Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Good evening. Welcome to
Faith Ward Baptist Church.
If you could take your seats, we'll get started.
Grab the hymnal and let's turn to song 134,
My Anchor Holds.
One, two, three, four.
My anchor holds.
Let's pray.
I think it's an opportunity to come to church.
Thank you for being our anchor and just help us to be
edified by the sermon tonight.
In Jesus' name I pray, amen.
Let's turn to song 65,
Just Over in the Glory Land.
65.
Number 65.
Just over in the glory land.
Just over in the glory land, just over in the glory land.
What a joyful thought that my Lord house made,
just over in the glory land.
When the hindrance came here forever,
just over in the glory land.
Just over in the glory land,
how joyful the happy angels did,
just over in the glory land.
Just over in the glory land,
their way the mighty host house did,
just over in the glory land.
When the mud washed wrong, I would shout and sing,
just over in the glory land.
How joyful Santa's tooth, what a glorious thing,
just over in the glory land.
Just over in the glory land,
how joyful the happy angels did,
just over in the glory land.
Just over in the glory land,
their way the mighty host house did,
just over in the glory land.
Amen.
All right, this time we'll go through our announcements together.
If you don't have a bulletin, slip up your hand nice and high.
We'll get to you with one.
On the inside, we have our service time.
Sunday mornings at 1030 is our preaching service.
Sunday nights at 6. Wednesday nights at 7 is our Bible study.
This week we will be in 2 Chronicles chapter 22.
We've got so many times listed there below,
as well as salvation and baptisms across the page.
Congratulations to the Stiles family on the birth of baby Jude Alexander,
born Thursday, September 26th.
Seven pounds, six ounces.
Got a great picture there. Congratulations to them.
And speak to Mrs. Amanda Wright
if you would like to participate in the meal train.
Below that, the maternity shower. That ship has already sailed.
Thank you to everyone who participated in that.
Next Sunday, we'll have the coffee and donuts before the service,
as always at the beginning of each month.
On the back, the portraits are in full swing for the yearbook,
so if you haven't been photographed yet, be sure to sign up over here,
and you'll get a nice quality portrait done,
and you get to be in the yearbook.
Whether you're a single, couple, family, whatever your situation,
want to make sure that we get everybody pictured.
Anybody? Who's already gotten your picture taken?
Put up your hand. All right, lots of people. Very good.
Keep going. It seems like you have a long ways until November 3rd,
but it's better to get it done sooner rather than later.
And then below that, thank you to all those who participated
with Brother Alex Larson's soul-winning trip down to Coolidge.
Sixteen soul winners and fifteen salvations.
Other upcoming events, chili cook-off on October 31st,
and the missions conference coming up on November 6th through 10th.
All right, let's go ahead and count up the soul-winning totals
from the last few days, so going back to Thursday.
Anything to report from Thursday? Got it?
Okay, gotcha.
Okay.
Got it.
Okay, and then how about Friday?
Okay.
Okay, yep.
And then I think I need to, I guess, add the Coolidge.
You'll give me that on Saturday, the Coolidge.
I'm just going to go ahead and write that down.
Fifteen for Saturday, right?
Okay, anything else from Friday before I move on to Saturday?
Okay, and then Saturday we got the fifteen for Coolidge.
Outside of the Coolidge trip, any other soul-winning for Saturday?
Okay, and then how about today Sunday?
Got it, Brother Scott?
Okay.
All righty, anything else from today?
All right, very good. Keep up the great work on soul-winning,
and with that, let's sing our next song. Come lead us.
All right, inside your song book, you should find Psalm 150.
Please raise your hand if you don't have one.
Psalm 150.
Praise him with the glory to this excellent bliss.
Praise him with the sound of the trumpet.
Praise him with the salty air of hope.
Praise him with the temple dance.
Praise him with strength and strength.
Praise him of all the last symbols.
Praise him of all the highest sounding symbols.
Let everything that have breath praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord.
Let's do one more song.
Song number 292 is Way With Thee, song 292.
Song number 292.
Would you live for Jesus and be always pure and good?
Would you walk with him within the narrow road?
Would you have him there to burn and carry all your love?
Would you have your strength and feet?
It's our thing, what you want to be.
It's what implants your heart to make you free.
His love can fill your soul and give you mercy.
Would you have your strength and feet?
Would you have your feet free from all that is wrong?
Would you have the peace that comes within you all?
Would you have the safety so that you can get along?
Let him have his way within you.
It's our thing, what you want to be.
It's what implants your heart to make you free.
His love can fill your soul and you will see.
Would you have your strength and feet?
Would you have your feet divided in places you must invest?
Would you prove the truth and profit in your test?
Would you make a disturbance to keep the wrongs at your best?
Would you have his way within you?
It's our thing, what you want to be.
It's what implants your heart to make you free.
His love can fill your soul and you will see.
My love has the strength to have the faith within you.
Alright, at this time we'll pass our offering plates around.
As the plates go around, let's turn our Bibles to Matthew chapter 5.
Matthew chapter number 5, as we always do, we'll read the entire chapter, beginning in verse number 1.
Matthew chapter 5, follow along silently with brother Dan as he reads.
Matthew chapter 5, starting in verse number 1.
Matthew chapter 5, the Bible reads,
Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.
Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven.
For so persecuted are they the prophets which were before you.
