Latest / Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ) / "The Blessed Life No One Talks About" by Hiram Kemp

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"The Blessed Life No One Talks About" by Hiram Kemp · Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ)

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Down through the centuries, there's been a burning question in the hearts of humanity,
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and people have gone to various lengths to try to figure out the answer.
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What is the good life, and how can I have it?
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The Eastern philosophers have sought to try to figure out this answer.
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Sociologists, economists, and philosophers have
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all tried to offer up what they think is the way to the good life.
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Bestsellers promise it, but at the end, they all come up empty
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with varying answers and various approaches for how you can have
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and ultimately enjoy what they describe as the good life.
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Dr. Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist and a grad school
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professor at NYU. And he wrote a book a couple years ago called The Happiness
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Hypothesis. And what Haidt did, as he describes it, is he surveyed wisdom
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down throughout the ages from various ancient traditions and cultures.
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So he went from Buddha to Confucius, Aristotle, and Plato.
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And his whole approach was, how can I figure out what ultimately
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leads to human flourishing? And as you might imagine,
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Haidt's intelligent and skilled, but he came up empty. He was
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looking for how do people get the most out of life, and he had various
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answers. Some said finances, some said experiences,
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some said academics, others said, no, throw yourself into meaningful
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work. And at the end of Haidt's study and what he describes as the happiness
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hypothesis, he had no answers. And for all
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we can say about the ancients and about the moderns,
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really, are we any better in our quest to figure out what makes the good
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life, what leads to an individual ultimately being blessed? I think if you
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were to survey our city, survey this auditorium, you too will
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come up with various answers on how individuals think we should approach that question.
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The truth is sometimes we're also guilty of curating our own definition
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of what it means to truly live and have the blessed life.
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Think about how we even use that term, I'm blessed. It's typically
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followed up with something positive. Retirement's been secured,
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posting the pictures from our vacation, we just
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announced we're having a baby or getting married, all of those things. And while those
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things can and are blessings, And even the Bible describes those things
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as blessings, to receive prosperity and good from God, Genesis 24:35.
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That's not the primary way that the Bible describes an individual
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being blessed or the primary way that the Bible even uses that word to talk
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about what it means to live the blessed life. Almost 2,000 years ago,
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Jesus sat on a hillside outside Galilee and
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he began what's known to us as his most famous sermon, the Sermon on the
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Mount. And it's in the way that Jesus begins this sermon that he answers for
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all time. What really leads to human flourishing? What really leads to
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a person living the blessed life? He says, blessed are the poor in spirit,
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for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those that mourn, for they'll
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be comforted. Blessed are the meek, they'll inherit the earth.
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Blessed are those that hunger and thirst for righteousness, because they'll be satisfied.
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Blessed are the merciful, for they'll receive mercy. Blessed are
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the pure in heart, for they'll see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, because they'll be
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called the children of God. Blessed are you when you're persecuted for righteousness'
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sake, because yours is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when men revile
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you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for
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my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, because great is your reward in heaven,
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for this is how they persecuted the prophets which were before you.
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Jesus says, here's what it means to really live a blessed life. And the
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word that Jesus uses throughout Matthew chapter 5 to describe being blessed,
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it's a word that means this is how God pronounces his approval
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on people who live a certain type of life. It's less about what
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you get from God and saying you're getting good things from God, so this means
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you're blessed, and it's more about I'm in a good place. And so God pronounces
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his approval, his applause, and his congratulations on the
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person that lives this kind of life. And if you have your Bible, go ahead
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and turn it to Matthew chapter 5, because that's where we'll spend our time this
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morning as we walk through this text and see here's what Jesus says about what
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it really means to live a blessed life. And at the conclusion, what we may
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find is our lives, contrary to what we think, are far more blessed
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and far more God-approved than we could have ever imagined. But we might also find
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at the conclusion of this study that perhaps the things that we're chasing after,
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the things that we desire, are really low on God's
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priority list, and maybe we need to make some changes. Because in Matthew 5:3-12,
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Jesus offers to us the blessed life that no one talks
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about. But that everybody needs to adhere to. And here's what he says it
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consists of. Number 1, blessed by brokenness and sorrow.
