The Key to True Joy - Part II Matthew 5:5-7

Eureka Baptist Church iconEureka Baptist Church

1 view

0 comments

00:13
last week we began the greatest sermon ever preached and This sermon was of course preached by Jesus.
00:21
It's the sermon known as the Sermon on the Mount And what we can all agree on as we saw last
00:29
Sunday is that this sermon began with a bang Jesus was preaching to the crowd as they gathered on this mountain near the
00:40
Sea of Galilee And as he preached He met them right where they were at But what
00:47
I mentioned last Sunday is that the great desire in every human heart is to be happy and When this desire is there in the human heart everyone is asking the question well
01:00
How do I have fullness of joy forever? and only
01:06
Jesus and only the Bible can Answer that and give that to an individual
01:14
So Jesus told us how to be happy He tells us this in the first eight
01:22
Beatitudes in verses 3 through 12 of Matthew 5 we saw verses 3 and 4 last
01:30
Sunday the first two Beatitudes the first beatitude we looked at was the poor in spirit the poor in spirit
01:39
Are those who will be in the kingdom of heaven and what what we saw is that to be poor in spirit is to Humble yourself
01:48
Before God and you need to do this in Salvation because what you realize is that you bring nothing to the table
01:56
You could never earn your way to heaven on your own. You need the work of another you need
02:02
Jesus Christ to earn your salvation for you And that's what he did when he went to the cross and he died for your sins and he rose from the dead
02:11
That's what it means to be poor in spirit and to be poor in spirit also means that you're you humble yourself throughout your life
02:20
Realizing who God is and who you are the second beatitude that we looked at was
02:25
Those who mourn and those who mourn Jesus says will be Comforted and this is similar to the first beatitude humility to be poor in spirit is to repent
02:39
To recognize your sin to feel sorrow for your sin and to find your refuge in Jesus Christ Realizing that he died
02:49
So that you might live so the poor in spirit of those who go to God in your repentance And this isn't just something that's that starts off the
02:56
Christian life It's something that continues as you go through the Christian life And you will be comforted and this comfort comes when you realize that you're standing with God is good
03:06
Because he has forgiven you when you repent so the big idea of this
03:13
Sermon that's taking three Sundays to get through last Sunday this
03:18
Sunday and next Sunday The big idea is this to follow God in Christ is the only path to true happiness and The third way how the third beatitude that we're gonna look at right now
03:30
We're looking at the third fourth and fifth beatitudes today the third way how to follow
03:36
God in Christ is the only path to true happiness is by Being content with your place in God's big plan
03:43
Be content with your place in God's big plan. Let's look at verse 5 first in verse 5
03:52
Jesus said Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth
04:00
As I've already mentioned the first three Beatitudes are closely connected they are from a negative perspective
04:06
We have already seen that God shows us how much we need him We are also to feel sorrow for our sins and now in a related way.
04:14
He calls us to be meek The path of the meek is the path of blessing as Jesus says in verse 5
04:25
When Jesus teaches us the attitude he's quoting Psalm 37 11 That verse says but the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant peace
04:36
Meek is one of those words that we can easily fail to understand Sometimes people use it as a synonym for humility, but it's not quite the same thing
04:46
Let me define to you what meekness is according to Scripture Meekness is a gentleness of spirit and a trust in God over the circumstances you find yourself in Especially in light that we live in a world that is opposed to God and There are authorities that are placed over you that are godless.
05:06
We all experience this in life. I Found this definition from Bible net org
05:12
That I think is helpful concerning meekness It said meekness toward God is that?
05:21
disposition of spirit in which we accept his dealings with us as good and Therefore without disputing or resisting in the
05:29
Old Testament The meek are those wholly relying on God rather than their own strength to defend them against injustice thus meekness toward evil people means
05:42
Knowing God is permitting the injuries. They inflict that he is using them to purify his elect and that He will deliver his elect in his time
05:51
Gentleness or meekness is the opposite to self assertiveness and self -interest It stems from trust in God's goodness and control over the situation end quote
06:06
Another way to say meekness is strength under control When a worldly person looks at a godly meek person, they may be tempted to think that this person is weak
06:16
But in fact it is strength a meek person is one who trusts God when he or she is mistreated trusting that God will make everything right in the end a
06:26
Great example of this comes from Scripture in the parable of the persistent widow in Luke chapter 18 verses 1 through 8 so let me read this parable to you as we try to wrap our minds around meekness and Jesus told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart
06:46
He said in a certain city There was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man
06:52
And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying give me justice against my adversary
06:58
For a while he refused but afterward he said to himself Though I neither fear
07:04
God nor respect man yet because this widow keeps bothering me I will give her justice
07:10
So that she will not beat me down by her continual coming and the Lord said
07:15
Hear what the unrighteous judge says and will not God give justice to his elect who cry to him day and night
07:23
Will he delay long over them? I? Tell you he will give justice to them speedily
07:30
Nevertheless when the Son of Man comes will he find faith on earth in?
