“What Jesus Says About Adultery” – Matt. 5:27-30

2/22/15  Christ Fellowship

“What Jesus Says About Adultery” – Matt. 5:27-30

I want you to use your imagination with me this morning. We are all soldiers in a fierce battle that has been waging for some time.  We are pinned down on one side of a battlefield that has been filled with landmines.  We have to go forward but we know that if we step in the wrong spot it will mean certain death and we know this because some of us have done it and paid the price.  So we hunker down and try to come up with a plan.

Just then we look across the big field and we see one of our own on the other side.  One of our men has somehow made it and he is encouraging us to follow him.  He says, “Just come straight across right through there.  I found the way.  It’s safe.”  So, we, of course, believe him and start to go across but we realize quickly that it is a trap.  Members of our team are dying all around us because this man betrayed us and now our whole squad is in danger of being killed by the enemy.

We finally make it back to the original side and our betrayer has come back with us acting like nothing is wrong, in fact offering to cook us dinner.  How do you feel about that?  This man who we thought was our friend has made the choice to lead many of us to death and yet here he is expecting us to take him back like nothing happened.  What do you do?  You know he’s a really friendly guy.  He has a great sense of humor and he’s a great cook.  So, maybe we should give him another chance, right?

Of course not!  What do you do with that person?  You get rid of him.  Maybe you even kill him.  He has proven himself to be an enemy so you certainly don’t let him back in.  At the very least you send him back to our side to be tried and put in prison but the last thing we would do is just continue to accept him as one of our own.  That’s just obvious and yet every day in reality we do basically the same thing with sin in our lives

We put ourselves in position to be tempted knowing that the Bible says that the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23).  We know that Satan prowls around like a lion (1 Peter 5:8) waiting for his opportunity to kill you dead and yet we still want to dabble in it.  We still want to just get a little taste.  It’s just like Satan himself standing on the other side of the minefield saying, “Come out just a little further.  It’s safe.”

Let me change the scenario for a second.  Let’s say you come home from work, have dinner, put on your slippers and kick back in your La-Z-Boy with the remote in your hand.  Just then the doorbell rings and there is a half-naked couple standing at your door.  “Hey, we want to have sex.  Can we borrow your living room for a while?”  What do you do?  You shut the door and call 911 if it’s reality and yet if it comes on TV…well, it’s just the way the world is nowadays.  That’s how our culture is.  But Jesus says that His disciples will be counter-cultural.

We will be counter-cultural and so much so that when we find ourselves tempted, not only do we resist that temptation then we also never let ourselves be put in that position to be tempted by that thing again.  We get rid of whatever led to that temptation like we would a traitor trying to kill us.  There is no wriggle room here.  There are no second chances.  The source of the temptation has to go and the world may think we are crazy.  They may make fun of us, tell us we are missing out, that we are uneducated and old-fashioned.

Do you remember what Jesus said about situations like that in the beatitudes?  Matthew 5:11 says we are blessed when people insult us like that.  I want to continue looking at this sermon Jesus preached on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.  We are disciples of Jesus Christ around here and because of that we know that our purpose is to learn from Jesus and then teach and encourage others with what we have learned.  So we are learning what Jesus said as He taught His other disciples so many years ago.

Matthew 5-7 is the Sermon on the Mount and we see Jesus here preaching about some pretty sensitive subjects but His overall theme is that His disciples will be radically different from the rest of the world.  The world, then and now, can’t understand how His words could possibly be true.  He wasn’t politically correct.  His message was the opposite of everything they believed and even hard to take in yet it didn’t keep Jesus from preaching and teaching what would become for us and others a life-changing and even life-saving message.

This includes what He said in Matthew 5:27-30 and I encourage you to look in your Bibles there to follow along with me as I read.  In the Bible in front of you in the pew it is probably on page ???  Look with me there to see what Jesus had to say specifically about adultery and lust but it also applies to other kinds of sin as well. 

Matthew 5:27-30 says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ ²⁸ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. ²⁹ If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. ³⁰ And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.”

You will notice that Jesus starts this passage by saying, “You have heard that it was said…” It is the same thing He said in the previous passage talking about murder in verse 21. “You have heard that it was said…” Where would they have heard it said? In the Law; the 10 Commandments, the Law of Moses found in the first five books of the Bible. Those Old Testament laws were found in what the Hebrews called the Pentateuch (the first 5 books) but specifically in the Torah. There was a total of 613 laws in the Torah written by Moses concerning all aspects of life.

Jesus is here saying that the Law says this but I say that. Now, is that blasphemy? Is Jesus changing or getting rid of the Old Testament laws and making His own? I wish I had time to preach through every word of this Sermon on the Mount by Jesus and I would bring this out more but Jesus answers those questions in verse 17. Go back a little and read that. Verse 17 says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”

Jesus is not doing away with them at all. He is just redefining them as only He could; with the authority that only He has. The Old Testament Pharisees would have not seen any problem with thinking about or dwelling on any sin as long as it wasn’t acted upon but Jesus changes that thinking. Today He would say, “Yeah, I know Webster’s dictionary defines the word that way. But I am changing the definition.” Then in these 6 major topics in chapter 5 He not only changes the definitions but broadens them considerably.

