Transcription
I'm telling you, I believe one of the reasons the church is so anemic in this nation, it's because we rush God. We want a little 45-minute sprinkle on Sunday and expect our lives to change. When you spend six days a week in the presence of the devil and the world, and we're on Sundays, we want to rush in and rush out. This country don't have no patience to sit in God's presence and to bear up under the teaching of the word. God forbid we stay longer than time, and we rush into meals with broken souls.
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We don't got no stamina for things that are spiritual, man. Preach, man. Paul preached one sermon from sunup to sundown until a man fell asleep in a window and fell out and died. And Paul went down there and laid hands on him and resurrected him from the dead, man. We can't even stomach God's presence for a while.
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He didn't say, "Give me a holy I will." Give me a day, a Sabbath devoted to me.
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I'm so fed up with American cultural Christianity. Is why we so weak and pathetic now? It ain't like this outside this nation. I preached outside this country. I remember the first time I preached outside this. They said, "You better not come but anything less than two hours of God's word." "Feed us, man of God," is what they shouted under a tent, rain coming through the roof. "Feed us, man of God. Your little patty-cake messages, a little 15 minutes and a half a song is why we fooling the devil." Come off the soapbox, Philip. Okay.
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If you will guess, welcome to the presence of God. Welcome to 2819 Church. To our complete online family watching me right now, live in cities around the country. Our friends in pockets around the world. Our sister who watches every morning. I don't know how you do this from Australia. I have no idea what time it is, but you write on my page every Sunday afternoon. Whatever time you got to get up to watch this, we bless you, my sister in Australia. You already know who you are. And for those of you who crowd this chat across YouTube every Sunday, we see that our online presence is growing. And we give honor to the man you never see, an 18-year-old teenager named Malachi Anthony Mitchell.
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Who took over this production some six months ago and has grown this online following. For all of you who keep writing us every single week that this is your home church from your couch, your car, your living room, may you pray for that 18-year-old. And for the teenagers watching, you don't gotta wait till you are in your 20s, 30s, 40s, or 50s to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. You can make a difference now as a teenager like Malachi.
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Y'all ready for this word? If you all guess, we are walking through The Book of Matthew. Matthew was an outcast Jew who was chosen by Jesus to follow him in the first century A.D. He wrote for us the most widely read document in the history of the world, the gospel that bears his name called Matthew. Set first in the New Testament, it builds a bridge from the Old Testament to the New Testament. We just wrapped up a series called "The King is Here."
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Talking about the coming of Christ, the birth of Christ, the first persecution of Christ, the first worship of Christ, the baptism of Christ, the temptation of Christ, the birth of the ministry of Christ.
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And I don't know about you, I want to just talk for myself, man. As I'm studying through this book, I've been reading this book for 20 years, but as I've been studying Matthew, man, this thing has been wrecking me in my office. Have been wrecking me in my prayer time. I keep pushing away from my table and falling down on my knees, shedding tears as as these words that I have read for so many years are working something new on the inside of me. Although Eric, because the word is alive. You could be reading it 20 times and God will work something fresh into you. The word will be relevant until Jesus returns. Heaven and earth will pass away, but the word will never pass away. And this thing has been wrecking me as I have been studying. I want you to hear me. I say to you, in front of everybody, as I'm preaching to you, I'm also preaching to me. I am in a process too. I am in a journey of sanctification too. I am being changed as I'm preaching to you too. And my prayer is that some way, somehow, I don't know because all of you don't write to me on IG, but I'm just praying that you're getting something out of this side of this study through Matthew. I'm just hoping that God wrecks your life by the time it's over. And it may last more than a year. It may last two years or three years. God told me the other name of my prayer room, "Don't rush the teaching." And I had to repent before the Lord because I'm an organized man and I got a preaching calendar. And we're supposed to end three weeks before the new year. And the Lord rebuked me, punched me. My soul says, "By whose standard?" Say, "Don't, don't rush the word."
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He said, "Son, take your time." And so we might be here until 2025. I don't know. I don't care. We're gonna eat this bread. Somebody say, "Amen."
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Today is the opening week of a brand new series called "Kingdom Gems." And if you hear anything during this series that makes sense to you on a profound level, just shout, "Gems!" Something hits you in your soul from your seat. I don't care if you, uh, I keep talking to all my, uh, uh, introverts. You can shout, "Gems!" If something hits you and and you got the stomach, just "Gems!" That's for me, Lord. "Kingdom Gems." This is a, a series through Matthew Chapter 5, 6, and 7. It is Matthew's recording of the greatest sermon ever preached in the history of humanity, commonly called The Sermon on the Mount. It is the beginning of five major teachings or discourses or collection of teachings that Matthew records from Jesus. If you read Matthew, you'll bump into five big chunks of teaching. This is the first of five big chunks. And those five discourses answer five different questions. They answer these questions: How should disciples of the Kingdom live? The second question to answer: How should traveling disciples, when I'm in other cities or places, how should I conduct myself? They answer this third question: What important parables did Jesus teach? They answer this fourth question: What future warnings did Jesus give? And the last course of teaching on the back side of Matthew, it answers this final question: How will human history end? These are the five big teachings, discourses, sections in Matthew. A Sermon on the Mount is the first discourse that answers the first question: How should citizens of the Kingdom live? So Matthew 5, 6, and 7 answers this question: How should citizens of the Kingdom live? I know you, I know you call yourself a Christian on IG, but Matthew 5 through 7 answers this question: How should citizens of the Kingdom live? If I'm saved, this is how I should live. If I'm a disciple, this is how I shall live. By the time we get to the end of seven, you should know how you should live if that's the profession that you make.
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Because the word Christian is not defined in the scriptures. That's why anybody can call yourself that. We've got all manner of people we see in society that are wicked and evil, but say, "I'm a Christian." But that can't be defined in the scriptures. But the word disciple can be defined. And so Matthew 5 through 7 teaches us how disciples, followers of Jesus, are supposed to live as citizens of the Kingdom. It's going to take us a few weeks to unpack it, maybe about two months, three months, or so. Don't rush me. Don't rush me. I said, "Don't rush me." I said, "Don't rush me." I said, "Don't rush me." At the time the sermon was preached, it was a religious shock. It was a cultural paradox. A paradox means something that is counter-cultural. And even to this day, it still stands as a revolutionary teaching in modern culture. Arguably, I'm standing right here today. The Sermon on the Mount is arguably the most famous sermon in the history of the world. It attracts deep theological studies from saved people and unsaved, from believers and unbelievers. The sermon is the heart of Jesus for all his disciples.
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So powerful are the principles in The Sermon on the Mount that one of its number one devotees, one of his most famous, was a man named Gandhi, a revolutionary in India who was not a believer. But when he read The Sermon on the Mount, it gripped him so bad he tried to live by its principles.
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I think I need to say that one more time. Gandhi, who on his deathbed said, "Let me paraphrase, man. I've tried to live right my whole life, but I felt like something was missing." Facts. On his deathbed, felt like, "I've tried to live right my whole life, but I felt like something was missing." So powerful was this sermon that even the reformer of India tried to live by his principles because he knew something I'm about to teach to you this morning.
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Is the will of Jesus for the character of his disciples. What they should be like. The sermon is the vision of Jesus for ultimate thriving and human flourishing. Before we jump into our first text, the sermon, by the time we get to the end of it, is going to tackle subjects like how to deal with influence, how to manage strong emotions, how to steward finances, how to steward relationships, how to deal with marriage, how to deal with reconciliation. It's going to answer questions like, "How do you deal with difficult people?"
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It's going to teach how do you deal with difficult people. We all need that part, right? It's going to teach us things about spiritual disciplines. It's going to teach us about faith. It's going to teach us how to handle worry and fear and anxiety. It's going to change your life by the time we get to the end of it.