Ye are the salt of the earth, but if the salt had lost its savior, wherewith shall it be salted?
It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and to be trodden under foot of men.
Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.
Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.
Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.
For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven.
But whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill, and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment.
But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause, shall be in danger of the judgment.
And whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the counsel, but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hellfire.
Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there remember'st that thy brother hath ought against thee,
leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way, first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
Agree with thine adversary quickly, whilst thou art in the way with him.
Lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison.
Verily I say unto you, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.
Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery.
But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman, to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee.
For it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee.
For it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement.
But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication,
causeth her to commit adultery, and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced, comitteth adultery.
Again ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shall perform unto the Lord thine oaths.
But I say unto you, Swear not at all, neither by heaven, for it is God's throne, nor by the earth, for it is his footstool,
neither by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king.
Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.
But let your communication be yea, yea, nay, nay, for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.
Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.
But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.
And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.
Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee, turn not thou away.
Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy.
But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you,
and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you, that ye may be the children of your father which is in heaven.
For he maketh his son to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same?
And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than the others? Do not even the publicans so?
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
Definitely Father, Lord, thank you for this church, Lord, and thank you for our pastor.
Please fill in with the Holy Spirit so that we may be edified by the preaching of your word.
I ask in Jesus' name I pray, Amen.
Man, Matthew chapter 5 is the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, which is one of the most famous sermons in the Bible.
And I think one big reason why this sermon is so famous is simply because it's just the first sermon that you run into when you're reading the New Testament.
Obviously, all of Christ's preaching is powerful, and there are all kinds of great sermons by Jesus in the Bible.
And I feel like a big part of why this one gets a lot of attention is simply just because it's the first one you come to.
But that being said, it's the first one you come to for a reason.
Obviously, God knew in His providence and His wisdom that everybody and their brother is going to read Genesis chapter 1 and Genesis chapter 2 and Genesis chapter 3.
He obviously knew that if Matthew comes first in the New Testament, that's what the most people are going to read because they open it, they start reading, maybe they run out of steam.
At least they get to these basic things.
And so I think that it's given this prominent position in the New Testament because it is such an important sermon.
And so we're going to look at it this evening.
Now, starting at the beginning here, we have a section of the Sermon on the Mount that's known as the Beatitudes.
And the reason why this is called the Beatitudes is simply just because in the Latin, the word blessed is beati.
And so Beatitudes, that's why it's called that.
It's just the reference to this formula where it's blessed are these people, blessed are those people.
So let's jump into this.
It says in verse number 2, he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Now, what does this mean to be poor in spirit?
Well, the opposite of being poor in spirit would be to be heady, high minded, arrogant, puffed up.
It means that you're lifted up in your spirit versus being low in your spirit, being poor in spirit, being humble.
Now, obviously, in order to get to heaven, you have to be humble.
You cannot be puffed up, heady and arrogant, at least not at the moment of salvation.
Maybe later, after you're saved, you might foolishly get puffed up or prideful or arrogant.
But when it comes to the act of being saved itself, it's impossible.
It's impossible.
And let me tell you why.
Because the whole point of trusting in Jesus Christ as your savior is that you have to realize that you are not good enough to go to heaven.
Right?
So the first step is to realize I am a sinner.
I'm not righteous.
I don't deserve to go to heaven and to humbly look to Jesus Christ as your only way to heaven.
Right?
And to realize that without Jesus Christ, you're not going.
Now, what do a lot of people believe?
Oh, I'm going to heaven because I'm a good person.
I haven't really done anything that bad.
I'm nice to people.
I help people.
I do this good deed.
I go to church.
I've been baptized.
I've been catechized, sanctified, you know, all the different things that people do.
But at the end of the day, true salvation comes when you realize I'm not good enough.
My works are not going to do it.
All my righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and it is Christ's death, burial, and resurrection
that's going to get me to heaven.
Right?
And you got to be poor in spirit.
Okay?
Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Right?
They're the ones who are going to inherit the kingdom of God.
Now, let me just say this in general about the Beatitudes.
The idea behind the Beatitudes is that these are all seemingly counterintuitive statements.
Okay?
The idea is the world would look at this in their wisdom and say, the people that are
blessed are the people who are rich, the people who are happy, the people who are laughing,
the people who have everything going their way.
And then you go down through this list and you see things like blessed are the poor.
The next one is blessed are they that mourn.
You know, why would it be a blessing to be mourning and crying and weeping and sad?
Right?
These things are counterintuitive, meaning that at first they don't really seem to make
sense until you think about them a little more deeply.
Right?
You know, blessed are they which hunger and thirst.
That doesn't sound good.
Right?
We don't want to be hungry and thirsty.
We want to be gorging ourselves and feasting and having everything that we want.
Right?
And so as you go down through these things, some of them seem at first to be a little
bit counterintuitive, but Christ is explaining in the Beatitudes that the people that you
might look at as the most blessed people in this world are not the most blessed people.
I'm going to tell you who's blessed.
It's not going to be what the world thinks is blessed.
Right?
And Christ is telling us what it looks like to be truly happy.
Right?
Another word for blessed is happy.
You know, to be truly blessed, to be truly happy, to really have God doing good under
you.
What does that look like?
Well, the world would take celebrities and say, well, they're blessed.