He says you have heard that doing these things is wrong but I am here to tell you that even thinking about them is wrong and offensive to God. It is sin. In verse 27 He is talking about adultery. Let’s define adultery because we will be talking about it today AND next week when we see what Jesus says about divorce.

Adultery is basically having sex with someone not your spouse; someone with whom you are not legally married.  Now, we all would agree that is wrong.  But Jesus is saying that just thinking lustfully about someone not your spouse is sin.  Man, that’s so mean of Jesus to say that, right?  God just doesn’t want us to have any fun, does He?  He is just a big ol’ meanie-head waiting for us to mess up so He can karate chop us into dust.

Or…maybe that’s just how the world sees Him and we know that everything Jesus taught here was counter-cultural so maybe God really does love us and is just trying to protect us by giving us these rules.  I’m pretty sure that’s it.  Aren’t you?  But how and why do we keep from thinking lustfully and sinning when the world we live in not only accepts it but actually promotes it?

I have three brief points that will hopefully help all of us with this and not only lust but other sins as well to some degree. 

·         It starts in the mind

·         It shames the body

·         It is stopped at the source

The first thing to realize is that all sin starts in the mind.  That’s why Jesus has broadened these sins to include just thinking about them.  Jesus also said in Mark 7, “For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, ²² adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.”  So, all of these sins, not just lust but all sins start with just a thought.

If that is the case; if all sin starts with a thought, then let’s change the way we think.  Look around.  Every single person you see is somebody very special to somebody else.

Every one is a mother or daughter or sister or aunt.  Every one is or has been the apple of her daddy’s eye, her mama’s pride and joy, the gift from God that some man would kill or die for; a fearfully and wonderfully made mystery that no man will ever fully understand but who is made in God’s own image and created for a reason and that reason DOES NOT include your thinking of her in ways that include sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance or folly!

When we change the way we think, it changes the way we see each other.  I want to bring up another aspect of this but it, too, comes back to this.  Ladies, you have a responsibility to look and act like I just described you.  When you dress immodestly, you can expect to have people think immodest thoughts toward you.  You may think that skin is in but I am here to tell you that skin is sin.

You don’t have to dress like a Puritan to look pure.  I’m not advocating long sleeves and long skirts so no scandalous bare ankle shows.  I’m saying you can look attractive without looking seductive.  Also, I have to say that I don’t think I am talking to anybody here.  It just needs to be said.  I appreciate the way our ladies dress.  As a pastor and as a man, I appreciate it. 

It all starts in our minds but includes how we think of each other and ultimately how we think of ourselves.  Those poor Hollywood celebrity sex symbols need somebody to tell them they are fearfully and wonderfully made and in God’s image.  Then maybe they would put some clothes on if they knew they were valued with them on.  Speaking of clothes, Romans 13:14 says, “Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.

 

Lustful thinking and all sin starts in the mind but lust especially shames the body.  Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 6, “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. ¹⁹ Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; ²⁰ you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.”

Proverbs 6:32 says, “He who commits adultery lacks sense; he who does it destroys himself.”  We are all fearfully and wonderfully made.  That’s from Psalm 139, by the way, not from me.  God made us special and He made us in His image.  Then the Bible says that we are bought at a price.  Picture that.  God created us from nothing to be something special and then paid the ultimate price for our eternal lives and then we damage the product – the actual temple where He resides – by our lustful thoughts.

I read this week that recent medical research has shown that the addictive nature of lust actually alters brain activity and therefore how we think.  It makes it harder for us to see what is truth.  Romans 1 says, “Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. ²⁵ They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator.”   When Jesus said not to lust, it was said with concern for those He loves.  He wants us to know the truth and the truth is that lust, like so many other sins, is addictive and will bring physical and mental shame.

We as believers are bought with a price and that price was for all of us, not just our souls.  We have no right to bring shame on our minds or our bodies.  That is why Jesus spoke of the extreme measures that have to be taken to stop this sin at the source.  It starts in our minds.  It shames the body and it is stopped at the source.  Going back to verses 29 and 30, Jesus says we should pluck out or cut off the offending body part.  This was also mentioned later in this Gospel where He even mentions the foot as well.  Sounds pretty extreme to me.

Well, while these statements are examples of our Lord’s use of dramatic figures of speech – He is not saying we are to mutilate our bodies – He is talking about but a ruthless moral self-denial.  Not mutilation but mortification or taking up the cross to follow Christ means to reject sin so resolutely that we die to them or put them to death. (John R W Stott, p. 89)

Gary Richmond, a former zoo keeper, had this to say: Raccoons go through a glandular change at about 24 months. After that they often attack their owners. Since a 30-pound raccoon can be equal to a 100-pound dog in a scrap, I felt compelled to mention the change coming to a pet raccoon owned by a young friend of mine, Julie. She listened politely as I explained the coming danger. I'll never forget her answer. "It will be different for me. . ." And she smiled as she added, "Bandit wouldn't hurt me. He just wouldn't." Three months later Julie underwent plastic surgery for facial lacerations sustained when her adult raccoon attacked her for no apparent reason. Gary Richmond, View From The Zoo.

Too often, in fact, every time we allow sin of any kind, but especially lust, to continue growing in our lives it turns to destroy us.  Remember the story I started with about the soldier who betrayed us?  What did we do with him?  We didn’t give him another chance to hurt us, did we?  We got rid of him.  Jesus is saying here that the source of our temptations needs to be cut off.

