be merciful, the concept of the ancients in the first century A.D. to be merciful, it's something a little bit bigger and broader than forgiveness.
It includes forgiveness, but I challenge you, Jesus means something a good deal bigger than that. That's what we'll come back to next week. Sovereign Lord God, our Heavenly Father, thank you for these, the greatest words ever spoken in this world, the words of your divine Son.
We pray for your blessing upon this, the proclamation of the divine Son's words. to strengthen the souls of our brothers and sisters in Jesus throughout the world, and that those who are enslaved by the darkness of this world will hear these words and they will live. They will believe in Jesus' name. They will be set free.
They will be granted liberty, spiritual liberty, the greatest of all, the freedom of the soul. Bless our humble efforts. in your son's behalf and in behalf of his eternal kingdom, solidly set in this world and going absolutely nowhere.
And we pray for all of those here in this room and around this world who will one day inherit this world. And we long for the day when that occurs, O sovereign God, when this is a world of only purity, love, and holiness for man and for beast in the presence of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In the blessed and holy name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.