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This is how Jesus starts the sermon in verse 3. He says, blessed are the
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poor in spirit. And then in verse 4, blessed are those that mourn. The poor
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in spirit will receive the kingdom of heaven. Those that mourn will receive
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comfort. When Jesus says blessed are the poor in spirit,
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he uses a word that references financial need. Those individuals
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that were not totally dependent on themselves, but needed other individuals to
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come alongside them and aid them. But here Jesus is not talking about physical
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resources or finances. He's talking about our spiritual status. And he says,
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congratulations, the person that's in this state, the person that's poor in
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spirit, that realizes apart from God, I've got nothing to recommend
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myself to him. I really need God to make me who I am. A person
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who doesn't think more highly of themselves than they ought to think, Romans 12:3.
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Jesus says this person is living a blessed life and ultimately
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will receive the kingdom of heaven. When Jesus says, blessed are those that mourn,
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he's not talking about sadness over physical hardships or ills.
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He's saying, blessed are those that mourn their own sin, their own
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shortcomings, and their own need for God. And throughout
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scripture, what you find is this is the person that's close to God. This is
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the person that God approves, the person that sees themself in the same light that
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God does, the person that's poor and impoverished in spirit, knowing the
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only way to really receive the riches from heaven that God wants
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to pour into every person's life is to realize that without God,
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we don't have any of it. In Psalm 51:17,
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David says, here is what pleases God in sacrifice: a broken
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and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Psalm 34:6,
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David says, this poor man cried and the Lord heard him, and he was attentive
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to his prayer and delivered him out of all of his trouble. Isaiah 57:15,
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God says, I dwell in the high and lofty place, and also with the
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one that is of a broken and contrite heart. And Jesus comes alongside
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of all that ancient wisdom, all of that inspired information, and He says,
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if you really want to live the God-approved life, you've got to
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be poor in spirit. You've got to see your life from the vantage point
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of God and ultimately a life that says, without God, I really am nothing special.
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In verse 4, when He says, blessed are those that mourn, that's about
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seeing your sin the very same way that God sees your sin.
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James chapter 4, verses 9 and 10, James says, be afflicted and mourn
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because of what I'm doing that ultimately offends God when I fall short.
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Realizing that the only person that can really fix me is not travel experiences.
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It's not a job promotion. It's not academics. It's not my own works.
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Ultimately, it's God. That's what Jeremiah says in Jeremiah
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17:14, heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed. Save me
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and I shall be saved. For you, O Lord, are my praise. When Jesus
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says, be poor in spirit and mourn, this doesn't mean you hate yourself.
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It means you hate your sin. And if you hate your sin and you see
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it rightly, God says, now here's a person whose life has value.
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Here's a person who's headed in the right direction. Here's a person,
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contrary to popular belief, that really is living
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a blessed life. When you think about people who
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really saw themselves in the right way, who really had a proper handle on here's
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what my life is all about, here's what God wants from me, and here's how
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to live a God-honoring life, few people did this as well as the 4th century
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theologian by the name of Augustine. Augustine saw himself and
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all of his failings and hardships perhaps more clearly than most
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people do in history. He wrote a book about his life before his conversion entitled
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Confessions, and throughout the book he says, here are my issues, here are my
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problems. And in one of the lines he says, this is why it was so
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hard for me before conversion. He says, my sin was
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all the more incurable because I did not think myself a sinner.
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Augustine says, my greatest problem was God couldn't help me because
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I couldn't see myself in truly being of need of God's mercy and grace.
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And God can't help anybody until we bring ourselves to this
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point and we say, you know what, God? I'm a sinner and I ultimately need
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your help. Jesus looks out on this crowd that's gathered to hear him preach and
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he says, blessed are you who are poor in spirit. Blessed are you that mourn.
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It's what Paul means in 1 Timothy 1:15 when he says, this is a
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faithful saying and worthy of acceptance everywhere. Christ Jesus came into the
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world to save sinners. Of whom I am chief, 1 Timothy 1:15.
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Paul says that in the present tense after having been an apostle for decades.
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Paul sees himself as he truly is. And Jesus says, when you see
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this, it'll change you. It'll change what we're doing right now.
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Because you see, pride hears a sermon and says, I know all of this already.
