We welcome you to worship today in the name of God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm thankful for each one of you who have remained with me on this wonderful journey. I'd also like to take a moment to express my deep gratitude to each and every one of you, and for your steadfast prayers and unwavering commitment to sharing the Word of God through our website and social media outlets does not go unnoticed. I couldn't do what I do with your love and support.
I've lived long enough to understand that there are those in the church who refuse to accept the teaching of Scripture, because of their sinful blindness. I've lived long enough to understand that true grace is not the liberty to live as we choose, but cultivates a desire to deny ungodliness and worldly desires. Grace does not grant us permission to live according to the flesh but frees us from the bondage of sin to live in the Spirit. It’s a joyous experience to walk with Christ, it’s beyond thrilling to see His hand on your life. I've lived long enough to understand that it’s a long difficult struggle, because there remains the reality of the ever-present war against our own sinful nature, fighting against the flesh, a constant battle against the remaining sin in our lives and resisting the persistent ever-present nagging temptations of Satan and the sinful influence of the world around us. I’m so thankful for the exemplary servants of Christ that God has placed in my life, and I am grateful for the profound and lasting spiritual impact they have had on my life over the years, preaching damning messages that changed the way I viewed my life, changed the way I viewed the Lord, and reshaping my perspective on the way I viewed my own sin. I thank God that I have been gifted with a conscience that convicts me, and by the Holy Spirit Who holds me accountable. It's easy to understand the reason why so many today run from godly leaders who hold them accountable, because an individual is not free to do whatever he wants in that kind of environment, so they flock to pastors who answer to nobody, telling them whatever they want to hear.
Oh my fellow preachers and teachers, I urge you to be cautious in the way you handle Scripture, I beseech you to take God’s Word to heart, because my Bible assures me in Hebrews 13, that we will all be held accountable before the Lord for how we chose to care for the souls of His sheep, the flock that He purchased with His own blood, which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers and guard them as you would guard your own life, because that is what you haven been called to do. Protecting the flock from ravenous wolves, those who come in from the outside that seek to gain a foothold, with the intention of corrupting the congregation, but we must also beware of those who will rise up from the inside, among your own people, to whom they are exposed, along with feeding the flock, it's all part of the job. The church has to be protected from deception, not only by who it allows to preach in the pulpit, that's why there's church discipline, you can't allow corrupting influences that threaten the purity of the church. I believe God created sheep to make a spiritual point, they cannot distinguish between a toxic deadly plant and a suitable one to graze on. They have absolutely no defense mechanisms to defend themselves against predators. If allowed to wander, they will surely die. The key to sustaining their life is a Shepherd would love and protects them.
I believe that we all need to examine ours lives more closely, we need to look at our motivation of our hearts and stop caring so much who other people think we are and be more concerned about who God knows we are, after all, when it's all said and done it's Him we must please. It’s bad enough if we sin alone, but to cause others to stumble because of inerrant teaching, we'll all answer for that. I don't ever want to be the reason someone stumbles. When our time comes to leave this world, will we be able to say as Jesus did in John 17:12, "While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished..." Ministry, if done well, is hard work, it's not for the faint-hearted, with half of all ministers beginning their pastorate not surviving five years, many either self-destruct or are chewed up and spit out in less than three years, that's before the ink is even dry on their seminary degree. You must be faithful, of course it takes time to cultivate faithfulness and humility in ministry, it's not about finishing quick my friends, but finishing well. There's something to be said for longevity, though I've been at this a number of years now, and in some ways, I still feel like I'm just getting started. I pray, that if it is the Lords will, there will be many more sermons to preach, more sheep to feed and protect and more young men to train.
Let's face it, it’s really difficult in the world in which we live to press toward that Christlike obedience, with all the filth and garbage that’s being pumped out through every media outlet, the sad reality is, it is becoming more and more powerful and faithful expositors that actually care deeply about the sanctification of God's people are in kind of short supply these days, so I plan on sticking around a while, that is as far as it depends on me, until the Lord decides to take me to be with Him in eternity. So, I solemnly charge you now in the presence of God and before Christ, hold fast to sound teaching and preach the Word to the church, so that they are moving toward Christ-likeness through their continued exposure to the Truth. Don't compromise the Truth that the people of God need in order to to make unbelievers content with coming to church. Many pastors today have done a great disservice to the church, by compromising with the world, they have substantially failed to preach the Word of God, neglecting to proclaim the passages necessary for sanctification just because some consider them offensive or outdated.
The Apostle Paul writes in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, that "All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work." I’ve been preaching for years, believe me, I've seen the Gospel in action, it's pretty amazing. And, I lived long enough to see people who have been in the ministry for thirty or forty years fall into massive sins and iniquities due to ever-present persistent reality of remaining sin, sin they were sure was dealt with, until a rears it's ugly head in a way that is new and different, catching them off-guard. A stark reminder that no matter how far we've come, there is still part of that fallenness that remains very active in all of us, the battle against sin never ends, you just become more weary you the longer you live, but you continue to fight the battle, not only for your own sake, but for the sake of everybody else, trying to move people toward Christlikeness, while still having to deal with all the weaknesses and struggles in your own heart.
