The Core Values of Happiness Part 2: Matthew 5:4-6 - Matthew: Kingdom of God Revolution

You're listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

Five blessings to me, for they shall inherit the earth.

Renouncing all rights.

Now, this was renouncing all rights.

That's what it actually means.

Christ himself is the only character quality that Christ gave himself.

He said, I am he.

Christ renounced all rights, Philippians 2.

He he gave up heaven, he came down.

Renouncing all rights means that I don't have a right to anything.

Everything is from God.

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We hope you are encouraged by today's message from Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

So I want you to look at this declaration and this definition.

So we're going to put this on the PowerPoint.

And this is the definition of a kingdom of God revolution.

And I gave this months ago, and I just want to reiterate it.

If you haven't written it down, you should.

Now this is my definition, and this is based on my knowledge of the kingdom and my study of scripture.

A kingdom of God revolution is the governing influence of the king, Jesus, over his territory, earth, through his citizens, us, who are expressing his culture and values, reflecting the nature of the king, heaven, into all spheres of earthly society, seven mountains.

Now I'm not going to break all that down, but I am going to say that that leads into the Beatitudes as well as anything I can think of.

So turn in your Bibles, keep the PowerPoint up, but turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 5.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

And this is the Sermon on the Mount.

And the first 12 verses are what we have classically called the Beatitudes, which is actually from Latin beatus, which means blessed, is what you have, but actually in the Greek it's makarios.

And makarios is the word of happiness.

It's a word of happy are those.

Happy.

Deep abiding happiness.

How many of you know that happiness from the world's view is superficial?

It's constantly changing with your circumstances.

This happiness, makarios, has the idea of deep abiding happiness.

We could say joy.

It's like joy.

Joy is different than happiness.

And when Paul's trying to describe the kingdoms of this earth and the kingdom of God, he says this.

He says, the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking.

In other words, it's not parties that you have.

The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

So in my perspective, the kingdom of God revolution, as these values are about to be given to us from the Beatitudes, are really about a deep abiding joy in your heart.

So let's read them.

And seeing the multitudes, he went up on a mountain, and when he was seated, his disciples came to him.

Then he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed or Macarius are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

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

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Notice verse 3, Kingdom of Heaven.

Verse 10, Kingdom of Heaven, repeat it again.

Verse 11, Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you.

Say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake.

Rejoice and be exceedingly glad.

For they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

So it was Blaise Pascal, the great French mathematician and philosopher, who said this.

This is without exception.

Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end.

The cause of some going to war and of others avoiding it.

The will never takes the least step but to this object.

This is the motive of every action, of every man, even to those who hang themselves.

So it's interesting, Pascal was saying that every action in our life is generally driven by a desire for happiness.

And Jesus understood that and he put that within us.

I think it's a God-shaped image of his work in our life that we long for happiness.

We long for righteousness, peace, and joy, and we'll almost do anything to get it.

And so isn't it interesting that here in the Sermon on the Mount, that's how he starts.

He's saying, happy.

You want to be happy?

You want wholehearted joy?

You want righteousness, peace, and joy in your life?

Here's how you get it.

And then he throws out what I'm going to call the upside down kingdom.

He gives us this perspective that nobody else teaches this stuff.

Have you ever heard any motivational speaker talk about this?

I mean, let's face it, this is upside down kingdom stuff.

This is really different than the kingdom of this earth.

And he's saying, look, this is the way to happiness.

If you'll master this, then you'll master the whole rest of the values that I'm going to give you of the kingdom.

So values describe culture.

And we've and we've tried, and there's, and let me just say, not all of this is bad.

I mean, actually, some of it's really good.

To change culturally through government.

Or change culture through laws.

And by the way, laws are good and government is good.

I'm for all of it.

And if you if I hear of any of you guys in this church not voting in elections, I'm gonna be mad at you.

So you need to vote.

Vote's important.

If you don't vote, you lose, right?

I always say, I want everybody to vote except those that disagree with me.

But when we talk about that, that's not going to by itself change culture.

People change culture.

God has given us the kingdom on earth through a personal, vital, dynamic, growing relationship with Jesus Christ.

And Jesus did not come to start a religion, but a revolution.

So we've tended in American culture because we've become so accustomed to our churches and accustomed to what we might call Christian laws or whatever, to think that we can change things that way.

And what's happened in American culture at least is that we kind of let the government take care of things.

We do our thing on Sunday, and then we live like everybody else during the week.

And what God is saying to us in the Sermon on the Mount is no, the values of the kingdom is how you change the world.

And I want to show you what those values are.

So last week we looked at the first one, which I think is the kingpin.

I mean, this is the this is the opening to everything, and that is blessed are the poor in spirit.

Verse 3, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

If you were here last week, I said poor in spirit means need for God.

Dietrich Bonhoeff called it poverty of your own spirit.

A poverty of your own spirit.