07:37
This parable Jesus teaches the story of a persistent widow who pleads with an unrighteous judge
07:43
So much that he delivers her from injustice because he is annoyed by her
07:49
What we see at the end is so powerful Jesus says will not God give justice to his elect who cry to him day and night
07:58
Will he delay long over them? I tell you he will give justice to them speedily
08:05
Nevertheless when the Son of Man comes will he find faith on earth? the Lord understands
08:11
That it is hard to live in this world He calls us to long for the day
08:17
When all evil will be banished When we will no longer be under the authority of corrupt governments corrupt bosses corrupt teachers or professors or coaches
08:26
Who take advantage of those under their authority? But godly people submit to their leaders regardless of whether they are
08:36
Christians or not It doesn't matter if your authority is godless or godly
08:42
God expects you to submit The opposite of meekness is not submitting but fighting back
08:48
Taking things into your own hands This is falsely seen as strength
08:54
The Lord doesn't want us to be leaders of rebellion He wants us to submit to our authorities
09:01
Now if they make you do something that is sinful, then you don't submit in that context
09:07
God tells us to not submit in Acts 5 29 But as long as you are able to follow
09:14
God in the environment you are in you should not assert your power But trust him to make everything right in the end
09:22
The beauty of this is that those who do this will be vindicated in the end God will make everything right and he will reward you for your faithfulness to him
09:32
Meekness is the path to joy Jesus promises in the third beatitude that the meek shall inherit the earth
09:39
This is a glorious promise for the meek The verb for inherit is once again in the future tense as all of these words are in the beatitudes but when but when is
09:53
This inheriting the earth going to take place Right now
10:00
Not so much, of course The answer is not now right now
10:08
God has Satan on a leash, but Satan as first John 5 tells us is the ruler of this world
10:18
God lets him do certain things. He can't do everything he wants to do, but he can do certain things The meek will inherit the earth
10:26
When Jesus returns to the earth in the future In fact in the parable of the persistent widow
10:32
Jesus asked the question when the Son of Man comes will he find faith on earth? in other words
10:37
Will he find people who trust him in their difficult circumstances? Realizing that in the end all of his people will be vindicated a
10:47
Day is coming when God's people will reign with Jesus on the earth and this is going to happen when he returns
10:54
Revelation 5 9 and 10 gives us this picture it says worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals for you were slain and By your blood you ransomed the people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation and you have made them a kingdom
11:09
And priest to our God and they shall reign on the earth The meek understand this the meek trust
11:15
God The meek are strong with the strength that God has given The future could not be brighter for the meek
11:24
May we at Eureka Baptist Church pursue meekness Especially when we are put in the position when we are under ungodly authority
11:33
To be meek is to show trust in the Lord over your circumstances When we are put in a position where bad authority is put over us the
11:43
Lord will produce much good in you as God works the circumstance for your good as He works everything for our good as Romans 8 28 says
11:53
And you are also filled with the hope that it won't always be this way When Jesus reigns you will have far and away the best ruler this world has ever seen
12:03
To pursue meekness in this life on earth is to pursue forever happiness The meek are indeed blessed to follow
12:12
God in Christ is The only path to true happiness and the third way how is by being content with your place in God's big plan the fourth way how
12:23
To follow God in Christ is the only path to true happiness is through reflecting
12:29
God in righteousness Let's look at verse 6 Before we but before we read this let me say this in our sinfulness
12:41
We are trained to think that rule keeping is joyless and rebellion is fun
12:48
But verse 6 says the opposite the fourth beatitude Jesus says Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be
12:58
Satisfied we live in America where we are all well acquainted with the phrase
13:06
That all mankind and every American has the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness
13:13
Thomas Jefferson wrote this in the Declaration of Independence in 1776 I I Mentioned earlier that every one of us wants to be happy We might not know a lot about each other
