Two Kingdoms: Week 2

Did any of you ever have a love and hate relationship?

You know what I'm talking about a lot of times

guys have love and hate relationships with sports figures. It

seems like this athlete either hits a home run or

they strike out, and there's no in between. They're either

the hero or they're the zero. And so we kind

of have like I love this guy that ah. You know,

we had this love and hate relationship growing up. Since

my sophomore year, I've had a love and hate relationship

with someone and that person goes by the name of John.

Some of you know him, John the Baptist. Now, let

me explain why I had a love and hate relationship

with John the Baptist. I had a really good reason. Okay,

my grandfather died my sophomore year. My grandmother paid a

local artist to paint his picture John the Baptist baptizing

people in the baptistry at my home church. Okay, so

imagine here's the pull pit and right here to the

left is the baptistry for everyone to see. Now, this artist,

I don't know what happened. I wonder if while he

was doing John the Baptist armpit, if someone start talking

to him, but he just kept painting and painting and

painting and painting. And when they put this picture of

John the Baptist up his armpit here was about this big.

I mean it was a nasty glob. I mean it

was like, is this the French John the Baptist? And

it was just so big and distracting. And I grew

up with that church and I had church friends. You

guys know what it's like to have your church friends.

And my church friends were like, man, you render your

family runed our sanctuary, James, guests don't want to come anymore.

People don't want to be baptized anymore. And my friends

just made fun of me. And there is nothing we

could do about. And by the way, I went and

I was on staff at the same church as this

artist attended. Years later, I've seen plenty of his art,

no other armpit messes. As the years went by, we

even brought an artist in to try to fix the armpit.

I think as my grandma, we couldn't say nothing because

we didn't want to offend Mammal and I think as

Ma'ama became a shut in. I think the church finally

put a curtain in front of it. But you know,

so I had this love and hate relationship with John

the Baptist. On the one side, you know, it's kind

of oh the mockery because of his painting. On the

other side, I just deeply admire and love him, especially

for this one moment, this one moment. See, before John

the Baptist was born, the Lord told his parents that

he was going to prepare the way for the Messiah.

And so as John the Baptist grew up, he prepared

himself for the ministry, and he went out into the

desert and he started preaching repent for the Kingdom of

Goddess near. And guess what, tons of crowd people start

coming out. And John became like a movement. This was huge,

and he was preaching and people were being baptized, and

it was this whole thing. And then one day he

sees Jesus, he baptizes Jesus, and then Jesus walks out

of that baptism. He starts preaching repent for the Kingdom

of God is near. And here's what starts happening. John's platform,

John's status, John's crowds, all those things began to diminish,

and his disciples, they were kind of worried because they're like, hey,

we were at megachurch and now look at us. What's

going on. And so they even came to him and

they said, Rabbi, the one you testified about, he's baptizing

and everyone's going to his church now. And then John

has his defining moment. He didn't compete, He didn't cling

to the platform, his status's popularity, or all that special

treatment that comes along with that. He said this, don't

check this out. You yourselves can testify that. I said,

I am not the Messiah, but am sent ahead of him.

And then one of the most beautiful passages in scripture,

he must become greater and I must become less. Now,

my friends, that is a picture of humility, one of

the greatest pictures of humility in all of human history.

And that's one of the reasons why I absolutely love

John the Baptists, and John the Baptist's humility is actually

a doorway for us into the beatitude today because when

Jesus sat down on the mountain side and he began

to tell people about what his kingdom was about, the

first words that came out of his mouth was not

about dominance. Our strength, our status. What did he say,

blessed are the poor? For theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.

And today we're gonna find out that Jesus wants all

of us in this room to understand this. The kingdom

does not begin with the impressive. Hear this. The kingdom

does not begin with the impressive. It begins with the empty.

John modeled it. Jesus appreciate it. Now, before we can

live the sermon on the mount you and I have

to bow low enough to receive the sermon on the mountain.

