The Way of Righteousness

Welcome back to week two of our Bible study through the Sermon on the Mount called the way of Jesus today We're going to study Matthew chapter 5 verses 3 through 16 and I titled this lesson the way of Blessing so I brought a visual aid. I Brought a little sign I'll bet every one of you has this word on Something in your house. This sign was actually in a beautiful floral arrangement that came to us when we weren't feeling well In August and a sweet friend had sent us flowers and that was in there, but you have it somewhere, right? the word blessed thankful grateful Blessed or we say blessed to be on measure. I saw one Yesterday thankful blessed and kind of a mess And what we mean by this the reason it resonates with us is that we mean in general We're pretty grateful for what we do have things are kind of like okay, like maybe your kids aren't completely off the rails and no one is in the hospital right now and Like our car payment is caught up or we passed our exams or we get invited on a road trip Like things are good. That's usually what we mean. I remember it was 15 years ago We were building our house and we were living in a trailer and building our house and I went to an event Caught up with a nice Christian lady that I knew in my life. And of course you asked what's going on? I said, oh, we're building a house and she said the Lord is really blessing you And I remember thinking at the time Well, yes, that's true. But there was something inside me and I know she meant well, that was a good statement there was something inside of me that said Would someone say that to me if I had a different if I said, you know All these bad things the job life all these things would they say the Lord is really blessing you well No, because we think of blessings in a different way. so But these blessings these benefits that we read about here Being comforted receiving mercy being called sons of God inheriting the earth These are the result of a close walk with Jesus and these are all things that no one can take away from us Everything we're gonna read about today cannot be taken away from us the things that we consider our blessings in The natural they can be taken away, but these things cannot so our challenge today is To think about this word blessed in a different way. I decided that in my mind for me Anyway, I have two pronunciations of blessed Blessed is my churchy pronunciation Like Elizabeth says to Mary, you know blessed is the one who has believed what the Lord will accomplish through her Blessed and we use it. We that's how we pronounce the Beatitudes don't we blessed are but then when it's just normal life It's blessed. Okay. I'm just feeling really blessed. so Purposefully I'm going to use our normal life pronunciation as we read these to you know eliminate that Differentiation that churchy part and remember these things can never be taken away So last week we started with verse 3 we'll begin there again

and this was the foundation and the first step in following the way of Jesus is to recognize we are spiritually poor We have empty hands before God. We have nothing to offer to God only the anticipation of receiving from him and it is the result of those two gospel words that Matthew recorded that Jesus started his earthly ministry with repent and follow Everything that we're about to read in the next 100 plus verses of the Sermon on the Mount presupposes the acceptance of those two words repent and Follow and that first step poor in spirit. It's all built on this foundation so we should not read the Sermon on the Mount or any verses or phrases in it as a requirement To earn a blessing. Okay. Well if you mourn You know, then then you'll be comforted. But if you don't go around morning, you don't expect any comfort, you know It's not a conditional thing like that. It presupposes this poor in spirit and so What we should do is see all of these steps on that you wrote in your study guide the Beatitudes as areas of sanctification Areas that the Lord works in us to make us turn us more into his character. All right So we're gonna take them one at a time verse four

we all know what grieving and mourning feels like everyone has done that we have lost a loved one And so we mourn over that Even someone who is not a Christian can mourn in that sense Mourn the loss and mourn having to go forward in life without someone that you love But this morning is in the context of those two gospel words. This is godly sorrow Okay, and we went to 2nd Corinthians 710 godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation mourning over sin You know, I feel like we've lost a little bit of this in our grace-filled Christian life. I I might say I've lost a little bit of it. I've been walking with the Lord for 40 years I do remember mourning over sin when I first was broken and came to the Lord but I think I've lost a little bit of mourning over sin since then because I have such a high confidence in God's forgiveness and the fact that he loves me and this has Kind of reminded me that Jesus grieves over the damage that sin has done in our lives The damage sin has done to his creation His people and his creation the damage that it's done in the world the damage It's done in our lives the damage it's done in our families and for us to Mourn over that fact in the same way that Jesus does we align with his character? I think many of us most of us have come to a place now where we are definitely mourning Over the result of sin in our country We're mourning over it Maybe it's easier to mourn over our country than our personal lives because it's a little bit distanced But we do feel that so when we mourn we're blessed because we will be comforted and of course for New Testament Christians We have the comforter The Holy Spirit the comforter who reminds us that old things are passed away Behold, I'm making all things new this happens in our ourselves when we Accept Christ all things are made new but it's also going to happen in our world a new heaven in a new earth We have the comforter that reminds us the end of the game. And so we're blessed verse 5