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Can I just read you something really quickly before we jump into our text? So powerful was this teaching that by the time we get to the end, this is what Matthew recorded for the people who were listening to the teacher. This was their response in Matthew chapter 7 and verse 28, at the very end. "And when Jesus had finished saying all these things, the crowds were astonished at his teaching." Not his prophecies, he, not his feelings, not his miracles, although they came because they walked when they were formerly lame. When it was over, they were not moved by miracles, and they were not moved by prophecy. They said they were astonished by his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes. By the time we get to the end, this is the outcome of the sermon. When they heard everything he had to say, they were blown away.
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I pray you would join them in this confession. For my notetakers, all my students with Bibles and phones and apps and all these things, open. We're going to camp out today in Matthew 5:1-12. I love the fact that y'all take notes. I just see y'all going straight like this. May God bless the notetakers. Matthew was a notetaker.
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Matthew 5:1-12 is where we're going to camp out today. And we're going to tag a title to this text: "Blessed Are They."
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Blessed are they. Father, in the name of your Son, Yahshua HaMashiach, we yield our hearts and our minds to you. We are no rush to God in this room or get out of this chat. We want all of your word and all of what you have to say to us through this weekend. Earth and vessel, Spirit of the Living God, speak to the hearts of the sons and daughters.
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Of Elohim. Speak to the unbeliever that has crept up in the room or crept up in this chat. God, we feel your spirit in this room. It is so heavy. We want revelation and insights. We want to be convicted. We want to be challenged. We want the weight of the word to come to bear on our thoughts and our philosophies. We don't want to keep coming in here and leaving the same.
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Transform us as we sit at the table of this bread. We pray in the mighty and the majestic and the matchless name of our Lord and Risen Savior Christ Jesus.
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Say, "Amen." Thank you so much. "Blessed are they." I see y'all tagging me on stuff while I'm talking. All right, Apple Watch. If you got an Android, we pray for you. I prophesy a day will come when my entire family will be blue in the faith. That we will send out a group text message and no green will return. The church texts will go out and only blue will return. All by Apple users. Say, "Amen." Are you listening? Can I talk to you? I want to start this series by talking to you about a very complex and nuanced reality, or realities, that we call in our society happiness, or thriving, or flourishing, or winning. I want to talk to you about all the people we look at, we say that they're winning, they're happy, they're thriving. I want to talk about these massive concepts of happiness and thriving because although they are concretely defined in your English dictionary, these massive concepts can change in definition and expression as you move from various contexts. What is happy to an American may not be happy to a Jamaican. And what is happiness for an American may not be happiness for a person living in a remote place in Africa. And so happiness, although you can define it on your app, it's such a broad and nuanced complex concept and construct that can vary as it moves from context to context. And even deeper, happiness as a construct can vary as it moves from person to person. And how we define happiness and how we say who's thriving and who's really winning and who you put your thumbs of approval on. Pay attention. Pay attention. In our culture, America, I don't know where you're watching from, but in America, our culture largely defines happiness, thriving, winning by tangible externals. Zeros in the bank account, spacious homes, dope wheels that we're sitting on on the way to 2819 Church, bank accounts that are blowing up, connections with critical or or well-known people, fame, fortune, celebrity, perfect health, people who seem to have no problems at all. In America, redefine these things as the pursuit of the things that will bring human beings happiness. And for those who have them in abundance, we automatically tag them as thriving, winning, balling. We want to be like them, right? All these things are rooted mostly in acquisition and accumulation. For an American, happiness is born out of happenings. If circumstances are right, I am happy. From sipping a dope margarita in the Caribbean, I am happy. If I check my bank account, I could pay my bills with no problem, I am happy. If my car never breaks down and it's within five years of the year we're in, I am happy. If my slay is always right and my edges are perfectly laid, my baby hair is tight, my tides are paid, man, I am happy. If my closet is full of tags that you can't buy at Southlake Mall, like if I got tags that only come from Lennox, man, I'm happy. Like, come on, Fendi's not in South Lake. Like, Fendi's not there, okay? But, but as Americans, let's be honest, if I had no problems and all of the accoutrements of comfort, we say that we are happy. Facts. Will know. Yet, when I was preparing this message, the Holy Spirit reminded me of a man named Solomon, who the scriptures tell us was the wisest man that ever lived in his day, probably the wealthiest man that ever lived in his time. He lived in the 900s BC. He would have been the modern Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos. Scripture tells us about Solomon that any pleasure he wanted, he did not deny himself. He built a palace that was like nothing the world had ever seen before. His courts and the way he expanded Jerusalem was so great that people came from all around the world to listen to his teaching. Before we had everybody that was making all these online classes, man, Solomon was the first continuity entrepreneur that ever existed. For the scripture says, year after year, people came up to Jerusalem to pay him just to hear his teaching. So he was the first person with a continuity stream of income before any of us. The scripture says a queen came from Africa. And when she saw his courts and his officials and his administration and his kingdom, when she listened to tell him, the prescription says she passed out. She said, "Everything she saw Solomon, it took her breath away." The scripture says Solomon had men, thousands of horses in a massive stable. That stable is still standing today in the ruins in Israel. Food denied himself nothing. Alcohol denied himself nothing. Women, man, you talk about polygamy. You're talking about, "I'm tired of my wife." The man had a thousand wives, 700 to be exact. And if the 700 wives he had not enough, shapes, sizes, colors, thick, petite, tall, short, white, black, brown. He had 300 concubines in addition to his 700 wives. So every day of the week, he could lay down and lay up and nut off and come out of something brand new every single day of his life. Ain't no dude balling like that. Your eyes are wide open. Don't sanitize the Bible. Don't sanitize the Bible. It's not like he has a thousand women and he was just admiring their beauty. No, he was busting off and enjoying himself with a thousand women. I'm tired of Tanisha, bring me Juliet. I'm tired of Juliet, bring me Gabrielle. I'm tired of Gabrielle, bring me Tawana. Like every day. Ain't that what our men are craving right now? Your wife is not enough.
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Your girlfriend is not enough. Beyonce is not enough. Kim K is not enough. Like this man, he needs pornography. He needs it.
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You should have had your children in here. That's why we have anyway. So that's why we have four mission kids. Look right at me. Look right at me. For all of us who have struggled with lusts and still struggle with lust, which is a real struggle. God don't condemn you. Here's a man. Every time he felt that urge, satisfied. You got you got phony kings trying to live that way now. Will never do what Solomon did. Gold unheard of. The scripture says so rich was Solomon that silver was like rocks in the street during his day. Solomon was so rich, they didn't even wash the temple courts with water. They washed the temple courts with oil. Rich. And he said of himself, "During my lifetime, I denied myself nothing that I wanted." Now, everybody watching, let's look right at me. This is the words of the wisest man who ever lived. Look right at me. Or all of us who are thirst buckets. Look. "During my lifetime," since you're trying to get to a mountain that when you get there, it's going to betray you at the top. You'll get to the top of that mountain you try to get to. Look over and realize it was not everything I thought it would be. Look here. Is the wisest man who ever lived who said, "In my lifetime, am I telling the truth? I denied myself nothing." So whatever you want, fill in the blank, he has that and 10x that. Watch. But in his old age, he writes a journal, a memoir called Ecclesiastes. I already know this is about to be hard. I already know. I already know. I got 24 minutes. I already know. In his, in, when he's an old man, after you've had all the women you want, all the money you could possibly have, the biggest palace the world had ever seen, any food you could desire, like venison, nothing that's like a cheese sandwich. In his old age, he writes a journal called Ecclesiastes. And he starts shouting this word throughout the journal: "Vanity."
