full
The Blessed's
You don't need to have it all together to find comfort and a place at the Lord's table. Learn why the pursuit of spiritual certainty can isolate, but honesty, vulnerability, and practical mercy open doors to lasting joy.
Step into Christlike community, where forgiveness and love make healing, connection, and genuine growth possible.
Key Insights
- Humility and spiritual honesty foster true belonging and connection.
- Admitting weakness, mourning failures, and letting go of arrogance are pathways to comfort and renewal.
- Jesus puts people ahead of rules, modeling a life of compassion and inclusion.
- Real faith grows through action: giving mercy, making peace, and loving even hard-to-love neighbors.
- You can step into comfort and healing, no matter your past or struggles.
https://springhousemidweek.captivate.fm/episode/the-sermon-of-sermons-part-1
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Gathering Times
- Sundays, 9:00 AM
- Sundays, 11:00 AM
- Thursdays, 6:00 PM
Contact Info
Springhouse Church
14119 Old Nashville Highway
Smyrna TN 37167
CCLI License 2070006
Transcript
Tonight we get to begin a new series, and I'm so excited.
Speaker:I know that when we went through
Speaker:the Rabbi, it was kind of prompted from a grandson who
Speaker:was so excited about the words in red. And he was
Speaker:so excited to go, "You know that Jesus said all of
Speaker:this!" And he was so encouraged. And I thought, oh, that we could
Speaker:all grab hold of the words in red, that we could all
Speaker:be that excited and that tuned into what the
Speaker:word says in the words in red. Probably 20 years ago,
Speaker:I listened to a sermon by Pastor Ronnie, and he was teaching
Speaker:on this particular passage out of Matthew, and he began to
Speaker:talk about the blessed. And coming
Speaker:from a hard background, when he began to talk about
Speaker:the blessings of the Lord and the goodness of the Lord
Speaker:and that we're actually supposed to be happy and joyous in this
Speaker:journey, I went, oh, I like this church.
Speaker:I really like this church and I think I can get behind this pastor.
Speaker:And I've been behind this pastor for about almost 30 years now. So
Speaker:Pastor Ronnie, if you would bring the Word.
Speaker:[APPLAUSE] [LAUGHTER] Get behind this pastor, huh? Okay. Get thee
Speaker:behind me, pastor. Okay.
Speaker:We got my thing that we can put up there? Yeah,
Speaker:mine doesn't say sermon or sermons. It's got another.
Speaker:There it is. Yeah, there we go.
Speaker:Lord, I pray that you would fill this place with the presence of the
Speaker:Holy Spirit and that you would help me
Speaker:to speak words of life Take
Speaker:my confusion and my clutter and
Speaker:clarify it in Jesus' name, amen.
Speaker:I read somewhere a few years
Speaker:ago, it was talking about different cultures and what they teach
Speaker:their children to pursue. And it said
Speaker:the Japanese, teach their children to pursue honor.
Speaker:The Russians teach their children to be
Speaker:strong, pursue being strong.
Speaker:The English teach their children
Speaker:to keep a stiff upper lip. Yeah,
Speaker:whatever that means. And the Americans,
Speaker:they teach their children, be happy.
Speaker:What makes you happy?
Speaker:It's a rhetorical question, but it's also one that
Speaker:I would like to elicit some answers. What makes you happy?
Speaker:A good song. A good song?
Speaker:You mean like "All You Need Is Love"? Yeah,
Speaker:something like that. Rocky Top?
Speaker:Yeah. What makes you happy? Family?
Speaker:Oh yeah, that's a—
Speaker:Baseball! Baseball! Especially
Speaker:if your team wins, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, you know, those are things that we all know that
Speaker:happiness depends on what happens and all like
Speaker:that. Family doesn't always make you happy.
Speaker:Sometimes that's a little iffy.
Speaker:But here are 8 things that God says
Speaker:will make you happy. Ah, you don't.
Speaker:Yeah. Are you happy standing or sitting?
Speaker:Do whatever makes you happy.
Speaker:Okay, I'm serious. You don't have to stand.