So here's what we're gonna do. We're just want to

dive into this Textaday, And the first thing we notice

is that it says that Jesus went up on the

mountain side, and it says something that we usually skim

right past. We usually don't even pay attention to it. It

says he sat down. Now, we could go right by

this and never know that. But here's what I want

you to understand. Back in that day, authority from a

leader kay when they set down to teach. So if

a rabbi is walking around talking with his disciples, he's teaching,

they're having conversation. But when they want to say something authoritative,

new law, new order, new way of things. They sit

down because it's sitting down. Was the seat of authority

all throughout ancient history. Matter of fact, we look throughout

ancient history, we see that the seat was always a

place of authority and Jewish culture and all throughout the

known world. Judges what do they do? They sit when

they render their verdicts. Professors, they have a chair at

the university, which means that they speak from a recognized

place of authority. Even the Roman Catholic Church, when the

pope makes an official doctrine declaration, it's called ex cathedra,

in other words, from the chair. In other words, whenever

the pope decides to make new church law, in order

for it to become official, new church law, that has

to be obeyed to say it from the throne. I

was in Chicago a couple of weeks ago. Got to

the airport about two and a half hours early because

I was with Andrew and he's a nerd. And got

to the airport about two and a half hours early.

And I go in to a restaurant and I'm walking

around the restaurant and I see this stude in a robe,

huge red hat, big red ring, and I'm like, man,

that's somebody high up in the Catholic Church. And I said,

I want to sit next to him. And the waiter said,

you can't sit next to him. I said, I want

to sit next to him. Waiter said there's no room.

I said, let's make room. And then I went over

and we moved tables around and I sat down next

to the bishop and I said, tell me about all this.

And so he began to tell me about him being

a bishop, and I started asking him questions and we're

having a great time. We talked for about an hour

and a half. And one of the things he told

me was that he was a part of a sect

in the Catholic Church that were known as traditionalist. See

back in the sixties, one of the popes had this

thing called the Second Vatican Vatican two, and that's where

they made all these changes to the Catholic Church. The

main one was they'll go from having the service in

Latin to having a service in English. And he says,

we the traditionalist, we do not go along with the

Second Vatican orders. And then I had a question. I said,

if the pope has a final word, which becomes all

then how can you be an open rebellion. And he

said to me, it's very fascinating. He said, when the

Pope declared his changes about Vatican Two, he did not

say it while sitting in his chair. So therefore we

do not recognize that authority. So you have to understand

that when Jesus, when he sits down before his disciples

and before all these people who've been following around, it's

a divine moment. It's a king sitting in his chair.

It's not inspirational content. This is a kingdom decoration. And

basically he's saying, is what I'm about ready to share

with you. I need you to understand. This is going

to be the way of my kingdom. This is official.

If you want to be in my kingdom, here's what

you do. Here's the posture you take. And then he

goes on and he says, first of all, it begins

with that word blessed, blessed. Now that we're blessed, people

have translated a lot of different ways over the years.

That we're blessed. I means vicarious, which means deeply happy.

In other words, it's the kind of happiness is not

fragile it's a deep happiness. It's a happiness it is

not swayed by your circumstances. It's the type of happiness

that no matter what happens to you, no matter what

trial you go through in your life, you know it's

gonna be okay because God has your future in his hands,

and God is a good God, and your trust is

in Him despite your current situation. It's not a fragile happiness.

My mamma, she wasn't a fragile lady growing up, even

into an adulthood. I would I love to watch her

respond to huge trials. You know, we would have a

big money issue and she would go, well, thank God

that we got some money to take care of this.

Somebody would have a big health issue and she said, well,

you know what, they'll be fine. If not, they'll be

fine in heaven. The Lord is good. Her faith was

not a fragile Her joy was not brittle. See she

watched God provide for her during the Great Depression, World

War II, and as a business lady when business ladies

were not that populace. She watched God take care of

her through every economic downturn and upswing. Her faith was

not fragile, and so Jesus offers those who are going

to be part of his king. He goes, here's what

I want to offer you. First of all, I want

to offer you a happiness that's not circumstantial, that's not

based on what's going on in your life. I want

to offer you a happiness that is based on you

knowing that God has your future in his hands. He's

a good God, and he loves you. A deep seated happiness.

