Latest / Redeemer Students Podcast / Matthew 5:4-12 | August 9th, 2026

Transcript

Matthew 5:4-12 | August 9th, 2026 · Redeemer Students Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Remember from last Sunday, we're gonna spend a few weeks looking at the Sermon on the Mounts, which is found in Matthew 5 through Matthew 7.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: And we learned last week that this message, this sermon, is Jesus' first sermon in his public ministry, right?
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: He waited 30 years before he kind of stepped out in front and started his public ministry.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: And this is kind of the first thing he said to the crowds.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: And where he starts in Matthew 5, 2 through 11, as Alex just read, it sort it serves as a sort of thesis or bottom line understanding, a main point, these verses, of everything else he's gonna say in these next few chapters, right?
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: He's gonna get into the law, he's gonna get in how to follow it, what you should and what you shouldn't do, but he wants to lay the groundwork first with these verses.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: And these verses are known as the Beatitudes.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're familiar with that term.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty much what this means is blessedness or filled with blessing, right?
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: So these people described here, these qualities, it is blessed, filled with blessing.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: So if we're asking the question, as we kind of come back to Youth for the Fall, or maybe you've been walking with Jesus for a long time, if we're asking the question, what does it mean to follow Jesus?
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: To be a Christian, to be a follower of him, we find a foundation of our answer in these eight Beatitudes, these verses.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: We looked at the first one by itself last Sunday, if you remember, Matthew 5, 3, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: And this one, if you remember, set at the tone in a really surprising way, an odd way.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: How can someone be blessed?
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: How can someone be happy and poor at the same time, especially poor in spirit?
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Why does this person get to receive the kingdom of God?
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't it be somebody who is wealthy in spirit, rich in spirit?
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: But remember, the word for blessed here that Jesus uses is different than our understanding of a material blessing or a light feeling of happiness or something like that, but it's something deeper.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Bless you.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's a gospel joy, this blessing that is not dependent on our circumstances, but rather a joy that transcends our circumstances, something deeper than what's going on in our lives or what we have.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Pastor John Piper here he defines it this way: Christian joy or blessedness is a good feeling in the soul produced by the Holy Spirit as he causes us to see the beauty of Christ.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: That is what Jesus is talking about here when he says blessed.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's a deep feeling of contentment, of peace, of happiness that is connected to our love for Jesus and his love for us, not connected to how things are going, how good you're doing, what's going on in your life, something deeper.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And we learn that this is what Jesus wants for you.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: He wants you to experience this blessing.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: His heart for you is for you to flourish.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's what this whole sermon's about.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: How can we flourish as followers of Jesus, as disciples, as people?
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the Beatitudes, they serve as a sort of blueprint on how he's gonna work that out in you, right?
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we see.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: But we're gonna see in this passage tonight, as he sets up the rest of his message, Jesus knows and is teaching us that we need to be brought low in order for real change to happen.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because if we're honest, we all want to change.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: We want something to change in our lives one way or another.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: We want things to be different, right?
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're a follower of Jesus, you probably want to change to be more like him.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: To not have the sin that clings close anymore, to not struggle with that, to grow in this way, to be better in this way.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: We want to change, to transform.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: But if you've been following Jesus for any amount of time, then you've likely been confronted with the fact that this change can be really, really hard.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: We're not the people we wish we were.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: We we've maybe you've conjured up this idea of an ideal version of yourself.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: I call mine the ideal keel, right?
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: It rhymes.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Ideal keel.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Ideal keel reads his Bible all the time.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: He loves it.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: He wakes up early before everybody else when it's dark outside, he's praying all morning, right?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: He serves willingly, he loves people easily.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: All these things that I wish that I could do, but we just don't live up to it.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: But we want to change, we want to transform.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: The question is how.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: So, our main point for tonight's that all this is going to be about is that the Christian life is not about what you have done or are doing for God, but what he has done and is doing in you.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about what you have done or are doing for God, but what about what he has done and is doing in you.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Last year I went to a place called Pompeii, right outside of Naples, Italy.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Do you all know what Pompeii is?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: I went there with my family.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: And if y'all don't know what it is, it's it's the remains of this ancient Roman city that was destroyed by Mount Vesuvius, this big volcano, right?