What did Joseph do when Potiphar’s wife came on to him in Genesis 39?  Did he try to convince her not to?  Did they sit down and have a long talk about it?  Maybe he figured that just a little adultery would be ok, right?  No!  He ran immediately.  She grabbed him by the coat and he left the coat in her hands.  The coat was not worth it! 

Where does your temptation start?  This is something you really need to consider and it doesn’t matter if we are talking about lust, greed, gossip, lying, stealing, murder, theft or any other sin.  Where are you and what are you doing when that first thought comes to you?  It’s not even a temptation yet.  It’s just a thought.  James 1 says, “each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. ¹⁵ Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”

What are you doing when that first desire hits you?  Are you shopping, watching TV, maybe even at work?  I heard about a young man who joined the army and every week he had to get a haircut.  The problem was that the barber had put up a bunch of pictures of women all around the barber shop and the young man was forced to look at them while his hair was cut and he had to get it cut.  So…he bought his own clippers and never went back.

The point is that no matter what the root problem is it has to go.  If it is your job, get another.  “Oh that’s real easy for you to say preacher man.  You don’t know how hard it is to get a job around here.”  Maybe not but I know that God will honor your efforts and He will provide.  I’ve seen it too many times.

Is it your TV that is the problem?  Get rid of it.  I’m not kidding.  Neither was Jesus when He said that no matter what it is to get rid of it and never take it back.  Don’t let the internet or your friends or your family or anything else in the world be the tool that Satan uses to kill you dead.  Because that is exactly what he is trying to do and has done to countless others that never thought it could happen.

Do you want to be a real disciple of Jesus?  Do you really want to be able to make changes in this nasty old world?  Do you want your neighbors, friends and family to have a relationship with Jesus?  It won’t happen if you are being dragged down by that same old sin that you keep struggling with.

Remember, it starts in the mind and it shames the body but it can be stopped if you make the decision to stop it at its source.

Everybody is different and everybody struggles with different things and in different ways but if you have never truly become a disciple of Jesus and repented of your sins and started following Him then you will always struggle.  Being a believer doesn’t mean you will never sin or even never struggle with sin.  But it does mean that with the help of the Holy Spirit and the power of God’s Word you can overcome those habits or even addictions.  If you don’t believe me then come see me and I will introduce you to some folks that can prove it.

Maybe today you need to ask Jesus to be Lord of your life.  Or maybe you need to rededicate your life to Him or join the church.  I would love to pray about that with you this morning.  Come right now as the music plays.

"What Jesus says about Salt and Light" - Matthew 5:13-16

Did I tell you I was thinking about getting a couple of goats? I’m tired of mowing all the time and thought it would be interesting to get a couple goats. I was driving down the little farm road over there the other day and I saw some goats out in the field and so I stopped into the little farmhouse to ask about them. I knocked on the door and this old farmer came to the door wearing his overalls tucked into his boots – no shirt – and asked if he could help me. I asked him how much he thought one of his goats might be worth. He looked me up and down and real slowly said, “Well that depends. Are you a tax collector or did you just hit one with your car?”

And I thought that was a good question. He wanted some perspective on who I was. We all know that things change with our perspective or lack of and this old guy was trying to get the right perspective on me before he answered. It is important that we have godly perspective. Godly perspective is the difference in the men of Israel looking at Goliath and thinking, “He is so big we can never kill him.” And then David looking at Goliath and thinking, “He’s so big I can’t miss him.”

And just like that farmer’s answers were going to change based on who I was, our perspective changes how we think of our problems, our friends, our family, our church and most of all ourselves. Perspective is basically just comparing things so we can make good judgments. It’s how we all got here this morning. When we have good perspective we can see that we need to make a left hand turn but that rock truck is coming way too fast so we make the wise decision to just wait until it passes.

The problem with our self-perspective is that we too often compare ourselves to the wrong thing, namely…everybody else. When we compare ourselves to everybody else, our perspective is warped and we will invariably see ourselves like in a funhouse mirror. We are either too fat or too thin, tall or short. That’s why I don’t like mirrors at all. I can’t find a good one. I look short, fat and bald in every mirror I try. I don’t know what it is.

But what we should do is have a godly perspective, especially when it comes to how we view ourselves. A lot of things would change if we viewed ourselves like God sees us instead of how other people see us. We talked last week about how a good name is better than money and my definition of a good name is the name by which you are known by God. If God says you have a good name then it doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks.

The right perspective, godly perspective will allow us to see ourselves as God sees us and just like our name, that can be good or bad but it will be truthful and so we can make wise decisions based on that truth. Did you know that the faster you go the less perspective you have? The Texas Driver’s Handbook has a drawing that helps illustrate this. It shows that when we are not moving, we have a field of vision of about 180 degrees. At 20 mph the field of vision is reduced by 2/3. At 40 mph it is reduced by 2/5 and at 60 mph the field of vision is barely wider than the width of the beams of the headlights.

So, for the next few weeks, I would like to slow down and take an honest look at who we are, where we are, whose we are and what we are as God sees us and as He tells us in His Word. The first one we are going to look at is in the book of Matthew in the most famous sermon ever preached, the Sermon on the Mount. When someone asks you, “Who are you?” what do you tell them? You tell them your name and you tell them what you do. You tell them your work history.