13:26
But what we do know is that happiness is a pursuit that each of us has Thomas Jefferson recognized this
13:33
So this pursuit for satisfaction is a good one. It is built into the fabric of our souls
13:39
But the big question is where do you pursue happiness? There are only two roads you can take on this
13:46
Certainly take it takes on an incalculable number of forms
13:51
But really there are two pursuits that people may you either find happiness in God or you find it in idols
13:59
If you take away an unbeliever's idols, he or she will be miserable if you take away
14:06
Christ from a believer which can happen, but also say it could happen that person
14:11
Would be miserable You either find happiness in God or idols
14:19
What Jesus is saying in this Beatitude is that to obey God is the road you happiness and satisfaction
14:25
To disobey God is the road to pain and everlasting emptiness The Lord said this about rebellious
14:32
Israel in Jeremiah 2 13 My people have committed two evils
14:37
They have forsaken me the fountain of living waters and hewed out cisterns for themselves broken cisterns
14:45
That can hold no water People try to manufacture joy by finding it apart from God People reject the fountain of living water the one who forever satisfies the soul
15:00
For that which can never satisfy Jesus said in John 4
15:07
Verses 13 and 14 everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again
15:14
The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life
15:20
Jesus says two chapters later in John 6 35. I am the bread of life Whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst
15:30
What Jesus is telling the crowds here is that he is the only one who can satisfy
15:36
So only those who pursue him experience true happiness Now as we look at the text the focus is on obedience
15:42
I mentioned in the beginning of this point that we don't often associate obedience with joy The thought of rule -keeping does not excite us
15:52
So many people misunderstand obedience People think that obedience is joyless and boring while rebellion doing whatever you want when you want now, that's exciting
16:03
But King David in Psalm 16 helps us understand this in that Psalm He writes in verse 4 that the sorrows of those who run after another
16:11
God shall multiply Remember that I already explained there are two paths the path of following God and the path of following idols
16:21
Following idols leads to misery Forsaking God's way and going your own way is a horrible place to be
16:31
However The path of following God leads us to deep and lasting joy
16:37
King David writes this in Psalm 16 11. He says you make known to me the path of life in your presence
16:43
There is fullness of joy at your right hand our pleasures forevermore This verse is on our wall as you walk in to our building
16:53
It is there to remind us the true satisfaction comes from following Christ What Psalm 16 11 tells us is that the path of following Jesus is the path of life
17:04
To follow Jesus there is no misery awaiting you and no destruction, but only blessedness this is the offer that Jesus is making to the people on this mountain and to everyone in this room and many of you have already experienced the satisfaction that Jesus is talking about and Jesus is saying hunger for more of this and you and you will be blessed you will be happy To follow
17:32
God is a delight King David said in Psalm 1 verses 1 & 2
17:38
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked nor stands in the way of sinners nor sits in the seat of scoffers
17:45
But his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law. He meditates day and night
17:53
Jesus said in another place in Matthew 11 28 through 30 come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest
18:00
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls
18:08
For my yoke is easy and my burden is light What you come to discover when you follow
18:14
Jesus is what John is what first John 5 3 says? For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not burdensome
18:24
So many people are burdened in our world and you may be coming here today and feel a burden
18:31
You may not feel happy and you've tried everything and you've reached the end of yourself and Jesus holds out his hands and says
18:41
Come to me If you come to me You will never go anywhere else.
18:48
I remember my pastor was telling me his testimony And you and he would do it every couple years.
18:55
He would try something new Then two years ago by he tried something else and then he tried something else then he tried something else
19:02
The thing that he was pursuing would never satisfy him. But once he found
19:09
Jesus He stayed with him Forever to his whole life.