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"Vanity." So jaded, you got to read the scriptures. So jaded is Solomon. He don't even say his name in the journal. He just said, "The preacher said, 'Vanity, vanity, vanity, vanity.'" And he comes down to the last line. He said, "Now, now that I'm at the end of everything, I figure out the whole purpose of man to know God and serve him with your whole life." He had to get to the end of his life to realize all the mountaintops he climbed left him watching vanity. You know what vanity is translated? And he empty. So that can't be. Oh, like wealthy people have never committed suicide. You think these things bring true happiness? Yet you have a Kate Spade person in your closet of a woman who took her life. Man who had more than any one of us would probably have in our lifetime said, "I came to the end and I realized all of it was vanity." Pay attention. Pay attention. But there is a more fulfilling construct of happiness and thriving, far greater than the narrative our society keeps shoving down our throats. And while this narrative that I'm about to tell you is not against wealth, it's not set against things. God is not against you having things. Whoever preached that to you is bad doctrine because Abraham was wealthy and David was wealthy. So God is not against us having material things. But they had the happiness, the different, the the greater construct of happiness that I'm about to share with you. It is spiritual and it begins deep on the inside and it works its way out, as opposed to the narrative the world keeps shoving down our throat. It starts on the outside. It says, "If you get all these things on the outside, it'll make you happy on the inside." But I'm about to show you a new version of happiness, a new version of thriving that starts deep on the inside and it works its way to the outside. The greater version of happiness, the greater version of thriving. And watch, it was revealed. This is so deep to me by the creator of human beings. The best person to teach me how to use an iPhone is Apple. I just realized the other day, you can correct, uh, you can edit a text. What, what? Watch, you laughing at me? But watch. I just learned a couple weeks ago that you can edit a text that you sent. You could go back in there, as long as you ain't got no, no subject header, you could go back in there, press on it, it gives you option to edit. And now you can finally not put the little arrow to add something that you're missing a text. You can edit a text. Watch. Had I read the manual, I would have known that. Had I read the fine print of the of the most recent download, I would have discovered that. When the download hit my phone, nobody reads the fine print. We just scroll to the bottom and say, "Agree." Ain't got time for this, keep it moving. And and we treat the scripture the same way.
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So we don't know. Somebody shout, "Happiness!" Here is a download coming for you this morning. But you will not scroll and say, "Agree." You will read the fine print with me. And then when it's over, you can choose to say, "Agree or not agree." So here is the context in which this new construct comes to us about happiness. Here is the context in which the teaching was born. I'm not even going to belong. We got to go back to Matthew chapter 4 verse 23. Okay? Matthew chapter 4 verse 23. I'm going back to last week. Christ came, Christ grew, Christ burst onto the scenes of public ministry after his baptism. And then we read these words in verse 23: "And he went throughout all Galilee." Pay attention. "Teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people." Pay attention. "So his fame spread throughout all Syria," which is northern, the north part of Israel, north. "And they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures and paralytics, and he healed them all of them." Pay attention. "And great crap." Pay attention. Watch verse 25. "Great crowds." This is what every preacher is in a closet begging God for. Great crowds. You know what greatest? Tens of thousands of people. What do they do? "Followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis," which is 10 cities. Deca means 10, like decalogue, the Ten Commandments. Paulus means cities, Decapolis, ten cities. "And from Jerusalem and Judea and beyond the Jordan." Can you count how many places that is? Galilee, one city. Decapolis, 11 cities. Jerusalem, 12 cities. All of Judea, multiple cities and regions. And beyond the Jordan. This is an entire nations with an S crowding Jesus because of his healing. Now, my brother's watching, this is the context. Listen. Pay attention. The ministry of Jesus is born. The fame of Jesus spreads. The disciples of Jesus grow. The crowds come around Jesus. They grow. He's blowing up on social media. He's blowing up on the city. He's blowing up around the nation's. Watch. He has the air of multiple cities. He has the heir of the culture. He has the heir of the nations. Watch. And just like an American preacher, I got all these thousands of people. Listen to me, man. Perfect opportunity for the Prosperity Gospel. Let me tell them right, sow this seed into my ministry and you're going to be blessed by next week. I got all these people. Now is a good time. Watch. To feed their emotions because I want to keep this crowd. I want you to notice the context. He has the heir of nations, cities, and the whole culture. What a perfect opportunity. Watch. To give them Prosperity Gospel. To tell them what they want to hear. To itch their ears. Watch. To make himself more famous. Like, man, I've never had a crap. Okay, can you imagine Jesus? I've never had a crowd this big before. Watch. Now I got to tell them what they want to hear. Watch. To keep them. Ain't that what we do in our nation? Oh, now let me tell them what they want to hear so I can keep them. Never mind what they need. Thank you, Pastor Kenny. And staring over this crowd, here is the catalyst of the beginning of The Sermon on the Mount. How was this for cultural Christianity? Matthew 5, verse 1. Okay, I'ma speak through this. Seeing the crowds, you know, when the scriptures was written, there were no chapters and verses. You do understand that? These were added in the 1500s. So you got to learn how to read through chapters sometimes to understand context. Crowds are following Jesus. He's famous now, man. You could tell him anything you want to tell him. Pay attention. "Seeing the crowds, he went up on a mountain." And when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and he taught them, saying." Now pause. I want you to notice right here in this text four things really quickly. I want you to first notice the preacher, who was Jesus. And what does the preacher do? It says he ascends a mountain. This is such pictorial language of the former great preacher of the Old Testament, a man named Moses, who went up on a mountain, who got the laws of God from the top of a mountain and came back down to give it to humanity. When Moses went up on the mountain to get the laws, God told the people, "Stay away. I don't want y'all near me as I'm about to give you this truth." Now, the crowds are allowed to come close and listen. In the Old Testament, we see law, stay away. In the New Testament, we see grace, come closer. In the Old Testament, we see a prophet named Moses. In the New Testament, we see a greater prophet than Jesus. In the Old Testament, we see a man who struck a rock. In the New Testament, we see a man who is The Rock.
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In the Old Testament, we saw a prophet that leaned on God. In the New Testament, when we see a prophet who is God. I feel this in my belly. He ascends, sends mountain like the Moses of. And watch what he does next. He sits down. As scribes would do when they teach. This is not how teaching used to be in the Old Testament. Y'all would be standing and I would be sitting. You know why? It would force the people not to fall asleep. Y'all want to try it? Everybody stand up. Do I want to try? Look, Janelle said, "No, no, no." Janelle said, "No, matter God, I don't want to get up." Y'all gonna stay right here until I'm done.
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A pastor got on heels. I didn't eat my meal. You ready, Alexis? I ain't gonna do that to y'all. But that's, that's the way it was. Let's, y'all are so disobedient. No, see, yeah, they made the people stand up so that they can't fall asleep during the preaching of the word. Yeah, y'all ain't gonna fall asleep during Rihanna's halftime performance. Did you want to be nodded off while the word is coming to you? I know nobody said "gems" then. Jesus did what he sat down. You know what it is? That's a seat of authority. That's a seat of, "I ain't stressed." That's a seat of, "Everything I'm about to tell you, it's already finished. It's just your choice if you want it or not." I think it's so dope that Matthew started with this sermon because the Old Testament ends with a curse in Malachi. The New Testament, where this is placed, opens up with what Jesus is about to say. So powerful about blessing. The place, watch this, for all my preachers. And just as a mountain. And don't say Mount Zion. Everybody look at me. They don't say Mount Hermon. And don't say none of those mountains that y'all love. It just says "a mountain." Such a sign to us that God wants the gospel to preach anywhere, everywhere, anytime. That we need to be ready in season and out of season. And you don't need no platform to preach the gospel. I don't need a conference to preach the gospel. He just sat down on a mountain. Not the mountain, or Mount Zion. It don't matter where it is. Let this gospel go forth. It could be in a park or palace.