But we all know that is not really who we are. It is just our way of answering the question. Who we really are can be a complex and dynamic answer but the real answer comes from who God says we are.  When God says you are someone, then that’s who you are. And in this popular passage in Matthew chapter 5, Jesus says that we are salt and light.

I have to say that I love to think about being able to have been there and to have seen some of the incredible incidents of the Bible. I would love to have seen God part the Red Sea or to have seen David kill Goliath. I would love to have seen Moses come down from the mountain with the 10 Commandments or Daniel walking around and petting the hungry lions in the den.

But I have to say that I would love to have seen and heard Jesus preach this sermon. He wasn’t much to look at and he didn’t have a microphone and yet He obviously had their complete attention. Nobody fell asleep or had to leave early, I’m sure. But preaching radical truth will have that effect on people.

Let’s read a very small passage from that sermon in Matthew 5:13-16 and hopefully we can glean some truth about who we are in God’s eyes.

¹³ “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. ¹⁴ “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. ¹⁵ Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. ¹⁶ In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

If you are taking notes and you like an outline, the 2 main points I have for this are

· We are to be salt not sugar

· And we are to be light not shade.

Jesus used 2 common items to describe who we are. Everybody knew the qualities of salt and light. There were, no doubt, many fishermen in the audience that day and when they brought their catch in for the day, the first thing they did was put salt on it to keep it from going bad, to preserve it and keep it fresh. They knew that salt had healing properties and without antibiotics, I’m sure they often used it in that way.

They weren’t too far from the Dead Sea as Jesus preached to them and I’m sure that a lot of their salt came from there. I have been there and actually swam in the Dead Sea, which was fun, but I saw that there was so much salt that it would wash up on shore and then the wind and the sun would actually leach all the saltiness out of it and this is basically what Jesus was talking about when the salt would lose its saltiness.

I have said many times that everybody wants to know the truth. Nobody wants to go through life deceived and so deep down they long for the saltiness of truth. The sad fact, though, is that while they long for the salt, they are attracted to the sugar. They love to hear about God’s love and patience and forgiveness. Everybody has a sweet tooth when it comes to God. They crave the sweetness of having somebody to fall back on when they are in a jam. When they hit rock bottom from making poor decisions, it’s so sweet to know that God will save them.

And while that is true; God will save and forgive; there is a time and place for the sweetness. Have you ever mixed up salt and sugar? Have you ever put salt in your coffee or sugar on your popcorn? It’s awful. It’s just wrong. It ruins the whole thing. And while there is nothing wrong with a little sugar used in the right way, Jesus is encouraging us to be salt even when people wish we were sugar.

Salt is the truth that keeps this world from going bad and preserves it from corruption. Salt is used as truth to cure and heal and is what is needed in this sin-sick world that is dying with festering and putrid wounds of sin. The world is dying in their sin and the only thing they want from the doctor is a lollipop.

When Jesus says we are to be salt, He is saying that we are to be the medicine that saves by speaking the truth that saves. The truth is that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life and no man comes to the Father except through Him. And when the world hears that they say, “Oh, that’s just too salty. I need a little sugar with that.” And then they go find someone who will sweeten that truth to the point that all the truth is leached out of it.

2 Timothy 4:3 says, “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.” Do you think that’s true? Do you think we are in that time? Let me give you some proof that we are in the time of people gathering teachers around them to sugar up the truth of the Gospel until it is not good for anything.

I actually had another illustration in mind but this was put on my desk just this week. It is an article out of the Star-Telegram from Monday, June 3, 2013. In it the new pope, Pope Francis is quoted. Now, it’s no big secret that I’m not a big fan of the new pope. For starters, I was pretty disappointed that I was not elected to be the first Baptist pope. I think I could have done well. But also, what kind of name is Francis for a guy, even a pope?

I even had a name picked out had I been elected pope. I would have called myself Pope Hank. That’s a good, solid name, one that can be appreciated by the common man. Anyhow, if I had been elected you would not have read this about Pope Hank: Pope Francis made headlines for saying that all people are redeemed by Christ, whether they’re Catholics or even nonbelievers. If someone says they are an atheist, the pope was quoted as saying, “Do good and we’ll meet there.” He said, “The Lord has redeemed all of us…all of us, not just Catholics.”

How’s that for not putting up with sound doctrine and saying what itching ears want to hear? How’s that for sugar? There’s so much sugar there that not only did I get diabetes just reading it, but it has sweetened up the Gospel until the Gospel is good for nothing. In fact, if what he says were true, then not only is the Gospel of Jesus worthless but the suffering of Jesus on the cross was worthless and the pope’s job is worthless as well.

Nowhere does Jesus tell us to be sugar. Jesus wasn’t sugar. He never glossed over things to make his teachings appealing. He told the rich young ruler that the man couldn’t get into Heaven and love the world. He told the woman about to be stoned to go and sin no more. He told His disciples that in following Him they may not even have a place to lay their heads. The Gospel is sweet and wonderful on its own. Don’t sacrifice truth for attraction.