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: And Pompeii was this gorgeous place.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: It was near the coast, it's out at the base of this beautiful volcano.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been to Guatemala, it's kind of similar to the city we're in, right?
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Beautiful, the lake, the water, the volcano.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it's so beautiful that Pompeii became a vacation destination for all the rich people who lived in Rome.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like the Hamptons or Alice Beach, right, of ancient Rome.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's what Pompeii grew into.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: But in 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius erupted and over the over two quick days dumped almost 20 feet of ash and debris on top of the city.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Just covered it.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: It covered it.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: It was tragic.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: One of the most tragic natural disasters in history.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Often happens, probably happened too fast for anyone to evacuate, protect themselves.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Whoa.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'll talk a little louder.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: But in only a couple days, right, this thriving, growing city of Pompeii was completely covered.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Completely covered by ash.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Buried so much that there's stories of the next vacation year.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: These people would came from Rome and they're like, yo, where did Pompeii go?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was gone.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: It was covered.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: But I think the craziest thing is that it wasn't until 1600 AD, right?
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: 80 AD to 1600 AD, that an architect was digging underground to make a water channel, and he discovered a full city.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: A full city.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: So when I went to Pompeii, I was just kind of expecting like rocks and ruins just kind of around.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, like a city used to be here.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: But the remarkable thing is that so much of this city was preserved under the ash.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: I have some pictures that we can kind of just look through.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like the city is pretty much still there.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's crazy.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: But for how remarkable this discovery was, right?
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's like this ancient lost city, that's a remarkable discovery.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually the reclamation, the excavation of digging it back up.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's even more extraordinary.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: There have been archaeologists and teams actively working to find new parts of the city, new details of the road.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: They've been finding art on the wall, right?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Thousands of year old art.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: And this process began hundreds of years ago.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Hundreds of years ago.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I was shocked when I went going to this ancient ruins that they were still working to uncover what was lost.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Shocked to walk around and people are still working on it.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there's a lesson here for us, which is that change and transformation is very, very slow.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Painstakingly slow sometimes.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: We'd like to think of our lives and our hearts and think that they can just change at a snap of a finger, right?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: God could just change this and make it go ahead.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe He can, but it's often not how it works.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: We we think that if we maybe just read a new book, get a new tip, find a new hack, right?
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Have one good therapy session, one good small group time, hear one more good sermon, then everything will just snap and fall into its right place.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: We'll become fully transformed to who we're supposed to be.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: And all these are great things, necessary things even.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's just not how Christian growth happens.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Transforming into the image of Jesus is a slow process of taking off the old person, putting on the new person, walking in new realities, and slowly changing over time.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: It looks way more like the hundreds of years of digging up Pompeii than we would like to think.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: But Jesus is calling you into a life of transformation.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: He loves you where you are, but he wants you to flourish and to grow, to change.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: But the good news that we see in the Beatitudes is that Jesus' love for us, for our transformation, it doesn't rest on how good we're doing at following him.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what it's based on.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: We are called to love him with everything we have, to be in full pursuit of Jesus, to walk in holiness, but that real change has not come from within.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: We saw that last week.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: There's a great and helpful quote by a man named Dallas Willard that says this grace is not opposed to efforts, it is opposed to earning.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: So what Jesus is saying here is he's not saying, Don't try, don't do anything, don't want to grow, don't want to change, but he's saying, don't try to earn it for yourself.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: So how do we change and grow as followers of Jesus?
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Let's read that passage again in Matthew 5.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus opened his mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted, blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Blessed are the pure in hearts, for they shall see God.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you, and utter all kinds of evil things against you falsely.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: We see Jesus describe eight different qualities or characteristics here, if you caught it.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: We have the poor, the mourning, the meek, hungry and thirsty, merciful, pure in hearts, peacemakers persecuted, reviled.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: And for the most part, I don't read this list and like want to sign up, right?
