The Upside-down Blessings (North OC)

All right.

Well, good morning, brothers and sisters.

Amen.

Amen.

My name is Marcel Hall.

I want to definitely welcome you again here to the O.

C.

Church.

And I definitely want to thank the worship team and A.

V.

Team and everybody helps us have a worship service.

It wasn't mentioned earlier, but a lot of our college students are gone today.

They're actually in Irvine.

There's two U.

C.

I.

Students who are getting baptized right now.

So we're excited about that.

Uh, if it wasn't mentioned earlier, we're part of a worldwide

fellowship and we actually have churches all across the globe.

But here in Orange County, we have about five ministries

all throughout Orange County.

Here in North Central OC, South OC, a Spanish ministry that meets in Santa Ana,

a Korean speaking ministry that meets in Irvine, as well as a ministry that

meets over in the Huntington Beach area.

I'm excited.

I don't know about you, but fall is here and that means football is back.

And you know, your boy's fired up about the football season.

I see I have a hater over there, Steve York.

He's a U.

C.

L.

A.

Bruin and I'm a proud Trojan.

And we didn't play yesterday, but we won.

And you know, I'm so excited because my son is playing flag football

again and his team are the U.

S.

E.

Trojans.

And so you know, your boy was fired up about that.

And if they were the Bruins, we would have left the league right away.

I'm just being vulnerable with you.

But we had our first game, and I'm excited.

Actually, I'm the assistant coach.

You know, I've shared with you guys, I'm the assistant coach again this year.

And so the head coach, the head honcho is actually here today.

I'm excited.

Him and his wife here.

The Robinsons are over here.

There you go.

Come on.

There you go.

So he's the the Andy Reid of of, uh, flag football.

for us there.

Bill Belichick.

Well, maybe not Bill Belichick now, but anyhow, Andy Reed right there.

So, you know, we need your prayers.

We are coaching kindergartners.

You already left because you already know.

We tell them, hey, the play's going right.

Which way is right?

They go this.

I go, no, which way is right?

They go this.

Your other right.

Okay, you are gonna go that way.

I got it.

Ready, set, hike!

I had to stop a kid one time.

I stopped him, literally said, No, you go that way, okay?

You know what I'm saying?

And so we need your prayers, and thankfully, by the grace of God,

I again, I did you all a service.

I did not embarrass myself or the church.

Amen.

I didn't get into any fights.

I didn't yell at any kids.

You know what I'm saying?

Now don't ask me what was going on inside.

But the Lord is good to me and allowed me to have some self control.

Amen.

And so let me ask you a question here.

What does it mean to be blessed?

What comes to mind, in general, in the world, what comes to mind when

we think of blessed or blessings?

What are some things that come to mind?

Material, is that what you said?

Material possessions, right?

We can think of maybe iPhones, iPads, or cars or whatnot.

Yes.

Being able to experience peace.

Come on.

Dork is deep over here.

All right.

We went from iPhone to peace.

All right.

Yes Something good to happen.

So a circumstance, right?

Okay.

Yes Grace.

All right.

Somebody's experiencing grace.

They're blessed.

Yes Being awake this morning you are blessed that is for sure.

Yes in the back of that gene.

Yes Superpower.

Amen.

Well, Gene is the only one that's blessed in here.

He's got a superpower.

There you go.

Awesome.

Awesome.

All right.

Well, I definitely am not blessed with that.

Yes.

So we'll go one more.

Favor.

All right.

We'll go one more.

A job.

Right.

Okay.

All right.

One more Kevin.

Go ahead.

Family.

Right.

So we have the whole gamut there.

Right.

We can think.

But when we think about blessings, it's the most.

Usually, the common thing in our society, and for you and I,

tends to be something tangible.

Tends to be something like, uh, maybe it's a job, or it's money.

We tend to think, prosperity, whoa, that person is...

Blessed.

Or if you're a big strapping young fella like Thomas who got baptized, right?