You know, they would lift up the millionaires and the billionaires and the actors and the
actresses and the singers and the rock stars and they would be the people who've really
made it in life.
Right?
They're, they're the blessed ones.
But if you think about it though, they're often very prideful, very arrogant.
They're not hungering and thirsting after righteousness necessarily.
And so therefore what Christ is trying to do is to correct this idea of what it means
to be successful in this world.
Right?
That's another word we could use when we talk about being blessed, being happy.
You know, what does it mean to actually live the right kind of life or to be successful?
Who is a success?
Who is blessed?
And what does that look like?
Well, first of all, it's those that are poor in spirit.
If you are prideful, arrogant, full of yourself, heady, high-minded, you're not gonna be blessed.
You're not gonna be happy.
You're not a success in God's eyes.
Even if the world looks at you and thinks that you're so great.
You know, and think about who are some of the most prideful celebrities on the planet?
Donald Trump.
What's that other MMA pervert guy who's in jail?
Andrew Tate.
I hope he's still in.
Is he?
Please tell me he's still under arrest.
They let him out again?
Dang it.
Lock that guy up and throw away the key.
But anyway, yeah, the Andrew Tates of this world, the Donald Trumps, these people who
are really prideful and full of themselves.
Look at me.
Look how successful I am.
You know, God looks down from heaven and sees them as a failure.
Okay?
Being a success in God's sight is to be, first of all, humble.
First of all, saved.
First of all, somebody who's heading for the kingdom of heaven and not heading downstairs
where the boogeyman lives, right, and burning in hell.
And so the Bible says in verse number three, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs
is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Look, the blessed Christian life, the successful Christian life, the happy Christian life,
it's not a Christian life free of sorrow, free of sadness, free of mourning.
No.
It's a life that does involve trials, tribulations, heartache, weeping may endure for the night,
but joy cometh in the morning.
Blessed are they that mourn.
Why?
For they shall be comforted.
In the end, it's going to be okay.
In the end, you're going to be comforted.
God's going to bless you.
Things are going to work out.
But along the way, there are going to be some hard times.
Even the Lord Jesus Christ himself, the Bible describes as a man of sorrows and well acquainted with grief.
What does that mean?
He'd been through stuff that was bad, that was negative.
And every Christian, the Bible says, yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus
shall suffer persecutions.
We're going to go through, the Bible says, manifold temptations, right?
Many different kinds of temptations and trials and afflictions and tribulations.
Many are the afflictions of the righteous, the Bible says.
But out of them all, the Lord delivers him.
And so you get delivered.
In the end, you're good.
Look at Job.
I mean, Job had all these horrible things happen to him.
But how did God bless the latter end of Job, right?
He mourned.
He was comforted.
I was reading Psalms this week and just the psalmist gets so vivid in his descriptions
about how he's crying so much that his throat is super dry.
He's running out of tears.
I mean, we're talking about extreme sorrow, extreme mourning.
But the psalmist is a man after God's own heart.
And yet God's allowing him to go through all this pain and going through all this mourning.
But he's blessed because he's going to be comforted.
It's not just the person who's happy all the time because everything is going their way
that's blessed.
The person who's right with God, poor in spirit, perhaps mourning now because of the trials
and tribulations of the Christian life.
But you know what?
That's the person who's actually blessed because they're going to be comforted.
And you know what?
You'd rather mourn now and be comforted later than to be comforted now and mourn later.
You know, eat the dessert after dinner.
And here's the thing, there are kind of two ways to live your life.
You can live a life in such a way where you enjoy now and suffer later.
Or you can live your life in such a way where you suffer now and enjoy later.
This is two different ways to live your life.
And you know, even if we just step away from the spiritual realm for a minute
and just talk about just life in general, you know, think about food.
You could just enjoy now and just banana split and ice cream and cereal
and just load up on all that stuff right now, but then you're going to suffer later
when you're at the hospital with all the problems that come from eating a junk diet.
Right?
Or you could suffer now by maybe skipping some of those things,
maybe, you know, being more physically active, eating some healthier options,
but then you enjoy later because you're healthy, you have strength,
you can have a better time as you get older and so forth.
So that's just a really easy, you say you go there too much.
Maybe it's just the Holy Spirit is really getting you on that one.
But no, no, no, I'm not trying to go there all the time.
It's just I go there because it's easy, because it's something we can all relate to.
It's something we all deal with every day or every week.
We're always having to make choices about food
and we're all tempted to just kind of go crazy on the wrong food.
I mean, is it just me?
You know, I'm always tempted to go crazy and I'm having to like restrain myself,
you know, kind of like don't do it.
And so the point is, it's just something we can all relate to.
Enjoy now, suffer later, suffer now, enjoy later.
You know what?
You think about purity.
You think about, you know, when you're a teenager and you're a young man,
a young woman and you want to stay a virgin until you get married
because that's what God demands.
That's what God expects of us as believers.
Okay.
Here's the thing about that.
There's some suffering there.
Right?
There's some suffering involved in restraining yourself,
not giving into temptation.
There's an appetite there that's not being fulfilled.
But you know what?
If you suffer through that, if you can actually get through that
without going out and giving into that temptation
and sleeping around and doing these things, you know,
then you can enjoy marriage and you can enjoy that physical relationship
with your wife in the right context.
Okay.