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: I don't read that list and say, that sounds awesome.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: But these, out of all the characteristics, these are the people that Jesus considers blessed.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: These are the people who have gospel joy.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: And even more so, each one has a really great reward tied to it, right?
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: The poor, they have the kingdom of heaven, the mourn comforted, the meek inherit the earth, the hungry and thirsty find satisfaction, the merciful receive mercy, right?
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: They all have these rewards given to them.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: We see this backwards thing happening in the way that Jesus is talking about us, where the reward, the kingdom of heaven, is reserved not for those who have it all figured out, not for those who have already changed and transformed, but to those who admit that they don't.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: To those who admit their brokenness, their need.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: But I find it tempting to read these verses in this passage and think, oh, look, okay, that one sounds nice.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like the pure in heart.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be pure in heart.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: I do hunger and thirst for righteousness, right?
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe I actually might be like that one.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I am meek.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I am humble.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm pretty humble, right?
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's what a humble person says.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: But the flip side, being the persecuted, like I don't know.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: The reviled?
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: Mourning?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't sound fun.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Being sad.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Who likes being sad?
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Ellie is one of the only people I know who likes being sad, right?
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: When Ellie is sad, she turns on sad music to feel more sad.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what I do.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: If we aren't careful, it's easy to read the Beatitudes in this list and think, okay, this one's for me.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: I want that one, but those are for somebody else.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's not me.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want that.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: But that's not what Jesus is teaching.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's a helpful way that John Stott says, he says, unlike the gifts of the Spirit, which God distributes to different members of Christ's body in order to equip them for different kinds of service, right?
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: The same Spirit is concerned to work all these aspects of Christian character in all of us.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: We cannot escape our responsibility to seek them all.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: These beatitudes are not pick and choose, but it is what a Christian looks like if you're going to find blessing and joy.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: And these 11 verses, Jesus is describing to his disciples and to us today what it means to be a follower of him and what it means to grow as a follower of him.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think what we see is that each one of these beatitudes feeds into each other.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: We can kind of read them as a sort of progression or chain of the Christian life as they feed into each other and loop back around again and again.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: We saw last week, right, that it has to begin with admitting our need.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Blessed are the poor in spirit.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's where it starts.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: It opens the door.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: That is where every true movement toward Christ likeness begins, not with strength, but surrender.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: That was our whole point last week.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: It has to begin with being poor in spirit, with admitting our need.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the common denominator of all of our efforts to grow grace.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: We don't outgrow it.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: When Ellie and I got married a few years ago, we received a lot of very generous wedding gifts.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: And along with people buying things off our registry and our wish lists, we also received a lot of cash, which in my opinion is a great present to receive.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Love getting money.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: And when you get wedding money, a common note that goes along with it is like, here's a little something to get you started, right?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Here's a little something where you can go build your account and go buy some stuff for the house.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Here's a little something to get you started.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we read the Beatitudes and approach the Christian life and think of it as the same way.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like, God's grace is a real and good gift.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: We think it's just a little something to kind of get us started, to clean our slate so we can go do it on our own.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not completely wrong, but it's not the full truth.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: God's grace is good.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: It does clean you and transform you, but it is something we continually feed on.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's not something to get you started, but it is your lifeline as a follower of Jesus.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, he says, apart from me, you can do nothing.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: We have to start at that point to grow.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: But when we look at the Beatitudes, can we put that picture up of all of all of them again?
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's really, really cool to see that when you see your poverty and your need, your spiritual need, what happens next?
