Well, good morning.

We will finally be back in Matthew’s Gospel this morning. Two weeks ago we did a little two-week series there just in Genesis, looking at a couple things for the new year. But we’ll be back in Matthew’s Gospel, continuing on. We’ll be in Matthew chapter 5, if you turn there with me, in your Bibles, Matthew chapter 5.

And Matthew writes, Seeing the crowds, He went up on the mountain,

and when He sat down, His disciples came to Him.

And He opened His mouth, and He taught them, saying,

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

And blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

I have only once in my life flown in first class. It was a wonderful experience. A friend and I were getting on a plane, and last minute he switched our tickets and pushed me into first class. Well, the rest of the plane ride, I was Mr. Sullivan. And it was nice, because it was Mr. Sullivan, would you like a hot towel? And I didn’t know what you do with a hot towel. I was just like, thanks for the hot towel. And then everybody starts doing this, and I start doing this too. And Mr. Sullivan, would you like a glass of champagne or orange juice? And I didn’t know, like, was this stuff free? So I’m like, I’m rejecting everything, and they hand out the dinner menus. And so I got the cheapest thing on there, because I don’t know if it’s free or not. I don’t want to pay more than I have to. So I get whatever. There was, like, filet mignon. I didn’t get it. I was like, I don’t know. And it was so spacious and roomy. And then on the intercom, someone in the back was sick, and they’re asking if anybody has medicine back there. And so I’m feeling pretty privileged up there in first class. It was nice. But it’s a reminder that we value things different than God values things in His kingdom and in His economy.

God’s kingdom is, you’ve probably, you’ve heard it, and I’ll say it many times, God’s kingdom is an upside-down kingdom. God’s priorities, God’s prerogative is not our own.

And Jesus is beginning here in chapter 5, and it’ll go all the way to chapter 7, His longest discourse, the Sermon on the Mount. And the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus talking about, about, particularly, kingdom life. The Jews to this point, they had the law. And they had these Pharisees and these religious leaders who thought that they had perfected the law. But Jesus will say in the Sermon on the Mount, actually, if your righteousness doesn’t supersede that of the Pharisees, you can’t come into My kingdom. So Jesus is really saying, everything you think you know about the law, I am it perfected. Jesus is really, in the Sermon on the Mount, explaining, Himself. So it’s a word for the disciple.

And Jesus begins with the blessings. And we’re going to find that those that God would say are blessed, or privileged, is different than what we would say. And this morning we’re going to consider Jesus’ words, blessed are those in poverty, and blessed are those who mourn. Verse 1, Seeing the crowds, He went up on the mountain. And when He had sat down, His disciples came to Him. And He opened His mouth and taught them, saying,

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. So practically, Jesus goes up on the mountain so He can see all these people, so they can see Him, so He can address them, and He can hear what He has, to say, we also get here, the imagery of Moses in the Old Testament up on the mountain receiving the Word of God. Only here we don’t have a man receiving the Word of God. We have God Himself on the mountain speaking to the people directly. And Jesus sits down, which is what a teacher in that time would have done, to instruct and to teach. He says He’s opened His mouth to teach them. Now it’s impossible to say who of Jesus is, His disciples are here. Is it just the four that we’ve seen previous to this chapter? Is it all the disciples? We don’t know which of the disciples are sitting here, but it doesn’t actually matter. Here’s what matters. What matters is we notice Jesus’ audience. He’s got two groups in His audience. There is the crowd,

and they’re there, vast and plentiful to hear. But then there are the disciples.

Look back at verse 23 with me in chapter 4. It says, And He went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. So His fame spread throughout all Syria. And they brought Him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, paralytics, and He healed them. And great crowds followed Him from Galilee and the Decapolis and from Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan. So Jesus is pretty popular up to this point. When He starts this Sermon on the Mount, He’s not just some nobody. He’s a somebody. First, He’s preaching and teaching with authority that the people have never heard before in their religious leaders. But secondly, Jesus just flat out is doing miraculous things. Who wouldn’t want to see that? This beats modern health care that we have. Are you sick? You got a cold? You got a fever? You got leprosy? You’re paralytic? You’re demon-possessed, demon-oppressed? Jesus is touching you and you’re good. So that’s miraculous and amazing.