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Could be on a stage or in the street. Something I think I got like this because I got a microphone, man. I was preaching like this in parks when I first got saved. True story. No cap. Eric, and I was out there in these streets preaching the gospel before there was no church in the streets. The people, it says, "The crowds came around." Who are the crowns? This mixed multitude, like this church. In that mixed multitude, you got believers, you got unbelievers, you got skeptics, you got people that just want another free lunch. You want everybody that loves social services. I want to get healed again. You got all these people coming for wrong reasons. Some people coming for right reasons. Some people come in with an eyebrow raise. Some people come to see, "Is he for real?" People trying to get close, like, "I want to get healed by the Master." You got all these people packed in for all these different reasons, just like every Sunday morning rooms are packed with people with different motives. Some people got dragged there by family member. Some people just want to check the box and go home. Some people really want to be changed. Some people want to fulfill their conscious. "If I just go to church on Sunday, I didn't have my way, God is pleased with me." You just want to ease your conscience, man. All kind of different people in the room, a mixed multitude, right? And watch, what was the plan for the mixed multitude? Prophesy? Tell them that this is going to be their best year ever? No. Tell them, "Here comes your husband and wife"? No. Tell them, "Sow a seed and God is going to raise you"? No. I know false prophets like that in New York who charge people for prophecy. You pay them $2,500, they'll be your personal prophet. What foolishness is that? What prophet are we talking about? Profit. Lies. Especially those of y'all that look like me. You love prophets. You crowd them and fund their ministries and you don't listen to what they're saying. And never talk about Jesus. Don't never open the word. They just keep telling you what's on their heart, what God showed them, and you can't back any of it up with scripture. Side note: For all these false prophets that keep deceiving God's people with your smiles and your outfits and your big whatever, woe to you, false prophets who deceive God's people with lies and falls and empty promises. If everybody loves you, you're not a real prophet. Woe to you. Woe to you. Find me one prophet in the new and all an entire scriptures when everybody loved them.
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I'm awake. Text me one. It wasn't one real prophet that everybody loved. When there's a real prophet, your feelings will get hurt. And and God's will will be confirmed. I gotta protect my church.
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I don't care about their following or how much money they got. All that foolishness we see in New York and cities across this nation. Everybody want to put a prophet in front their name. If everybody loved you, we better watch you. You can't find me one prophet from the Old Testament. Not even, not even the, the man who Jesus was the greatest man who ever lived, John the Baptist. And and everybody loved them. Real prophets were despised. Wasn't using people's feelings and emotions and vulnerability to tell them what they want to hear.
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He's so ensive into nonsense. That's why one of the greatest things you can pray for is discernment so that the spirit will bear witness with other spirits so you're not just led astray by pompous and Ruckus and noise and crowds and charging people for prophecy in New York. Woe to you. In whatever city they find themselves. Woe to you. Jesus who deceived God's people has a lot of blood you're gonna have on your hands. Repent, says the Lord. I repent first. What was Jesus programmed for the crowds? Teaching. I don't see y'all crowding stadiums for that teaching. Where's your love for teachers? Where's your support for teaching ministries? When was the last time you got on a plane and went to hear a good teacher? Stop watching me online and just drive over here. We know you creeping in YouTube. Just drive over here. Just, just pull up. Ain't perfect, but we try it, right? I listen. I'm, I don't know why this is the Holy Spirit. I've been praying over that you would love teaching. I want you to crave it like chocolate. Crave it like your next fix. I want you to love teaching. It is the most efficacious means of bringing lasting transformation in the hearts of human beings. A prophetic word can move you for a moment, but it is teaching that sustains you and builds you up.
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Especially us. We love that stuff. Jesus sees a crowd. He don't prophesy. He teaches. Pay attention. Are you paying attention? Are you paying attention? All right, I got to show you this really quickly before I speed through these Beatitudes. Why is Jesus teaching? Isaiah 53, verse 14. For all my students, he's confirming prophecy from a real prophet, Isaiah. Look at what, look at what Isaiah said about the coming Messiah. When he comes, "All your children shall be." Somebody shout the word. Shout out the word. The prophecy from 700 years before Jesus was born is that when the Messiah comes, "All your children, all your sons and daughters, they shall be taught." Who by? The Lord. And watch the blessing. And great shall be there. You think peace comes by me prophesying to you, you're going to get, fill in the blank, this year? Then your heart is at peace? No. It is teaching that transforms you on the inside that brings your mind peace. Seen a prophet on Facebook, Facebook the other day, talking about what was, what was Elena? You're not saying nothing.
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I've seen a prophet declaring this year, it was the, the year of the billionaire. That every, every person that followed it was going to be a billionaire. The year of the billionaire. And all in the comments, you know what we do? "Amen, amen, amen. I received that." Yeah. And and and and and and and and on New Year's Eve this year, when you're not a billionaire, you know what happens? You'll be mad at God like he was a liar. That's why God rebuked prophets that spoke not in his name. Here's a real prophecy: Some of us will die middle class. That's what the scriptures teach.
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Here's another prophecy: Some Christians will die in poverty because Jesus said, "The poor you will have with you always." Now, you see nobody throwing no money at me while I'm teaching. Come on. Bring your offering. Sow a seed into the man of God. You're going to be wealthy by this time next month. Bring your seed. Why y'all not moving? Somebody just tremble up a hundred dollar bill and throw it at me so I could feed my family when this is over. It's six of us. It's like eighty dollars a meal. Anybody want to feed the man of God? See, I already know this. Some of them ain't coming back next week. They don't want to be taught. You, you know what you know what this is? Can I, can I just be honest? I know I got to finish this message. I'm gonna get through this. This is just called love. I love you, sister, wherever you are. I love you too. It's just love. I'm just so tired of the foolishness that we call.
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All right, everybody. Now watch. Let's let's run through these really quickly. Everybody watch. And what Jesus said next after he sat down, what Jesus said next after he sat down to all his followers in the crowd, who could hear her, is commonly called the Beatitudes, which is a Latin word which means blessings. Eight blessings and one he repeats. Okay? It's not nine. Eight and one. He repeats. Eight Beatitudes, eight blessings. Everybody watch pronunciations. Now watch how Jesus shocked his disciples and the people who were listening. Let's run through them really quickly. Matthew chapter 5, we're going to speed through the verse 3. You ready? One through eight. All y'all note-takers, you like your eight points. Here's your eight points. Point number one. Okay? Point number one. "Blessed." How about this? "Blessed are the poor in spirit." How's that for the crowd? He looks out of our crowd. It's your perfect opportunity to give them Prosperity Gospel. It's a perfect opportunity to keep them. He looks out over a crowd of people and he shouts to them, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Now, family, before we run through these eight, I just gotta, I gotta parenthetically insert this. Let me just teach you for a second. We got to deal with this word "blessing." Now, everybody look at me. Look at me. Anybody here is a writer, like you keep a journal, right? Like, so I have kept a journal for 20 years. Okay? I made my last entry like two nights ago. I've been keeping this journal since I was saved. So I was 24 years old. Words are tools to communicate ideas and stories and thoughts. Now listen to me about words. Words, when they are written, they are born in a context. And when words are written, they are frozen in a context. So if you're gonna understand words, you must understand its context. Like, for example, if you, if you saw my journal for 20 years, my journal is a catharsis of sorts. It's the outpouring of the inside of a man who is trying to live this life with Jesus. You will read about highs and lows, tears and sorrows, and joys and loves and betrayals and all these things. It's like a catharsis. In my journal, if you read my first journal when I was 25, you'll read about challenges I had as a young husband with two young kids and now going into ministry and trying to follow Jesus and trying to figure out all these things. And you would read about all the struggles I was having then trying to navigate all of this. That's 20 years ago. Watch. If you go back and read that and don't put it in its context that I was 25, that I was in North Carolina, that I had just gotten saved, you would read that and think I'm the same person. Why? Because you would read my journal and you would read something out of.