See in the ancient world. Their definition of happiness is

very fascinating. When they described who was happy in an

ancient world, it's usually three categories of people who were

considered happy. Those who were rich are those who were

successful and had status. The third group that they described

with this word was.

The gods, the pagan gods, because the pagan gods could

not suffer, and so basically they said, happier are those

who who have means to make decisions for their own,

who have the means to control their destiny.

Happier are those who who have a lot of wealth

that can kind of bounce back from almost anything. And

if we look, our world hasn't changed much. Our rule

still says, if I get enough I'll be happy. If

I chieve enough, I'll be happy. If if I'm admired enough,

I'll be happy. Why because we believe that somehow external

things can actually meet internal needs. And that's a philosophy.

But Jesus is down from his divine chair of authority

and he announces this completely different definition of happiness, the

happiness that's not based on our circumstances. So let's continue,

and he says, here's who can receive this happiness. You

want this happiness, let me tell you who can receive this.

He says, blessed are the poor spirit for theirs is

the Kingdom of God. Now, now that's upside down because

all throughout history we've been taught to the strong inherit

the future, Jesus says it spiritually bankrupt, and inherit the kingdom.

The world says. Build your platform, Jesus says, empty yourself.

And Jesus with his kingdom talk starts here. Not of power,

not strategy, and not of influence, but humility. Here's what

I want you to understand today. Humility is the doorway

into the Kingdom of God. If you want to be

a part of the Kingdom of God, it begins with humility.

You see, in ancient cities they would build a great

wall for their defenses. In the evening they would put

the gate up, and if you're kind of coming in late,

you would have to go in through the side. And

there was a side of little gate, and they often

called it the eye of the needle. And Jesus said

that it's harder for a rich man, in other words,

somebody who depends on their depends on their wealth, depends

on themself. It's harder for one of those people to

enter the Kingdom of Heaven than it is for a

camel to go through the eye of the needle. Now

here's what would happen. If you would come in late.

You would come to this small door. And in order

to get through this door, you couldn't take your donkey

or your camel with all of your goods and get

through there. No, no, no. You had to jump off.

You had to unpack your animal. You then had to

crouch down, take all of your bags, drop them inside

the gate. You then had to crouch back down walk

back through it. Then you had to grab a hold

of your animal, and you had to make you and

your animal bow down, and then you will slowly walk

through that door. The doorway to the Kingdom of God

is not a doorway that we can enter into if

our chest puffed out are standing tall. The doorway into

the Kingdom of God is It requires you to kneel,

It requires you to bow. So Jesus is blessed are

the poorn spirit, because the Kingdom is Heaven is designed

for those to come in low. Now, before we move on,

I want to ask two big questions today. The first

one is simply this, what does poorness spirit mean for

our lives? Jesus begins his most famous sermon with this statement,

Blessed are the poor and spirit. Now the poor spirit. Now,

what type of poor does that mean? Well, it comes

from the Greek word tocus, which means beggar poor. So

what type of poor is. It's the type of poor

that it doesn't mean like, you know, people say, well,

I'm poor. You know, it doesn't mean that you're doing okay,

but you're managing are you know? You're surviving, not thriving.

It's not that type of poor. It actually gives the

image of a beggar poor. In other words, a beggar

poor is someone who has their hand out and they

have nothing to offer back in Jesuss those who want

to come into the Kingdom, they come into the Kingdom

with their hands opened, begging. Is said, I have nothing

to offer. Jesus says, that's a blessed life belongs to

those who know they have nothing to offer God except

for empty hands. Now, why is this the first trait

of the kingdom? Before mercy, peacemaking, righteousness, those are all

really good. But Jesus starts here because everything else depends

on it. Because all of us, if there's one thing

we share in common in this room, all of us

struggle with pride. It's our default setting. Pride is our

default setting. If you are challenged, your default setting is pride.