So you, you know, you go through some pain, you go through some suffering,
you go through, uh, and you're like, pain, come on.
Bro, it's painful.
You know what I mean?
Remember when you were a teenage boy?
I mean, it's like, that's a strong craving.
That's a strong appetite.
Let's not downplay that temptation.
And you know what?
If that weren't a huge temptation, then why is Hollywood
and Madison Avenue always trying to exploit it?
Everything's always being advertised with all the scantily clad women
and those things are constantly being put in front of us precisely
because that is a strong temptation, especially for young men.
Okay?
It's tough.
It's difficult.
It's hard.
But you know what?
You push through, you suffer through it, you be patient, you wait,
and then you enjoy for the rest of your life.
Right?
Or you can just enjoy now and go out and do all that
and sow all your wild oats, and then you end up living
with the repercussions of that for the rest of your life,
whether that's bastard children, whether that's venereal disease,
whether that's just God chastening you and chastising you
for committing these big sins of fornication or even adultery, God forbid.
You know, these are horrible things that you're going to have to live with
because you want to enjoy now and suffer later.
No, no, no.
You've got to suffer now and enjoy later.
Okay?
And so you're more blessed if you mourn and then you're comforted.
Now you say, well, who cares if I'm going to both suffer and enjoy,
what does it matter which order they're in?
Here's why it matters.
Because it's a lot easier to suffer when you have the enjoyment
to look forward to.
Right?
And look, I'm so sorry to get back on food again.
It's just too easy to go there.
It's just too easy.
I'm just being lazy.
I'm sorry.
But if you think about periodic fasting, right?
A lot of times when people are trying to go on a diet or lose weight,
they'll do a thing called periodic fasting where they'll go like 16 hours
without eating.
And then they'll just eat for eight hours a day.
They'll have like a little eating window.
Who's ever done something like this before?
Put up your hand.
Okay, see, see, that's what I'm saying.
People can relate to this.
Okay?
So people have their window.
Well, here's what I've noticed.
It's a lot easier to skip breakfast than to skip dinner.
You know what I mean?
It just is like, like you wake up and you just kind of push through until lunch
or whatever.
And then your eating window is like from lunchtime through dinnertime.
And then you can eat during that period.
But here's what's really hard.
Eat that big breakfast.
Eat that big lunch.
And this is like, oh, skip dinner.
You know, it's a lot harder.
Because at least in the morning when you're pushing through, you're thinking,
hey, lunch is going to be good.
You know what I mean?
I can get there.
I can push through.
And it seems like you have more willpower in the morning than at night anyway.
And, and by the way, if you're a young man, don't put yourself in compromising positions,
especially not in the evening when your willpower is low.
That's when you're going to get into trouble.
When you're out staying out late and doing all this stuff.
And so the point here is that if you mourn now, you'll be comforted later.
That's superior than the other way around.
Right?
So in verse number three, it said blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Verse four, blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted.
Verse five, blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.
Now, what does it mean to be meek?
Again, this has to do with humility.
It has to do with deferring to other people.
Not being somebody who's power hungry or a control freak or a blowhard.
You know, being meek is being humble, staying in your proper place and so forth.
And yet the Bible says they're going to inherit the earth.
Now think about this humanly speaking.
There have been all kinds of empires, nations, even individuals who wanted to conquer the world.
Right?
You think of these individuals that had great empires.
Men like Genghis Khan or Alexander the Great or Nebuchadnezzar or, you know, whatever.
And you think about these guys and they want to conquer the world by force.
And nation, Adolf Hitler, you know, I'm not saying he wanted to conquer the whole world,
but he was definitely trying to conquer a big old chunk of Europe
and trying to expand that empire and keep pushing it and getting more territory and so forth.
So you think about these conquerors throughout Napoleon Bonaparte or whatever, right?
All these different conquerors that we could name throughout history,
they're trying to just take over the world by force.
And counterintuitively, the Bible's telling us here it's actually the meek that are going to inherit the earth.
They're not going to conquer the earth.
The earth's going to be handed to them.
We as Christians, the Bible says, will rule and reign with Christ on this earth for 1,000 years.
And so the meek are going to inherit the earth.
Not the conqueror, not the one who sees his power and takes it for himself.
And you know, Jesus talked about this in the New Testament
when he talked about how the people who exercise power over the Gentiles,
they're called their benefactors.
They look at them as great men and even as wonderful people, these conquerors.
But he said it shall not be so among you.
Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your servant, right?
And so that's another idea of the meek being the greatest, being the ones who inherit the earth.
We don't need to fight to take over and fight to take back this country and take back the world and do all this fight.
You know, we as Christians, okay, we need to be humble and just let God fight our battles for us
and preach the word of God, preach the truth.
It's a spiritual battle, not a physical battle, okay?
We don't wrestle against flesh and blood.
And so I don't believe that taking over the country, taking over the world is God's plan for Christianity.
It's that, you know, let the civil government do its thing.
Let the governments of this world have power, take power, lose power, trade power.
But as God's people, we need to be focused on the gospel, winning souls to Christ, preaching the truth of God's word,
and not getting involved in the physical fight to conquer and take everything.
You know, we need to just let it happen and let God do it for us.
The Bible says in verse 6, blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.
Now, why is the person blessed who hungers and thirsts after righteousness?
Because they're going to get what they want.