19:16
He stayed with him That's because Jesus satisfies and nothing else can
19:24
Those who taste the Lord is good never become dissatisfied in him. But as the text we have read say
19:31
God is an everlasting fountain that keeps producing more and more satisfaction in our hearts
19:40
Jesus in verse 6 gives us the picture of hunger and thirst. I think you think of your favorite meal Brianne and I we love going to the
19:47
Japanese restaurant Benny Hanna's and We go there every once in a while and and we love going there because the food is just so tasty and we keep coming back for more
19:59
This is what the Christian life is like. None of us attain perfect righteousness while we are on earth The Christian life is one of growing and holiness and killing sin
20:09
But what remains in a believer is a hunger and a thirst to reflect Christ more and this remains all the way to the end of your life
20:18
Our church mission statement says that we are here to grow in the Christ together
20:24
And if we fill that in what we mean is that we are a church that hungers and thirsts
20:29
For righteousness until the day we meet God when we will hunger no more since on that day
20:36
We will be fully righteous at that point. We will be fully satisfied forever
20:44
The reason we are able to hunger and thirst for righteousness Or another way to say it is zealous for good works to be zealous for good works as Titus 2 14 says
20:56
The reason we are able to hunger for righteousness is because we have a deep satisfaction in God this satisfaction is a fullness of joy as You sincerely seek
21:07
God what you find is that you enjoy him God is infinitely glorious and infinitely desirable and when you see him as precious you hunger to reflect his holiness
21:18
What Jesus says in John 14 15 is that if you love me, you will keep my commandments
21:25
Loving and keeping Jesus commandments are two different things here in order to live a righteous life for Jesus something has to happen first What must happen is you must love him?
21:37
Another way to say love is to have affection for another to cherish treasure
21:43
Or to enjoy God If you enjoy God, then you will gladly obey and you will hunger to please him and and to reflect him more what
21:54
Jesus tells us is that true righteousness only comes from God and Believers are those who desire to reflect his glorious righteousness
22:02
This is the path of blessing So to follow
22:08
God in Christ is the only path to true happiness. The fourth way how is by reflecting God in righteousness the fifth way how
22:19
We must follow God in Christ and pursue the path of true happiness is through Showing mercy as You have been shown verse 7 as we just saw in our previous point believers look a certain way an
22:38
Unbeliever hungers and thirst for idols while a believer hungers and thirsts for God and his righteousness
22:44
When when verse 6 refers to righteousness, it's referring to righteousness in every area
22:50
It's a general godly righteousness Now verse 7 focuses on one of those areas of righteousness and let us read that right now
23:01
Blessed are the merciful For they shall receive mercy as we look at this.
23:08
We must first ask the question. What is the biblical definition of mercy? The word mercy is used two different ways in Scripture The first way it is used is to show that God helps those who are facing affliction of some kind in Matthew 9 27 blind men came to Jesus and said to him have mercy on us son of David Then a few verses down what we read is that Jesus healed them
23:31
Jesus showed mercy to people by relieving their suffering This is what we see throughout
23:36
Scripture. God would show mercy upon people by healing them or relieving their suffering in some way
23:43
But there's another way that the word mercy is used in Scripture and all of us need to hear this
23:49
So we are going to look at the parable of the unforgiving servant, let's listen to this closely together
23:55
This powerful parable that Jesus tells in Matthew 18 23 through 35.
24:00
This is what he says And we will see mercy Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants when he began to settle one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents and Since he could not pay his master ordered him to be sold with his wife and children and all that he had and payment to be made
24:24
So the servant fell on his knees imploring him have patience with me And I will pay you everything and out of pity for him
24:34
The master of that servant released him and forgave him the debts But when that same servant went out he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii
24:44
And seizing him he began to choke him saying Pay what you owe
24:50
So his fellow servant fell down and plead with him have patience with me and I will pay you He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt
25:00
When his fellow servants saw what had taken place They were greatly distressed and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place
25:08
Then his master summoned him and said to him you wicked servant I forgive you all that that debt because you pleaded with me and should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you and Anger his master delivered him to the jailers
25:24
Until he should pay all his debt So also my heavenly father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart this is
25:39
One of the most convicting teachings of scripture that you will find the king had a servant
25:44
Who owed him 10 ,000 talents in our modern currency? This would be about six to eight billion dollars
25:53
I learned this from Jerry Bridges book the respectable sins. He gives these modern -day currency numbers
26:01
What Jesus says in this parable is that the king forgives a debt to his servant that he would never be able to pay
26:08
But when the servant leaves the king's presence, he finds a fellow servant who owed him 100 denarii in our modern modern currency this would be about ten to fifteen thousand dollars a