Now, the only thing worse than not having enough salt is too much salt. Have you ever for some reason gotten a mouth full of salt? Don’t use this as an excuse to be harsh and caustic. Colossians 4:6 tells us to let our conversations always be full of grace. But even then it says that our conversations should be “seasoned with salt”.

In the next verse in our passage this morning, verse 14, Jesus tells us we are the light of the world. I would imagine that to be told that was quite a shock for them. They were simple fishermen and shopkeepers, housewives and workers. How were they supposed to be light? And not only light but light to the whole world! And while they were probably astonished by it, I think most of the time we just don’t believe it.

WA Criswell said, “It just never occurs to us to believe that God’s people are the light of the world. For to us, we have unconsciously become persuaded that reason is the light of the world; enlightened self-interest is the light of the world, science is the light of the world, ingenuity and human inventiveness is the light of the world, but not God’s people. They are not the light of the world. But the Lord said so, “Ye are the light of the world.”

And Jesus clarifies what it means to be the light of the world. The light is our good works. In verse 16 He tells us to let our lights shine before men that they will see our good works and (not give us glory) but praise our Father in Heaven. And how is it that when we do good works that God will get glory? How is it that people will see what we do and know that we are Jesus-followers?

Jesus tells us the answer to that in John 13:35, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” When we do good deeds and show that we love each other by doing good to people who hate us and showing love to people who can’t pay us back then we will stand out from the rest of the world. It’s not uncommon for unbelievers to do good in this world but it is uncommon for them to do good with no hope of being paid back or getting something out of it.

And so the problem is that most of us are not really standing out from the world. Oh, we’re not evil. We aren’t darkness necessarily. We are more like shade. When people see us they see that we are good people. They feel comfortable around us and like to be around us and that’s good. And sometimes there is a break in our leaves and some light actually falls on them but most of the time we just allow them to be whoever they want to be and we will shield them from the light and the truth because we don’t want to offend them.

And they don’t ever feel the warmth of the light but they don’t get the coldness of the darkness from us either. And in doing so it’s hard to tell us from them. God has a subtle little word for people who are like that. The original Greek word is “Blech!” In Revelation 3:16, God says, “So, because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”

And just like the salt that has lost its saltiness and is good for nothing, if you settle for being shade instead of light, God wants to have nothing to do with you. There is all the difference in the world between believers and non-believers and it should be obvious. Everything Jesus taught was counter-cultural. The first will be last and last first. If you want to have riches, give them away. If you are feeling bad, do something good for somebody else. All of that goes against the grain of the world and so it should be obvious to people when they are around us that something is very different.

John Stott says, “Probably the greatest tragedy of the church throughout its long and chequered history has been its constant tendency to conform to the prevailing culture instead of developing a Christian counter-culture.” Do you know what the prevailing culture thinks about church most of the time? They’re ok with it. It’s not hurting anything. They can do their thing as long as they don’t bother me. That’s what they think. They even like to come every so often and enjoy the shade.

I don’t know about you but I don’t want to be that kind of church. I don’t want to be that kind of believer. I want when people see us for them to shield their eyes because they see our selfless good works and can’t help but see the glory of God. I want them to feel the sting of the salt as it heals their wounds. If it doesn’t then it’s not healing their sin-sickness. We aren’t called to be sugar or shade. We are called to be salt and light. God calls us salt and light and when we see ourselves as He sees us, it changes our perspective. And when we have the right perspective, it changes how we make choices.

Ask God what choices He wants you to make today.  Is today the day you make the choice to be salt to your neighbor or co-worker and tell them the truth about Jesus?  Is there something good you could do for a friend or a fellow church-member; something for which you could do and not get any credit or be paid back?  When you have the right perspective, you will make those choices.

Maybe today you don’t make the right choices or have the right perspective because you don’t have the Holy Spirit living in your life as a follower and disciple of Jesus. The Bible says that we can ask Him to come into our lives to live and that when we ask Him to do that then we are also in Him. The Bible says that for those in Christ there is no condemnation. The Bible says that the sting of death is gone for those that are in Christ.  You don’t have to worry.  You don’t have to live in frustration anymore.  You don’t have to have any more fear.

Let’s bow our heads and close our eyes as the music plays, “Tis So Sweet To Trust In Jesus”.

 

“What Jesus Said” – Happiness – Matthew 5:1-12

I don’t want you to answer or give me any kind of sign but I just want you to think about this simple question. Are you happy? Would you consider yourself to be a happy person overall? For some of you that may be an easy question to answer either way; yes or no. Some of you may have a more difficult time with it because we all want to be able to say we are happy, but we also want to be honest with ourselves. That’s why I asked that you not raise your hand.

We all know that knowledge is power yet while knowledge may equal power, knowledge is not happiness. But even though knowledge does not equal happiness, I have come to know through some studying just what does bring happiness. Do you believe that? Do you believe that I, Todd Blair, a no-name, far from wealthy, short, fat and bald, redneck preacher with no great schooling or training could possibly know what the vast majority of people who have ever lived do not know; how to be happy?

It’s true…and all you have to do is send me 4 payments of $29.95 to the address on the screen and I will share it with you. No, no, I’m kidding. I’m going to tell you how to be happy and I don’t mean how to be a little bit happy; how to be 51% happy and 49% unhappy. I’m not talking about Christmas morning-I-got-stuff happy. I mean I know how to be happy that includes joy, contentment, fulfilled, complete and satisfied kind of happiness; a John 10:10, not just a full calendar but a full life, pressed down shaken together and running over kind of happiness.