Speaker:And I know that most translations use the word blessed,
Speaker:but you know, that's, well, I'll talk about that in a second. Happy
Speaker:are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of
Speaker:heaven. Happy are those who mourn, for
Speaker:they will be comforted. Happy are the meek,
Speaker:for they will inherit the earth. Happy are
Speaker:those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they
Speaker:will be filled. Happy are the merciful,
Speaker:for they will be shown mercy. Happy are the
Speaker:pure in heart, for they will see God.
Speaker:Happy are the peacemakers, for they will be called
Speaker:children of God. Happy are those who are
Speaker:persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is
Speaker:the kingdom of heaven. Okay, you can be seated.
Speaker:Instead of taking 4 to 5 minutes on
Speaker:each one of these, what I'm gonna
Speaker:do is I'm gonna do a brief dive into each one, and
Speaker:then I wanna go a little deeper into some important
Speaker:concepts. That I believe
Speaker:are necessary for understanding
Speaker:what Jesus is saying here. So the overview,
Speaker:blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Speaker:And you know, right off the bat, it's kind of like, well,
Speaker:blessed are the poor in spirit. What in the world does that mean?
Speaker:Because that doesn't sound like a blessed thing or necessarily
Speaker:a happy thing. Does that mean, you
Speaker:know, I'm supposed to look like this or something?
Speaker:But no, it's those who are devoid of
Speaker:spiritual arrogance.
Speaker:And let me just say, because this is a warning, we admire
Speaker:arrogance so much in our culture.
Speaker:We really do. And so there's a trap, there's a
Speaker:natural tendency to go there
Speaker:anyway in admiring people who are
Speaker:arrogant. We will follow someone if
Speaker:they sound sure of themself.
Speaker:And those of you who are old enough
Speaker:to remember the '80s
Speaker:as an adult, might be
Speaker:aware that I feel like there was a subtle shift
Speaker:that took place in our culture during the '80s.
Speaker:Because I remember growing up and, you
Speaker:know, somebody who bragged about themself
Speaker:wasn't really somebody that people admired.
Speaker:That was really— somebody who thought they were hot stuff,
Speaker:you know, we thought, well, they think they're hot stuff. And then
Speaker:somewhere around the '80s, that became not only acceptable,
Speaker:it kind of became, oh wow, they're hot stuff.
Speaker:So in our culture, we have a tendency to
Speaker:admire the arrogant. But
Speaker:Jesus said those who aren't arrogant
Speaker:are blessed, are happy. We're going to go into that a little bit more on
Speaker:the concepts later. Blessed are those who mourn,
Speaker:for they will be comforted. And that also
Speaker:doesn't sound like the kind of thing that makes you happy,
Speaker:is to mourn. But the sense here is really
Speaker:those who mourn, it's not, it's what you mourn over.
Speaker:Those who mourn over their sins and repent,
Speaker:they aren't happy because they're mourning. They're happy
Speaker:because of what comes next.
Speaker:I've been rereading the story of
Speaker:Joseph and his brothers and
Speaker:finding stuff that I really, really never saw before.
Speaker:And you know the story, but let's skip forward to
Speaker:Egypt. You know, they sold their
Speaker:brother into slavery. They think he's dead. There's
Speaker:famine and they gotta go down there and buy food. Buy some food and
Speaker:they encounter Joseph and they don't know it's Joseph. You know the story.
Speaker:And Joseph kind of plays with them
Speaker:a little bit. And I really think he did that under the inspiration
Speaker:of the Holy Spirit because the
Speaker:scene where he reveals himself to his brothers,
Speaker:they're undone. They they
Speaker:are truly mournful and repentant
Speaker:of their sins and what they did.