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Humility says, I need to hear this again. It's about being
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broken in spirit and mourning over sin, not because God
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won't forgive it, not because we hate ourselves and think lowly of ourselves, but because
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we know all of the true greatness and all of the true goodness is
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located in the person of God.
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Sjögren's syndrome is an autoimmune
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disease or deficiency that basically keeps people from being able to cry and
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to shed tears. People with Sjögren's syndrome, they may get
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sad, they may feel intense emotion over hardship and over difficulty,
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but in the end, they can't really bring up any tears. They can't cry
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though they might want to. They've got to find some other way to express it
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because the tears physically, they just won't come out. I've never
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known anybody that's been officially diagnosed with Sjögren's syndrome,
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but I've known people throughout my life who've kind of boasted about the fact that,
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oh, they just don't cry. Maybe you know people like this. I've heard people say,
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you know, I lived my whole life, I never seen my dad cry. Or maybe
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somebody says, I've lived my whole life, the last time I cried was in 3rd
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grade, you know, when I spilled my chocolate milk. Or I went to the doctor
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as a kid, they gave me shots, never cried, nothing ever bothers me.
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And if that's you, Congratulations, Macho Man Randy Savage.
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I mean, good for you. If you never cry, if nothing ever gets to you,
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well, that's good. But just beware, beware that
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that physical toughness doesn't translate into spiritual
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stubbornness, because God's favorite people realize
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their sin and aren't afraid to express it. It doesn't necessarily mean you've got to
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cry physically, but you've got to have this broken spirit. David says
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in Psalm 38:18, he says, I'll confess my iniquity.
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I'm sorry for my sin. The publican in Luke 18 strikes
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his breast and says, God, be merciful to me, a sinner.
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When Peter realized he disappointed Jesus in Luke 22:62,
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he went out and he wept bitterly. Isaiah says, woe is me, I'm undone.
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I'm a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people
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of unclean lips. Isaiah 6:5. Jesus says,
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this is what it really means to be God-approved. This is what it
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means. It means that in our lives, we realize the biggest room in our house
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is the room for improvement. And it's only then that we
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can make room for God. The blessed life involves brokenness,
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and it involves this idea of mourning and sorrow. But number 2, the blessed
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life nobody talks about also involves humility and hunger.
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As Jesus makes his way through the sermon in verse 5, he says, blessed are
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the meek, for they will inherit the earth. And here Jesus is referencing Psalm
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37:11. In Psalm 37:11, David says the meek will inherit the
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earth and enjoy all the goodness that God has to offer them.
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When Jesus says blessed are the meek or the humble because they'll inherit the
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earth, he means that the meek and the humble person will enjoy the best that
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God has to offer in this world, but also in the new world, the new
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heavens and new earth of 2 Peter 3:13, Revelation 21:1-2.
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And then when he says blessed are those that hunger and thirst for righteousness
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because they'll be satisfied, Just think about Jesus's
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earthly ministry. Think about how many times people followed him because
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they were physically hungry. Matthew 14, Matthew 15,
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Jesus feeds the 4,000 and the 5,000. But here
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Jesus is saying something different. Here Jesus is talking about the spiritual
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hunger that must be true of everybody that's going to follow him and ultimately live
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the blessed and God-approved life. And Jesus says,
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blessed are the meek, the humble, Because they'll inherit the earth.
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No, the blessed life involves seeing yourself in need of God's
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goodness, in need of God's grace and mercy. And it's a lowly view of self
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that says, you know, all of the attention, all of the glory ultimately belongs to
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God. This hunger and thirst for righteousness, it means my true and deepest desires are
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the things that ultimately please God. It's Matthew 6:33, seek ye
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first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added
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to you. Jesus described God's will as his food and his sustenance.
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He says in John 4:34, my will, my food is to
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do the will of him that sent me. So if I'm a person that hungers
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and thirsts for righteousness, yes, it means to seek the kingdom of God first,
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but more than that, it means I want to see God's righteousness done
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in the world, but first and foremost, in my own life.
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It's what Jesus means about himself in John 6:38
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when he says, I have not come to do my own will, but the will
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of him who sent me. The blessed life nobody talks about. Listen, Jesus had
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to tell us this because the world doesn't preach this. The world has a gospel
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of its own. Prove yourself, protect yourself, promote yourself.