So one, think about all the people that just want to be wowed by that and see it. But secondly, think about, I’m going to this Jesus because I or someone I love, they’re ill and I want healing for them. But that’s how crowds work. Crowds gather to be wowed. Crowds gather together. They want to get the buzz. They want to be entertained. They want to see something great. They want to get. But so goes the wow, then so goes the crowd with them. That’s crowd mentality.

Then there’s the disciple.

And the disciple is one tuned in to his master, not because he’s looking to get something. The disciple’s looking to give something. The disciple is a student. That’s what it means. It means pupil. The disciple is looking to give his life over to a body of teachings, to a way of life that’s not yet his. And he’s willing, whether easy, hard, slow, or fast, to do what it takes to embody the way of life of his teacher, of his master, of his Lord. So the question then, have I just come for the free health care and I’m going to take it and run? Or, have I come here because there’s more to this Jesus than what he can immediately do for me? Is this Jesus worth giving my life to as a disciple?

So that’s the difference. Crowd.

Disciple. Where are we this morning?

And it says he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, blessed are the poor in spirit. Now that seems backwards. Because usually when we think, when we think of poor people, we think they’re the underprivileged. We call them the less fortunate. They’re the down and out. Yet that Greek word makarios particularly means one who is blessed, one who is happy, one who is privileged and favored, with divine favor on them. It’s upside down because I’ve never looked at a poor person and said, man, I wish I could have that way of life. I wish I could just scrape by. I wish I could just only have what people in charity give to me. I’ve never done that before.

Now some religions value aestheticism. I’m going to force it on myself for religious purposes. But that’s not what Jesus is getting at at all. Jesus is talking about poverty of the spirit. That’s one’s inner life. That part of you that’s going to go on forever. The seat of your affections and your desires. Synonymously, it’s your soul. Jesus is talking about your immaterial purpose. And He says the one who is blessed in spirit is the one who recognizes they’re poor. But if that’s such a blessed state to be poor in spirit, how do you discover if you’re poor in spirit? What if you’re accidentally rich in spirit? I don’t want to be rich in spirit if it’s not blessed. Well, it’s easy enough to discover, friends, we’re all poor in spirit. From birth, each of us has a spirit that’s not inclined to love, to obey, to be set on, who God is and what God desires. It’s not within us. It’s not in our possession. We don’t want it in our possession. And hear the Scriptures on it. The psalmist says, Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Genesis 8.21, the Lord says, I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. And then Paul in Romans, Romans chapter 3, he says, What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jew and Greek, are under sin. It’s written, none is righteous. No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks God. All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless. No one does good. Not even one. In Jesus, in Matthew 15, he says it’s from the heart, that evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, and slander come. So the Scriptures make that very apparent. It’s a common struggle. It’s a common poverty people share, regardless of race, color, background. We all have that poverty. And if you don’t think so, spend like an hour with my two-year-old and you’ll find he loves doing wrong and he doesn’t like doing right all the time. I can attest to that. I can attest to that for you. But we cannot make the great mistake of thinking that Jesus says blessed is the person that stays in this poverty of spirit. If he did, he contradicts practically everything else he said and did about the nature of man, the nature of God. He even contradicts why he got up on the cross and died. Rather, what Jesus means is this. Blessed is the one who by grace has the spiritual humility to recognize his impoverished, destitute soul. Can you see it? That’s the blessed thing.

But why?