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: You begin to mourn.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: You mourn the sin that's in you, you mourn the fact that we're not enough.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: You see the things that you don't like, you see the reasons you want to grow and that makes you sad.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: You mourn for it, your brokenness.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: And this godly mourning brings you low, it softens you to make room for the meekness, for the humility that you have before God, knowing that you need Him.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then once you've released that control and you're hungry and thirsty for righteousness, humble before God, and as you continue to soften, you grow merciful.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: Your transformation grows inward, you become maybe pure in heart more than you had before.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Not because you're perfect, but because your love for God is what's driving you pure for heart, you begin to grow.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then as you overflow in love into mercy, you seek peace, bringing gospel joy and peace into the brokenness of the world.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, as you grow into the likeness of Jesus being transformed more and more, he promises persecution.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: You'll be reviled.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: In the same way that the world persecuted Jesus, it's promised to us as well.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: But what he's saying is that this persecution, this friction, this hard part of being a follower of him is often the refining fire that exposes and grows you even more, bringing you back low into your poverty of spirit, needing him again and going through the Beatitudes over and over again.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: That is what Christian growth looks like.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: These eight blessings that we see, they layer on top of each other and weave together into a tapestry of you becoming more like Jesus.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: Grace upon grace upon grace.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a checklist.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Matt Chamlow says it this way: the Beatitudes are not a checklist of spiritual goals.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: They're not a staircase to heaven or a performance rubric for the super spiritual.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: They are a portrait of the person Jesus is forming in us through the lifelong, spirit-empowered process of sanctification.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: Growing as a Christian is not step-by-step, level after level, ascension into looking more like Jesus.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's not up and to the right.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: Remember that graph from last week.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's not growing and getting better and getting better and getting better.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: But it's going low and being transformed and going through these layers of these blessings over and over again.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that once we mourn, we stop being poor in spirit, or once we're persecuted, it doesn't mean, okay, you've reached the final step of the Beatitudes.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Congratulations, you're you have reached the final level of being a Christian.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: But we return to these points and to these blessings over and over again in our lives, never graduating from the low ones, never being too low for the sweet and good ones.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: One of the signs that we're actually following Jesus, I think, is that the Spirit reveals how not good we are doing at it.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Have y'all experienced that?
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: I read something last week where it says, name one other religion where one's open confession of being wrong is the sign that they're on the right track.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: Name another religion.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Name another place in your life where admitting that you're not doing good enough means, okay, you're on the right track.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: We want the up and to the right, we want the step-by-step growth, but a life following Jesus is not as clean or as pretty or as straight or linear as we wish it was.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Last spring, Ellie and I planted some limelight hydrangeas in our backyard.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Do y'all know what a hydrangea is?
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, six-free boys.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Hydrangeas look like this.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: Those are that's not our house.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that's the goal, maybe.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't know this, but hydrangeas grow weird, right?
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: They kind of I'm I'm clearly a gardening novice because I expect expect plants to grow like trees, right?
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's pretty normal.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like as they get older, as they get healthy, they grow up, right?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty simple.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's how I thought they would grow.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: So what you're supposed to do, we did.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: We had dug dug holes, we planted them, we watered regularly, we did all the things, put the soil in there, the potting soil, everything, mixed it up.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: And slowly they did kind of begin to grow taller and greener.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, all right, like success, we're doing the right thing.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: We did it right.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: But after a few months, some of the branches they they started drooping down and getting really sad looking, flattening out, and then I thought something was wrong.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: Here's a picture, like all right.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: I I didn't think that was gonna be funny.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like that that doesn't look great, right?
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what a healthy plant is supposed to look like.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: It was LE2, you don't just have to laugh at me, right?
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: All right, but I learned that this is normal, okay?
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: So you can stop your laughing.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: What this is called is it's a process called layering, right?