The good news on top of this good news is that it is not some hair-brained scheme I came up with. And all the people said, “Amen!” I got it from the greatest sermon ever preached and I am not talking about Speedy’s sermon here last week. I’m talking about the Sermon on the Mount preached by Jesus Himself and recorded by Matthew in the first Gospel. I know how to be happy because it is written in red in the Bible.

If you haven’t already, I invite you to turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 5. In the Bible in the holder in front of you it is probably on page 683. For the next few weeks I would like to look at the Sermon on the Mount to see what Jesus said about some interesting topics. We just finished our series on making disciples and we learned that a disciple is one who learns from Jesus and then teaches and encourages others with what they learn.

If we are going to do that; if we are going to learn from Jesus and then teach what He said then we better know what it is that He said, right? What better way to do that than to go right to the source in what is considered to be the ultimate sermon ever preached? Jesus had been teaching, preaching and healing for some time and His fame was beginning to grow and so He intentionally got out of town and went up the side of a hill along the shore of the Sea of Galilee and began to do some intensive teaching to His disciples.

This is the longest discourse we have in scripture of Jesus teaching and yet if it was all one sermon the whole thing would only have lasted a few minutes. Yet we could camp out here, as some have, for months or years dissecting all that His words meant to those hearing them and what they mean for us as disciples today. So, turn to Matthew 5:1-12and let’s see how Jesus said we can be happy.

Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, ² and he began to teach them. He said: ³ “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
⁴ Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.⁵ Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. ⁶ Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. ⁷ Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. ⁸ Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. ⁹ Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. ¹⁰ Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ¹¹ “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. ¹² Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

This small section of Jesus’ sermon is called the Beatitudes. Most people have read this or seen this or heard somebody quote at least part of it and yet it is one of the most misunderstood passages simply, I believe, because people want to misunderstand it. People think,“I’m poor. I mourn. I am more merciful than the next guy so I should be blessed. How come I’m not blessed?”

Or they see this as Jesus’ plan of salvation. They think if they can just show a little mercy and be more pure than their neighbor then surely they deserve Heaven. But both of those ideas are misplaced. This was not spoken to unbelievers as a way to earn their salvation. Nor was this spoken to people as a kind of New Testament 10 Commandments. Jesus is saying to them and to us that these spiritual conditions will be met by His true disciples.

Can you imagine the feeling that the people got when Jesus stopped walking, sat down and started to teach and His first word was “Blessed”? For them “blessed” was a kind of divine joy and perfect happiness reserved for the gods themselves and here is Jesus saying they can partake in that as well. If you can’t put yourself in their shoes and think that way, then I’m sure you still can understand how they thought because it is the same way people think today. People think that true happiness, joy, contentment and peace is an illusion but throughout this sermon Jesus unfolds the blueprint for having just that.

Not just these beatitudes but His whole sermon through chapter 7 describes how to ultimately be happy and fulfilled and do you know what it comes down to? It comes down to watching what the world does; seeing how unbelievers live their lives trying to be happy…and doing just the opposite. Watch what people of the world do. Watch how they live, laugh and love; see what direction they are going in and then go in the exact opposite direction.

When unbelievers read this, they cannot understand it. It makes absolutely no sense to them. They read, “Happy are the poor in spirit? No way! Happy are those who mourn? That’s ridiculous! Happy are the meek? Happy are the merciful, pure and peacemakers? That’s the opposite of the truth! Happy are the rich and powerful and bold and clever.” That’s what they think. It is how man is born to think. But when we come to a life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ He transforms us with a renewing of our mind.

He doesn’t just make some changes to how we think. He gives us a new mind; a mind that starts to think as He thinks and then we are able to crack open each beatitude and understand that when Jesus says in verse 3 that blessed are the poor in spirit we know that He is not talking about being physically poor. He means to come to God understanding that we are spiritually poor.

We have nothing with which to buy or earn our way into Heaven or relationship with Him. We are completely bankrupt spiritually. We can’t do enough good things. We can’t be who we are supposed to be. We can’t live like we are supposed to live without His grace, mercy and gifts; gifts that He gives and can take away as He sees fit and that is okay because we know we didn’t bring anything to the table. If we have anything –life, breath, talents, relationships – it is because God has given them as gifts.

I’m reminded of a passage we read not long ago where Jesus is praying in the garden in John 17. He tells the Father that everything I have is yours and everything you have is mine. That should be our attitude as well. It should make you happy to say, “Lord, I give everything I have to you because I know that you have given it to me and I know that everything you have is mine…and I know You are loaded!”

Until you have some understanding of that foundational truth, you will never have part in the Kingdom of Heaven. Then that perfectly segways into the next beatitude which says blessed are those who mourn. Again Jesus is speaking spiritually but how and why do we mourn spiritually? We mourn, or we should mourn, because even though we have been shown great mercy and given great gifts we still sin. We have sinned. We are sinners. Even when we don’t want to anymore, we still find ourselves running toward sin.