You remember last week when we talked about how the law of God first came to people it represented his character It was good. It was right, but it was External and that there would come a day when God would send a beating heart To express his character and Jesus was the beating heart who came to this earth in meekness in Humility look he owned the whole place he created the whole place and He comes to it in such humility in such meekness willing to associate With the sinners willing to associate with the sick with the poor With the needy and a meek person is willing to associate with anyone Because their focus is no longer on themselves. Their focus is on the kingdom of God a Meek person can even tolerate irregular people Do you know what I mean by irregular people? They're not regular. They're irregular Meek person can handle that Can tolerate that I? Have noticed it's somewhat popular in the last a few years To say that we are cleansing our life from people that just zap our energy That just take too much now. Let me be clear You may almost everyone may have someone or have a history with someone who's truly dangerous to you and your family That's not what I'm talking about I'm talking about this general acceptance of cleansing our life from people that just Take too much energy. That's not meekness. That's actually pride. That's saying I am so important I need to go about my day without you in my day, you know and So a Meek person falls in line with the example of Jesus I want to show you Romans 12 16 on the screen Look at this live in harmony with one another do not be proud But be willing to associate with people of low position do not be conceited That's a very tidy way of expressing be meek. Now what do we do if we find that we are conceited or prideful? You know what? It's always the same answer for every one of these. We go back down to the foundational step. Blessed are the poor in spirit. And we start back at the foundation and say, I thought I had something to offer. I don't have something to offer. Lord, I am yours. I come to you with empty hands. So the meek are blessed because we'll inherit the earth and no one can take that away from us. Verse six

When we truly followed the way of Jesus, we do get new appetites. Our appetites are curated now for different things. And to some degree, at some level, we develop an appetite for righteousness. Hunger and thirst for righteousness. All right, so we should talk about, well, what does righteousness mean? And we've got a couple kinds of righteousness to consider. First of all, what we normally think of is our righteousness before God. Well, we're poor in spirit, empty hands, but we gain a righteousness before God. When we ask Jesus, when we recognize Jesus is righteous, he can stand before a holy God. He absorbed God's penalty. And now all I need to do is stand, be robed in his righteousness. I accept that, right? And we are righteous before God. We call that justification. And now we are righteous before God. But there's another kind of righteousness that we deal with every day. And that is the righteousness between people. This kind of righteousness. Are we right toward our friends and family and clients and co-workers and that sort of thing? Are we honest? Are we upright? Are we truthful? And this righteousness is part of our sanctification. It's how right we are in dealing with other people. Now, before we come to Christ, it's very common for people to build habits of dishonesty, falsehood. It can become habitual, right? We lie to the insurance company, hoping for a better outcome of whatever benefit we're expecting. Or our friend calls and says, can you come to this? And we say, oh, I have a prior commitment when no such prior commitment was on the table. Or we sort of optimistically, we guess at the age of those tires on the car that we're selling on marketplace or whatever. These are the kinds of little games and little things that dishonesty that is normal for someone before they accept Christ. But you know, you build a habit and after you come to Christ, it doesn't just go away. Like there's still a bent toward that. So here, Jesus says, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. I want to be truthful with you. I want to be upright with you. I want to be honest. If I fail, I'm blessed because the Holy Spirit is going to send me back and say, so you need to repent to that. You need to confess that you need to ask forgiveness. And then he sets me back on the track to hunger and thirst for righteousness, for right standing with other people. And so we're blessed because Jesus says we will be satisfied. We will be satisfied in that cycle of conviction and going at it again, confession of sins, being forgiven, going at it again. And no one can take away that satisfaction from us. You notice that all these beatitudes seem a lot like fruits of the spirit, don't they? Because it is what the Holy Spirit is doing in us to sanctify us. So the next one, verse seven

We know what mercy means. Biblically speaking, it means that we don't get what we deserve. I'll put up Titus 3, 5 for you. It explains that maybe the best. He saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy. God did not give us what we deserved. He actually placed it on his son. As we follow the way of Jesus, we also learn how to express mercy to other people. What we do is we, in the way of we don't give them what they deserve, okay? We restrain ourselves from giving them what they deserve, which might be a piece of my mind at this moment. But really, I think it's very closely tied to forgiveness, forgiving people in a merciful way. It's easy to forgive. My husband can say, would you forgive me? I forgot to take that garbage out like you asked. It's like, of course, I love you. I'm going to forgive you. No big deal. Do better. No. But when someone truly wrongs us, offends us, just like we have offended a holy God, when someone truly offends us and they could care less, we feel like they do not deserve our forgiveness. They haven't even admitted that they've done wrong, much less came and asked for forgiveness. So mercy is what allows us to give them what they don't deserve. They do not deserve my forgiveness in this situation, but I have extended it. That is mercy. Sometimes we use mercy a little bit awkwardly, and what we really say, some of them might say they have the gift of mercy, and what they really mean is they have the gift of helps. They like to go around helping people and checking on sick people and all that kind of thing, and that's good, but mercy is actually not giving someone what they deserve. Verse eight