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You're never gonna forget that. So when you read the words of authors, you need to know the context of which the words were born out of that context. It's like I was saying to my daughter Israel, who is a songwriter. I heard her singing a song about two months ago and I thought, "Dang, that song is dope. What radio station is that on?" And I learned from her sister Abigail that Izzy had wrote that song. And then all of a sudden, God just pouring out his spirit on Israel. And now she just, she just writing songs. And her songs are beautiful. They're powerful. I mean, her songs are so good, the church should be singing them. They're so pure and anointed. And she'll just be sitting in her room strumming her guitar and writing these powerful songs. Watch. And the other night, it was last night, the night before, she was sitting on my bed. And I was like, she was like, "I don't want to put out this song because it's, it's really emotional." And I'm like, "Izzy, people love emotional songs." And and I pulled out my phone and I put on my life for Mary J. Blige. Gems. Don't nobody would say that that's so spiritual. And and I let her listen. "If you look in my life and see what you gonna rest?" Yes. If you look in my life and see what she wrote that when she was depressed, when she was broke, when she was now coming on scenes. Those songs are frozen in a context. So if I want to understand what Mary was doing or feeling during that time, I gotta understand the context in which she wrote it. Anybody's a songwriter, a journal keeper, you understand your words are always written in a context. The scriptures are no different. So you can't just read them in 2023 without understanding the origin in which the words were born. When you do that, you don't understand the office. Thank God for teachers. Now listen to me. This word "blessed" is a, I would say, a poor translation of this word on your laps. It's an English Bible. And the words in your Bible are English. But these 66 documents that are preserved for us in the scriptures were not written in English. They were written in three languages: Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. These languages are far superior to English. For that reason, translators over the years have had trouble finding English words for Hebrew words and English words for Greek and Aramaic words. So sometimes they just do the best they can with the limited English words that we have. So this word "blessed," when you see this, you first think, "Man, this is God pronouncing a a favor on me." Because when we hear the word "blessed," we just think some kind of divine endowment. That's in English. This word "blessed" is a powerful, powerful Greek word called "macarios." Remember that word. "Macarios." And how you spell that? K-A-R-I-O-S. Macarios. What does it mean? Watch what it means. It means happy, extremely fortunate, flourishing, thriving. Is the person described. Macariism is not a pronunciation of blessing. Like if you'd watch, if you do this, you will be blessed. Macariism is an observer. It's an observation that people who already do that are already blessed. It is the observation of those who live this way are happy. Those who live this way are flourishing. Those who live this way are thriving. Not, it will come to you if you do it. As you do it, they come to you. It is a description of a state of being for those who live this way. Gems for me. Now let's read these eight real quick. What does the first one say? Blessed. Change it to the original language, right? Happy, extremely fortunate, thriving on the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. This word, Paul, is not talking about finances. It's not talking about socioeconomic status. Poor in spirit are those who are bankrupt on the inside. Who says, "I need God. Lord, help me. Get this help." A person who's poor in spirit is the person who says to himself, "I can't do this life on my own." Watch this. And when you're poor in spirit, you say, "I need God. I am a beggar for him. I need him. I must have him. I want him. I want all of him. If I'm going to get through, I must have him." So I'm gonna get.
This new job, I must have him. If I'm going to build this business, I must have him. So I'm going to have a good marriage. I must have him. If I'm going to be in my right mind, I must have him.
When a person is poor in spirit, they are a beggar for God almighty. They are empty of what's this word, self-sufficiency. The opposite of being poor in spirit is thinking that I can do life on my own. Watch, I don't need God. So watch, because you love society. Society says to the wealthy atheists, they are happy. Jesus says to the one important spirit, no, you are really happy. Watch, you are better off than the person who has more than you but don't have me.
[Music] [Applause] Happy, extremely fortunate, thriving, flourishing is the one who is a beggar for God's presence. What is their reward? The kingdom belongs to them. You missed that. This is the doorway into the Kingdom. So you can't tell me you're saved and you have no desire for God. Macarios is not on your life. You want point two, point two, man. If you're not there, man, beg God. Like, God, make me want you. God, make me hungry. Like, God, God, watch, empty me of myself so there's room in me for you. Like that song makes space.
[Music] If you don't have that, said God, empty me of myself so I may make space for you. Right, here's your, your second point. Right, point two. Matthew five, verse four. Watch what Jesus continues to say. Blessed are those who macarios are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Now, family, mourning is normal. I'ma speak for this. Morning is normal. People cry. We mourn. We share tears over losses. If you've ever been to a funeral, you've mourned at a funeral. The last funeral I had to teach the people that grief is not bad. Grief is a gift from God to take out of your system deep pain. I should do a sermon called "The Gift of Grief." You, some of y'all trying to bury grief, which is a mistake. If you want to be emotionally healthy, you need to lean into your grief. God gave you that emotion as an access to drain your system of deep pain. So if you have trauma from your past, cry. If you got trauma in your life, try more. Be grieved about it. Right, that, that, that's God's access point to, to, to, to leak your system of deep pain. If it wasn't for the emotion of grief, we could not handle death. So, we, so mourning, we mourn. We know our mourning is normal. Crying is normal. Having grief is normal. Feeling sad is normal. But my brothers and sisters, that's not this morning. That's not this. This morning is not feeling sorry for yourself. It's not crying over a loved one. It's not, it's not being, it's not being grieved over something from your past. This morning are those who grieve their own sin, who feel bad about the mistakes that they make. This morning is grieving over your sin. Is when I hurt other people. I'm lustful. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm jealous. I'm envious. I'm bound to pornography. I'm bound to masturbation. I want to love my husband and wife, but I do a bad job. I keep falling into sin. I keep coming out that club and then going to church. Morning is when, is when we, is when we sin and we feel bad for it. Grieving your sin. Can I go deeper? It's grieving the sin of others. It's looking out over our nation and saying, "Dang it, our nation is so sinful and so dark and so vile." Is grieving the ills of humanity. It's grieving injustice and innocent people that go to prison and guilty people that go free and saying something about it on social media. That is morning. No, Isaiah, in Isaiah chapter 16, mourned when he saw God how he lived up. He said, "I saw the Lord, how you've lifted up." And when he saw how holy God was, he said, "Watch, woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among some people of unclean lips." He mourned. David, if you read the Psalms, he mourned over the sin of the nation. He mourned of his own sin. Who else? I'm the Holy Spirit. Jeremiah spent 40 years mourning. He wrote a whole book about mourning called Lamentations. He was weeping over a people that was about to endure judgment because they would not repent. So he cried and cried and cried over them. Like I wail and I cry over you. Call me Holy Spirit. Peter mourned. He said, "Go away from me, Lord. I am a sinful man." Help me, Holy Spirit. Jesus mourned when he looked out over Jerusalem and says, "Man, y'all rejected me. You Jews rejected me." And he went over them. He mourned. If the people of God won't cry for the nation, drive through Atlanta and you don't feel grieved by poverty in the streets. If you don't feel grieved by mothers who are single trying to do their best and husbands that won't be. If you're not grieved over fathers that abandon children. If you're not grieved over corruption in politics. If you're not grieved over corruption in the church and lying preachers. If these things go, if we don't cry out, who's gonna cry out? I mean, come on, Christians. What are you shedding tears over? How do you strum social media and not be grieved? How do you listen to people blaspheme Jesus and not be grieved?