26:19
Good piece of change. Yes, but nothing compared to six to eight billion dollars that that was owed the king
26:26
This servant had just been forgiven an enormous debt and he refused to forgive a much smaller debt owed to him
26:34
At the end of the parable Jesus explains the meaning of it and the meaning is clear my father
26:43
Has shown so much mercy to you by forgiving you your debt of sin and so if someone sins against you you
26:57
Should be eagerly willing to forgive them. That's what that's the point of this parable
27:04
So this is the other way that mercy is used in scripture And this is what this beatitude has in mind what
27:12
Jesus has in mind You need to forgive as you have been forgiven one clear
27:20
Mark of one who will one day live in God's kingdom is that he or she is willing to forgive the sins of others in This life and the reason for this is crystal clear what you have been forgiven by God is so much greater
27:32
As the Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 432 be kind to one another tender -hearted Forgiving one another as God and Christ forgave you
27:41
As we talked about last week our sins against God places in a position where there's nothing we can do
27:48
We have a debt that we can never repay it is like our national debt in America. That is over 20 trillion dollars
27:55
That is a debt that will probably never be repaid Some loan companies that do school loans have a debt of forgive debt forgiveness program
28:06
What they tell you is that if you work for the state for 10 years your debt will be forgiven
28:13
They set this up for students who have hundreds of thousands of school debt and these loans these loans are just piled up And these this money is something that they may never be able to Repay this money that they owe
28:34
When you have a debt they cannot be paid the only hope is that someone forgive that forgives this
28:40
Our debt to God for our sin is something that we can never repay The only hope we have is that God forgives us of our sins and gives us a completely clean slate
28:52
God does this in Christ? Jesus paid our debt for us when he went to the cross and our sins were placed on him and God's justice was satisfied when he poured out his holy wrath upon him as We think about this beatitude blessed are the merciful
29:06
The first question I ask you is are you forgiven? Has your enormous debt the debt you could never pay
29:13
God has that been erased? Through the cross of Jesus Christ when you put your trust in him
29:20
It's wonderful that our debt is repaid Because of Christ if we believe if we sincerely trust him
29:29
Secondly if you are forgiven, how are you doing in forgiving others? Do you show mercy as God has shown mercy to you.
29:37
This is a clear mark of true believers and you may say pastor Seth What another person has done to me is so Serious, how can
29:47
I forgive? What I say to that is yes, it's important to Stress that forgiving another does not a take take away the seriousness of the sin or the hurt it caused
29:59
But what scripture is clear on is that you must forgive What forgiveness means that you don't count it against them?
30:06
You don't treat them poorly and you don't keep reminding them of what they did to you If you're doing any of these things you to someone and you say you've forgiven the truth is you haven't forgiven
30:17
True forgiveness needs to take place True forgiveness moves on It's not that you've forgotten you can't forget the memory
30:26
But but anger doesn't rise in your heart when you think of the person and you don't hold it against them to do this
30:36
To be merciful to others to forgive others is so unlike how the world operates But it is the obedience that God calls for each and every one of us to have
30:45
If you don't forgive then you don't realize how great your sin is against God. It is infinitely worse
30:51
Than what one has done against you. This is sadly all too common among Christians.
30:59
We are too slow to forgive To refuse to forgive someone is sinful and there needs to be repentance
31:05
What we must understand is that this Instruction like all others in the Beatitudes is the road to true happiness
31:13
Jesus tells us that those who forgive are happy people as he says blessed are the merciful To hold bitterness in your heart toward another person is a miserable experience
31:22
This anger that sometimes resides in our hearts is not the road to happiness We all know people who constantly hold bitterness and we would not describe them as happy people
31:34
One who does not show mercy to others is an angry person and one who is always angry is not a happy person
31:40
So we must heed this call from the Lord Jesus to be merciful to others so to follow
31:47
God in Christ is the only path to true happiness and the fifth way how is Through showing mercy as you have been shown
31:56
So we've seen the third fourth and fifth Beatitudes This morning we've seen that the meek are happy that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are happy and the merciful are
32:11
Happy and may we follow Jesus in living this out as his disciples
32:19
Now next Sunday, we're gonna look at the final three Beatitudes we're gonna look at The blessed are the pure in heart blessed aren't the peacemakers and blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake
32:35
And so we are gonna wrap up this Powerful introduction the Beatitudes that were given by Jesus Christ before he moves into the body of his sermon
32:43
And so we will see much next Sunday, and I look forward to opening that with you. Let's pray father in heaven
32:51
Thank you for your word And I just have a simple prayer here Lord that that anyone who can
32:58
Hear my voice right now would live this out That we would hunger and thirst for righteousness that we would be meek that we would be merciful these are
33:11
The blessed people on the earth and these are the gonna be the plus plus people in the future who reign with you forever