B-Attitudes Matthew 5:1-16 Introduction

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HOW TO BE HAPPY

Introduction to Series of Messages on the B-Attitudes.
Matthew 5:1-16
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Introduction: 1. The greatest sermon ever preached is the Sermon on the Mount. It is contained in Matthew 5-7.
a. The Sermon on the mount was addressed to the Jews, the nation of Israel.
b. Jesus was their Messiah and He began his public ministry by giving the principles which will govern in His millennial kingdom and reign after the Second Coming.
c. During the Millennium Jesus will rule His kingdom, promised to the Jews in the Old Testament. It will be a time of peace, the lamb will lay down with the lion. Jesus, seated on the throne of David, will rule from Jerusalem. For one thousand years Israel will occupy the land that was promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob from the Nile river in the south to the Euphrates river in the north.
Isaiah 35:1-10 explains what the Kingdom will be like. READ
d. Jesus in this His first sermon, as the Coming King and Messiah of Israel, sets forth the laws and principles of the coming Millennial Kingdom.

2. The B-Attitudes do not present the way of salvation, but the way of righteous living. They are applicable today as well as in the coming Kingdom.

a. It was the first message after Christ's temptation. He began His ministry with the first miracle at Cana. He left Nazareth as his home and lived in Capernaum on the northwest side of the Sea of Galilee.
b. He called Peter, Andrew, James and John there. For a while Jesus preached there and did many miracles. Great numbers of people followed Him because of the miracles He did.
c. Matthew 5:1, says He went up into the mountain. This mountain was by the Sea of Galilee. On the northern and west side of the Sea and where there are rolling hills that slope down to the sea. Carolyn and I were there in October 2002. It is called "the" hill by Matthew because it was the place where the message was preached.
         With the wind blowing from the west and the structure of the land being like an amphitheater it was a perfect place to speak to large numbers of people.
d. Jesus was followed by multitudes of people and He spoke to them and His disciples.
e. Israel was looking for a Deliverer, and Jesus had come with great power and as a prophet, preaching repentance. It is His first recorded message. It was a declaration to Israel to turn to righteousness.
         The principles of godly living were directed to the nation of Israel, God's chosen people and Jesus announcing Himself as their Messiah. He was offering the Kingdom to them as God had promised in the Old Testament.
         His message was the same as the message of John the Baptist's "repent for the Kingdom of God is at Hand". (Matt. 4:17)

3. The Scribes and Pharisees had perverted the Law into a legalist system of works for salvation. Do good works and please God. The situation is the same today. Many "Christian" religions are teaching the same thing that the Scribes and Pharisees were teaching. You must belong to a particular group, church who are special and everyone else is excluded. You must do rituals, ceremonies, keep certain laws, and do good works to be worthy of the Kingdom of God.

         When these religious Jews asked the Lord what works they should do He replied, "Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." (John 6:29)
a. Jesus came and presented in sharp contrast the "spirit of the Law"!! There is a vast distance between living by a set of laws and living by the principles of the laws. A person can keep the letter of the law or rules and do so with a proud and unrepentant heart. A person can keep the law out of pride and self righteousness and yet not savingly know the Lord.
         A person who is repentant will obey God because He believes and loves the Lord and knows that God's principles honor the Lord. He will live a godly life to honor His Savior and to be a witness to others of God's truth and of salvation. His motivation is spiritual, desiring to please His Savior.
b. God was never pleased with vain rituals or even sacrifices which had not come from the heart. Malachi the last O.T. prophet came and made it clear that God wanted Israel to serve Him out of a loving heart, that loved righteousness. "For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." (Psalms 51:16-17)
c. For 400 years Israel rejected God's message, and God's love. They went further in refining ritual and excluding God from their worship. Out of this period came the Scribes and Pharisees and the Torah, God's word, was replaced by the Talmud which was the writings of men. They still had the Torah, but they made of it almost and idol, but did not follow it.
         It goes on today as well. Many make Christ prominent in their lives, few make Him preeminent. Many do not deny Him, but they dethrone Him.

4. Jesus was teaching them the Law of the Kingdom of God. It contrasted between hypocrisy and truly having eternal life.

The Sermon on the Mount is not addressed to the Lost!
         Only a born again Christian and true child of God can understand or benefit from this message. It is against the very nature of a lost man who, if he tried to follow these teaching would still be, but a at the very best a hypocrite. Claiming to follow God and yet not even really knowing personally who God really is.
         You cannot carry out the teachings of the King, when you have not bowed to His sovereignty or when you do not bow to Him as you Lord. The teachings are absolutely at opposition with the world and man's desires and emotions.
         This is God's plan for those who are His, who is has given eternal life, to live their lives.

5. Although not addressed to Believers today, it can have two applications for us today:

(1) To direct the obedient child of God to a closer relationship to his Savior and God. To teach him how to fully how to be a witness, a mirror to reflect the true spirit of God.
(How important is this!! To know the true spirit of God and reveal it to others.)
(2) To the lost man who would see what it really means to be a child of God and have eternal life and turn from his sin to a loving God.
To examine ones life by God's standard's and truth unpolluted by man's false ideas.