[Music] But what did Jesus say? He says, "Happy, extremely fortunate, thriving are people who cry out over sin." What promise do they get? "They shall be comforted." Said, "I don't like that promise." Yeah, how about keep your sin to yourself? With no cross to nail it to, no comfort comes to the unrepented sinner. So the person says, "Lord, watch for, um, help me hold this." Yeah, ain't no superstars. Um, let me help somebody. Take notes. The backside of Romans chapter 7. Paul, the superstar of the New Testament. You want to hear mourning, man? The things I want to do, I don't do. The things I should not be doing, keep doing. And when I keep doing the things I don't want to do, man, I find this thing is, is at work on the inside of me. My flesh fighting against the spirit of God. Oh, what a wretched man that I am. That's mourning. Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God to the Lord Jesus Christ. And in Greek, those words are present tenses, which means we will do this over and over and over and over again until the Lord come back to get us. Can I be honest? I'm gonna get to the rest of these real quick. I was talking to a pastor friend the other day, and we was talking about suffering and how God says it rains on the just and the unjust. We're talking about Christians who suffer. And I was saying, "Bro, you know, it's so theologically complex that God allows us to suffer." But I thought about this. Listen to me. Watch. It's so wise for God to not remove suffering right now and to allow us to to go through. Why? I've been through so much pain. I've tried out Maranatha. I've seen so much pain. I've cried out, Maranatha, come quickly, Lord Jesus, bring an end to all of this. The mess that we deal with in this life is supposed to give us a hope for something that is coming. That's why you will never have Utopia down here. You can't. If God gave us Utopia down here, you will have no longing for heaven.
[Music] I'm trying. All right. What point we on? What, what point are we on? That's verse five, right? Almost done. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Happy, fortunate, driving on the meek. Then the meek, man, that's a word. Nobody never called me meek. Nobody ever tagged me on a post and said, "Oh, Pastor Philip, he's meek." You sound like such a soft word. Y'all can pray for me. I know I ain't all the way meek. I already know I got problems. I know I'm a little rougher on the edges. I know, I know Lena's meek. I know I ain't all the way meek. I know I'm still rough around the edges and I got issues and I say some things I shouldn't say and I fight trolls every now and then on social media and I should not. But meek sounds like such a word to me. Meek, ain't nobody ever tagged me in a on a DM, say, "My pastor, you're so meek." But you know meekness is not weakness. Meekness is humility, as gentleness, as generosity towards others. Meekness and strength under control.
[Applause] [Music] Is the ability for somebody to trash you on social media and you're not respond? It's like Jesus being perfect, listen, being persecuted and not responding, being spit on and not responding, snatching out his beard and not responding, being beat and not responding. Yet he can call a legion of angels. He was meek. He was strength under control. Meekness is never getting mad. For the same Jesus saw people playing dice in the temple and selling stuff. He went in there, kicking over tables, and took out his belt and beat men over their back. Watch, meekness is vengeance for the things of God. Put strength under control. Now, will you call me meek? No, I'm still not there yet. Pray for me. But watch this. He says, "People who have control over their strength, they are happy, fortunate." They missed that. Because the opposite of that is to have no control over your strength, and then you are just constantly lashing out on everybody. Because people who are meek are controlled, and they know submission. Wives who like to emasculate husbands, meekness, another word for this, submission. That you don't make your husband a puppy and then you can't be mad at him why he won't lead when you trash him and tear him down and make him a puppy on a leash. Empower him to lead. And if he wants to make a decision for the house and you don't like it, pray or use your influence to talk to the head of the house. It turns the head. Use your influence. Like, "Boo, I hear what you're saying, but that ain't right. I know you feel that way, but that ain't right. You think we should pray about this? Do you think we should make this decision? Have you thought this all the way through?" That part six. Blessed, happy, thriving, extremely fortunate are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. This is not the righteousness that comes with salvation. That was poor in spirit. Everybody hungers and thirsts. That's normal. I'm hungry right now. I'm thirsty right now. Let me get a glass. Let me get a drink of water. Watch, I'm thirsty righteousness, but we don't drink in righteousness like that. We drink and sin like that.
[Music] [Applause] Um, watch what hunger and thirst. That's, watch, that's the most strongest desire you have after lust. Watch this. And if I stop doing that, I will die. That means you have to keep coming back to it. He said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness." What is this? This is people who are desperate to want to live right. Listen, I messed up on Monday, but I'ma get up on Tuesday saying, "Lord, I'ma try to live right today. I want to live right. I want to love right. I want to do relationships right. I want to forgive right. I want to be nice." It's like this desire to, it's like, "I want my father to be pleased with me." That's hunger and thirst for righteousness. I shut down gossip. I shut down slander. I don't want to tear people down. I want to live right. I want to read more of my word. I want to learn how to pray. I want to serve faithfully. Jesus, I want you to be pleased. Like, it's this constant drinking of, "I want to be right." Verse seven. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. I'm not going to spend a lot of time here, but this one is extremely serious because this one is given to you in the context of this word that I call offenses. You're not, you're not going to stay in a church and not be offended. You're not going to be married and not be offended. You're not going to have girlfriends and not get offended. Dude friends and not get offended. No one is going to make it through this life and not be offended. The New Testament already prophesies you're going to be offended by people. That's why we have all the one another's. Love one another. Be kind to one another. Be patient. All that is a prophet. It's a promise to you. Someone is going to offend you. You can't even, you can't even say I'm happy, fortunate, blessed if you're not merciful because this comes in the context of the only one that is reciprocity. For they shall receive the same thing they give out. Right, you, you, mercy is compassion, grace, it's forgiveness. It says, "You make me sick, but I'm gonna let you go." Watch this again. Now, some of you say, "Man, I don't care. I don't want that blessed. I don't want to be that happy." Yeah, you cannot look at the cross and turn away and not give mercy. For everyone in here is a recipient of mercy. For you have highly offended a holy God with your sin and your lifestyle. That every morning, watch this, His mercies are renewed. Lamentations chapter three. Every morning you wake up with the breath that He gives you, you are shown mercy. So how could you stare at the cross and not give mercy to people that offend you? Husbands, pay attention. Wives, pay attention. Mercy, friends, pay attention. Mercy, teammates, pray attention. Mercy, mercy. Your first response to offense should be mercy, not "Blessed are those who hold grudges." Watch this. You talking about happy? You cannot treat your heart like an apartment and put people in there and leave them there for rent and be happy. You cannot flourish with unforgiveness. You cannot flourish with grudges. You cannot drive for grudges. Your heart is not an apartment. You have to release people from there. It's not a prison. You have to release people from there. "Man, they hurt me, but I'm gonna show them." Watch, mercy. You hurt the Lord all the time. Say, "No, I don't." "I'm righteous." No, you haven't read the scriptures in this context. Ephesians says that, man, it says, "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God." That word grieve in Greek means they emotionally wound. So I mean, every time we mess up, we hurt God's heart. But every morning you rise with what? Mercy. And not just, "Oh, mercy, I got to do this. I gotta forgive them." See, it's so easy to say, "I'm a Christian. I'm this. I'm that." Are you living this?
[Music] Profession is easy. Living is truth. I ain't impressed by nobody's profession. I'm watching you for your fruit. Oh, there's only like two more. No, no, they don't want me to take my time. No, no, you don't. Uh, verse eight. Let's. Man, if you struggle, if you are a grudge holder, man, I pray and ask God to give your heart of mercy to keep. And listen, mercy ain't for people you love all the time and are perfect. Mercy are for people who agitate you and who hurt you. Like the other day, Lena had to give me mercy. I came into the bedroom. Lena came into our bedroom, and she wanted to tell me something about her mother. And I opened my phone and I tried to show her something else immediately. She was offended. She got hurt and she stormed out of the room. The next day, she had to show me mercy. Sure, you know, honey, is I forgive you. So I apologize. I apologize first, brothers.