Jesus tells a story about trying to help his disciples

understand who gets into the Kingdom of God and who doesn't.

And he tells a story and he compares two men.

He says, the first man walked into the temple. And

he walked into the temple, and he's a religious guy.

He doesn't have affairs, he tithes, he fasts, he goes

to church every week, he does good works in the community.

And the guy comes into the temple, and he goes

to worship and he says to God, like Lord, his

prayer was not one of repentance, but really it was

a prayer of bragging. What does he say, says God,

I thank you that I'm not like all these other people,

you know, the robbers, the evil doer, his adulters, or

even the task collector that words I fast, I give

I obey. Now here's what he didn't say. He didn't say.

He didn't confess that he loved being seen as righteous.

He didn't confess that he quietly judges other people. He

didn't confess that he has envy in his heart when

other people succeed. He didn't confess that pride made him

feel superior. He didn't confess that he loved the applause

of men more than the approval of God. Is that

where says he looks pretty good. Inwardly he's a mess.

He's prideful. And then Jesus brings in this second character.

And the second character comes in, and he's a tax collector.

In other words, he works for the Roman government, but

he's a Jew, and so therefore he's working against his

own people and he rips them off that's how he

makes his money. He overcharges and rips off widows. He

goes to businesses and he charges more than he's supposed

to charge because all the excess he gets to keep it,

which means there's probably times he's had the harm people hurt, people,

destroy businesses, destroy families, livelihoods for him to get ahead.

Think mafia when you think tax collector. And then he

comes to the temple one day, and the Bible says

that he comes to the temple, but he stays in

the back because he can't even go towards the front

because when he walks into the presence of God, what

he experiences, the holiness of God, he has stopped. He

can't even look up. And the Bible says he starts

to beat his chest, which was ancient sign of grief,

and then he says to God, have mercy on me

before I'm a sinner. No defense, no explanation, no comparison,

no resume. He do what he's done. He's a thief,

he's a charlottan, he's a liar, he's a thug. But

he knew he had nothing to offer God, and so

he says, I I need mercy, So then Jesus says

something to his disciples that shocks everybody. He says, I

tell you what, between those two guys, the religious guy

that looks really good on the outside, and the other guy,

the corrupt guy, the corrupt guy is the one that's

gonna walk away justify that day. You know why, because

he knows he's corrupt, but the other guy thinks he's

just fine and he doesn't need see. So Jesus he

wants us to understand today that the kingdom doesn't belong

to the impressive. It belongs to the empty. And by

the way, this is a low self esteem. This is

accurate self awareness before a holy God. What does Paul say?

Paul says nothing. But by the way, Paul, when it

comes to greatest Christians of all time, there's Jesus and John,

the Baptists and Paul, they fight for number two. And

what does Paul say. Paul says this nothing good dwells

in me. That is my flesh. That's not fake humility,

that's clarity. And here's a paradox or the head scratcher.

Jesus says, the kingdom belongs to people like this. Why

because you can't receive grace. If your hands are full,

you can't receive mercy. If you're defending yourself, you can't

receive salvation. If your insistent your fine. The door to

the kingdom is low, he can't still his hand tall

and walk through it. See. The world says, believe in yourself.

Jesus says, empty yourself. The world says, promote yourself, and

Jesus humble yourself. The world says, acquire more, and Jesus says,

admit you have nothing. All right, we've covered what does

it mean to be poor in a spirit? Last question today?

How do I become humble? How do I become humble?

And here's the thing. Humility doesn't start by looking at yourself.

It starts by looking at God. First of all, what

do we see in scripture? Whenever people run across God,

we see Isaiah. He comes into the temple and he

experiences the presence of God, and what comes out of

his mouth, woe is me? Man. Peter's out on the

boat and he meets this guy named Jesus, and Jesus says,

throw your net on the other side. And the next

thing he knows they have more fish, and they know

what to do with and all of a sudden, Peter

realizes that Jesus is divine, the Messiah. Maybe And what

does Peter do? He says, away from me, I am

a sinner. When people come into the presence of God,

they see how sinful they are and how holy God is.