Tall and muscular and handsome.

You're like, man, that brother's blessed with some gifts right there, right?

We can think talents too, right?

You can run real fast, or maybe you're like Emily in the worship

team, and you can sing, right?

You're like, well, they're blessed.

And all of that is true, but we tend to think about tangible things, especially

prosperity in some form or fashion.

But as we will see over the next several weeks, and maybe a lot of us already

know, you know, God turns our views of what it means to be blessed upside down.

He completely flips the script on us, and says, you know what, what

you think and what society thinks is blessed, let me re educate you.

Let me put you up on real game.

That's where my hood brother's in the house, alright.

But let me help you understand what it means to truly be blessed.

And so we're going to see here that Jesus helps us with the upside down blessings.

And that's our new series that we're starting today.

The upside down blessings.

Let's go to God in prayer.

Will you pray with me?

Father, thank you so much for this chance to worship you.

God, we've been able to raise a hallelujah.

We've been able to think about your power.

We've been able to encourage and be encouraged.

And God, right now we pray for your spirit to move miraculously through

the words you want me to speak.

Move me to the side, dad.

And allow your message to communicate what's true, what's real, what is eternal.

We pray this in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.

Alright, so, uh, maybe when you walked in, you might have received a handout.

Uh, we also have it on the church app.

And, uh, on the church app there, it's a little breakdown of the Beatitudes.

And so, first off, if you didn't know that the Beatitudes, uh, that

phrase actually, uh, basically is the Latin word for blessing or blessed.

So, uh, basically when they started, uh, from from when they, in, in

Latin, when they translated the Bible into, into Latin, this was

the word that was used for blessed.

And so as they went and through times it, it basically transliterated the

word and it became the be attitude.

And so that's what we have the be attitude.

So it's not talking about the attitude you should be or have, even though

that doesn't imply, but it's that that's what the be attitudes mean.

And as you can see on the sheet there, the Beatitudes actually is the beginning of

what is called the Sermon on the Mount.

And so it's the beginning, it kind of sets up everything, and there's a whole

lot of good stuff, we're not going to go through everything on there.

But Jesus said this probably about A.

D.

28, A.

D.

30, at the beginning of his ministry, and it was probably his go to sermon.

So when he would go to town, this would be his go to sermon, if you will.

And he would have variations of it, depending on the audience,

which I can understand.

I've done, uh, messages where I've spoken to adults, and then I've done

a message for the junior high and high schoolers, and I adjusted it.

And so it wasn't like I had two different messages.

Wait a second.

What's going on?

No, it was the same message, but I had to understand who my audience was

and you see that in scriptures Which helps us when we try to figure out

why sometimes it's worded differently is because sometimes Jesus did worded

differently Depending on the audience.

He was speaking to church.

Are you with me?

Okay, just to help us out a little bit.

All right So before we get into the Beatitudes we have to understand

something Right now here in Matthew chapter four, we're going to read here.

We actually read it last week, but let's read it again.

Jesus went throughout Galilee teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good

news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness among the people.

News about him spread all over Syria and the people brought to him all

who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon

possessed, those having seizures and the paralyzed, and he healed them.

Large crowds from Galilee, the Acropolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and the

region across the Jordan followed him.

And so what do we see here?

This is helpful for us to understand everything that's

going to take place afterwards.

Is this right here?

He was proclaiming the good news of the kingdom.

That implies that the kingdom news is what?

Good!

The gospel is good news!

It's not 11 o'clock news on channel 4 or channel 7, you guys get what I'm saying.

You don't usually turn in the first story, it's like, man,

that was so uplifting, wow.

No, you're like, I need to turn this off, I'm discouraged.

But this is good news that Jesus brings.

And it's about this kingdom.

And it had been prophesied, and so the God's people knew about this idea that

God's gonna establish a kingdom one day.

They're thinking a physical kingdom, like the, like the Roman Empire.