[Applause] Get my phone. So I heard, I hurt her really bad the other day, right? And then after I hurt her, I said to her, I said, um, I said, uh, "Good morning." This is Tuesday. "Good morning." Because I know how she likes to receive these things. She send me a text first. Let me think about it. Let me think if I want to give you mercy. Let me, let me think about it. Let me, let me get with God. Let's see if I got to give you." No, no, he already said, "Show mercy." You ain't, you ain't got to pray about mercy. He said, "Give it." Uh, "Let me pray if I should show them mercy." The devil is a liar. It's if it's written, it's his will. You, if it's written, it's his will. And then, "Let me pray if I should show that person mercy." If it's written, it's his will. See, and watch, because I know the word, I already know, man, if I don't make this right, God ain't gonna have my prayers. It was Tuesday, and I know my stuff. My first study day is Wednesday, and I'm thinking, my, I was praying that day like, "God, I'm praying about, I don't know if you're listening to me because Lena and I are still agitated at each other." And then, you know that well, "If you got, you know, you got beef with your brother, leave your gift at the altar." That's back half of Matthew. "Go make that right, then come back." I'm like, "Dang, I gotta study in the morning, but Lena's mad at me." But I'm like, "Dang, I gotta study." And I'm like, "Man, I gotta begin. God, Lord, ain't gonna listen to my prayers." I said, "I said, 'Good morning.'" Oh yeah, I was in my, in the basement like, "Good morning, Tuesday. Watch, I am very sorry for not allowing you to share first what was going on with your mother. I hope things are okay with your mother. In that moment, I was not being considerate by sharing my requests with you."
[Music] I say a bunch of things in the middle.
[Music] [Applause] Where my brothers at? I got to get some stuff on my chest too. So I let her have it in the middle. Can I tell him? I let her have it. I offloaded in the middle about how she hurt me.
[Applause] I ain't gonna read you that part. I don't want you looking at me some kind of way. We pray for the men of God, right? I said something, and but at the end, I thought, I thought I rebuked her for what she did wrong. I said, at the end, I said, "Nevertheless." Yeah, a true story. No cap. Never. Can I, can I air? I said, after I said what I had to say, because she was no angel too, because she lashed out on me in that bedroom. "Hey, you wasn't listening to what I gotta do." All right. So after I said what I got to say, I won't put the woman of God out there. Let me protect the woman of God. I said, "I better be a coverage." I said, "Nevertheless, I seek nothing from you regarding my apology. I'm not sharing for sympathy on apology from you. I just need to share out of respect for transparency for us. I know I have not been the best listener either, and so again, I am sorry for the hurt and frustration that I have caused you and I have been causing you. I'm going to the gym and then I'm going to do some work before my doctor's appointment." All right. I did, I did not, I did not wait for her to get right, even though I felt offended. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. And watch, you better pay attention because you're going to need mercy. You can't even stare at the cross and hold somebody. We got like two more. Verse nine. Blessed are what? Verse we are. Oh, well, hold on. Verse eight. Blessed, happy, extremely fortunate, thriving of the pure in heart, for they shall see God. This one don't even need no explanation. Your heart is wicked, and so is mine. It is the seat of all your decisions and the direction of your life. The closer you get to Jesus, the more pure your heart becomes, and the more pure your heart becomes, the more revelation you have about God. If you can't understand God, you probably just have to get closer to the Lord. The closer you get to the Lord, the clearer God becomes to you. So if you say, "Man, I really don't understand Him," that's okay. If you pursue Jesus, your vision, like you wear glasses, your vision starts to get clearer. You get a new lens from a heart that is growing in purity. And as your heart grows in purity, you start to see God more clearer. Okay. Verse nine. Blessed, happy, extremely fortunate, thriving are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God. There's only one more after this. I, everybody look right at me because this one is extremely serious. Notice what it says. Blessed are the who? Peacemakers. So this already assumes what? Conflict. This is not talking about like the inner peace from salvation. This is talking about that state of being that is lost during conflict. Can I say something to you? Conflict is inevitable. You almost cannot avoid it. When conflict comes, peace sometimes leaves. Husbands, wives, friends. But notice what it says. It says, "Blessed are the peacemakers." Watch, not the peacekeepers. Not those who be in conflict and say, "Well, I'm good. I got my peace." No, blessed are the peacemakers. You know what make means? You go out of your way to reconstruct peace. Peace, God. It don't matter if you got conflict. You say, "Well, I'm good. I got peace." No, blessed are those who go out of their way to take a break and rebuild peace, even if you good. You go out of your way to rebuild it when it is lost. You pursue it. You get it back. You bring it back to the marriage, back to the friendship, back to the person that wounded you. Now watch, can we go deeper? Look at the text. What does it say about peacemakers? They shall be called what? The sons of God. The evidence that you're truly a follower is that you do your best to try to make peace. What is the opposite of this? I'm about to rebuke some of y'all. If you call yourself a Christian and you love drama, you are a fraud and you need to repent. If you love drama and you love keeping it going for long periods of time and you call yourself a Christian, you are fraud and you need to repent. You are ruining your Christian witness. "How good and pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity." It's like peace. This one is important because the Lord doesn't like to see his children fight all the time. It doesn't say blessed are the peacekeepers. Blessed are those who go out of their way to rebuild peace. Them and them only. When you see them, that is a real son of God, a real daughter of God. So you could sit there in your drama from now until you're on your deathbed. You rob yourself of your Christian witness. The last beatitude. Put it up there. Blessed are those, happy, it's crazy, fortunate, thriving are those who are persecuted, not for foolishness, for righteousness' sake. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. So watch this, man. Blessed are you when people misunderstand you, tear you down, trash you, slander you, betray you, persecute you. Sometimes they're members of your own family. Not for you doing them wrong, just for you being righteous. That if you are righteous and persecution follows, that the Lord said you are blessed. He's talking to people who are being killed, fed to animals, sung. And to the whole New Testament was written in the context of fears, persecution. It's the first century A.D. They're living under Roman occupation, in essence. Jesus says, "Vengeance is mine. You ain't got to retaliate." Don't retaliate. It's immature. I'm praying for me because I'll be checking trolls on social media every now and then, and I got to stop doing that. The other day, somebody came on my page and said something about me. I was, somebody the church put out a video with me praying, and they said, "Look, look at it. Look at these guys. They want to be seen praying." And I was, I, I wrote about the lash out and I said, "No."
[Music] You tagged me trashing me for praying for my church. And I said, "You know what? That, that was, that was ill. But since you tagged me, all your haters know who I am now. They might go read some stuff on my page and come back to you and say, 'He ain't that bad.'"
[Music] A couple years ago, I saw a bunch of Christians who were in an Islamic nation were captured. A radical group of extremists. Let them down, man of God. You've seen this. Led them down to the beach in orange jumpsuits. You saw this, brother. Now made them kneel down, bound. They denouncing Christ. Wives and children ain't never gonna see them again. Denounce them. They will not. Say, "You're not a follower of Jesus." They will not. Death threats. As they knelt on a beach, not one of them in that group denounced the Lord Jesus. All of them beheaded on the beach. Not sliced slowly, cut through the neck like you're cutting a piece of meat. As they screamed and they wailed, and one head fell off next to a brother, and he knew his term was coming. Knife comes to his throat. Will not denounce Jesus. Slowly cut through that head. That one falls right next to another brother. The next one comes. He will not denounce Jesus. Knife to the throat. 20 of them. They make it out. American Christians who are always praying to get out of everything. When some of these things is for His glory. Some of these sufferings is for His glory. Some of these hardship for His glory. For Paul wrote to the church at Rome, "For I would say that the sufferings of this present world, they're not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed." But every time we feel uncomfortable, our first prayer is out. And not, "Lord, show me what you're trying to do in me while I'm in this."