My dogs are finally learning to stay away from skunks. It has taken quite a few lessons and quite a few baths but they are finally learning that those are not funny looking cats and that they should stay well away from them. Even my dogs who enjoy mud puddles and rolling in dead things know that skunks smell bad. But it is my understanding that skunks don’t think they smell bad. They don’t think other skunks smell bad. They smell just fine to other skunks.

But can you imagine if skunks were given human noses and human brains that could realize just how bad they smelled? Can you imagine how bad a skunk would feel if he knew he was associated with such vile and disgusting odor? He would feel awful! That’s us. We are skunks. Our sin is offensive and disgusting to Almighty God and it should make us grieve and mourn to know that our sin smells so bad.

But Jesus says that in the end we should be happy that we realize that because we will be comforted by God’s grace and mercy and that he sees us, His true disciples, like He sees Jesus. Second Corinthians 5:21 says, “God made Him (Jesus) who had no sin to become sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” I smell like a skunk but I am greatly comforted, in fact, it makes me happy that Jesus takes away that horrible stench.

Okay, there is no way that verse 5 is true, right? I mean, how can the meek possibly inherit the earth? Everybody knows that only the strong survive; only the bold get old and only the rough and tough get the stuff! That’s just obvious. Or is it? The first mistake people make is misunderstanding the word “meek”. Meekness is not weakness. It means to have strength under control. It is the picture of a powerful horse under control.

Think about the happy people that you know. We all know of people who have great highs and great lows in their lives. It seems like one minute they are on fire on the mountain and then the next they are frozen in the valley. Are those the happy people? Not usually. Meekness is really just having a true vision of yourself and your circumstances. It is knowing that on the mountain or in the valley that God is in control of the situation.

My friend David says this in Psalm 37: Verse 8says, “Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret – it only leads to evil. For evil men will be cut off, but those who hope in the Lord will inherit the land.” Did you catch that – inherit the land? Let me read on. Verse 10 says, “A little while and the wicked will be no more; though you look for them they will not be found. But the meek will inherit the land and enjoy great peace.”

When you understand who you are and Who God really is then it brings great peace and comfort and even happiness knowing that you don’t have to bow up and get angry and get revenge and scream and holler. God is in control so why would you do that? Then because you show that your strength is under control, you have all the peace and joy that is available to anybody here on this earth. That makes you happy, right?

Now, I know that at this point in the service that some of you are looking at the passage. You are looking at the remaining beatitudes seeing that we have gotten through three of them. We have five more. You’re looking at your watch. You’re looking at the passage. You’re making some mental notes trying to figure out just how much longer this is going to last and you have good reason to wonder because you’re starting to get hungry.

I know I’m not supposed to mention it because even if you weren’t thinking that and feeling hungry…well you are now. That’s good because I want you to think about how it feels to be hungry. If I were to keep going and going and going like the Energizer preacher (and I promise I won’t) at some point you would have to just excuse yourself and go get something to eat. Some of you are just minutes away from that right now but if you will hang in there a little longer I promise to get to some good stuff.

At some point, you wouldn’t care what people thought. You wouldn’t care what other people were doing. You have to get something to eat! That’s what Jesus is talking about here but in the spiritual sense. We should hunger and thirst after righteousness. Righteousness is just having a right standing with God and we have that right standing only by being obedient to what He says to do.

Blessed, happy, are those who don’t care what other people think. They don’t care what other people are doing – even if it is the majority. They crave, they hunger, they thirst like a man in the desert for a right standing with God. We as disciples know that good works don’t get us to Heaven. It’s not about that. It’s about showing our love to the One Who loved us first and so we obey Him.

When we do that; when we crave, desire, have to have a right standing with God, not just mourning over past sin but longing for future righteousness, then Jesus says in Matthew 7:7, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” I like how the Living Bible words it. "Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you.”

In the first four beatitudes we are primarily focused on our attitude and actions toward God and in the next four we will turn more toward others but your attitude and actions toward others won’t be right until your attitude and actions toward God are right. So, let’s continue with verse 7. This should be real easy, right? Surely all of us are merciful. “Blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy.”

I think it is important here to see the difference in mercy and grace. While they are very similar, and we are shown and should show both, Jesus is talking about mercy here and mercy is different from grace in that mercy deals with the results of sin – pain, misery, distress – and grace deals with the sin itself. John Stott says, “One extends relief, the other pardon. One cures, heals and helps while the other cleanses and reinstates.”

In other words, mercy is grace with arms and legs. Mercy does something to help the difficult situation somebody else is going through. It is not possible to show mercy without actually doing something. “Be warm and well-fed” is not mercy. Giving a coat and food is mercy. Do you have needs? Do you have wants, problems, pain and misery? Do something to help someone else. That is what Jesus is saying here and it is a foreign concept to people of the world. But, again, everything Jesus preached in the Sermon on the Mount was and still is counter-cultural.

In verse 8 the “pure in heart” may conjure up images of Mother Theresa, Billy Graham or your saintly grandmother praying and fasting with hands folded together gazing heavenward in pious religious spirituality far above the baseness of this world. I’m certainly not bad-mouthing or making fun of those people. That’s just not what “pure in heart”really means.

If something is pure it is all one thing, not defiled by something else. Pure gold is nothing but gold. Perhaps the easiest way to picture “pure in heart” is to think of the opposite of “pure in heart” which is hypocrisy. Let me give you a positive example. The other day I went over to my parents’ house and I was trying to help my dad with his new iPhone.