We're gonna have something like that, we're gonna take down those Romans,

and yeah, it's gonna be awesome.

But God turned it upside down.

And said, no, I wanna bring a spiritual kingdom.

That's gonna manifest itself through my church that I will establish.

And so we see here, here's what happens.

He's going around preaching, so by the time we get to Matthew chapter 5, we get

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

to the Sermon on the Mount, we get to the Beatitudes, what's he talking about?

He's talking about the good news of the kingdom.

So that is the context as we read it.

He's explaining what is it like to be a citizen in God's kingdom.

He's explaining the promises of God's kingdom.

And he's explaining this is what it's like if you want to be in God's kingdom.

Kingdom, and he's going to reveal God's kingdom values.

You guys with me here?

So let's continue moving.

We get to Matthew chapter five, verse one.

Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down.

His disciples came to him and he began to teach them.

He said, blessed, or excuse me, we'll stop right there.

So So, what we're about to see, Jesus has these statements

here, these are the Beatitudes.

Again, each one of them begins with the word blessed, or the Greek

Markaros, or something like that.

And, uh, and so that word, it's somewhat hard for us to fully capture

when we translate it as blessed.

Because it also means, or can be translated as happy.

But now, when we say happy, aren't Understanding is a little different than

what even that word is trying to convey.

You guys with me here?

If I said, I'm happy that USC won, you would know, okay,

he's happy for that moment.

But you wouldn't say he's blessed.

You get what I'm saying?

And you know that that's short term because eventually USC will

lose, but hopefully not this year.

But you would understand that.

So, but there is this connotation of happy, so we can get that.

But also maybe a better way to phrase it as fortunate.

Or it is well with them, or it will go well.

You guys get what I'm saying?

So I, I didn't do anything evil.

But I inserted that here in the scripture so that we can understand it.

Okay, I know we have some people like, Ooh, you added to the text.

No, I didn't.

Okay, I'm helping us understand the message here.

So that you can, I can extract what God wants us to take.

So let's get into it here.

All right.

So as you can see here, so it says blessed, happy.

Fortunate are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed, happy, fortunate are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Blessed, happy, fortunate are the meek, for they will inherit the whole earth.

Blessed, happy, fortunate are those who hunger and thirst for

righteousness, for they will be filled.

Blessed, happy, fortunate are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed, happy, fortunate are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

We'll make sure we're having some, you know, we're still

getting our kinks out over here.

We'll make sure the screen is alright, alright?

But it goes on.

Blessed, happy, fortunate are the peacemakers, for they will

be called children of God.

Blessed, happy, fortunate are those who are persecuted because of...

Blessed, happy, fortunate are you when people insult you, persecute

you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.

Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven.

For in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Now you think about that.

Blessed, happy, fortunate.

Are the poor in spirit, the meek, the ones who mourn, the ones who are persecuted?

Repita?

Que?

That's Spanish for all my Spanish speakers, non

Spanish speakers right there.

That was what?

And repeat, okay?

Alright.

You're like, what's he doing?

He's speaking in Greek.

No, I'm not.

Alright.

And so, what is he saying?

You gotta be like, whoa, this doesn't make any sense, right?

You wouldn't know the map.

I said, hey, bless are the downtrodden and those who are discouraged.

Uh, what church did I just walk into?

Jesus is doing what he's Turning some things upside down on us And one of the

thing that Jesus reveals and this is so powerful We've seen it throughout

scripture is that our God is Well one these are the first thing cuz of my these

are obviously upside down blessings But here's the thing our God is the God of

paradoxes Our God is a God of paradoxes.

Well, Marcel, what do you mean?

Some of us might know what that word means, but here's paradox.

Oh, here we go.

What happened to bless the okay.

Well, there we go.

All right.

Well, I thought I had it on there.

Here we go.

Let me break it down for you.

A seemingly absurd or self contradictory statement or proposition that

when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true.