The thing is, if you hunger and thirst after righteousness, you're going to be filled,
meaning God wants you to be righteous just as much as you want to be righteous.
God wants to feed your appetite for righteousness just as much as you want it filled.
Think about other things that people would hunger and thirst for.
Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for money.
You know why? They're never going to be filled.
Because the people who hunger and thirst for money are never satisfied.
The Bible says, he that loveth silver should not be satisfied with silver.
People who are seeking after money, they just want more, more, more.
Now, it doesn't say, blessed are they that hunger and thirst after physical pleasure.
They'll be filled. No, they're not.
Because they're just going to keep wanting to feed that appetite.
It's not like they're just hungering and thirsting after drugs and then they take some drugs and they're like,
that's it, I took drugs, it was great, I'm done.
Well, they get addicted to drugs, right?
And they keep having to take more drugs.
And then those drugs don't satisfy them.
They have to take a more serious drug, right?
If you think about the sinful things of this world, gambling, pornography, alcohol, drugs, they don't satisfy.
Whereas, if you hunger and thirst after righteousness, you actually do end up being satisfied.
Right? Christ satisfies. The Christian life satisfies.
Serving God brings real satisfaction to your life that worldly stuff just can't do.
And so that's why those who hunger and thirst after righteousness are blessed because they're going to achieve their goal.
Right? Ask and it shall be given you. Seek and ye shall find.
Knock and it shall be opened.
Look, don't you think there are people who go through life and don't ever achieve their goal?
Oh, I want to go to the Olympics.
They don't make it to the Olympics.
Oh, man, I want to be a rock star.
They're never a rock star.
Oh, man, I want to be a professional athlete.
It doesn't end up working out.
Oh, man, I want to be a millionaire.
It doesn't end up being a millionaire.
I mean, you go down the list. I'm not picking on any certain group of people.
I'm just saying, like, you name the list.
There are people who go after a certain dream and they don't get there.
Some people go after the dream and they achieve it.
Other people go after it and say, I'm going to be an astronaut.
There aren't that many astronauts.
You know, I mean, I don't know. How many Space Force cadets do we have now?
I know that President Trump started the Space Force, but I don't know how many there are.
There's probably only a couple guys or something. I don't know.
Who knows? But the point is, if you're like, I'm going to be in the Space Force,
you know, you might be disappointed.
I don't know if you're going to get in because it's probably a long waiting list for that.
I don't know.
The point is that people are going after their dreams in life.
And, look, I'm not telling you not to go after a dream.
You know, go after your dreams.
Go after, you know, you want to run a business or be an athlete.
I'm not saying that those are necessarily bad things per se.
Here's what I'm saying.
In life, sometimes the things that you go after, you don't end up achieving.
You just, you just, you try and it doesn't, you know, you want to, you're going to be a professional athlete,
you get injured or something.
You know, just something doesn't work out, whatever.
But what I'm saying is, if your goal is righteousness, if your goal is live for God,
if your goal is serve Jesus Christ,
if your goal is get to heaven and hear, well done, thou good and faithful servant,
that is something that you can achieve and that you will achieve if you hunger and thirst for it.
And you know what?
I love the idea of being involved in something that's a winner.
Right?
I mean, like being in something, you know, and don't people just love a sure thing?
Because, man, we've all been disappointed in our lives where we work toward a certain goal
and just, ah, it's taken out from under us.
You know, you train for that marathon.
I mean, I remember I trained for this one marathon and this is like before I'd ever run a marathon
and I trained for this marathon and I, when you're training for a marathon,
the last thing you have to do is like a 20-mile training run and that's like your final training run.
And then after you do the 20-miler, then you start to taper off so that you're like fresh on race day.
And then on race day, you'd go 26.
Right?
So it's like you've added six more.
So I got through the hardest part of the training, which is building up to that 20-mile run.
And I did the 20-mile run and I was excited because now it's just all downhill from here.
You just taper and I'm going to be ready.
But then like a week later, I developed an injury and it's like, so I did all the hardest part of the training
and then didn't get to do the thing.
And it was just like, what in the world?
I feel like God's just trying to keep me humble here and not let me achieve any of my athletic goals here.
You know, but whatever.
And so that's just kind of the way life is.
We've all been there.
You work towards some academic goal, athletic goal, whatever the goal, right?
And it's just like financial goal, career goal.
It just doesn't always work out.
Here's the thing.
Maybe you work on some political campaign.
Your guy doesn't get elected.
You run for office.
You don't get elected.
Listen to me.
Serving God is always a winner.
It's always a sure thing.
You will always be successful.
And if you give your life to serving God and stuff, like you're going to actually hit the goal if you want it.
But here's the thing.
I don't care how bad you want to run that marathon.
You might just never get there because of just injuries or things out, you know, things that are just out of your control.
Just factors that are, you know,
are the victims of factors in our lives that we just can't control.
But here's the one thing that you can take to the bank.
If you hunger and thirst after righteousness, you're going to be filled.
If you ask, you will receive.
If you seek, you will find.
If you knock, the door will be opened unto you.
And what do I mean by that?
I mean nobody serves God and ends up being disappointed like, ah, I didn't get to serve God.
I didn't get to achieve.
I didn't get to win any souls to Christ.
He that goeth forth and weepeth bearing precious seed shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.
You're guaranteed.