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: We're getting into our gardening, and it looks like this.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: It looks like this.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: Layering is it's a growing process for a hydrangea where it's a it's a sort of reproduction method of how it grows and gets bigger.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: And what happens is the low-hanging branches, they grow, and then when they touch wet and good soil, they move towards it and they bury themselves under it, and then eventually grow back upwards almost as a new limb and a new plant.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: And this process goes out and out and out.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: So here's a picture of how one of our hydrangeas looks now, a little bit better, and you see that we have a new branch.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: We have a part that has gone down in the soil, one of the low parts, and has started to grow upwards.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this is a much better image of spiritual formation than a tree, maybe, that is just growing upwards, taller and bigger.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great image of the spiritual formation that Jesus is describing here in the Beatitudes.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Matt Chandler says this the first experience of becoming like Jesus is usually sequential to the Beatitudes.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's usually in order.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: But after that, depending on what we brought into our journey, what our compulsions are, where our weaknesses are, the experience will vary person to person.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: So when you become a Christian, many of you probably are, growth may be natural, growth may be clear.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: You start doing these things, you stop doing those things, your old desires go away.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: When you have new desires, godly desires replacing them, it can feel fast.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: It can feel kind of like knocking off levels of the game, completing step one and step two.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: But many of you know it's not always that way.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: There comes a moment where maybe where you hit the wall, where things that were working before, spiritual rhythms, disciplines, practices, they don't seem to be producing the same feelings, the same fruit anymore.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: You feel stuck.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: A lifetime of following Jesus has many moments of growing low before we grow back up.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's this like coil path, this layering like a hydrangea through the Beatitudes.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a straight one.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: It may look simple on the first part, in the first seasons, but we have to grow low before we grow up and cycle back through these blessings over and over again as we're growing more into the image of Jesus.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: So as we reflect and listen to Jesus, I want to invite you to take a second and maybe inventory your walk with God.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Where do you find yourself tonight?
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: They're in this season of.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Life.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Have you gone through the first cycle?
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: Do you recognize some of these qualities in you?
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: Or have you maybe hit the wall?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: Finding yourself frustrated, not being able to seem to grow.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: Is the spirit maybe pressing one of these qualities into you right now?
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because the reality is that Jesus did not die to save your ideal self.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: He did not die for ideal keel.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus died for all of the mess and all of the brokenness and all of the sin that frustrates you.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: So we can approach the Beatitudes and see this cycle of growing and pray with the psalmist from Psalm 139 and say, Search me, God.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: Know my hearts, search me.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: Help me see the ways that you're inviting me to grow deeper into your love, to look more like you.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: Your failures and your shortcomings, which are many, are not roadblocks to growth.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: But they're actually often the very thing, those failures are the very thing that drives you back low into the good soil of God's grace so that we can be sanctified and refined and changed by Him over and over again.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: So that means when you hit these seasons or moments of why have I not beaten this sin yet?
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: Why am I still anxious?
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: Why am I still depressed?
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: Why do I still desire that lifestyle?
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: Why do I envy that person?
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: Why can't God just snap his fingers and make all of my pain, my suffering, my sin just go away?
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: The moments that look like a step backwards, that look like you're regressing in your faith, those may actually be invitations to lean all the more deeply into the sufficiency, into the enoughness of Jesus.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: Charles Spurgeon said this.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the rock of ages.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Meaning, he has learned to rejoice in the very things that remind him that he is not enough because Jesus is.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray together.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: Our Father and our God, you are the lifter of our heads.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, you do not double down with shame and discouragements.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: There's no condemnation in your eyes or your voice when you look at us, Lord.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: You're not frustrated with our progress or lack thereof.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: You don't look at us and say, Man, I wish that they would just get it together.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: I wish that they could stop doing this or start doing that.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: But Lord, these blessings, these beatitudes, Lord, they are an invitation to flourish in your grace.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: I pray now, Lord, that as we come to you in song, Lord, that you would expose, you would search us, expose parts in us, expose the unbelief, the failures, Lord, the ways that we can be refined and sanctified to look more like you.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because, Lord, you desire both your glory but also our good.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: So we thank you for your word, Lord.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: I pray you would continue to have your word working in us.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray for times in small groups, for curiosity, for confession, for encouraging time.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, we pray all this in the name of Jesus.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: You guys can stand.