Speaker:Judah is beside himself,
Speaker:and he really speaks for all of them. And that's when
Speaker:Joseph reveals himself to them. That
Speaker:mournfulness, that sense of
Speaker:repentance brings them to a place of,
Speaker:You know, as I was reading it this time, I was thinking about
Speaker:what a joy it must have been once
Speaker:Joseph revealed himself and they got over
Speaker:being totally freaked out and they wept on
Speaker:each other's shoulders. And you know what, I suspect they probably
Speaker:were able to kind of talk about some of those times that had been so
Speaker:hurtful. And now, wow. You know, man, your
Speaker:dream came true. And wow, we
Speaker:couldn't have seen that happen. That had to have been a
Speaker:powerfully joyful moment
Speaker:that this mournfulness brought them to.
Speaker:And I want to pull up a verse here that I think
Speaker:fits in with this. 1 John 1:9 says, if we confess
Speaker:our sins, he's faithful and just
Speaker:to forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
Speaker:And while that is
Speaker:a wonderful verse, that's a hard verse to
Speaker:believe. That's a hard verse to believe.
Speaker:It really is. I mean,
Speaker:because I've sinned.
Speaker:I suspect you have too today.
Speaker:And, you know, come to God and go, "Man, God, I'm
Speaker:sorry. I, you know."
Speaker:And, you know, I've heard it went, you know, it means that you
Speaker:have to repent, you have to change, you have to turn around. It doesn't say
Speaker:that. Doesn't say that.
Speaker:It says confess. And it takes faith
Speaker:then to believe that God is going to
Speaker:forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
Speaker:When I was growing up, I don't know that
Speaker:if— I don't hear the term anymore, but every now and then you hear the
Speaker:term deathbed conversion.
Speaker:Is that even possible? Deathbed conversion. You know, somebody's
Speaker:lived their whole life for the devil and then they get to the
Speaker:very end and go, "Save me, Jesus." And
Speaker:a lot of people, the opinion sort of was, "Nah,
Speaker:that doesn't work." Well, that kind of says it does.
Speaker:The problem is if you lived your whole life for the devil
Speaker:and you get to the end, How are you going to believe that?
Speaker:If you haven't lived a life where you learn the
Speaker:walk of faith, that's— it's tough to even
Speaker:go there. It really is. But now we'll move on
Speaker:to the next one, the golden verse of the
Speaker:Bible. Blessed are the meek,
Speaker:for they will inherit the earth.
Speaker:Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Speaker:You can say amen if you want to.
Speaker:The kindhearted, the sweet-spirited, self-controlled.
Speaker:I can't say that with a straight face.
Speaker:But that is what it is. It's
Speaker:basically the anti-arrogant.
Speaker:Not the bully. Jesus, I think,
Speaker:kind of said the bullies are going to be on the outside looking in,
Speaker:and they're going to be where there's weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, because
Speaker:they're going to see the blessings of everybody else, and they're not going to
Speaker:be a part of it.
Speaker:Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be
Speaker:filled. Those who actively seek
Speaker:right standing with God. Righteousness had a different
Speaker:concept when I was growing up, at least
Speaker:in my mind. And I think it still has a different concept
Speaker:in most people's minds. It's—
Speaker:well, we're going to talk about it more in a second. Let me say, this
Speaker:verse is actually kind of an important one to me because I had a
Speaker:friend When I came back to the
Speaker:Lord in my mid-20s, this was my, one of my very closest
Speaker:friends. And
Speaker:he said to me one day, he said, "You take the Bible literally?"
Speaker:And I said, "Yes, of course I take the Bible
Speaker:literally. What do you mean, do I take the Bible literally?" He said,
Speaker:"Well, what about where Jesus says, You're to hunger and
Speaker:thirst for righteousness. Does that mean that your mouth's gonna be dry
Speaker:and your belly rumbles? Oh no, that's silly. He
Speaker:said, yeah, that's literal. And I'm, no, you're
Speaker:silly. I didn't wanna have anything to do with it. And then I walked off
Speaker:and got to thinking, yeah, he's right.
Speaker:Literal isn't always the best lens.
Speaker:To see things, but sometimes it is. And
Speaker:the Bible isn't always literal because it uses metaphor and it uses
Speaker:stories and it uses things.
Speaker:But anyway, righteousness, what is right standing with God?