So it's a statement.

That on the surface sounds like, well, that doesn't make any sense.

But when you start to investigate it, you go, oh, that's true.

And we have paradoxes all the time.

Some are good, some are maybe terrible advice.

For example, I said, hey, let my girlfriend go out

and she'll come back to me.

If you really want to try that one, but that's a paradox, right?

I got to let her go so that she'll come back to me.

But Jesus says it several times throughout the scriptures, right?

What did he say?

You have to lose your life in order to save your life.

I lose it to save it?

He says you have to humble yourselves and then you will be exalted.

That's not natural for me.

He all says what?

If you want to be great, you need to be the least.

You see, our God is a God of paradoxes.

And we see it throughout scripture.

That when we actually maybe lower ourselves, He actually lifts us up.

When we deny ourselves, we actually gain.

Our God is a God of paradoxes.

He says in order to be truly blessed, you need to be poor in spirits.

Humble, mourning, and persecuted.

You see, Jesus reveals that these kingdom values are totally different

than what society has always valued.

What our society, especially here in America, what we value is actually

many times often in conflict with the values of the kingdom of God.

And so Jesus is helping them and he's helping us today as we read his words

to understand we now have to exit and detach ourselves from what we commonly

know and now enter a spiritual realm in which God reigns and his values

are different than what we came from.

And then as we experience them, we see that this is the true and fulfilling life.

If this is the life that we were designed to live, and this is the life that

we actually truly crave, and the life in which we will raise a hallelujah.

And so Jesus shows us how to find real happiness through the

Beatitudes, through the fulfillment of living these things out.

He teaches us that the world's philosophy is wrong, that actually

the world has some stinking thinking.

And that we need to adjust our thinking and start to align

it with what Jesus instills.

Because let's think about this, our idea of being blessed, again,

usually is wealth or prosperity.

Somebody has a lot of money, what do you think?

Man, that dude's blessed.

They have a lot of possessions, oh wow, they're blessed.

You know what's interesting here though, did you catch that?

When Jesus talked about being blessed, none of those things

were tangible blessings.

It wasn't health and wealth, and that's why that prosperity gospel

and health and wealth is actually contradictory to what Jesus teaches.

Now, is it a blessing to have prosperity?

Yes, I think it is.

But we have to make sure we align it with God's will, and what are we using it for?

But we see here that Jesus doesn't tell us, Hey, you're blessed

if you have the nicest whip or you have the latest whatever.

These blessings aren't tangible, they're not prosperity.

And as we can see here, the true blessings, here's the overall thing.

The true blessings are the things that drive you and me to God.

The true blessings are the things that lead you and me to a closer, intimate

relationship with our Father in Heaven.

Yesterday I was walking around my, uh, neighborhood in, uh, in, uh, my little

complex area, and I do a prayer walk, uh, just, just about every morning.

And so I'm walking and, you know, we're, we're still in this, uh, uh,

uh, realm of art and neighboring, so I'm trying to apply these things.

And, and so I'm walking around my neighborhood and I see this neighbor,

and I usually don't see 'em.

So I'm like, okay, great.

Let me, let me get a chance to connect with this neighbor.

So I'm walking and he's wa he's washing his car and it's a,

it's like a 2019, uh, Corvette.

It's red.

It's nice.

I'm like, whoa.

So I'm like, hey man, you know, what car is that?

And we start talking.

And I'm like, wow, man, man, this dude, that was a nice car.

And I thought, and I didn't say this, but I thought, wow, what a blessing.

Right?

And then something hit me and said, Marcel, remember you said

you wanted to start asking your neighbors, what can you pray for?

So I made this decision.

I want to go up to my neighbors, and I started this already, and

I want to say, hey, is there one thing that I can pray for?

Anything in your life right now that I can pray for?

And so I've already had a couple of neighbors share with me.

So I go back to this neighbor.

I forgot his name already.

You know, you know that's me, right?