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Not Matthew 5:5, to be humble. The world says, if you don't
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boast and post your own brand, nobody else will. And Jesus cuts
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through all of that noise and he says, Matthew 16:25, whoever tries to save
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his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake He'll find
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it. This point reminds us that ultimate success and
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obedience in the Christian life must not ultimately be equated with busyness,
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because it's possible to be busy for God but never surrender to God.
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When Jesus says, I want you to seek first the kingdom of God, this is
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ultimately about surrendering to what God would have me to do and seeking
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His will above my own. Ask and you'll receive, seek and you'll
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find, knock and the door will be opened. For everyone that asks receives, the one
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that seeks finds, And the one that knocks, it's open. You will be satisfied
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if you pursue this life. And so Jesus says the God-approved life, the blessed life,
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is one where you hunger and thirst after the right things and where you humbly
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see yourself as you truly are in light of all that God is and all
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that God has done. You know, in Matthew 21,
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Jesus rides through Jerusalem on that donkey in fulfillment of a prophecy
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made in Zechariah 9:9. And the people, they shout out,
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Hosanna! Praises be to our God. There's a fictional story
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told about the donkey in Matthew 21. He goes out with Jesus.
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Jesus rides on him into the city, and the next day the same donkey goes
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back out into the city. And when he goes back out this time, nobody cheers.
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Nobody praises him. Nobody acknowledges him. He comes back to his friends and he says,
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what happened? Yesterday everybody praised me. Everybody acknowledged me.
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Today it's like they didn't even see me. And his friends respond by telling him,
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oh, don't be silly. They weren't cheering for you. They were cheering for him.
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It wasn't you that they were trusting in and boasting in. It was ultimately Him.
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The only thing that made them cheer for you is the one that you were
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carrying. And Jesus says that to every one of us in Matthew 5:5.
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He really says this and shocks the whole world. Blessed are the
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meek, because at the end of the day, Jesus means what He says in John
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15:5, without Me, you can do nothing. People are ultimately
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cheering for us, not because we're special, but because of the name that
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we're carrying. And all of our lives need to be driven toward a hunger
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and a thirst for God's righteousness over and above our own,
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so that we can say with Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:31,
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whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do all
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to the glory of God. Every one of us should pray this prayer:
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God, keep me from a need and a desire to be noticed,
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but instead let me lose myself ultimately in pursuit
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of you. Psalm 115:1, the psalmist says, not unto
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us, Not unto us, God, give glory, but to your name and
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your name alone. Keep me from needing to be seen and desiring to be noticed,
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but instead let me lose myself ultimately in pursuit
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of you. And when we do that, Jesus says, that's what it means to live
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a blessed life, to be humble and to be meek, to hunger and to thirst
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after the things that only God can satisfy. And when that's our pursuit,
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God always honors it because he satisfies us with himself.
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Here's number 3. The blessed life nobody talks about is
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the life of compassion. Matthew 5:7,
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Jesus says, blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
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The word mercy here in Matthew 5:7, it's about having others' interests above
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your own and going out of your way to supply their needs and
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to strengthen other people that don't have the things that they need to make it
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through. This is one of the major themes throughout the prophets because Israel throughout
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the Old Testament had gotten so far off base with what they really needed
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to be about, and that's ultimately Loving God and then serving people.
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In Micah 6:8, the 8th century prophet Micah
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said, he's shown you, O man, what is good and what the Lord requires,
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but to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.
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Proverbs 21:3, Solomon says, to do justice
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and to do mercy is more profitable to the Lord than the offering of sacrifices.
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The blessed life that nobody talks about is the life of mercy and
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the life of compassion toward other people that are in need. And Jesus
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says, blessed are the merciful, Because they'll receive it.
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There is an unbroken line throughout Scripture from Genesis to Revelation concerning
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humans extending mercy to other humans, and in so
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doing, also receiving the mercy that every one of us needs from God.
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In the model prayer, one chapter over from Matthew chapter 5, in Matthew 6:12,
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you remember Jesus says, God, and forgive us our debts as we also do,
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what? Forgive those that are indebted to us. And then in Matthew 6:14-15,
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Jesus says, if you forgive men, God will forgive you.