Day after day, year after year, you keep fighting, because being a true Christian results in a life that is dramatically different from the life formerly lived. You cannot live a life of indifference and be a Christian, if you are a true Christian, your life will be marked by a profound transformation; you're going to live a much different life than you did before, you're going to think different because you have the mind of Christ. If your life has remained pretty much unchanged, if you're living the same life as you were before Christ, there's a very good chance you're only pretending to be a Christian.
In 1 Corinthians 2:14-16, Paul writes to the church at Corinth , "But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ." Scripture is the single greatest source of Truth we have on this planet, however, it must be received, believed and applied. The attack on the Truth is not academic, it's not political, any attack on the Truth of God is spiritual, directly linked to Satan himself. Ephesians 6:12, "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places."
Every pastor who steps into the pulpit has a responsibility to preach the Word, to faithfully declare the Word of God with authority, to lead and protect the church, warning them of error and false teaching that is not consistent with the Word of God, calling them to commit to following Christ in all areas of life no matter how much resistance there might be and the congregation has every right to hold the pastor to that God given standard. And if he falls short of that high standard, failing to fulfill his responsibility, he is rightly to be disqualified from ministry.
I am reminded of the profound words found in Acts 20:24, "But I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself, so that I may finish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God."
I've lived long enough to learn that being in the ministry is not about me, it’s about Christ, and finding people into whom I can pour my entire life until Christ is formed in them, living to be an example to the flock so they can follow your faith, I pray that's been both an encouragement and challenge to some you.
Let's pray together,
Heavenly Father,
Today's Message: Seek First The Kingdom
For those of you who have been with us week after week, we’ve been exploring the Gospel of Luke together, it's been an amazing journey so far, and I pray that you have been having a tremendous time studying it as I have. Since the beginning of my call to the ministry, I have had this insatiable hunger to know and understand the Gospel, and I believe that God has graciously blessed me for that in so many ways. If you are just joining and missed the first messages, I encourage you to go back through the messages that I’ve already preached to catch up to where we are, so you can get a running start and I believe that God will richly bless you for it.
Now, we come to Luke chapter 6 in verses 20-23, which is Luke's version of the Beatitudes, often referred to as the Sermon on the Mount, though it's a shorter version, it's the same sermon, following the same pattern and progress that Matthew recorded in Matthew chapters 5 through 7, there are variations between the two, so that they might highlight the same sermon, precise statements Jesus said in a different way, though no less impactful.
This is by far the most definitive famous sermon that Jesus ever preached, which He actually preached in Aramaic, though both Matthew and Luke record it in Greek. It's a sermon about sin, the most deadly virus on the planet and it's about salvation, the cure for the deadly virus; it’s about who is going to heaven and who is going to hell. It's not about religiosity or ethics, as some claim, it's about who is actually saved. Just as a footnote, neither Matthew nor Luke give us the full sermon that Jesus preached, I believe that Jesus would have preached a sermon of this magnitude for hours, not the 5 or 10 minutes it would take us to read through the verses in either Matthew or Luke's account, I believe it’s reasonable to imagine that Jesus would have preached a far more extensive message, captivating His audience for many hours, as was often His pattern for preaching.
If you will recall, in feeding the five thousand, He preached all day, until the hour was late and people were getting hungry so the disciples wanted to send the crowds away, that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves. So, it is safe to believe that Jesus preached these profound, very important Truths from the perspective of the kingdom of God for hours rather than minutes, calling people to a higher standard, in fact, the highest ethic ever set in the history of man. A standard that so high, apart from Christ, it's impossible for anybody to ever lived up to it, which is the point, stripping bare of the phoniness of the Pharisees and unmasking the hypocrisy of those who followed their own self-righteous religion of human achievement. That's why in Matthew 5:20, He said "For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven," calling out the substandard righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, who were believed to be the most righteous people of the planet, severely indicting their whole substandard religious system by comparing them to tax collectors and sinners and they were absolutely stunned, so shocked they found it offensive because it was the opposite everything they thought, convincing themselves He was speaking from Satan, rather than God.
Open you Bibles with me, if you would and turn them to the Gospel of Luke chapter 6 and let's get started. I pray that you will follow along with me as I read these verses, to set the text in our minds, and then let's open up our hearts and listen carefully for what the Spirit of God has to say to each of us today. Luke 6:20-23.
"And turning His gaze toward His disciples, He began to say, "Blessed are the poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are those who hunger now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are those who cry now, for you shall laugh. Blessed are you when men hate you, and exclude you, and insult you, and scorn your name as evil, for the sake of the Son of Man. Be glad in that day and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven. For their fathers were doing the same things to the prophets."