So I go back.

I'm like, Neighbor!

I said, Hey, is there, is there something right now in your

life that I could pray for?

And he's kind of a little startled by it, right?

And he says, Uh, no, no, no, no, no.

I don't need anything.

There's a lot more people worse off than me.

And I thought, Huh, that's interesting.

I said, Okay.

I said, Well, I'll pray.

I'll pray that you'll still have a good attitude.

And I walked off and I started thinking, I thought, wow, you know what?

Honestly, he's not that blessed.

He's actually spiritually in a place where he doesn't see his need for God.

And so he could have 20 nice Corvettes.

It doesn't really matter, but he doesn't see his need for God.

And I thought, wow, that's so sad.

And I was convicted by this, because a second ago I was

like, man, what a nice car.

I'd love to go out here and ride with him, you know what I'm saying?

But now I'm just like, wow, I need to pray even more.

So I started praying more for him.

I was like, God, I help him to see his need for you.

Help him to see what truly is valuable.

You see, the true blessings are the things that drive us toward God.

And if we think about our idea of blessed usually as being the man

or having influence or outward appearances or, or circumstances, right?

That's what we tend to think of.

But again, Jesus turns this upside down.

The citizens of God are those who are poor in spirit, those who are

sad or sorrow, those who are humble.

Righteous, Merciful, Pure, Peacemakers, and the Persecuted.

If we were to get a description of the people that we think are blessed,

would those be included in that list?

Probably not, or if so, it would be later on in the list.

And so Jesus again flips it upside down.

The people that the world, and even us, we can tend to look

down upon, despise, or ostracize.

Those are the ones who are blessed when they have a deep, intimate,

personal relationship with God.

Turning upside down.

And you know, it's interesting, these blessings, they're for

the present and the future.

There's things that we experience in the now, but also

have not yet and are to come.

But we see that throughout scripture with Jesus.

Hey, we're a part of God's kingdom now, but it will be totally

fulfilled when Jesus returns.

We are saved now, but we know our salvation and completion

is when Jesus returns.

You guys get what I'm saying?

And so we experience eternal life now because we have a relationship with God.

But we know when Jesus returns, we'll see paradise and eternity in a different way.

So it's the now, but not yet.

So all these blessings are for the now, hallelujah, but also for what's to come.

So we can rejoice now, but we also can rejoice of what God will do in the future.

Again, it's a mind shift here.

It's values that we don't normally think of.

Usually our idea of happy, of being happy, is, uh, based on, again, on

circumstances, but Jesus flips it.

In God's kingdom, joy is not dependent on circumstances, but on God's work and

rule in our hearts and in our lives.

Because remember, the kingdom of God is not just the church.

The kingdom of God is wherever God reigns and rules.

That's why it says the kingdom is within you.

And so that's not based on a circumstance, not based on did

I get the promotion at my job?

Did I get into this college that I wanted to?

Or is the weather the way I like it or not?

Those are all circumstances that dictate and determine

our joy or happiness at times.

But as we live in citizens in the kingdom of God, no matter what the

circumstance is, I am blessed because his rule and reign is in my heart and life.

I have peace.

I have something to look forward.

I have a hope.

I have his presence.

I have his protection.

I have his relationship in favor.

Church, are you with me here?

You see, the fortunate, the well off, the happy, the blessed is when God's presence

is in our lives and we are aligned with his values, his desires, and his will.

You see, Jesus revealed that God's kingdom's citizens, at an initial

glance, might be the most pitied, but because of their present and future

reality in God, they are the most envied.

See, the world thinks, oh wow, man, you guys do what, you sacrifice all this,

but they don't understand because they're still living in this world, but once

you enter the real spiritual world, you go, wow, we're actually the most envied.

We're the ones that everybody wishes they could be or have because

of what we have in Christ Jesus.

Upside down blessings.

And you can say, at least for me, I thought, no wonder this was good news.