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But if you don't forgive others, God won't forgive you. One of the things
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that'll help us be more merciful and compassionate to other people is realizing
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and appreciating how much we need God's mercy.
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James 2:13, James says, there will be no mercy
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shown on the day of judgment to the one that's shown no mercy, and mercy
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rejoices or triumphs against judgment.
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The blessed life is the life of compassion, and our world won't help us
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with this. It's not that our world is teaching us that we ought to be
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mean people, though it does its fair share of that. Instead, our world is saying
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to us, always be on the move. And it's impossible to
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always be mobile and to be compassionate at the same time.
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Our world's so frantic and so fast, it doesn't create any margin to be
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compassionate. If you're going to be a compassionate person, there has to be time
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in your life to be stationary. Jesus looked out on the multitudes with compassion
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because they were as sheep without a shepherd, Matthew 9:36.
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To be compassionate, you've got to be still because you've got to wait for them
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to start talking and tell you what's wrong. You've got to be still enough because
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you know what? They're going to interrupt you and start crying about that same thing
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yet again. You've got to be still because they're going to fall and
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stumble, maybe in the same way that you helped them 2 and 3 times
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before that. And if you're hearing this and you say, you know what? That's not
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me. See, I don't have time for that. That's our problem. And we'll
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miss the blessing of Matthew 5:7 where Jesus says, blessed are
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the merciful because they'll receive mercy. We've got to be able
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to go out of our way to extend it. Henri Nouwen is right when he
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says, let us never underestimate how hard it is to show
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true compassion, because true compassion can tolerate not
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knowing, not healing, and ultimately not curing,
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but simply being present, and being prayerful.
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That's what Job's friends do for 7 days in Job 2:11-13.
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They just sit there with Job and they're just present. And Jesus says, when that's
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true about you, you'll receive a blessing. As the world rushes on to its next
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task, blessed are the merciful, the people that stop, that see, that interrupt
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their day and pause long enough to not only see a person's need,
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but to get involved. That is the Good Samaritan of Luke 10:25-37.
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Surely he had plans. Surely he had other things to do, But he saw
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a man in need and he was still enough to do something about it.
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And let me say to young people, maybe you hear this a lot from people
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in your family, maybe from people in school that have a great
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interest in your success. There's this constant pressure. You've got to use your talents.
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What are you going to be when you grow up? What direction are you going
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to go in? What's going to be your ultimate career? For whatever else that may
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be true, make this your superpower: seeing other people's needs and then
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getting involved. Because if you do that, whatever else you get involved in,
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you ultimately will be a success. Cultivate and develop a sensitive
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and compassionate heart that cultivates the unique gift of putting
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yourself in other people's shoes, caring about them without at the
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same time belittling them. Hosea 6:6, God says,
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I desire mercy and not sacrifice. He wants these compassionate,
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gentle, and gracious hearts. And one of the blessings
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that God says One of the things about the blessed life that most people ignore
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is the blessing of compassion. But here's number 4, the blessing of purity.
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Matthew 5:8, Jesus says, blessed are the pure in heart because
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they'll see God. It's important that Jesus emphasizes blessed
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are the pure in heart because it's possible for a lot of our lives to
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be pure, but ultimately for our hearts not to be. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees
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on this account. You remember in Matthew 23, 25 through 26, he says,
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you Pharisees, you clean the outside of the dish, but inwardly you're
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full of dead men's bones and hypocrisy. Instead, clean up the inside
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and then the outside will be clean as well. Blessed are the pure in heart,
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because the blessing to that is ultimately attached to seeing God. It's 1
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John 3:2-3. When we— he appears, we'll be like him.
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We'll see him as he is. And everybody that has this hope in him purifies
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themselves just as he is. The blessed life nobody talks about is
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the blessing of purity, because Jesus takes things up a notch.
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The pure heart is not ultimately about doing things that make us appear pure
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to other people. Blessed are the pure in heart means we get our heart in
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such a condition that we want to, we desire
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to do the things that please God no matter what anybody else sees.