Here’s why. Because the one who by grace has the spiritual humility to see their lowest state, that they cannot help themselves, that no one can help them, the moment they recognize it, the Scriptures say that God stands ready, willing, and eager to help. To snatch them up from their spiritual poverty and shower on them the riches of heaven. The prophet Isaiah says, For thus says the one who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy, I dwell in the high and holy place. And also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. That’s what he’s saying. When we exercise the spiritual humility to see it. So friends, let it come to us as great news this morning. God does not expect us to make ourselves rich in spirit. He knows we cannot do it. And Jesus did not come to point a finger in our face and remind us of it. God already did that. The law already did that. The law already said, you’re not fit for God’s kingdom. You’re not fit to be near God. You don’t love God. You’re unrighteous. You’re unholy. That’s not… That’s not why Jesus came. If that’s why He came, He wasted His time. But He didn’t waste His time. Jesus came to show us our helpless low estate and then to save us out of it. And what we’re calling poverty of spirit is on the flip side what you would call the riches and wealth of this life. Of the godless man. It’s the things he loves. The things he enjoys. His natural inclinations. Paul works it out as the works of the flesh in Galatians chapter 5. He says, Now the works of the flesh are evident. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. So Paul just throws a big blanket over it. Like, hey, if you don’t know God, let me throw a big blanket over everything you think and everything you do. Paul says, Such will not inherit the kingdom of God. So it’s the poor man’s trinkets. He thinks, The trinkets are invaluable, but they’re the things standing in the way of receiving the greater blessing and treasure of Christ and His kingdom. The Lord, here’s what He expects us to do. Just see it for what it is. Worthless.

Worthless things. Forsake them, and then Christ would satisfy us with who He is. He would satisfy us with all that He has. The Apostle Paul says, I’ve been blessed in Christ with all the spiritual blessings in the heavenly places. It’s nothing, I can do for myself. It’s nothing anyone besides the Lord could give. So there’s a great danger in halfway hearing Jesus. And we halfway hear Jesus, I’m afraid, all the time. Jesus did not say, Hey, in humility, recognize your lowest state and then help yourself out. That gets you in a worse or poverty called works righteousness, called cold, dead religion. And Jesus kind of paints a picture of that when He says there was a Pharisee and a tax collector and they went to pray. And Jesus says, the Pharisee said, Lord, I thank you. I’m not like other people. I’m not like that tax collector. I fast. I give my tithe. And he thinks he’s so well off because of the things he’s done. But Jesus says the tax collector won’t even lift his head up to heaven. And he beats his chest and says, Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. Jesus said, that’s the man that goes down to his house justified.

It’s nothing we can give ourselves. It’s nothing that anyone else can give us. The preciousness of Christ and His kingdom. Life as a disciple becomes our possession when we accept the Lord’s simple invitation to forsake it and receive by the hand of God everything freely. It’s free gift. And I was thinking about this quite a bit yesterday. How I so often in my own life, I don’t enjoy and love the gospel because I make it more complex than it is. I stop loving and enjoying sharing the gospel. When I make it so much more than what it is. Because the gospel is not, hey, if you have this IQ and you can get your mind around these theological concepts, if you’re a spiritual guru and you can do all these certain things just right and you can read all this stuff, like maybe you can attain it. Like that’s not the gospel and I make it that. So I give myself so much more than it is and I stop rejoicing in the simple fact that we are without and Jesus is with and when we repent and turn to Christ, He makes the with ours. It’s just grace. Good news. And if it wasn’t simple, I don’t think it would be good news, but it is simple. It’s good news to the poor man. It’s good news to the rich man. It’s good news to all of us. And so I just want to live in that simple gospel. Don’t try to earn it. Don’t be fooled by an imitation. It’s from God’s good hand to yours.