[Music] And the only way to escape persecution or trolls or haters on social media is to denounce Jesus and not live for real. Compromise will keep you safe.
[Music] The martyrs of old, they sought as honor to die for the Lord Jesus.
[Music] Give me the next verse. So important is this one that he repeats it twice. It's not nine beatitudes, it's eight. And a repeat. Blessed are you when people revile you, talk bad about you, and persecute you, slander you, and utter all kinds of evils against you, some of them falsely, for my name's sake. So when they trash you for following me, even members of your own family, don't feel vengeful. They don't even know. Every time they trash you, they just add in a reward to your heavenly bank account. For you say, "Great is their reward in heaven."
[Music] I want you to notice that there are eight beatitudes. The first and the last one are present. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. It's now. The ones in the middle are all promises for now. And then we'll be comforted. We'll inherit the earth. We'll be filled. We'll be shown mercy. We'll see God. These are God's promises in between His insurance. And then I want you to notice the progress of the beatitudes. Look at all eight of them, how they build on the other. Blessed are the poor in spirit. That is, if you, if you want God deeply, He brings you into the kingdom. Once you've brought into the kingdom, then you begin to mourn. Once you begin to mourn, you become more meek and more humble. Once you become more humble, you start having greater spiritual hunger. Once you have greater spiritual humble, you are transformed. You start being more merciful. Once you're more merciful, we see that you really have a pure heart. Once you have a pure heart, you will enjoy more peace. And once you live like this, you're going to be persecuted and misunderstood.
[Music] The world, the world defines happiness as external things: homes, cars, money, status, fame. All these things we think make people happy. And I'll tell you, if you talk to some of these people you're jealous of, they lay down in bed at night and they're still empty. But Jesus says there is a greater happiness, one that's far superior to all these external things. Poverty in spirit, mourning, all these things are much greater. Hunger and thirst for righteousness, merciful, peacemaking, all these things are much greater. They lead to a greater pathway of peace, maturity.
[Music] My fears that like Solomon, so many people are going to make a mistake. They're going to come down to the end of their lives with the wrong notion of happiness. They spend their whole lives dating a shadow.
[Music] That they could never put their hands on because you'll get everything you want and still be empty. These are the beginning of Christian values. If we don't see this in you, we don't see faith in you.
[Music] So I want to pray. While I'm even on my knees, thank God. I want to pray for you. Look at me, my brothers and sisters, that these eight things will be seen in your life. And for some of you who says, "I feel none of those," that means you're not in the kingdom, and we're about to try to pray you in. So every head bowed and every eye closed. Holy Father, I pray over these my brothers and my sisters. Come, Lena, take that off the stage for me. Don. This is serious. Don't nobody move.
[Music] This is so serious because we always posting about our Christianity. You got Christian in your profile, and you tell everybody you're a Christian, but here is the evidence.
[Music] This is so serious.
[Music] Father, I pray over my sons and daughters, my brothers and my sisters. I pray in this moment, there will be such a weight of conviction that we will search our own hearts to see, is this fruit coming out of our life? Is there any evidence of the Beatitudes in the life of the one who claims to be a disciple? Where your sons and daughters are falling short, God, I pray. Yeah, Lord, bring change in our hearts now, in this moment.
[Music] The world is watching. We are your representatives. I pray we will lead into the Beatitudes. Lord, we will cry out for these graces to be made strong in our lives. We want them all.
[Music] Where we have transgressed them, give us a revelation. We know it in our belly, God. We want to be better representatives for you. Church is not enough. So I pray over my sons and daughters, my brothers and my sisters. God, bring conviction, bring change, bring the freedom of these Beatitudes that truly leads us to happiness and flourishing and thriving and peace in our minds. I pray for a spirit of peace, a spirit of mercy, a spirit of forgiveness. God, a spirit of poverty, a spirit of meekness, a spirit of hunger and thirst and desperation.
[Music] For on these, your children. And now I talk to you, you sir, you ma'am, who sat in here, listen to me talk for over an hour, and you feel nothing. You're not poor in spirit. You don't want God. You're not thirsty for righteousness. You love sin. You're not merciful. You're not meek. You're not a peacemaker. These things mean nothing to you. My, my friend, you sit under the wrath of Almighty God. But in His love, He brought you here that your eternal state could change. Right now, in a moment, I'm so serious, no cap. You can walk out of here brand new, man, a brand new woman. This ain't no joke. The Lord is already pulling on your heart. He already knew by His sovereign grace, before the foundation of the world, He would win you to Himself. In this moment, you say, "Pray for me, preacher. That's me. I want my name to be written in heaven. I want to be a daughter of God, a son of God. I want my sins to be forgiven. I want to know a happiness that will satisfy my soul, because everything else I'm chasing, it leaves me bankrupt and empty." You already know it. You say, "Pray for me, preacher." If that's you, I'm a count of three. Nobody can't even see you. It's private between you and God. My eyes are closed. When I count three, just throw your hand up, and I want to see who I'm praying for. "Preacher, I want to leave here saved, forgiven. I want that happiness." One, Jesus is calling you. Sue. This is the greatest moment of your life. It's just an acknowledgment of what He's already done. Three, throw your hand in the air and leave it there. One, I see that hand. Leave it there. Two, I see that hand. Leave it there. Three, leave it there. Four, leave it there. Five, leave it there. Six, seven, eight, leave it there. Nine, ten, leave it there. I can't see ten. Eleven, I see you. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. Fifteen. Fifteen. Seventeen. Seventeen. Seventeen. Seventeen. Seventeen. Seventeen. Seventeen. You seventeen people. Oh, eighteen. Eighteen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Nineteen. Nineteen. Nineteen. It ain't my words. Oh, twenty. God already knew you would be here. Twenty. Twenty. Twenty. Right there. Just ask God to forgive you for your sins. He's already working in your heart. Tell Him you surrender. Tell Him you're sorry. He ain't mad at you. He'll help you build your business. He'll help you in your marriage. He'll help you with the things that's in your heart. He'll help you with your past. He'll help you with your trauma. He'll make your son and daughter. He loves you. Just tell Him, "Lord, I'm sorry for my sin." Just confess. He loves you. He already knows. You don't got to be afraid of Him. You're His. He says, "My daughter, you are mine. My son, you are mine." This is the greatest moment of your life. And now, Father, I pray over these twenty brothers and sisters. They already belong to You before the beginning of the world. They'll just make. Oh, twenty-one. They're just making a public declaration to let the world know that You've already done a work in their hearts. I pray now, oh my God, I feel, I feel something heavy that things will break over, the break off of them even right now in the name of Jesus. I don't know. I come against fear and anxiety and worry and trauma from the past. I pray healing for somebody's mind and their heart. I pray for them that they would be filled with the Spirit and that they would love Your presence and love Your word and love the gathering of the Saints. Their lives are about to change. Are you praying with me? Are you lifting your hand? Are you lifting your hand? Are you praying with me?
[Music] Oh, twenty-two. Lord, I thank You that they belong to You. She is Your daughter. He is Your son. She is forgiven. He is forgiven. She is brand new. He is brand new. Her name is in heaven. His name is in heaven. I thank You they belong to You. Lord, You said when one sinner repents, all of heaven rejoices. So, Father,
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