I. THE GREATEST BENEFIT OF BEING A CHILD OF GOD!

A. Would you say the greatest benefit of being a child of God is having eternal life? Or heaven? I say it is happiness and the being at peace with God! Yes, heaven is going to be wonderful, but heaven is in the future. Now, we live in the present, and what a blessing it is to be at harmony with one's Creator. What peace to be reconciled to our God.
         Without being happy and content eternal life or heaven would be worthless and the joy and peace of heaven begins when a person comes to know the Lord. It begins NOW!
B. The English word "Blessed" is Greek word, "mak a rios" which means to be to "well off, fortunate, blessed and happy or blissful.

         The Greeks used the word to describe the state of being contented and blissful unaffected by circumstance. This was a state unaffected by poverty, problems and even death.
1 Tim. 6:15. states in reference to God, that He is "the blessed and only Potentate, the King of Kings, and Lord of lord."
Thus it encompasses the very character of God Himself in that He is Happy and Blissful.

C. Greatest problem today in the church is that the true spirit God is not understood.

1. Many teach rules and ritual instead of righteousness
2. Many have a warped understanding of God.
3. Many condone sin, error, false teaching and a distorted view of God Himself.
4. Many smile, spout pretty works about L O V E and yet are devoid of truly the spirit of God.
5. Many call anyone a Christian and grant to them the blessings of God, requiring them only to say the words. Makes no different that they don't act like Christians, don't follow Christ.

ILLUS: It is like the young man who wrote and criticized me strongly because I will not condone CCM (Contemporary "Christian" Music) and having a rock band in the church and carrying on the same actions you see at rock music concerts. I wrote back and explained what God's word says truly pleases God and what true worship was all about. He did not respond.
D. I believe that it is important that this was Jesus' first message recorded and passed down to us.

1. Many would feel hard and resent teaching righteous living. WHY? I often get people writing me and take me to task saying I am "unloving, uncaring" because I preach against sin and reveal false teaching, churches and preachers.
2. It is right for professing Christians to sin? Does that please GOD? Is it right and pleasing to God to have false teachers leading folks astray?

        Is it right to ignore what God has said in His word and believe and practice doctrines of men and claim God said it?
        I think not.

E. What is better? Truth or Error - Sin or Righteousness? This is a decision each of us must make. We must decide what we believe and what we will pattern our lives after. The stakes are high, one choice will bring heartache, sorrow, and confusion, the other peace, joy, contentment and satisfaction?
         "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." (Matthew 5:16) Those that benefit from salvation are those who live it! Who are ". . . not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but filled with the Spirit." (Ephesians 5:18)

1. Sin breeds heartache, suffering and discontentment.
2. Righteousness will bring peace happiness and freedom from worry and spiritual or material want in the midst of any situation...good or bad.
3. Sin and unrighteous makes one a slave - yet Christ sets men free!
4. That why did Jesus preach this message? Out of a love, a deep abiding protecting well seeking...love.
5. The world does not offer that. Religion doesn't offer that. Only the love of Christ that is received in salvation can bring that.

F. It is not automatic. Receiving Christ and the peace of God is not received like taking a pill.

1. It is learned. When it is accepted and believed it grows within the heart of man or woman. It changes them spiritually and makes them more like their Savior.
2. The heart that loves God, seeks Him. It was recently expressed to me this way. " I was hungry for the truth and could not get enough of God's Word"

The peddlers of false religion today offer what??
Material blessing! Wealth, health.
Empty emotional highs...signing chants and choures to work people up in emotion highs.
They offer nothing truly spiritual. You will not hear from their pulpits messages of righteousness.

II. CONCLUSION:

1. What Jesus said is a little confusing looking at it world's the worlds eyes.
2. He offered the Kingdom of God, to the:

Poor in Spirit
Mournful
Meek
Eager for righteousness
Merciful
Pure in heart
Peaceable
Persecuted
The Reviled.
         Those who have these nine charistics are said to be blessed, to be happy to be blissful.
         How can you be happy if you are...(read the 9)

3. You see....God is offering a salvation of the soul. Think about that for a minute.

         Peace and fulfillment come from the soul. No where else. It does not come from the world's wisdom, or material things.
         Please the body all you want....it will not be satisfied till the soul it satisfied.

4. Christ offers to you freedom. Freedom of your soul from the guilt and penalty of sin.

         Freedom from your carnal nature that is like a consuming monster that destroys you from within.

5. He offers a new life! A new spirit! Peace and forgiveness and eternal contentment. And it that were not enough...He offers eternal life and heaven in the presence of God forever.
6. Are you truly saved? Can you give me even one good reason you would not trust Him and receive this gift of the Grace of God right now. Can you give me one good reason not to believe and obey Him.

         You have Christ to gain and eternity to gain.... You will loose the penalty for sin.

April 25, 2008

HOW TO BE HAPPY

Introduction to Series of Messages on the B-Attitudes. Matthew 5:1-16

Introduction to Series of Messages on the B-Attitudes.
Matthew 5:1-16