Speaker:We're gonna talk about that later as well. And then blessed are the
Speaker:merciful, for they will be shown mercy. And that means
Speaker:merciful.
Speaker:Could this be any plainer?
Speaker:And it's literal. And I
Speaker:wonder why this verse
Speaker:isn't trumpeted from pulpits
Speaker:virtually every week or every time someone
Speaker:stands in a pulpit. I mean, I'm serious. Do you want mercy?
Speaker:I want it. Well, that's how you get it.
Speaker:Right there. I mean, God's going to give it anyway, but
Speaker:ah, really? We're going to talk about that a little bit more in a minute
Speaker:too. The pure in heart. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will
Speaker:see God. Those with integrity and godly character.
Speaker:We think of pure. And we
Speaker:tend to think of one aspect of pure,
Speaker:you know, innocent, hasn't done anything wrong,
Speaker:you know, pure. But there are other aspects, and one of the aspects is
Speaker:integrity. It means consistent all the way through.
Speaker:It means, yeah, this is what you see is really what you get.
Speaker:A godly character. Means
Speaker:the way God is.
Speaker:And we're going to talk about that here a little bit more as well. And
Speaker:then, blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be
Speaker:called children of God. We are not peacemakers
Speaker:by nature. We're not
Speaker:peacemakers by culture. Our nation
Speaker:was born in war. We
Speaker:say we hate it, but the truth is we do it all the time.
Speaker:And so once again, culturally, there's a thing that, you
Speaker:know, we make excuses for it, but,
Speaker:and it's not just our country, really
Speaker:a lot of Christianity. Can you say the word crusades? You
Speaker:know, Jesus never said, go and
Speaker:conquer Jerusalem.
Speaker:But we felt like, well, we need to go do that, 'cause
Speaker:had this kind of warring spirit. And Jesus
Speaker:goes, put your sword away. Blessed are the
Speaker:peacemakers. They're the ones who will be
Speaker:called the children of God. And then
Speaker:the persecuted. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
Speaker:for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Persecuted for
Speaker:righteousness, persecuted for showing love,
Speaker:persecuted for extending mercy,
Speaker:persecuted for being like God. And let me just say right here,
Speaker:Western Christians are not persecuted.
Speaker:Not in the slightest. We sometimes pretend like we
Speaker:are and use it as a pretext to do
Speaker:things, but we're not
Speaker:persecuted at all.
Speaker:So let's talk about spiritual arrogance and begin to talk about
Speaker:these concepts a little bit. What is spiritual arrogance?
Speaker:Now, kind of give me
Speaker:a little rope here to hang myself with.
Speaker:Certainty.
Speaker:There are things about which we need to be very certain.
Speaker:And there are probably 3 or 4 of those things.
Speaker:One of them is that Jesus Christ is the only
Speaker:begotten Son of God. One of them is that
Speaker:whoever believes on him will not perish but have everlasting
Speaker:life. Beyond that,
Speaker:it gets a little bit murky. But we don't get
Speaker:murky 'cause we're sure. Those
Speaker:who are confident of their interpretation of what
Speaker:it's going to be, and interpretation of God's Word are the
Speaker:heirs, the spiritual heirs
Speaker:of those who in Jesus' day said, we know this man
Speaker:is a sinner because no one can break the
Speaker:Sabbath and not be a sinner. And of
Speaker:course, the guy that Jesus healed said, well, I don't know if he's a sinner
Speaker:or not. I just know I was blind and now I can see.
Speaker:Yeah, but we know he's a sinner.
Speaker:No prophet comes out of Galilee, 'cause we know,
Speaker:'cause we've got this figured out already.
Speaker:And so having this attitude, this certainty
Speaker:about things about which actually we should have
Speaker:uncertainty keeps us from the kingdom of
Speaker:heaven. And we recognize this in
Speaker:others long before we see it in ourselves.
Speaker:Yeah, I,
Speaker:when I first, well, when I, yeah, yeah, when I
Speaker:first came here to pastor and for quite a
Speaker:few years, I guess until I got older than the people who
Speaker:wanted to ask these questions, you know, well, now let me ask
Speaker:you something. About this church here, 'cause I'm thinking about
Speaker:coming. How do you baptize?