So it leaves us with no opportunity to boast. If everything we have and we care about, it was from God’s hand. And all we can do is talk about what God has done, which is why Paul says, hey, if you live in the capital S Spirit now, like you’re walking in the Spirit, Paul says, here’s the proof of it. He says, you’ll keep in step with the Spirit. You’ll keep in step with the Spirit. This beatitude, different from the next six, is a present tense in its consequence. He says, there is the kingdom. Right now they get the kingdom. The next six are they shall receive, they will inherit. Paul says, if you truly recognize your spiritual poverty, right now, the happy proof will be in this. You’re keeping in step with the Spirit. And Paul says, here’s what this looks like. You’re not conceited. You don’t provoke or envy people. Now think about that. That seems like a total different arena. We’re talking about spiritual kingdom and like relationships over here. And it’s one and the same. Here’s why. If everything that I have, I have because God has given me and that’s the only thing I value and treasure, why would I care if people around me have stuff I don’t have? I wouldn’t. Because it’s not valuable to me anymore as a disciple. My life as a disciple, I only care about Christ and what He’s given me. On the flip side, what can I be conceited about? Because I didn’t attain it. So you see, living in the Spirit, keeping in step with the Spirit, reminds the poor disciple he is wealthy only in Christ. You’re looking to get. You’re looking to give. Crowd.

Disciple.

Charles Spurgeon once said, We have plenty of people nowadays who cannot kill a mouse without publishing it in the Gospel Gazette.

Samson killed a lion and said nothing about it. The Holy Spirit finds modesty so rare that He takes care to record it. Say much of what the Lord has done for you, but say little of what you have done for the Lord. Do not utter a self-glorifying sentence.

And think of Mr. Spurgeon, could see social media today. And I’m not against it on principle, but you’ve got to be honest with the fact that we have a culture today that says, hey, be obsessed with you. Why are you great? Like, look at you. Like, what do you do right? Take pictures of yourself. Talk about yourself. Like, constantly be looking at yourself and make sure everybody sees you. So it’s very much so geared and wired to keep us not thinking how poor in spirit we are, but while we’re great and rich in spirit. Now, if we’re the poor disciples that we say we are, friends, we’re looking past the present. We’re looking to the future. We’re looking to the riches that shall be and will be ours because right now the kingdom has awoken us with greater and better desires. We’re a humble people because we recognize our riches have been given to us freely.

And I would say to you as well, when you start to live this way, there’s just a simple sweet trust in every day. I don’t need to be worried about, I don’t need to be worried about this and that and anxious because I know that this Lord has given me all things in the heavenly places to bless me spiritually, but I know He’s very concerned with me right now as well. So the poor disciple has a completely changed disposition.

And it changes the way you see people. People are not problems. People are opportunities to invite them into the poverty that they were to experience the blessings in the heavenly places. Jesus changes the way we interact with people. We’re not competing. We’re not provoking. We’re not jealous. We’re not envious. We’ve given that life away. My life now is a humble servant of Jesus and I just want to tell everybody about that and invite them into that life. Blessed is the poor disciple.

Back at verse 4.

Now He says, Blessed… are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. They shall be comforted. And I think again here in verse 4 we notice the values of the kingdom, the priorities of the kingdom. They run counter. They run opposite to the world. Those who are not living as disciples.

But crowds and the people, they’re not going to find kingdom priorities as different. Well, it’s different. They’ll find them undesirable.

Because Jesus’ purpose, remember, in the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes here at the beginning, is this, to clarify explicitly

Christian discipleship. So He’s not interested in saying anything to you except for what does Christian discipleship look like? Those are what His words are going forth to wake up in His disciples. And here’s what Jesus says that’s otherworldly, that’s upside down. He says, Happy, fortunate, favored are those who mourn. You have to say mourn over what? There’s a lot of things in life you could mourn over. Well, again, Jesus is not first talking about the affairs of this temporal life. He is to a degree, and we’ll get to that. Jesus is first talking about inviting His disciples to care about matters and priorities of His kingdom. That’s what He’s talking about. So He says, You’re blessed not only if you recognize your spiritual poverty, He’s saying you’re blessed if you mourn it. Mourn it. Now think about with me the nature of mourning versus being sad. I can get sad all the time.