Okay, pure in heart. Wow. Whenever we see the word pure or purity or something like that, we kind of think it's angelic, whatever. So let me give you another way to think of this. I really do appreciate good coffee, and because I like my coffee at home to taste good, I have a little filter that goes in the coffee pot. I put it on my Google Calendar to change it every three weeks so that the filter is doing its job. I also have a filter in my refrigerator, so I have two filters purifying the water of contaminants and minerals and elements that would make my coffee taste bad, okay? Also, when we were sick, my sweet little neighbor and secretary, we decided we needed a humidifier. She went to three stores to find us a humidifier and came and set it up for us, and it has a filter in it. It sucks up the water. That's how it puts the water. You might have a humidifier, and over time, that filter gets clogged with, you know, sediment and things like that. You got to wash it out, but the point is it's this filtering process to purify, okay? This is the same thing with pure in heart. We're saved. If we are born again, we're saved. We've been washed. We've been cleansed, but just walking through life, we pick up contaminants, and we pick up things that are not good for our life, and so we need this constant cycle of a way to purify that out of our life. What is it? If you confess your sins, God is faithful and just. He will forgive your sins. This is a constant thing for us as Christians, this purifying our hearts so that we don't become unsaved if we sin, right, but we do become distanced just a little bit more from the Lord, and then we multiply those sins, and we have 25, and all of a sudden, our distance is, and so look at the blessing for those who are pure in heart, who have come to the Lord, confessed their sins. Look, it says, for they shall see God. The blessing for us is the privilege that we're close, that we see, that we hear, that he can lead us because we've maintained a close relationship. This is a blessing that no one can take away from us. Verse 9

Most of you, maybe every one of you, have at least one peacemaker in your family or your extended family. If you're old enough to be kind of the matriarch of your family, maybe you gave birth to this peacemaker. They keep the holidays good. They keep everybody from going off the rails. Maybe you also gave birth to others that give the peacemakers work to do, right? These kinds of peacemakers in your family, they're not sons of God. They're just your sons and your daughters, okay, but there is another type of peacemaker, and what Jesus is talking about here isn't that blessed are the peacemakers at Thanksgiving day because it's going to help everything go better. No, this is blessed are the peacemakers that help people make peace with God. That's what people need. People need to make peace with God. You can ask someone, are you a Christian? Just about everyone who was born in America will say, oh yes, I'm a Christian. But if you ask the same person, have you made peace with God? They're going to stand back and think, how do I answer this question? Because that is what we have to do in order to, that's the first step, make peace with God. So, blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed, oh, I said it that way, didn't I? Blessed are you when you help others make peace with God, and what is the result? You will be called sons of God. No one can take that away from you. Then we have a somber turn in verse 10

The more that a follower is, a follower of Jesus is sanctified by all of these steps on that stair step that you wrote, all these characteristics, the more that we reflect the character of Jesus and the more that we become a target of the hatred of the world, that goes with it. It's a partner. I want to show you 2 Timothy 3.12 that says, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. That was the conclusion that the Apostle Paul had come to. All that desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Persecution of the godly is a spiritual law in our universe in the same way that gravity is a force of nature. You expect gravity. It's a force of nature that you may not have studied, but you've observed it your entire life. And persecution of the godly is a spiritual principle in the same way. So we should expect it, but we don't. We don't expect it. When it happens, we say, what's going on? Because what we expect is, we've done all this sanctification to look like Jesus. Like, we should get a little respect for that. What we expect is respect. What we get is persecution. So these verses are useful to us to expect the right thing. Don't expect respect. Expect persecution. But the blessing that we get, great is your reward. Great is your reward in heaven. See, our interest is dialed somewhere else. And our reward in heaven, no one can ever take it from us. So now what do you think of hashtag blessed? It's given us a whole different understanding when we see that word. When I look at my sign up in my kitchen, whole different understanding. We're blessed because as we follow closely with Jesus, grow in sanctification, all of these blessings come our way that nobody can ever take away from us. My house can go, my kids can go, my husband can go, my money can go, my health can go. That's what I rested my blessed condition on. But this helps us to realign our thinking. All right. Final two passages in our study are about salt and light. There are a few things in life besides maybe water and air, I think are more essential, but after water and air, there are a few things that are more essential than salt and sunshine. You can prevent a lot of ailments with the proper amount of sodium. In fact, did you know you can't live without sodium? You can't live. I always like to see when we studied the Oregon trail, what they packed in the wagons, what they made room for, because those are the essentials of life and coffee was on the Oregon trail. And you can cure a lot of ailments with enough sunshine, with enough vitamin D. So by saying, when Jesus said, you're the salt of the earth and you're the light of the world, Jesus was beginning to explain something new. This was new ground for them. That he was sharing his ministry of reaching the world with them. Like John, you know, went on to say, you know, the works of Jesus, John recorded Jesus as saying the works I do, you will do as well. This was part of the beating heart of the, of Jesus bringing this new covenant to them, like you're going to be involved in this. So verse 13