It says the good news of the kingdom.

When you hear this and you realize this, you're like, whoa, this is phenomenal.

It doesn't matter my family tree, it doesn't matter my circumstances.

I can enter this kingdom and have this relationship with the king

of kings and the lord of lords.

And I have a future to look forward to and he will also sustain me in the present.

Hallelujah.

This is awesome news.

Just imagine if you heard this when you were there.

And you heard him, you're like, whoa, this is, this is not what I, I, I imagined.

And he's offering.

This entrance, this entry into his kingdom, and he's offering this grace.

You go, wow, this is good news.

I want to follow this man, this carpenter's son.

I want to hear more of his teachings, and I want to apply it to my life.

Because boy oh boy, it sounds good, but I want to experience it even more.

You know, we're going to break down two of the beatitudes right now.

Real quickly here, it's interesting because each beatitude has a

statement of who is blessed and then a statement of why they're blessed.

So it starts off with the character of the blessed person being

highlighted in the promise of God.

That, that the person, uh, that the promise is then explained.

And so, let, let's look at this here again here, alright?

It says, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Now, he's not talking about physical poverty.

And a lot of us are like, hallelujah, thank you for that.

I don't want to be broke.

Okay, you know, I, I get that.

He's not talking about physical poverty.

He's talking about spiritual poverty.

What he's talking about is being humble and broken.

He's talking about being poor in spirit and humility.

Let's look at this verse right here, Isaiah 66.

This helps us out a little bit.

It says, Has not my hand made all these things?

And so they came into being, declares the Lord.

Here's the thing.

These are the ones I look on with favor.

Those who are humble and contrite in spirit who tremble at my word.

It's recognizing.

That we need God.

If any one of us became a Christian, the only way you became a Christian

is you had at some point, and this was the turning point for you,

you had to see your need for God.

There's not a soul in here who entered God's kingdom who

didn't see their need for God.

Because you couldn't enter God's kingdom.

That's why it's the first of the Beatitudes.

Blessed are those who are poor in spirit.

You know what?

Spiritually, I am bankrupt.

I need God in my life.

And that requires what?

Humility.

I don't have it all.

I'm not the man or the woman.

I need God.

And so this is the first quality.

And step to experiencing God's blessing and true fulfillment.

And this is the cool thing.

God embraces humility.

It's attractive to him.

When my wife said, you know what, I love barbecue.

And this is when we were dating.

Like, like our first or second date.

She's like, barbecue is one of my favorite foods.

I was like, oh my goodness.

I said, man, I'm already attracted to her.

But man, oh man.

Well, this is going to be fun.

You know what I'm saying?

That was attractive to me.

When God sees us humble, He's like, I'm attracted to that.

That looks good.

That's better than our money.

Suit on that brother right there.

Not saying this is our money because I can't afford that.

But you get what I'm saying.

He's saying, man, I'm attracted to this.

And what does he do?

He pulls it in closer to him.

Again, the paradox, the upside down blessing.

Because to the world, this is the opposite.

But those who realize they have nothing spiritually are the

ones who really have everything.

You see, God can't use or bless us when we're filled with pride.

I was going to bring in a, I somehow forgot, but we can, we

can still walk with this analogy.

And so if we have a jar that has some liquid in there, let's say this liquid has

been muddied up with some dirt and some mud, would anybody want to taste that?

No.

Okay.

All right.

That's right.

All the teenagers left.

We'd have some boys be like, yeah, I'll do it.

You know what I'm saying?

But we wouldn't want to, and when it's filled up and God has this

pure water, he wants to purify us.

And so God wants to actually pour into us.

But when our jars, our souls, are filled up with pride, which is muddy,

dirty, there's nothing that God can do because it's not going to work.

Because why?

It's filled up already.

And it's filled up with what's not good.

So in order for God to pour into us, we have to pour out what's not good.

You guys get what I'm saying?

That's our pride, our ego.