Gotta change tires. That’s a lot of money. Tires are expensive. Gas prices went up. Right? Got a cold. Bad day. We get sad. Mourning is of a whole different nature. You mourn when a great tragedy has come to pass and you can’t change it. You mourn when something, someone you love dearly is lost and you’re not getting them back. You mourn when life’s situation for you or someone around you has changed in such a horrible, drastic way that that life is now intolerable, unbearable. You mourn what you lose. You mourn horrible things that happen to you. They rock your inner person. They rock your soul. You hate this new reality you’re stuck in. So that’s very different from I’m upset about something.

So you see, Jesus is instructing, it’s blessed not to see the spiritual poverty, but to mourn it. Hate that it is so. And He says the one that does hate that he’s in spiritual poverty will be, shall be comforted. So the mourn is a continual state. It’s not, oh, I mourn this one time. He’s saying blessed are those who mourn, who are mourning until they are comforted. And the mourning as well, if I truly mourn it and I hate it, I’m going to hate it wherever I see it, not just in myself. So if I see spiritual poverty in you, guess what I’m doing? I’m mourning because I see it in you. What if I see it happening on the other side of the world? What if I see the negative effects of spiritual poverty, how it’s ruined lives, how it causes so much discord among people and countries and nations and how we don’t love one another because on the inside we are poor. So I mourn it wherever I see it now. So right now there’s a spiritual grief. And we have a spiritual grief, friends, because we wrestle not with just the act of sinning, which we do sin every day, but also because, and this should bother us, at times we have the inclination on the inside to sin. Like I want to sin. I wish it was true that you lose desire for sin instantaneously when you come to Christ, but you don’t. That’s not the case. But it does mean this, the world should be growing strangely dim, as the old hymn says.

The affections, delights of the immaterial person, what we love to love should be growing, but what we love to hate should be growing. Now what do we love to love? And this has been our running definition of the kingdom. It’s the spiritual rule and reign of God in my heart, mind, and life. So God is in control, right? So I want my loves to go up for that. And I want my hate for disobeying Jesus, not acting like Jesus. I want that hate to increase as well, a.k.a. spiritual grief. That’s what we’re talking about. And hear me, I’m not preaching to you a Christian perfectionism, as if it were possible. It’s not. But I am saying this, the true disciple is obsessed with, stuck on the perfections of Jesus. The perfections of Christ have enraptured and captivated the disciple to the end. I don’t want to look like, I don’t want to act like anything but Jesus. So the godly grief then that Jesus speaks of as so blessed is such, because it keeps us mindful of what we’ve been made to love and what we’ve been set free from loving.

Spiritual, godly grief is a gift from God. It’s not a spirit in this present age. It’s a gift. Hear what Paul says about it. He says, for godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret.

Whereas worldly grief produces death. There’s a difference then in, oh, I yelled at my wife again. I know I shouldn’t do that. Oh yeah, I look at porn. I know I shouldn’t do that. Oh yeah, I robbed my employer of labor. I know I shouldn’t do that. Oh, I don’t pray. I know I shouldn’t do that. That’s worldly grief. That’s shame. Godly grief reminds me I’ve been called out. I’ve been transformed. I’m something else. I’m someone new. And I’m living and participating in a false reality when I sin. That’s the Lord correct me, change me, put me back on the straight and narrow. See, that’s godly grief. And it’s a good thing. And this is why, then we can never go along with a brand of Christianity that won’t talk about sin, won’t talk about guilt, won’t talk about judgment.

That Christian experience, I’m afraid, is far too common for many. And it’s little more than a self-help routine that just tells people to feel good about themselves.

But the gospel,

the true gospel, it doesn’t make us feel good about ourselves. It tells us, it tells us to mourn ourselves.

It tells us because of ourselves, we are spiritually bankrupt and we cannot fix it. We are spiritually bankrupt and we will face God’s great judgment because of it. But then the good news is Jesus has saved us from it. If we would mourn it, Christ will be our comforter on judgment day. That is, my friends, good, good news.