The obvious point of this is this metaphor with salt. We know several properties or positive things about salt. It adds flavor. It preserves things. It promotes a thirst. It keeps yeast from getting out of hand. It is essential to the life of the human body. Okay. If you go to the store, you, or shop online, you will find kosher salt. You will find Himalayan pink salt and Himalayan white salt and black salt. Apparently it comes in all the colors. Epson salt, sea salt, ice cream salt. You will find then that little cylinder box with the famous girl under the umbrella, Morton table salt, all these different kinds of salts. And I, I thought to myself, this is just a kind of different little aside. They all have different uses, different purposes. And I thought too, about us being the salt of the earth, like God has told us in the word, I have, He has gifted each one of us differently. We're all a different kind of salt. And we all have a different sort of a purpose that He's given us. And we need to stay in our lane and fulfill that purpose that He has given to us. But the point is, salt needs to do, it's the job that it was intended to. And the job that it was intended to was to be salty. Mixed with too many impurities, it ceases to serve its purpose. And followers of Jesus need to do the job that we were intended to do, which is be salty as well. Mixed with too many impurities, we will cease to serve our purpose. So the warning is be watchful, be watchful, stay salty. Okay. Since we're peacemakers and we're supposed to help people make peace with God, saltiness is essential. And I thought like good salt, we can prevent the rapid decay in the world. This is part of our job. Like good salt, we can keep yeast, yeast is a type of sin. We can keep yeast from getting out of control. Okay. The body of Christ, you guys, we can keep the yeast from getting out of control. We can keep it, keep a lid on it as the Lord allows. Like good salt, we can help people thirst for living water. That's our job, our job to do. And so a good Bible study should help us realign our purpose and inspire us in what the Lord has for us to do. Final passage, verse 14 you are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. The purpose of light coming into a room is to change the atmosphere from one of unusefulness to one with opportunities. Okay. You bring a lamp into the room to light it up. By the way, I learned a little trick. Maybe you've known this all along, but you should keep not only a flashlight, but an empty milk jug in your emergency supply. Because if you put your flashlight on the table like this and put the milk jug underneath, it sort of makes the whole, it makes it like a lamp. We tried it. I saw that. Go home and try that. So in your emergency supplies, like candles are great. A flashlight is great, but you know, like a flashlight, you're kind of shining, but you put it up, put the milk jug, and now you have a lamp that, um, so that's your tip, tips with Susie Homemaker today. But Jesus had said, Jesus had said, John recorded that he was the light of the world. He said, whoever follows me is not going to walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. The whole purpose of this study is talking about being followers of Jesus, walking in the way of Jesus. So we have the light of life. So we are walking in the light. When we walk in the light, our path and light should be illuminated by the truth. But also when we're walking in the light, we will expose the deeds of darkness around us. Okay. Uh, Jesus said that also the light exposes the deeds of darkness. Some people, when their deeds of darkness are exposed, they become broken and they also want to walk in the light. And some people, when the deeds of darkness are exposed, uh, because they love the darkness, they will reject you. They will reject you. Both of those things happen in our life. So just like the usefulness of salt could be hindered by combining it with too much impurity, we're warned that our light should also be protected, not be concealed, but allowed to fulfill the purpose for which it is intended. which it was intended. Last verse tells us, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. So I wanna circle back to our word blessed here. We have been blessed on our path with Jesus in so many ways, so many ways that can't be taken away from us, that for us to turn around and bless others by being salt and light, that's our calling. That is how we use our blessing, all right? Father, thank you for these words. Lord, I just hope that the words that we take in and that we study cause a change in our life, Lord. That's why we study your word. It's why we open ourselves up to it, to be changed, not to be intellectual, not to know more, even memorize, but to be changed. And so I just ask Lord God for all of our discussion groups that you would help us as we discuss to consider those areas of change that you would have us make in our lives. Lord, help us our discussion to be rich, I pray in Jesus' name, amen.