It means that I don't have what it takes.

And then he says, if you'll have a poverty of spirit, yours is the kingdom of heaven.

What does he mean by that?

I believe he means that when you make yourself poor in spirit, that you get access to all the resources of the kingdom of heaven.

In other words, God's looking to and fro.

What is it, 2 Chronicles 16, 9?

The eyes of the Lord look to and fro for those whose hearts are loyal to him, that he might strongly support them.

In other words, in other words, Jesus is looking for poverty of spirit individuals, people who realize I don't have what it takes.

I'm not confident in myself.

That's surrender.

That's a daily surrender to the power of the Holy Spirit.

How many of you are overwhelmed with something in your life right now that you know is above your natural skills and talents and giftings?

God put it there.

He's got you in that.

I can do it, I can do it.

Look at your left eye in the mirror.

I can do it, I can do it.

No, you need to be able to say with confidence, I can't do it, I can't do it, I can't do it.

But Christ can.

That Christ can in you.

And you know what?

When you come to that place of surrender, which some of you have so much pride, you never get there.

And I feel sorry for you.

I mean, it's a really a dismal life to be full of pride.

But to break down into humility and to say, I can't do it, it says here, you get all the resources of the kingdom of heaven.

God's just looking for folks like that that He can start pouring wisdom they didn't have, and power they didn't have, and wisdom, I mean, and and even skill development in your life.

God will put a vision or put a dream or he'll speak to you, or you'll be in a conversation.

You're going, I gotta go back to school.

I need to go back to school and I need to get that degree.

I need to go back and get some training here.

I've got, I mean, all of that is God.

That's all God.

And so he says, Blessed are the poor in spirit.

That's the entrance way into the rest of the Beatitudes.

And it's super freeing to know you don't have to have it altogether.

Guys, you do not have to have it all together.

It's okay to be broken.

That's who Jesus comes for.

He came for the brokenhearted, he came for the poor.

First one is poor.

Luke 4, 18 and 19.

So I talked about that last week.

Verse 4.

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

Martin Luther said this word means sorrow-bearing.

Sorrow-bearing.

It means you care.

It means you care about this world.

It means you care about the poor.

It means you care about those that are persecuted.

It means you care about those that are getting the shaft.

You care about them.

You're sorrow-bearing.

You don't have to, but you do.

And you do because of the first one.

Because as you surrender to Christ and become poor in spirit, and then you start getting the resources of the kingdom, guess what?

You get happy.

You start getting happy.

Wow.

I never thought of that.

God did that.

I give God the glory for that.

And when you start doing that, you start seeing with the eyes of the kingdom.

You start seeing the brokenness.

Does that make sense?

You start seeing people's heart, and then you now mourn that they don't have the kingdom.

If you don't mourn sometimes, I don't think we're supposed to mourn all the time.

I mean, you go crazy, but if you don't mourn sometimes for people who don't have the kingdom, then you're probably not poor in spirit yet.

Because when you become poor in spirit and you start experiencing the kingdom, the righteousness, peace, and joy of God, it gives you a compassion for those who don't have it.

And so you become sorrow-bearing.

You see, one thing about, here's what's interesting about the Sermon on the Mount.

The Sermon on the Mount is a thesis and antithesis all the way through.

It's a thesis and an antithesis.

So the thesis, and then there's an antithesis.

So if we become surrendered to Christ fully and filled with his spirit, then we are going to take on the brokenness of this world the way Christ does, because Christ is increasingly on the throne of your heart in your life.

But then he says he'll comfort you.

Isn't that awesome?

So blessed are those who mourn, they shall be comforted.

So he comforts us when we mourn, and we're blessed because of that.

There's happiness in that.

Some of us, including myself, I like to be happy, I like to be joyful most of the time.

Sometimes I don't want to go into stuff.

I don't want to get into people's stuff.

I don't want to go there because I know how painful it is.

Anybody know that?

You know what I'm talking about?

You know?

So, so I think that I'm comforted by this because I know that if I go in and I start helping people and I start ministering to people, it seems like a hopeless situation, and I start to feel their pain, God's gonna comfort me.

But you can't get God's comfort if you don't need it.

So if you stay and always play it safe, you don't know what I'm talking about.

You'll never know what I'm talking about.

When we went to Japan as missionaries, and we started diving into the life of the Japanese.

When we were in Okinawa, we started diving into the life of Okinawans.

When I was in South Central LA working in the African American church for the whole summer in Watts section of South Central, and hanging with gangbangers and leading guys to the Lord when they were coming off crack cocaine addiction and stuff like that.

Um man, my heart mourned.

Sometimes I couldn't sleep at night because I carried now the burdens.

It's called sorrow bearing.

But then God would come for me, and there actually was a joy that came because we see breakthrough.

We see breakthrough.

And when my dad was involved in the civil rights movement in Alabama and Georgia and in South Carolina, by the way, that was probably not the most popular stand a white pastor could take in Jim Crow South, 1950s and 60s.