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Matthew 15:18-20, Jesus says, the things that come
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from within, those are the things that defile a man. But to eat with unwashed
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hands, defiles no one. For out of the heart proceed murder, adultery,
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blasphemy, covetousness. Jesus says your heart is the problem.
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And once you fix your heart, your hands and your head and your feet,
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everything else will follow. Blessed are the pure in heart because they'll
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see God. And that's what God wants for us. He wants our hearts
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and our lives to be pure. And so we've got to ask ourselves some hard
23:04
questions because sometimes a person says, you know what, I've got to guard my heart.
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I've got to secure it. And the Bible teaches that. Proverbs chapter 4 and verse
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23, keep your heart with all diligence because out of it flow the issues
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of life. And sometimes you keep things locked up because you want them secure,
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but sometimes you've got things locked up because you want them secretive,
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and you've got to figure out which one of those is the case. There are
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some things in our lives that we say, you know what, this is secure,
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this is important, nobody's business but mine. But then there are other things that we
23:31
say, I've got a lock on this because I don't want anybody else to see
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in. And Jesus cuts through that and he says, Is your heart pure?
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I mean, this is the thrust of later in chapter 5, the Sermon on the
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Mount, Matthew 5:21-48. Jesus says, you've heard it said
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by people of old time, don't commit murder. But I'm telling
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you, if you're angry without a cause, you already have the ingredients to
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commit murder. You just lack opportunity. You've heard it said by those of old time,
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don't commit adultery. But I'm telling you, Jesus says, if you
23:59
got lust in your heart, the ingredients are already there. You just simply lack
24:04
opportunity. You've heard it said, don't give false oaths. Jesus says, don't just
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make careless statements of swearing. You can't make one hair white or black.
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Jesus says, be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect, because the blessed
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life, it's a pure one. And it gets down to our heart where no— the
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world says, listen, the only things that matter are the things people can see.
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Jesus flips that on his head and he says, the things that matter most are
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the things nobody can see. 1 Peter 1:15-16,
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Peter says, as he who has called you is holy, so you be holy in
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all your conduct, as it is written, be holy, for I'm holy. He hearkens
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back to the book of Leviticus, Leviticus 11:44,
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11:45, Leviticus 20:7, where Israel was told, you've got
24:47
to be different from everybody else, but it's about an internal holiness.
24:50
And our world has trained us to look the part instead of
24:53
live the part. The people that heard Jesus in this sermon on this point had
24:57
to be surprised because if you were to say to anybody in first century Palestine,
25:01
who's the holiest people in the world? Without fail, they would have said this 6,000-member
25:06
group of people known as the Pharisees. They know the Bible better than anybody else.
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They've got the largest phylacteries and the longest robes.
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But to hear Jesus say in Matthew 5:17-20, your righteousness
25:17
has to exceed theirs, would have shocked the masses. Because the
25:21
Pharisees were good at looking religious, but not living religiously.
25:25
And Jesus wants you, he wants me to live a blessed life. And that involves
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not just looking the part, but we also have to live it.
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Here's number 5. The blessed life nobody talks about also
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includes the blessing of peace. In Matthew 5:9,
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Jesus says, blessed are the peacemakers because they'll be called the children of
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God. This is about reconciling 2 parties that are at odds with
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each other and making this sort of harmony in relationships and in individual lives.
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Nobody did this better than Jesus. You could say this is really the reason why
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Jesus came. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.
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That is making friends again between humanity and ultimately
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between God. That's what Jesus came to do, to make peace
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between 2 parties. And in our lives, probably the most immediate
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and the greatest application of Matthew 5:9 is what we do in
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evangelism. When you try to introduce other people to God and bring them
26:19
to a relationship with their Maker, you're on a peacemaking mission.
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At the end of the day, the marks in your life that will make you
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most blessed as a peacemaker, as you survey the totality of
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your life, is how many people in my life have I tried to introduce to
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God? How many people throughout my life have I attempted to try to reconcile to
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their Creator? And throughout John chapter 1, that's exactly what you find.
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You find Andrew saying to Peter, John 1:40-41,
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come because we found the Messiah, the one called Christ.