He is making us new and He will make all things new.

And it’s coming at the end when this world ends and the new one begins. When Christ makes heaven and earth one and we’re with Him forever. But friends, until that comes, I would say to you, are you taking up the mantle of a disciple and do you mourn when you see a lack of concern for holiness? You see a lack of awareness that God’s judgment is coming. The mourning disciples, the disciple has a mission to get more mourners on the team. Because if you can get more mourners on the team, that means on God’s great judgment day, you’re going to have more people who get to be comforted because of their sin. So it’s a blessed thing then to be the mourning disciple.

Those who mourn will be comforted. And the Apostle John says in Revelation 21.4, He will wipe away every tear, every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore for the former things have passed away.

I came across this poem that I thought enveloped what we’re talking about here. I’m going to read it to you. It’s called Those Wasted Years.

I looked upon a farm one day that once I used to own. The barn had fallen to the ground. The fields were overgrown. The house in which my children grew where we had lived for years. I turned to see it broken down and brushed aside the tears. I looked upon my soul one day to find it too had grown with thorns and nettles everywhere the seeds and neglect had sown. The years had passed while I had cared for things of lesser worth. The things of heaven I let go while minding things wrong. To Christ I turned with bitter tears and cried, O Lord, forgive. I haven’t much time left for Thee, not many years to live. The wasted years forever gone, the days I cannot recall. If I could live those days again, I’d make Him Lord of all.

The mourning disciple is the repentant disciple. And if you’ve truly repented, you’ve come to understand repentance is not a one-time act. It’s not a one-time ordeal. It is a lifelong pursuit of running from sin, running from the world, and running to Jesus. It is a lifestyle.

And I think on a, I guess, practical level, I think about in the church with our young children. Parents, do they need to see us come to church and prioritize Sundays? Absolutely. Absolutely. But just as much or more so, what children need if they’re going to be disciples of Jesus is to see you in everyday life be a repentant, mourning disciple, taking holiness serious, taking sin serious. Do they see you just show up here and that’s just your input to religion? Or do they see you day in and day out hungry to know Jesus more, hungry to turn from your sins, hungry to make Jesus known? That’s what, it’s going to make disciples. Not just when they hear it, but when they see that in our lifestyle. I would say that to us. And sometimes you see people and parents and they just don’t understand. Like, how come my kid doesn’t love the Lord and have anything to do with church? And they live their whole life having this very nonchalant relationship with Jesus. It’s like, well, what do you think? That’s why. And I don’t mean to be harsh. I don’t mean to maybe push on a sore spot if that’s relevant to your life somehow only to say time is short. And it’s the morning disciple that really makes an impact not just in children, but in people when we live with kingdom priorities. We are uniquely, I believe this, able ministers. We are able to make sense of suffering in the world in a way that no one else can. So the suffering in the world and our spiritual depravity aren’t two different things. I can say to the one who’s experienced great suffering, hey, it’s this way because we’re all spiritually depraved and the world’s bad. We’re broke. I invite you to mourn with me and I promise if you mourn with me, someday you shall be comforted. So we’re able then to be preachers of good news, preachers of the gospel, preachers of comfort when we tell people, hey, yes, you mourn and here’s why, but let me tell you about the one who’s come to do something about it. We’re able to make sense of that and preach the comfort of the cross into anyone and everyone’s life. That’s the morning disciple.

The blessing of poverty and mourning are the treasures and comforts of our Savior. The blessing, the fortune, the happiness of being an impoverished and mourning disciple is this. We’re going to receive the treasures and we’re going to receive the comforts of our Savior. And it’s not a new thing. Jesus didn’t come to make that up. It was always a plan. I want to go back to Isaiah with you and read you what God always had in mind. Okay, here it is. Isaiah chapter 61. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, this is Jesus speaking, because the Lord has anointed me to bring, what is it? Good news to the poor. There’s good news for you. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, an opening of the prison to those who are bound to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God to comfort all who mourn, to grant to those who mourn in Zion, to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit, that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, the Lord, He did it, that He may be glorified.