And so in order for God to work in our lives, in order for God to work

through our lives, we got to make sure we empty ourselves of our pride.

And once we do, then God can fill us up with what's good,

what's pure and what's holy.

And now he can not only work on us, but he can work through us.

Blessed, blessed, blessed, happy, fortunate.

Are the ones who are poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

You know, I don't know about you, but for me, this is, this is something I can get.

But what's happened over time is I can now start to think I don't need God

maybe as much because I know as much.

I don't say that mentally, you know what I'm saying, consciously, but my behavior,

my lifestyle shows that sometimes.

And so I'm not as dependent.

I'm not like, man, I'm just spiritually broke.

God, I need you.

I'm like, God, I think I got enough of you and I think I can do this on my own.

And so I'm not poor in spirit the way I once was.

And so now I'm frustrated.

God, why aren't you working in my life?

Why am I not growing and changing and why?

Can anybody relate?

It's because maybe I once had it, and this is the thing about these blessings.

It's not just, oh, I do it once, then God blesses, and cool,

that's a great math equation.

No, this is something that we need to continually go after.

Adopt, maintain, and live out.

Let's quickly go over Matthew chapter 4 here.

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

Church, are you still with me here?

Alright, it says, Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Now, some say this mourning means you mourn over your own sin or you're

mourning over the sin in society.

I think that that's definitely applicable.

However, my conviction is, I believe it is, it is mourning in life because you

and I will go through mourning in life.

There are things in our lives that we can't prevent.

There are sadness, there's sickness, there's health challenges, death, there's

whatever the case is, we can mourn.

But here's the thing.

We are blessed when we mourn as a citizen of God.

In his kingdom then when we mourn outside of his kingdom.

Well why?

Well, because God provides his comfort.

Yeah.

God provides hope and God provides his presence in profound ways.

Yeah.

You see, sorrow can show us.

I want, I wanna read this quote here.

It says, soul can show us as nothing else can.

The comfort and compassion of God.

Many and many a man in the hour of his sorrow has discovered fellow men

and his God as he never did before.

When things go well, it is possible to live for years on the surface of things.

But when sorrow comes, a man is driven to the deep things of life,

and if he accepts it aright, a new strength and beauty enter his soul.

He's saying, when we go through hard times, when we have this mindset, this

kingdom value, We can experience God in profound ways that we never could

have if everything was fine and dandy.

Personal example, not personal, but example, this is Brian

Craig with his wife Tessa.

Brian's famous in our church.

He's, uh, he's, you know, created many songs, you know, Be with me

Lord, all that good stuff, right?

All the old school jams there, right?

Uh, and so Brian recently here was, uh, diagnosed with brain cancer.

And so it's been this year.

Maybe some of you guys know it's been online or whatnot.

And so Brian, and he actually has, I don't really know how it all works.

He's explaining like two or three times, but he's doing this like experiment

where he wears this thing on his head.

And somehow the electro something is basically trying to prevent the,

the, the cancer from spreading.

So he's connected to this pack.

I mean, it's, it's, it's pretty wild stuff.

And so we're in on a meeting on Tuesday with all the, uh, L.

A.

leadership.

And, uh, and so Brian shares.

And so he says, look, I, I want to live longer.

I, you know, I had, he has three kids.

They're all out of high school now.

He says, I want to live longer.

Uh, I, I don't want cancer.

I want this cancer to go away.

He said, but one of the things that's happened, he said, I was at

one of the lowest spots physically.

And he says, I actually felt the presence of God in a profound way

that I've never experienced before.

And he said, you know, God doesn't promise that I'm going to be healed,

but he promises me his presence.

And here he is sharing with us, and he goes, man, there's nothing I can do that,

that could have got me to that point where I experienced God in this way.

And I'm just floored.

Wow.

I remember, uh, uh, Raquel Franklin and one time she shared on a video talking

about she had, she had this, you know, I think it was cancer as well, right?