I explained that plugging it into his computer would be good for certain reasons and then for the next long while, I was all through his computer and his phone. I had access to every picture, every saved page, every text, every email, every phone call, and every website he had been on. Do you know what I found? Are you ready?

I found that who my father is, who he says he is, who I think him to be, need him to be and expect him to be is the person he really is. All I found in all of that was thousands of sermons, dozens of pictures of his great-grandkids (none of me) and maybe some recipes for cooking kale or something. It’s not an act with him. He is “pure of heart”;he is the same person to me as he is to you as he is to anybody. He’s not perfect. But he is not a hypocrite.

1 John 3:2-3 says, “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. ³ All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.” Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God.

Verse 9 says that peacemakers are happy because they will be called sons of God. Telemachus was a monk who lived in the 4th century. He felt God saying to him, "Go to Rome." He was in a cloistered monastery. He put his possessions in a sack and set out for Rome. When he arrived in the city, people were thronging in the streets. He asked why all the excitement and was told that this was the day that the gladiators would be fighting and killing each other in the coliseum, the day of the games, the circus. He thought to himself, "Four centuries after Christ and they are still killing each other, for enjoyment?" He ran to the coliseum and heard the gladiators saying, "Hail to Caesar, we die for Caesar" and he thought, "this isn't right." He jumped over the railing and went out into the middle of the field, got between two gladiators, held up his hands and said "In the name of Christ, forbear." The crowd protested and began to shout, "Run him through! Run him through."A gladiator came over and hit him in the stomach with the back of his sword. It sent him sprawling in the sand. He got up and ran back and again said, "In the name of Christ, forbear." The crowd continued to chant, "Run him through." One gladiator came over and plunged his sword through the little monk's stomach and he fell into the sand, which began to turn crimson with his blood. One last time he gasped out, "In the name of Christ forbear." A hush came over the 80,000 people in the coliseum. Soon a man stood and left, then another and more, and within minutes all 80,000 had emptied out of the arena. It was the last known gladiatorial contest in the history of Rome. Source Unknown.

We can’t prove our desire for peace in the coliseum anymore but we have ample opportunity in our everyday lives. I hear people all the time complaining about the drama other people have and then they are the first to run toward that drama like a moth to a flame but that flame would go out and there would be peace if we would quit fanning that flame with encouragement.

How bad do you want peace? Do you want it bad enough to die for it like Telemachus did? Do you know why the promise of this beatitude is that peacemakers will be called the sons of God? It’s because that is what Jesus was. He was and still is a Peacemaker. In fact, He is the Prince of peace and He died so we could have peace. So we should be peacemakers. True disciples make peace.

We now come to the last beatitude and it comes with a bonus section attached to it. Jesus says, “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Persecuted…persecuted. I read things pretty often lamenting the demise of the church today. There are hundreds of articles floating around about why the Christian church is in decline in America. We are too showy. It’s not a good enough show. We don’t pray enough. We are too churchy. We don’t meet needs. We are too needy. While there is probably some truth in all of that, I don’t believe that is the root of the problem.

I believe the root cause of the decline of the church is that we are too much like the world. We are irrelevant to them. Why should they get up early, get dressed and go be bored when they can stay at home or go to the lake? The people in the church live just like they do so what’s the difference? People that go to church watch the same things, talk the same way, go to the same places and the kicker is…they have the same problems and react the same way to those problems so why should people go to church?

You say,“Pastor, that may be true but what does that have to do with this beatitude that talks about persecution? We’re not being persecuted.” No, we’re not being persecuted because why should the world persecute the church when the church is just like the world? I told you everything Jesus said was counter-cultural and when somebody met Jesus they had to make a decision. You were either for Jesus or you were against Him.

Jesus was and still is that fork in the road that forces you to make a decision. You can’t have a little bit of Jesus and a little bit of the world; not and be a true disciple. You can’t go to church once a week or so and talk, look, smell and act like the world and expect to be persecuted. But when this church decides that we are going to be THAT church; when we decide we as a body of disciples of Jesus are going to act like Jesus no matter what the world thinks, no matter what other churches think then we, too, will be that fork in the road that makes people have to decide: do you want Jesus who brings peace and joy…and persecution? Or do you want this world and all the sorrow, despair and emptiness it has to offer?

The promise that goes with persecution is the Kingdom of Heaven which is basically and ultimately just life with Jesus in the here and now AND the hereafter. Verse 12 says that your reward in Heaven will be great if you are persecuted in this life for His sake and just knowing that; knowing that the Creator of the universe has reserved “great rewards” for you; knowing that our sorrow will be comforted; knowing that we have a great inheritance, that we will be shown mercy, will see God and have peace should make you very happy. It’s the kind of happiness that only comes from being a true disciple of Jesus.

Following the beatitudes is not how one gets to Heaven or has a relationship with Jesus. The beatitudes are descriptions of His disciples. We get to Heaven and have that relationship with God through His Son Jesus by realizing that we are all sinners, repenting or turning away from that sin and asking Jesus to forgive that sin and to live inside of us, making us more and more like Him. Have you done that? Today is the day of salvation. Don’t wait. We are not guaranteed another breath.