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It's what Philip does to Nathanael in John 1:45-46,
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we found him of whom Moses and the law and the prophets did write,
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Jesus of Nazareth. It's what the woman at
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the well from Samaria does as she leaves her water pot, goes throughout all of
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Samaria and says, John 4:29, come see a man who's told
27:07
me everything I've ever done. The blessed life nobody talks about is the blessed life
27:11
of peace. How do you live the flourishing life? Help people to be reconciled
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to their God. But there's another step, because here Jesus isn't just talking
27:18
about his work, he's talking about ours. And peace in the world involves not only
27:22
peace with God, but also peace with our fellow man. And if we're going to
27:26
be individuals that are peacemakers— this word literally means to be peace doers,
27:30
people that do peace— we've got to have peace with God, but then we've got
27:34
to have peace with each other. And this is the hard work. How good and
27:38
how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity, Psalm 133:1.
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If you're going to live a blessed life, you've got to be at peace with
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humanity. Jack Lewis, in his commentary on Matthew in chapter 5 in this
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section, he says the greatest issue with Matthew 5:9 is our own human tendencies
27:53
and psyches. He says at the end of the day, it's the backbiting, it's the
27:57
gossiping, it's the belittling that keeps us from being the peacemakers that
28:01
God would have us to be. Listen, You can't be a peacemaker and pick everybody
28:04
to pieces at the same time, Proverbs 16:28. This means
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I've just got to stop. You can't be Christ person and a chatty patty at
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the same time. You just can't do it. God won't let you.
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You got to just stop gossiping. Don't talk about people. Don't tear them
28:19
down. Be the person that says, I want to reconcile relationships
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because that's the life that God honors. In fact, our itch
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and our desire to be in the know sometimes just stir up confusion. Proverbs 6:19,
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Solomon says, Ultimately, God hates those that sow
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discord. He wants harmony. But don't miss
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Matthew 5:9 where Jesus says, peace also has to be
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made. And so that means you've got to have hard conversations. You've got to do
28:45
difficult things. You've got to apologize and confront and harmonize where
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you can, because that's what Jesus wants for us to do. Be individuals that bring
28:53
about the reconciliation and make the peace, even when it's difficult,
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even when it's troubling. And he says, when you do that, you look
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just like your heavenly Father because that's what Jesus left heaven to do and it'll
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make you his child. But 6th and finally, the blessed life that nobody
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talks about also involves the blessing of persecution.
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Our world tells us, you know, you should avoid pain at all costs. Don't ever
29:17
do anything that's going to make you uncomfortable. Don't ever do anything that's going to
29:20
hurt. And of all of the Beatitudes in Matthew 5:3-12, this is
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most likely the most shocking one. Some people might tell you that poverty
29:27
of spirit is good for you, being humble, hungering and thirsting after the things that
29:31
really matter. But few people in the world are going to say to you what
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Jesus says in Matthew 5:10-12, that your life and my life will be blessed
29:39
through persecution. He says in Matthew 5:10, blessed are you when you're
29:43
persecuted for righteousness' sake, because that means the kingdom of heaven belongs to you.
29:46
It means you're just like the prophets who went before you. He says,
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don't step away from pain. But press into it. And throughout
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the book of Acts, that's what you see the Christians doing. In Acts 5:41,
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they rejoice that they're counted worthy to suffer shame for the
30:01
name of Jesus. Letters are written to churches. Philippians is one of them. In chapter
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1:29, Paul says, to us it's given in behalf of
30:08
Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his
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sake. Listen, this doesn't mean we're difficult people just for difficulty's
30:17
sake, but it does mean if our devotion to Jesus, causes people to malign us
30:20
and mistreat us and step away from us, Paul says, and Jesus echoes it
30:25
in the Sermon on the Mount, you just accept that because ultimately to be persecuted
30:29
for righteousness' sake, it's a great honor because above the prophets,
30:32
above the apostles, it aligns you with Jesus.
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And this is the blessed life that nobody talks about. Some of us, we can
30:39
hardly stand anybody to just be angry with us or to dislike us.