See when you see God clearly, you see yourself accurately.

So how do we grow into become a poor the spirit?

Number One, you look up before you look inward. The

more you see His holiness, the less you're impressed with

your own goodness. Number Two, you got to starve your pride.

In other words, you have to fight your pride. See,

pride feeds on recognition, it feeds on applause, it feeds

on comparison. Now that doesn't mean that we reject encouragement.

I'm not speaking like walking around like, hey, your hair

looks nice. Thing. Oh no, don't make me pride. Bible

actually tells us to be encouragers. So we should go

around encouraging everybody. And guess what it feels good to

be encouraged. The difference is going out and seeking encouragement. See,

there's a difference. Nothing wrong with encouragement. It's a little

prideful to go out and seek it. At my last

church I was at, I transitioned from being a youth

pastor to speaking to the adults, and I became very

insecure about my own preaching, and so I would go

out into the lobby. We had four services a weekend

at that campus, and I would go out into the

lobby and everybody be like, oh, great job, great job, great,

oh la la la la la, and I would walk

away feeling pretty good about myself. This went on for

a while, and I realized that I started to become

prideful about my preaching here, wondering why. And so I

decided God was like, man, this is not what I

want from you. So I decided to starve myself from

recognition and pride. And so what I did was for

the next year, a whole year, I decided that after service,

instead of going out to the lobby, I would go

to the break room. When I went to the breakroom

in between the services we had about fifteen twenty minutes,

I would ask God two questions, Did I please you?

And was I faithful? Did I please you? And was

I faithful? After about a year, when I went back

out into the lobby and people would encourage me. I

would just it didn't puff me up. Because here's the thing.

I went from wanting people to be happy with me

to wanting God to be happy with me. And here's

how I sustain this to this day. Thursday night is

our first service and so that's the first go round

with the sermon. And here's what I do with my staff.

You can ask my staff if I go up to

them after the service. And I never asked, oh was

that here? Pat my back? I always ask the same thing,

what should I change? Because it's not about me? So

you got to starve your pride. You got to starve

your pride. Matter of fact, again, there's nothing wrong with

joint encouragement. It's about not seeking it. James says, humble

yourself before the Lord and he will exalt you. Know

the order there. Humble yourself. Then let God decide when

he wants to exalt your number three today in our

last point, ask for humility. Man David, who had it all, said, Lord,

I need you to create me a clean heart. See,

humility is not self manufactured, it's spirit produced. And here's

something critical, and I'm going to throw out these phrases

that you've probably heard before. Humility is not thinking less

of yourself as thinking of yourself less. Humility is not insecurity,

it's God confidence. Humility is not self hatred and self surrender.

And my friends, if there was a ministry called Pride Toholics,

I could lead it every week. See, pride is often

the outgrowth of insecurity. And if you're a prideful person

and you struggle with pride a lot, I have very

good news for you. Did you know that humility is

a choice that you can choose to be humble. It's

not a disposition you're born with, because we're all born prideful.

But you can actually choose to walk in humility. Man,

that's so freeing to know that you can make a

choice to be humble. You know, my second year in Pittsburgh,

things are going really good, and again struggling with pride.