Speaker:Well, what are you
Speaker:asking? Well, what's the formula that you use? What do you say? You
Speaker:baptize in Jesus' name? You baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and the
Speaker:Holy Ghost? Do you dunk them all the way under, or you just sprinkle a
Speaker:little stuff on their head? I would get those
Speaker:questions all the time because this is important.
Speaker:Which translation do you use of the Bible?
Speaker:Yeah. An English one.
Speaker:Yeah, but which one? Do you use the real one or
Speaker:not? 'Cause this is important.
Speaker:Do you speak in tongues here? Well,
Speaker:some of us do, some of us don't.
Speaker:We place these things in front of
Speaker:the important things.
Speaker:We tend, we do that all the time.
Speaker:We tend to do this and we even use politics to divide,
Speaker:especially in the last 20 years or so. You know,
Speaker:well, before I start coming to this church here, Pastor,
Speaker:what do you believe about immigration?
Speaker:I believe the earth is the Lord's and everything in it.
Speaker:Yeah, but you see, this is important. What do you believe about homosexuality?
Speaker:Well, I— What do
Speaker:you believe about this issue and that issue? And the
Speaker:thing is, This is why
Speaker:Jesus said we have to become like a little child to
Speaker:enter the kingdom of God. A little child doesn't have an
Speaker:opinion about immigration.
Speaker:A little child doesn't have an opinion about race.
Speaker:A little child doesn't have an opinion about a whole lot of things that
Speaker:we think are important, but they
Speaker:recognize Jesus. They respond to love.
Speaker:They want to experience joy
Speaker:in life.
Speaker:Merciful peacemakers. David.
Speaker:David was a man of mercy. And
Speaker:I've always Well, I was
Speaker:telling Jonathan before the service, I used to be a
Speaker:worship leader. You know, that's what I used to do.
Speaker:Now, I was a very mediocre guitar player,
Speaker:but I can sing and I can worship.
Speaker:And, you know, and I just get up and worship. And I
Speaker:thought, yeah, this is the calling that God has put on my life.
Speaker:I'm like David, true
Speaker:worshiper, God. But you know what?
Speaker:David did some stuff.
Speaker:David did some bad stuff.
Speaker:We're not going to go into Bash David night, but you know, most
Speaker:of you know a lot of the bad stuff that he did. And
Speaker:yet, why do we think he's so
Speaker:Well, David was also a
Speaker:very merciful person. I mean, he was
Speaker:a barbarian king, okay? He could look at anybody and
Speaker:go, "Off with your head," you know, or whatever
Speaker:he wanted to do. And yet there's so many places
Speaker:in Scripture. I guess probably the one that,
Speaker:Well, I'll mention two of them. When he became
Speaker:king of all of Israel,
Speaker:the house of David took over for the house of Saul.
Speaker:And David had made
Speaker:a covenant with one of Saul's sons, with Jonathan.
Speaker:You know, I'm going to show mercy and kindness to your family. You show mercy
Speaker:and kindness to my family. Jonathan and
Speaker:Saul and most of the family was gone. And David goes, is
Speaker:there anybody? Is there a member
Speaker:of Saul's family, of Jonathan's family?
Speaker:Well, no, actually he said Saul's family that I can show kindness to?
Speaker:Now, this was a question
Speaker:fraught with danger because
Speaker:the way the political situation would be, Was
Speaker:somebody from the former dynasty who
Speaker:is still alive and can perhaps lead
Speaker:an insurrection? I mean, you see in the picture here? You
Speaker:know, I don't know if I wanna tell David that there's somebody,
Speaker:but he said, yes, there is. There is a guy
Speaker:named Mephibosheth. He said, okay, bring him, send
Speaker:for him. And they sent for him. And you know,
Speaker:Mephibosheth was a threat. And he
Speaker:wasn't all that confident coming into David's presence. And
Speaker:David goes, don't be afraid.