You'd be a soul winner.
You say, you know what?
I'll tell you what I want.
I'll tell you what I want to do as a goal.
You know, I want to become a soul winner.
I want to become someone who wins other people to Christ.
And you know what?
That was, you might just kind of be like, well, duh.
I mean, we're at Faithful Word.
Isn't everybody a soul winner?
You know.
But here's the thing about that.
You know, we take that for granted around here because we're so into it.
But guess what?
In the greater realm of Christianity, being a soul winner is kind of a rare thing.
And you know what?
I remember as a teenager praying every night, dear Lord, please let me win one person to Christ in my life.
I just really wanted to win somebody to Christ.
And I would pray that like every night for years.
Because to me, like I didn't really know how to do it.
I wasn't good at it.
I hadn't really tried it that much.
And when I did try it, I wasn't successful.
And so I'm just praying every night like just please help me to win.
And I thought that was a pretty good goal.
It's like, man, I just want to win somebody to the Lord in my life.
Now it turns out, you know, God answered me each time I prayed that.
But the point is that I'm sitting there praying that and asking God to do that.
Why?
Because I'm in a church where like nobody's getting saved.
I'm in a church where like a year goes by where no one got saved.
You didn't even hear about anybody getting saved for the whole year.
And so in our church, it's just like, oh, we got 10 saved or 15, you know, just constant salvation and baptism.
That's not how it is in a lot of places.
And so, you know, you can see how somebody could have a goal.
Man, I just want to be able, I just want to learn how to be able to present the gospel to someone and effectively get them saved.
Because let me tell you something, there was a period of time in my life when I was not able to do that.
And when I would try to win people to Christ as a teenager and I did a bad job and I didn't get it done.
But you know what? I desired that.
And God ended up leading me to a good church that taught me how to do that.
And once I got in the church that taught me how to do it, then I started getting people saved.
But how did I end up in the church that taught me how to do it? Because I wanted it.
Because I wanted it. And I'm not going to tell the story, but God providentially brought me to that church.
And it's like, because I wanted it.
If you hunger and thirst after righteousness, you're going to be filled.
If you have a goal that says, man, you know, I've been going to Faith Forward for a while.
I've been sitting on the sidelines. I'm seeing all these other people going out and doing so many stuff.
You know what? I want to learn how to present the Gospel.
You know what? You can do it.
And you're going to do it if you want it.
And some injury is not going to prevent it.
You're going to get it done.
If you hunger and thirst after righteousness, you're going to be filled.
Meaning that if you have a godly spiritual goal, God's going to get you to that destination.
If you hunger and thirst after righteousness, you shall be filled.
Verse number seven says, Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
Of course, this is just a very biblical principle of what goes around comes around.
You know, whatever you sow, you're going to reap.
And so the merciful are blessed because they're going to obtain mercy.
And we all are going to come to situations in our life where we need mercy.
And so we want to make sure that we are sowing those seeds of being merciful.
So that when it's our turn to need mercy, we're going to obtain mercy.
The Bible says in verse eight, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
And of course, this could be taken a couple of ways.
One way that you could take this is that obviously you're never going to actually literally physically see God as far as going to heaven and seeing God,
unless your heart is cleansed from sin, which would be through putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ.
And, you know, obviously you could interpret that that way.
But I think another way of understanding this as well is that being pure in heart
is talking about having intentions, motivations that are sincere, that are real, right?
And so if you're pure in heart, meaning that you really do truly love the Lord and love your neighbor,
and your intentions are good and sincere and right and pure, you're going to see God in the sense of you're going to understand God.
You're going to comprehend God.
You are going to read the scripture and it's going to come alive to you versus people who just, you know,
oh, the Bible is boring or whatever, you know, because they don't see it.
They don't get it, right?
I mean, there are a lot of great ways to understand this verse.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God, right?
Because God doesn't want us out there stirring up strife and contention and debate and everything like that.
God wants us to try to create peace, to try to bring people together peacefully.
Now look, the Bible does not teach peace at all costs.
Jesus, in fact, in another sermon is going to say, think not that I'm come to send peace on earth, right?
I didn't come to bring peace, but division.
I'm come to set a man at variance against his father, the daughter against her mother,
the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man's foes shall be they of his own household.
It's going to be two against three and three against two.
So obviously we don't want to just say peace at all costs.
You know, just compromise truth for peace.
Compromise right and wrong for peace.
That's not what the Bible teaches.
Being a peacemaker, though, has to do with, though, striving for peace, if it's possible,
without compromising truth and right, right?
And this is what the Bible says elsewhere, that as much as is possible, as much as lieth in us,
we should seek to dwell peaceably with all men.
And this means that in your neighborhood, try the best that you can to get along with your neighbors.
At your job, try the best that you can to get along with your coworkers, right?
If there's a fight, try to solve it.
Try to be a peacemaker. Try to resolve things.
If, if there's a fight, you know, with people at school or on the playground
or just whatever situation you're in, in your family, whatever, you know, you try to resolve it.
But again, not at the expense of truth, not at the expense of right and wrong.
The Bible is saying that we should try to be peacemakers, to make peace, to fix situations.
They shall be called the children of God.
Meaning that when people see you behaving that way and trying to get along and trying to make peace,
they're going to look at you and they're going to see you as a Christian person.
Meaning that it's a good testimony for Christ.