30:42
Jesus says, that's a part of what it means to follow me. And not because
30:46
you've done wrong or you've asked for it, but sometimes running in the direction of
30:50
righteousness is going to cause separation. But congratulations,
30:53
you're God-approved. You're living the flourishing life, even if it doesn't
30:57
feel like it when you do that, because God defines what it means to be
30:59
blessed and not people. The Japanese author Haruki
31:03
Murakami, he is a man who has written novels
31:07
for a very long time. But one day in his journey as an
31:11
author, he decided, you know what, I'm kind of getting out of shape. And I
31:14
probably should take up running. And so he did. He's run miles, he's run marathons,
31:18
he even wrote a book about it called What I Talk About— What I Mean
31:21
When I'm Talking About Running. And he decided that being a marathon
31:24
runner was going to help him to be a better author. And if you can
31:28
think about it, those 2 worlds are polar opposites.
31:31
In fact, when Haruki is out running, he's not writing, and when he's writing,
31:34
he's not running. Those 2 things don't seem to go hand in hand, but here's
31:38
what he decided. He decided that running, though it appears to be divorced from writing,
31:42
at the end of the day is going to make me the kind of person
31:45
that can write. Because he says writing is hard work, it's diligence,
31:49
it's putting in time day after day staring at a screen when it's just you
31:53
and the screen and you've got to make words come out. And he says,
31:55
if I can run miles solo in the heat and in the cold and push
31:59
myself, I'll turn into the kind of person that can write the kind
32:03
of books that I want to write. And we read Jesus's words in Matthew 5:10-12.
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And we say, God, I just want to please you. I just want to glorify
32:09
you. I don't see how persecution ultimately leads to righteousness.
32:13
Those 2 worlds seem radically divorced. And Jesus says, when you can
32:17
stand in and take mistreatment, when you can hold fast when
32:20
you're doing the right thing, oh, it doesn't appear like it now, but it's turning
32:24
you into the kind of person that belongs to the kingdom.
32:28
It's producing in you what can't be produced otherwise. And you ultimately
32:31
become a person that Jesus says, The kingdom of heaven belongs to
32:35
such as these. Men have read every book
32:39
in the library that they could. They've done every study known to
32:43
man to try to figure it out. What does it mean to flourish as a
32:46
human being? What does it mean to ultimately be successful? What does it
32:50
mean to have and live the good life? And how do we have it?
32:54
And 2,000 years ago, Jesus sat on a hillside outside of Galilee
32:58
and he told us. He says, if you seek the right things, the kingdom of
33:01
heaven is yours. If you mourn your sins, God will
33:05
shield you and blanket you with his comfort. If you are
33:09
an individual who's humble, the earth is yours now and
33:12
in the world to come. Our world says grind, hustle, go after it
33:16
for everything but God. But Jesus says, if you hunger and thirst for righteousness,
33:20
God will always satisfy that request. You'll be a peacemaker, you'll be his child,
33:24
and ultimately you'll enjoy salvation.
33:27
Phil's going to lead us in a song to encourage us. If you believe Jesus
33:31
is the Son of God and you know, you know what, I'm broken, I can't
33:33
be saved outside of Jesus, I can't save myself, I'm poor in spirit,
33:37
I mourn my sin, and I want to be made right with him. If you
33:40
believe Jesus is the Son of God and you're ready to turn away from your
33:43
sin and confess Jesus as the Son of God, we'll help you to do
33:47
what many have done here recently, baptize you into water for the forgiveness of your
33:51
sins, just like the Bible says. And no matter what else is true about your
33:54
earthly circumstances, God will mark your life as blessed. You'll have his applause,
33:58
his congratulations. We have the invitation for that purpose.
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If you're a person hearing this and you think, I really need to do that,
34:05
Hiram, but listen, there is no way I'm ever going to come before this audience
34:09
and do a thing like that. At the end of this sermon, Neil will be
34:11
in the back. I'll be back there. On your way out, if you say,
34:13
you know what, I really need to be made right with God. I don't know
34:17
how to go about that. I don't want to do it publicly. Just let us
34:19
know. All you have to say is, hey, you were talking about me. I need
34:22
to do that. I want to be right with God. I'm poor in spirit,
34:25
but I really want his riches. You don't have to do it publicly. You just
34:28
have to turn to him and do it. We'd be happy to assist you.
34:30
If we can pray with you or pray for you or in any way help
34:33
you to make peace with God, let us know how we can do it as
34:36
together we stand and as we sing.