Speaker:I'm going to show kindness to you for the sake of your
Speaker:father, Jonathan. And so you're going to
Speaker:eat at my table. I'm going to take care of all of your needs.
Speaker:That's pretty good. But even better
Speaker:was Shimei, because when
Speaker:David was fleeing from his son Absalom, there's
Speaker:this guy, there was this idiot, Shimei, who
Speaker:as they were fleeing, he started
Speaker:yelling at David and cursing him and throwing
Speaker:rocks at him. Throwing rocks at the king, come on.
Speaker:And his bodyguards all around him, and they said, well, let us go and just
Speaker:take care of that dog. And David said, no. No, don't
Speaker:do that. My own son's rebelling against me right now.
Speaker:Maybe the Lord told him to do this, but at least the
Speaker:Lord's gonna look at it and
Speaker:maybe he'll show mercy to me because I'm gonna show mercy to him.
Speaker:Well, after everything kind of settled down
Speaker:and David's armies won and he's on his way back to Jerusalem,
Speaker:one of the first guys to meet him Is Shimei going, oh, you know,
Speaker:I messed up, you know? It would've been
Speaker:so easy to just go,
Speaker:huh, away with him. But no, he said,
Speaker:I'm gonna show you mercy. And he did. And
Speaker:so David, yeah, did some bad stuff. David
Speaker:showed mercy. And you know what the scripture
Speaker:says? Blessed are the merciful,
Speaker:for they shall receive mercy.
Speaker:Mercy. And God said, this is a
Speaker:man after my heart. This is a man after my own
Speaker:heart. This is a man after my character.
Speaker:Now, was he perfect at it? No.
Speaker:None of us are. But that is what
Speaker:it means to be righteous.
Speaker:God's character, display God's character.
Speaker:We'll get into that a little bit more here in a minute.
:2 says, "For in the same way you judge others,
:you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will be
:measured to you." This is literal. Is there anything
:about this that we don't understand?
:Anybody have any questions about this? Anybody want to say,
:well, who is my neighbor? You know,
:who is he actually talking about there? I mean,
:surely he's talking about the way that I
:treat people who look like me and agree with me. He's
:certainly not talking about the way that I treat people who don't look like me
:and don't agree with me. I think he's talking about them
:both. I think he's talking about all of them.
:This is literal. I've had some say that I was merciful and I've
:had others say, "No, he's just soft on sin."
:Two things. I hope I am merciful.
:I hope that I am. Because
:I don't know anyone who needs mercy more
:than me. So I don't wanna
:be stinting in giving it out.
:So I'm actually kind of being a little selfish there.
:But yeah, soft on sin.
:Hmm.
:I talk about sin. I just don't
:tend to talk about the sins that people want me to talk about.
:I don't spend a lot of time talking about the favorite sins
:that, oh yeah, yeah, preach it, brother,
:they need to hear it. No, I tend to talk about
:the sins that people just kind of tend to go, phew. "You didn't say anything
:about sin today." The whole sermon was about sin.
:"I didn't hear it." Yeah, I know.
:Yeah, I know.
:I don't tend to, especially when I'm talking
:about sin, I don't tend to,
:you know, I mean, get red in the face and your
:veins pop out and things like that.
:One of the things that I discovered fairly quickly
:in raising kids is there's a
:big difference between a warning and a
:threat. And it doesn't take kids
:long to figure out that there's a big difference. And
:threats, usually are accompanied by—
:and red face and—
:warnings can be very quiet,
:but they're serious. They're real.
:Over in Matthew, there's a parable
:that once again, it's one of my favorites.
:It's one that's been very impactful in my life. Matthew
:21-29,
:and it's the parable of the unmerciful servant.
:Most of you know it. If you don't, I'll just briefly tell you the story.
:This ruler
:had a servant that owed him an enormous amount of
:money. Enormous amount of money. Let's just put it that
:way. And the servant said,
:I can't pay it back. I'm sorry. You know, please,
:please have mercy on me. And
:the ruler goes, okay, your
:debt's clear. Woo.