And I noticed that and I I saw some other

people who were very humble, and I'm like, God, I

want to be like humble like them. And so I

started to this thing and for a whole year I

called it the Year of Philippians two. For a whole

year I read Philippians two every single day, and I

started to notice some changes. So I started to go

out of my way to serve people, and I would

say to my head, Philippians too. If somebody says something

to me that would I started to feel like I

was gonna have a prideful response. I would say in

my head, Philippians too. When I would go out to

eat with my friends every once in a while, I

had done this before. I started to buy their meal,

and I would say to myself Philippians too. I would

get home from work early before Gina, and I would

look around the house and I would go, what can

I do so that when she comes home she can

just relax? Philippians too. Tim who was living with me

at this time, or Pastor Tim, He's a jerk and

he used to ask me to do stuff all the

time that he was supposed to do, and he would

say to me, Philippians too, will you go grab that

channel change for me? Philippians too. So but I noticed

that after year, I started to really think about how

I can serve others. Now why Philippians too, Because a

lot of Theologians say that if you want to become

like Jesus, you will chase after Jesus' number one characteristic

and a lot of theologians say jesus Number one characteristic

is humility. And Philippians two is that chapter that tells

us to not consider our interests above other people's interests.

And then it talks about how Jesus, who had everything,

he gave it all up not to serve his own interest,

but to our interest, to the point of death on

the cross. Now here's the thing. My pride is not

cured at all, but I am aware of it now

and I can catch myself and I can choose humility.

And here's the case in point. There's a story that

I've told multiple times through the years, and now I

tell that story differently. As I closed today, I told

this story and every bit of this is one hundred

percent true. It sounds crazy, but I was an intern

at bri Boulevard First Church of God and I got

a call on a Saturday morning, early my day off,

and it was a lady goes, is this the intern?

Is this the intern? I'm like, yeah, I'm the intern,

and she goes, I need you to come to the

church right now, and I need you to help. Well,

this lee is pretty aggressive and I didn't feel like

telling her I was a youth intern, not the intern

for anybody who went to that church. You just needed

something done. And so I come up to the church

and it's snowing. Pay attention has to keep part of

the story. It's snowing. And she looked at me and

she hands me a hatchet, and she says, I need

you to go out into the woods and cut down

three small pine trees because I need to use them

for decorations. And I said, well, how'm supposed get these

pine trees back up because we had woods pretty far away.

And she said, well, I didn't have time to get

a truck. I'm in a hurry. Just use your car.

The problem with that is that a Mustang GT convertible.

And this lady just kept calling me in turn, and

I would say James, and she would say in turn,

and I'd say James, in turn, and so in turn,

go back out there. So I went all the way

out there, and I chopped down the three trees. I

put them in my vehicle. My vehicle is full. The

inside of my vehicle is full of snow pine needles.

It's sticky, and I have a hatchet in my hand,

and I remember standing outside by the woods and just

I had this fantasy. I still remember this fantasy to

this day, of walking inside with the hatchet held high,

daring that woman to call me in turn, just one

more time, call me in turn. Now, I used to

tell that story, and I would talk about people who

were entitled, people who took advantage of other people, people

who thought they were the center of the earth. Or

I would just use it to talk about mean people.

And by the way, she was mean. That doesn't change.

Still a mean old lady. Don't be a mean old lady, Okay.

But now when I look at that story, I realized

how prideful I was as a young man. Because here's

the thing, So what, what's the big deal? I go

out and I hope an old lady. So what my

car gets a little dirty. I could fix it the

next day. And I could have had a different attitude.

I know today I would, and I wish I would

have been more like Jesus. And I wish I would

have cut down my pride that day instead of some trees.

I still struggle with pride deeply, but I have the

tools to catch myself, and I could choose a different response.

And so I'm in this sermon early today because I

want to do something a little bit different. I want

you to figure out how this sermon applies to you.

And we're gonna take a few minutes. We're gonna have

some music here. Let's go ahead and throw the scripture up.

It's Philippians too, or a huge chunk of it. And

I want you to ask two questions, what does this mean?

And how should I align my life with this? And

here's what I want to encourage you to just keep

asking those questions for about every line as you go

through this text. What does this mean? How do I

align my life with this? And here's what I want

you to do. We're just gonna take about three four

minutes and you're gonna have prayer time right where you're at,

and you're gonna allow God to speak to your soul

for God to show you some things, and you should

also have opportunity to begin to align your soul with

the humility of Christ. So let's take some time to

pray and o