Let's look at verse 20, "And turning His gaze toward His disciples, He began to say, "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God." This is a tremendous verse because of its depth and its richness, this is
Let's be honest, telling someone poverty is a blessing sounds insane to the average person, especially when everybody in our materialistic society wants to escape it, by turning their poverty into riches, because being poor in our world is often viewed as a curse, people live in fear over whether they’re going to have enough to eat, and drink. And, so the pursuit of wealth is not only the common expectation, it is the goal to be achieved with unwavering determination. The problem is being rich has its own set of troubles, the temptation is to trust in one's wealth, the focus is on money and possessions rather than God and trusting in His provision. I can tell you whether a person is a Christian or not by how they handle their money beyond the necessities of life. We all have differing amounts of money, but what I'm talking about is what we do with what we have, that is a test of one's true spirituality. If you want to know if someone's really a Christian, ask to see the checkbook, it's the great revealer of the heart. God doesn't want you going into massive credit card debt to pursue a heavenly investment.
Listen, becoming a Christian doesn't add anything to human wisdom, it completely replaces it. Isn't that’s why the apostle Paul wrote, in 1 Corinthians 1:20, "Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?" We're not running around this life grasping and clinging to our money and possessions, because our focus is on God not on what we have. Greed and power is the emphasis in America, it is really a major issue, we are living in a state of affluence that’s unheard of in any other part of the world. Not that there isn't tremendous wealth in other parts of the world, but they don't manage it the way we do, nobody in the world has as much stuff as we have. We tend to acquire so much stuff that we have to rent some place to store it because our houses aren't big enough, so we buy bigger houses and most of it we never even use, the stuff or the house. I've known people who've owned houses with rooms they've never even been in. Thanks to technology and the internet, spending money we don't have on things we don't need has become a pastime for most people. It creates a very dangerous environment, if you turn man loose, and he will destroy himself. Greed is just an expression of our own human sinfulness. Did you know that in the Bible, there are over 2,000 references to money and possessions and in the 4 gospels, 1 out of every 10 verses deal with money or possessions; that's 288 verses. The depravity of a man's heart becomes the ultimate end to his own self-destruction.
Remember the parable of the land of a rich man was very productive. And he began reasoning to himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ‘This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, "Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink and be merry.' But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?’ So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God." We are maniacal about whatever we desire. And we're being egged on by the media, television, magazines and billboards are telling us "Go ahead and buy "it" because everybody else has "it," you can’t survive without it. And if you can't afford "it," go in debt for "it." So, what do we do? We get out our credit cards and we buy as many as we can possibly get. It's unbelievable. If you're a Christian, it's not only foolish, it's sinful. We are called to set our affections on above, seeking first the kingdom of God and laying up our treasure in heaven, not the things of this earth. The rich worry about
Being poor in and of itself is not necessarily a blessing, that's not the kind of poor He’s not talking about, He's not saying poor people are blessed, by just being poor, He’s talking about spiritually poverty. "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God," He's saying spiritually poor people who understand the bankrupt condition of their soul will inherit the kingdom of God. They understand that when all is said and done, it doesn't matter how much money they have, they're bankrupt, you can't buy salvation. The Good News is, you don't have to purchase it, it's a gift, you need only to receive it. Self-righteous people don't want to see themselves as poor, spiritually bankrupt, so they attempt to enter the kingdom by human achievement. In Luke 16, He said "The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John; since that time the gospel of the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it." They convince themselves God is pleased, they've earned their way in with their self-righteous works. Jesus made it clear in Matthew 7:21-23, "Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’"
When Jesus went to the synagogue in His hometown of Nazareth, the town where He grew up, they weren't just offended they were so enraged they tried to
Verse 22, "Blessed are you when men hate you, and ostracize you, and insult you, and scorn your name as evil, for the sake of the Son of Man." What in the world is this about? He's saying now that you've been blessed, your life has changed, the evidence of your salvation is obvious to the world, your spiritual poverty has turned to riches, your hunger to satisfaction, weeping to laughter. in other words, you live differently now and so has the way the world sees you because of your salvation, they're going to treat you differently, they're going to hate you, they're going to ostracize, reject you and insult you.
That brings us to verse 23, "Be glad in that day and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven. For in the same way their fathers used to treat the prophets." All sinners measured against God’s perfect standard fall short, therefore, every sinner is headed for divine judgment unless they repent, and believe that was the message from the prophets of old, that was the message from John the Baptist, and that is the message Jesus came preaching repentance in no uncertain terms in Matthew 3:2, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." It's the same message every man of God is called to proclaim today. I am always amazed by the number of people who profess to believe in God, while continuing to live like Hell, they've convinced themselves that they're good enough to get into heaven on their own, they don't need a Savior. Much like the self-righteous religious leaders in Jesus' day, in fact, they built an entire religious system on their superficial morality and ceremonial activities, which He repeatedly indicted them for and they killed Him for it. It's still not a popular message today, particularly among the devout religious community, who refuse to recognize that they are not in the Kingdom of God. People are going to hate you because of your association with Jesus. That's how it's always been and that’s how it’s going to be, even today.
And now may the Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
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