And she had this, uh, uh, this condition there.

She couldn't physically come to church anymore.

And so she shared in a video and she's like, you know what?

This has been a tough time.

She says, but I wouldn't trade it in for what it's done for me spiritually.

Wow.

But then you think of this, blessed are those who mourn,

for they will be comforted.

Upside down, isn't it?

This paradox and I'm like, look, God, I don't want to have

to go through that experience.

Can I, can I experience you at the mountaintops?

But sometimes it's got to be the valleys in which we see God in a profound

way, which we never would have before.

And so we might not ask for that, but what's the blessing?

It's God's presence.

And being able to draw closer to him.

The problem is when we get sad or sorrowful, what do we do?

We usually try to find comfort in the wrong things.

We turn to eating, we turn to, uh, maybe it's drugs, alcohol, sex, whatever the

case may be, we turn to the wrong things.

One of my things is I like to turn, I don't like to, but I

turn to anger, I just get angry.

Or I just want to watch TV, I'm like, let me watch the Law and Order

episodes from season 1 to season 25.

I don't want to deal with it, instead of going to God.

So that He can comfort me, because Law and Order can't comfort me, they can

entertain me, but they can't comfort me.

Blessed are those who mourn.

For they will be comforted.

You see, if we adopt, maintain, and live out these kingdom values,

then we can respond better and see the blessings in our lives.

Here, I gotta hurry up and close out here.

Here's what I believe the response to all of this is right now.

To adopt, maintain, and live.

We have to first adopt these values, these kingdom values.

We have to subscribe to them ourselves.

We not only have to like them, but we need to subscribe to them.

And then we need to maintain them.

They're not something that you have once, and then you have it for good.

It's something that you have to continually feed and go after.

And then most of all, to live out.

I don't believe one bit that the Beatitudes were said by Jesus in person

so that you and I could just Memorize them we can like them we can get nice

little plaques posters Whatever you want and put them on different parts of your

house and go blessed are this and it can be nice sweet poetry I don't believe

one bit that that's what God intended when Jesus spoke those words I believe

he said it so that we can experience it We can experience his blessings And the

only way that you and I can do that is when we first adopt these kingdom values.

We maintain these kingdom values and we live these values out.

They become our worldview, our character, and our lifestyle.

And then we will experience true fulfillment and true blessings.

So here's a little quick thing here, action step for the week here,

alright, like to get real practical.

Pray through the B attitudes every day this week here.

Just guide, let them guide you in prayer.

I was doing that this morning.

Let them guide you in prayer.

And go ahead and just pray through them.

As you read it, you can pray.

This could be a part of your quiet time, whatever you want to do.

But pray that they may be your values.

That you may have those characteristics for the day.

And that you may put them into practice whether you're at school, work, or home.

Right now we're going to take communion.

This is the time in which we reflect upon and meditate upon Jesus's

life, death, and resurrection.

And his sacrifice that was enabled for us to actually enter God's kingdom.

And so we take the emblems that represent his body and his, and his

blood that, that was sacrificed for us.

And as we know, Jesus modeled every single one of these beatitudes.

He had these traits.

And because of the cross, because of the cross, you and I, Can now not

only adopt these, maintain these, but we can live these out as well.

And so we close out again with Matthew chapter 3.

Matthew 3 · chapter mention

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

May Jesus sacrifice remind us that because of it, we now can enter his kingdom.

And be comforted by God.

Let's pray.

Father, thank you so much for this, uh, time to reflect upon Jesus, this

time to, uh, remember that we are so blessed because of the cross, that

we have the opportunity of salvation.

And not only salvation, but God, we have the opportunity of true and

fulfillment life, not depending on circumstances, but depending upon who

you are and our relationship to you.

God, we pray that we can praise you, that we can soberly evaluate our

lives, and we can make choices and decisions today to be more aligned

with you and your values and your ways.

We pray all this in the name of Jesus, Amen.