It's one way to let your light shine as a Christian by being seen as someone who is seeking to get along at the workplace,
to get along in the church.
And look, let's face it.
There are people in the church who make trouble and start stuff with other people and create drama.
And then there are other people who are, like, putting out fires and, like, settling people down and resolving drama.
You know, and there are a lot of situations where we need to be that peacemaker,
where somebody's all fired up about something stupid and you talk them down.
Right? And you chill them out and say, hey, this isn't a big deal.
Let's forgive and forget.
Hey, I don't think that's what she meant.
I don't think that's what he meant.
You know, and if it's a situation that's not a big deal, you know, you talk them down
and you try to resolve things and put out fires and keep peace.
And, I mean, don't you do this at your job, too?
Right? Don't you end up doing this in other areas of life where you're just trying to settle things down?
Or as a parent, you're trying to settle things down with, you know, your kids fighting with each other or something, right?
You're trying to be a peacemaker.
Okay? And, again, like I said, there are certain church members who are constantly starting stuff.
And then there are other church members that are actually peacemakers.
And we want to be one of the people that's a peacemaker.
And, again, this isn't saying ignoring truth, ignoring major sins and crimes.
Obviously, things need to be dealt with.
So we don't want to be just this, like, peacenik type, this kind of, like, peace, love, dope kind of hippie type.
This is peace, man. Can't we all get along?
Like, that's not what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about, you know, there's a lot of just stupid stuff that people fight about.
There's a lot of stupid arguments.
Look, there's some legitimate things that are worth fighting for and worth fighting about.
But there's just a lot of stupid stuff where you need to be a peacemaker and resolve that.
Try to find a compromise.
We don't compromise with the devil. We don't compromise with terrorists.
But, you know what? We compromise over things that are not moral issues that are just, it's just people not getting along, right?
And we got to sometimes be the bigger person and give a little and so forth when it comes to those things.
And so it says, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.
And then verse 10 says, Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Right? People that are persecuted for righteousness' sake.
And this isn't just as simple as just you're going to heaven.
But also, when it says theirs is the kingdom of heaven, you know, the Bible says that if we suffer, we shall also reign with Him.
Right? There's also ruling and reigning with Christ for those who suffer for the Lord Jesus Christ.
And so the Bible says, Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
But then what's funny is that everything's been blessed are these people. It's all third person.
Blessed are these people. Blessed are these people. Blessed are they. Blessed are they. Blessed are they. Blah, blah, blah.
It's all third person. But check this out. Blessed are you.
Now, isn't it interesting that all of a sudden this became personal?
It was all third person. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness.
But notice how all of a sudden it gets personal. Blessed are you.
Now, why the switch? Everything in the Bible is significant.
The Bible, one way of putting it is that the Bible has a very economical writing style.
Meaning that nothing in the Bible is filler, just extra stuff for no, everything's there for a reason.
And so as we're reading the Bible and we get to this part where it says blessed are you, it's not just that the author just switched for no reason.
I think what we can glean from this blessed are you is the fact that this is something that's guaranteed to happen to you.
Because the Bible says all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
But I think even more than that, I think the reason why it's blessed are you is because this particular point is one that is sensitive.
Okay. Because, you know, we're thinking about theoretically about our lives, about being meek and being a peacemaker and being merciful and mourning and these different things.
But, you know, when it comes to being reviled, persecuted and having people say all manner of evil against you falsely, this is very hard to deal with.
It's a painful thing. And so I feel like God is addressing us in this really intimate way because he cares about the difficulty of this particular situation.
And he's getting very personal and saying, look, blessed are you when you go through this terrible thing. Right?
And so that makes sense, the switch from the third person to the second person.
So he says, blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.
I think that this is a guarantee in the Christian life, your Christian life. And look, this happened to me long before I was a pastor.
I think probably everybody in this room has either already gone through this or, you know, sorry, but it's around the corner for you.
It's just one of these things that just happens to you as a Christian, unfortunately, where people are going to slander you.
They're going to lie about you. They're going to say all manner of evil against you falsely for Christ's sake. Why?
Because people don't like you serving Christ. They say, why would people not like that? I don't know. It's stupid.
But it's just the stupid world we live in. Why did Cain kill Abel? The Bible tells us why.
Because his own works were evil and his brothers were righteous. Marvel not, my brother, and if the world hates you.
So basically, Cain killed Abel because he's just upset about the fact that his brother's righteous and he isn't.
And so the point is that when we are persecuted for righteousness' sake, we shouldn't be surprised.
The Bible says, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing happened to you, right?
This is something that happens to everybody. All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
And so he's saying this is a blessed thing. Now, again, this is counterintuitive because you'd think like, oh, well, the blessed person is a person who has a great reputation
and everybody's talking about how great they are and praising them and saying how wonderful they are, right?
Wouldn't that just be the thing that common sense would tell us? I want to have a good reputation.
I want people to love me and praise me and give me accolades and talk about my achievements or something, right?
I mean, isn't that what the world would think? Just, yeah, man, this guy's blessed.
Here's a preacher that everybody likes. What a blessing. But Christ says, no, you're blessed when people are lying about you.
Okay. And he explains further in verse 12, rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they, the prophets which were before you.
Notice that there are actually two different reasons given. Reason number one, because you say, why would I rejoice at people lying about me?