:And then that servant goes out and
:finds finds another servant who owes him a few dollars.
:Smitty, you know you owe me that money.
:Yeah, you're my prop. No, no,
:be the prop. Just, yeah. You know
:you owe me that money. Well, I don't have the money. I can't pay it
:back. Well, that's just too bad then. You're going to prison
:until you're able to pay it back. And talk about cutting off your nose to
:spite your face. You know, you put the guy in jail, he can't make any
:money. But, you know, you're— and he
:threw the other servant into prison.
:And when the master found out about it, he brought
:the guy back in.
:You wicked servant. I forgave you
:all of that debt. And now you've
:got this little amount that you've thrown this guy into prison
:for. Well, guess who else is going to prison?
:You. To me, that's one of the clearest parables imaginable.
:And
:we can be merciful because we have received
:mercy. If you believe in the Lord Jesus
:Christ, you have received
:mercy. Your sins have been
:forgiven, all of our sins, and cleansed from all
:unrighteousness. Wow.
:Wow. What did I do to deserve that?
:Believed.
:And so, Smitty, forget about it. You know,
:here, I'll give you some money. I'm not going to be like
:Allen was on Sunday, because I don't have that much
:with me. But if you need some money, I'll give it to
:you. Thanks for being a
:good prop.
:But we cannot be unmerciful
:and righteous.
:We cannot be unmerciful and righteous. Now I'm not saying,
:okay, so if you're unmerciful, you're going to hell. I'm not saying
:that. But inasmuch as we are ever
:unmerciful, we are not displaying
:the the character of God.
:And the character of God in our life, as we come into
:alignment with the character of God, that is what righteousness is. That
:is what right standing with God is.
:Right standing with God is what righteousness is.
:And how do we achieve that? Well, I grew up in
:a, in a culture where you achieved
:it by what you wore.
:You know, do you become righteous, do you become like
:God by wearing the right clothes?
:Let's all get our robes on. Well, what does God wear
:anyway? We don't know.
:Or
:about how we spoke. You say
:certain words, that's not what my God—
:should I say this?
:Yeah, I'm not advocating cussing, so I'm not
:going to say it. You know, unless
:something's real frustrating.
:I mean, where'd the word damn come from anyway?
:Or hell, where'd it come from? So
:that's not necessarily, you know,
:where we go, or even more importantly, where we didn't
:go. Right, Barbie? Right, Allen? It's where you don't
:go that counts. That's right. Where does God go?
:Well, according to the Scripture,
:everywhere. Where can I go
:from your presence?
:If I ascend into the heavens, you're there.
:If I make my bed in hell, or no, let's say
:Sheol, because that's nicer.
:You're there. There's nowhere I can go to escape
:from your Spirit. So where I go and where I
:don't go doesn't necessarily mean that
:I'm reflecting God's character.
:As we conform with God's character, we
:come into right standing with him.
:And if these external things isn't it, if that's
:not, you know, oh yeah, that's God's character, then
:what is?
:One word and you only
:get one guess.
:Yeah. Yeah.
:Love. It's the most
:important thing.
:1 John 4:8 says, God is love.
:Yeah. And it also says, if anyone does not
:love, they don't know God.
:You don't know God if you don't love because God is love.
:We tend to think that keeping rules is the key.
:Now look, I'm not against rules
:sometimes. I'm not against
:rules, but we tend to think that that's the key. That's what,
:that's really why we got saved and washed and cleaned and
:now so we can, you know, keep these rules.
:Even though none of us keeps the rules, you know, we tend to think that
:that's what the key is. But Jesus always put people
:ahead of the rules.
:He always put people ahead of the rules
:because he knew, in fact, he said, he
:told us the Sabbath was made for man.
:Not man for the Sabbath. You weren't created so
:God would have somebody to keep rules.
:He gave us these things for our benefit,
:for our good. And so if you're
:hurting and you're sick and you need healing and I can heal
:you, I don't have to look at the calendar before I decide to heal you.