What do you think about when you think about heaven?

I think you can discover what someone really thinks about Jesus if you ask them about what they want to get in heaven.

I’ll use my marriage as an example, first of all. If someone said to me, hey, you can have a bigger house, you can have more stuff, you can have more money, you can have a better life, but your wife can’t be there.

Well, then I don’t want it. I’ll go back to poverty. I want my wife. Without my wife, the lifestyle I lead is no good. I mean, sharing that with my wife is what makes it great.

So when I think about heaven, am I thinking about, oh, I’m going to not have any more problems, I’m going to have to worry about paying bills, I’m going to get a big mansion, it’s going to be beautiful, the weather’s going to be nice all the time, or are you thinking, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don’t care what I get in heaven, because I’ve already been given in Jesus everything I could ever need or want that’s going to satisfy me. I have that now. I’m just going to have it perfectly in heaven. There’s nothing I want to get from heaven. What I want to do in heaven is give to Jesus. I want to know Him. Which marriage, friends, isn’t that divorce? You showed up ready to take, not to give. So doesn’t the Apostle Paul say, marriage is a beautiful picture of the Gospel as Christ loves us. We submit to Him. There’s joy then in surrendering to Christ. So we’re not, I’m thinking about heaven, I’m thinking about life as a perfected disciple where, yes, I’ve been given everything in Jesus and whatever else is there is great, but here’s what I want to do. I want to give worship to this God who’s already given me the most He could ever give me, and that is the blood of His Son Jesus. That is a relationship with knowing and being known, loving and being loved. Blessed are the poor. Blessed are those who mourn. They will be comforted. They will have the treasure of knowing and having. Loving Christ.

So are you, are we living as disciples?

Are you lazy, friends, in your pursuit of holiness? Are you lazy in your repentance?

Are you lazy to see what’s wrong and broken in this world? Are you lazy to pray against it? Let me say to you that Jesus stands ready and willing to forgive and to brush you off and encourage you to run the good race before you, to make Him known, to live in Him, for that is the blessed condition in which He has brought us.

So we are in the church a blessed people, a fortunate, happy people, because God’s divine favor is upon us. Let us live in that simple joy of the Gospel that is our blessing and has made us new.

Let’s pray.

Oh Lord, how quick we run to medicate ourselves. How quick we run to worry and to fret.

Lord, how prone we are to doubt. How prone we are to sin, Father. Even though You’ve given us a perfect example in Your Son Jesus, Lord, we need Your mercy. We need Your mercy every day and every day, Lord. Lord, we are weak and we are erring and we are failing.

But we know Your Word says You’ve loved us with an everlasting love.

We know as we’re in these failing bodies You are not failing.

We know as we have sinned Your grace abounds all the more.

We know that we don’t deserve what we have and that is just Your love and Your favor on our life and You’re keeping us, Lord.

Lord, I’m praying for us this morning

that Your amazing grace would be our fuel. It would be the thing that moves us to continually, Lord, run the race and fight the good fight. Pursue Jesus. Make Jesus known. Lord, we need Your blessing. We need Your strength. We need Your wisdom. We need Your power, Lord. We pray You would open up

Your storehouses, Lord, that we would do Your will, Lord. Give us all we need to be equipped for You, God.

Make us sensitive, Lord, in our hearts to sin.

Let us not shrug our shoulders at it in our lives. Let us be quick, Lord, to be a holy people that please You.

We thank You for the truth of the Gospel. Lord, if someone’s here this morning and they know You, they know about You, they don’t know You, Lord, I pray saving faith would be theirs this morning. I pray they would believe on the name of Jesus and be saved. So, Lord, we pray that You would do that work that only Your Spirit could do. We just worship You. We love You. We just praise the name of Jesus.