Have a George McGovern bumper sticker on the back of your Volkswagen.

Death threats regularly.

My dad was one of the most, and still is one of the most joyful people you'd ever meet.

He mourned for the black community, and God comforted him, and he knew he was doing the right thing.

So sorrow bearing, sorrow bearing leads to comfort from God.

Verse 5, blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Renouncing all rights.

Now this one's gonna be really popular.

Renouncing all rights.

That's what it actually means.

Christ Himself, it's the only character quality that Christ gave himself.

He said, I am meek.

Christ renounced all rights, Philippians 2.

He gave up heaven, he came down.

Renouncing all rights means that I don't have a right to anything.

Everything is from God.

The Latin phrase is non-cupiti, vindicate.

An early church phrase that means leave all our rights to God.

This kind of people is a person who's a part of the value system of this world, but that they don't want the power of this world.

Isn't it interesting that Jesus says it this way?

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Could it be that when we renounce all rights and we have no desire for power, that's the kind of person that Jesus can trust with more power?

Why does he use a Mother Teresa?

Why does he use a guy like William Wilberforce?

Why does God use a guy like D.L.

Moody or a country kid preacher from North Carolina who milked cows named Billy Graham?

Because I believe he was poor in spirit.

He had compassion, a heart that mourned and was sorrow-bearing.

But also, if you read their story, they I mean Billy Graham had so many opportunities, and Moody had, I mean, they were talking about William Wilberforce in his day in England as the next prime minister.

He was so popular.

He was the best speaker in the House of Parliament at his time.

And he began to have a heart for the black man and for slavery and to come against slavery.

And he fought for 30 years.

It cost him his reputation, it cost him his health.

He renounced all rights because God could use him because he wasn't in it for the power, he was in it for the glory of God.

So when we're not in it for the power, if we're not in it for the money, if we're not in it for the prestige, God can use you greater.

Paul writes, For you see your calling, brethren, that not many were wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty.

And the base things of the world and the things which are despised, God has chosen and the things which are not to bring to nothing the things that are.

It's the powerless that God gives power.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.

God's looking for the hungry.

God's looking for those that hunger and thirst for righteousness.

And I believe this means blessed are those who are hungering and thirst for right relationships.

Fourth kingdom value, right relationships.

That's what righteousness means.

See, we've thought righteousness means morals and ethics, and it does mean that.

But primarily it means right relationships.

It means that the kingdom of God revolution begins if you're married in your marriage.

With your spouse, with your children, at home.

You're not married, it's with your roommates, it's in your school, it's in your training center, it's uh it begins in those relationships right there around you.

And then it explodes out.

Men and women, listen to this.

Why not make the road the happiest place on the face of the earth?

Why not?

Disney stole it.

Let's steal it back.

Okay?

This should be the most joyful place on the face of the earth.

When you come, come early.

Come to the road early in that lobby, meet people you haven't met before.

Put your arm around people, pray with people.

Nothing would give me greater joy than more and more laughter out there in the lobby and out into the parking lot.

And then we're praying for people and asking people, is there anything I can pray for you about?

And then you actually pray for them right then.

And that we don't come just to see our friends.

And that's really vital and important.

I dig that.

But also make it a point that we reach out to those that are new and those that have no friends.

You realize how much of a miracle it is for someone to go to a church where they don't know anybody?

There's probably some people in here right now.

I mean, that's like crazy.

You dressed your rowdy little kids that don't want to go, and then you put clothes on.

Unfortunately, you have to put a little tie on them or anything like that.

Don't do that.

We don't do that here.

That's the way I grew up.

I had a clip on tie.

Had three clip on ties.

I can remember exactly where they were in the closet.

I was like, uh, all I thought about on Sunday morning was not I'm going to worship the Lord.

I gotta wear clip on ties.

I hope I don't see any of my friends.

But rather, so we can skip that part, but we have to get them in the car, and then it's and then you know it's a Christian tradition, you're supposed to fight all the way to church, you know, with your spouse.

So you fight all the way to church, and this is a happy family.

We're a happy family.

Darn it, you know.

Um, but then we get out and we come and and and to have no one greet them, to have no one show love to them.

That's like that's a travesty, man.

We should be looking.

We should be love-seeking missiles, looking for people we can bless.

When you guys leave today, how many of you will probably go out to eat after the service?

Raise your hand.

Okay, a few of you.

When you go out, then you need to bless that waiter.

You need to bless that waitress, you need to get their name and thank them for what they're doing.

Almost every waiter and waitress will tell you the worst people to serve during the week is Sunday after church.

We've got to do different than that, and I want to be known that the road is the happiest place on the earth, most joyful place on the earth, and then it and then it cascades out.

Let's go bring happiness and joy wherever we go.

You've been listening to The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

We hope you have been blessed by today's message.

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