:If you're hungry and we're going through the grain fields
:and you don't have anything else to eat, you wanna pick
:some grain, pick some grain. You don't have to look at the calendar
:first because people
:are more important. And they still are.
:And all the law and the prophets
:hang on the two great commands. Barbie was
:teaching about that a few weeks ago, and I was thinking, you
:know, every
:rule that's out there needs to be filtered through
:love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul,
:with all your mind, with all your strength, and love your
:neighbor as yourself, because those rules, Those
:laws, they hang on those two commands.
:Those two commands are the foundation of
:all of them. We take them and do perverse
:things with them. We take them and build
:walls with them. We take them and create
:division with them. But that was
:not their intended purpose and is not their intended
:purpose. The
:law was given to teach us
:to love. It's given to teach us
:how to love one another.
:And so 1 Peter 4:8 says, love
:covers over a multitude of sins.
:14 says, love Ties
:all of the other virtues together.
:Without it, they're just flapping in the wind.
:Or as Paul says, I'm nothing.
:And Romans 13:10
:says, love does no harm to a neighbor.
:Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law.
:That's really what the law is all about. That's really
:how you bring it together. And just in case we
:didn't understand it, here it comes around again. The
:entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command,
:love your neighbor as yourself.
:That's it. Now, who is my neighbor? Well, we've
:already, Jesus already addressed that question. You know,
:it's not the person necessarily who lives next door,
:although sometimes they're the toughest ones to love.
:Has anybody ever had the neighbor from you know where?
:You got him now?
:Oh, brother. You have
:such a golden opportunity to demonstrate the character of
:God. God, Jesus Christ. Fred Jones is
:your neighbor? Oh, okay. He pointed at you, Fred.
:I'm just saying.
:Right standing with God. When Jesus was here,
:God several times said, I'm well pleased with
:him. I am well
:pleased with him. Now that's right standing.
:And so he was and is the righteous one.
:And he is the one speaking here.
:He's the one who's telling us how to be
:happy. And the more we look like Jesus,
:the more we are righteous. And it doesn't mean grow a beard. It doesn't
:mean what you wear. It means you can grow a beard, that's
:fine. It means
:how he, the character of God, the nature of
:God. That's the important thing.
:And the only evidence of us being his
:disciples. Is if we love one another.
:And by the way, if the question is, what does one another mean?
:That's the same question as, who is my neighbor?
:Back in the
:'80s, there was a guy named Steve Taylor.
:And Steve Taylor was and still is
:one of my favorite Christian artist. He
:didn't become really big because he was actually a
:prophet, and prophets don't usually,
:aren't usually all that popular in the church. But he would speak
:prophetically to the church. But
:the first song that he kind of got known for was a song called,
:I Want to Be a Clone. And I'd
:gone through so much other stuff that walking down the aisle was tough, but now
:I find that's not enough. I want to be a clone. Their language,
:it was new to me, but Christianese got through to me. Now I can speak
:it fluently. I want to be a clone. And of course,
:it's a satirical song basically about,
:you know, getting saved and then being told, okay, this is what it looks
:like and this is how you do it. And I think the last verse
:said, and now I see the grand design. My church is an assembly line.
:The parts are there. I'm feeling fine. I want to be a clone.
:Well, I do want to be a clone, but it's not about
:what the church looks like or what anybody else looks like.
:It's all about what Jesus looks like. And
:the work that God is doing in us,
:according to Scripture, is conforming us to the image
:of Jesus Christ, the greatest peacemaker,
:greatest giver of mercy, the lover
:of our souls. Father, I thank you.
:I thank you because not
:everything is just, oh, it's wonderful. But
:basically, you created us for
:your pleasure, And that means
:for us to enjoy the life you've given to us.
:And so, Father, you teach us how to be happy. You teach
:us how to be blessed. You teach us
:by following your example, the example of your Son.
:And my prayer is that we would always,
:as Jesus did,
:Place love for others ahead
:of our other, our notions, our opinions,
:our ideas. May they all bow down
:to the love of God. In Jesus' name,
:amen. God bless you.