Why would I rejoice about being persecuted? Why would I rejoice about being slandered?
Well, reason number one is because great is your reward in heaven.
You know, if you're serving Christ and then people want to take you down a notch and, and, and, and destroy you because you're doing work for Christ, that's rewards in heaven that you're earning right there.
When they persecute you, when they revile you, when they say all manner of evil against you falsely.
Obviously it's a blessing to think about the fact that, hey, when you die someday physically, you're going to go to heaven and have all these rewards.
That's a blessing because here's the thing, you know, the riches that we have on this earth or don't have, they're temporary.
And the Bible says, lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust corrupt and where thieves break through and steal.
Lay up treasure in heaven where neither moth nor rust corrupt nor where thieves do not break through nor steal for your treasure is there where your heart be also.
And so he's saying you can't really even guarantee the riches that you have on this earth even for your lifetime.
That's why the Bible calls them uncertain riches.
But the riches that you lay up in heaven are eternal. They're not going anywhere.
And you're going to have them for all eternity.
So one reason that you rejoice is because great is your reward in heaven.
And you say, well, that doesn't really help me very much right now because I'm dealing with this stuff right now.
And so telling me about some retirement package in heaven isn't really doing it for me right now.
But there's another good reason to rejoice.
And that is because so persecuted they, the prophets, which were before you.
And why would this make you rejoice? Why would this make you happy?
Well, to realize the fact that what you're going through is not unique because of the fact that this is what every real true Christian, every real true soul winner, every real true preacher has gone through before you.
They persecuted the prophets before you.
So you should rejoice that you're in good company because it lets you know that you're on the right team.
Because here's what the Bible also says, woe unto you.
Because this, this Sermon on the Mount, there's a very similar sermon in Luke that has been called the Sermon on the Plain where Jesus preaches some similar things.
And he says in that sermon, woe unto you when all men speak well of you for so did their fathers under the false prophets.
So here's the thing.
If you're going through life, you're preaching and you're being invited on all these TV shows and, and the world loves you and, and all the other denominations and religions and the community love you.
And you're being given the key to the city and the police chief loves you and the mayor loves you and the governor loves you.
And you're being invited to the presidential prayer breakfast.
What he's saying is be very afraid.
Woe unto you because that's what they did to the false prophets.
And then you're like, oh, what, what am I doing?
Which side am I on here?
If I'm loved of this world, I must be doing something wrong.
But if I'm being reviled, persecuted, hated, and all manner of evil is being said about me wrongfully for Christ's sake, you know, I can rejoice and say, okay, you know what?
Great is my reward in heaven.
And also, you know what?
Hey, this is what happened to the prophets which were before me.
You know, I'm not just some phony that's just up there preaching what people want to hear and preaching lies.
Okay.
Because woe unto that guy because false prophets are going to receive a great damnation.
And so the Bible says, blessed are ye when men shall revile you, persecute you.
You know, and again, in the parallel passage in Luke, he says literally leap for joy, leap for joy.
You know, and what's funny is that sometimes when I've been persecuted or attacked, some people have criticized me like, why, you seem like you're enjoying this.
Seriously.
I'm not kidding.
Now, this current trial that I've been going through, hey, it hasn't been enjoyable.
But other ones, you know.
The point is, you know, I've gone through stuff and, you know, my favorite, in fact, my favorite newspaper article of all time about me was the one where it was in Botswana.
It says, deported pastor gloats about how much fun it was to be deported.
And it shows like the police taking me onto the airplane and I'm like, yeah.
And this is like, they're saying he gloats about.
And then it's quoting me about how the police ride, the police car ride was fun because the car was going like 100 miles an hour on these like city roads and stuff and, and the sirens.
And I was like in the back of this police car, I had like a cop on either side of me.
There were like five of us in the car.
It was weird.
It was like two guys in the front seat, three of us in the back, cop on each side.
And we're just like, and there's like weaving through traffic.
And I, I've never experienced anything like it.
I kid you not.
We went to the police station.
Finally, it was kind of, we went to like an auxiliary police station outside of town.
And so it was like a little bit remote and had this parking lot.
I'm not even joking.
The policeman literally like slid into the parking spot.
Like, I'm not kidding.
It was, it was cool.
He's literally just like, it just kind of slid into the parks.
It was like, he was like a stunt driver.
And I'm, and you might think I'm just exaggerating, but it was, it was like these guys were just enjoying their job.
They just throw on the lights and siren and they were just having fun driving it.
So I'm serious.
It was kind of cool.
It was kind of fun.
You know, obviously I was a little nervous about the whole situation because I didn't, you know, want to end up like in some Botswana jail or prison or something.
So obviously part of me was like a little bit nervous and scared about the situation.
But part of me was just like, this is fun.
Like this is kind of cool, you know.
And then once I knew I wasn't going to jail or prison or whatever or getting, you know, some kind of enhanced interrogation or something.
Once I knew that, then I could just fully enjoy, you know, the process of being kicked out of Botswana and whatever.
But yeah, I mean, there have been times when, when I did rejoice.
But in reality we should always be rejoicing about persecution.
Obviously we're human and so some persecutions are more difficult to deal with than others.
But at the end of the day, Jesus is saying, rejoice when you're persecuted.
Leap for joy.
Now obviously that's easy to say.
We're human.
We struggle with that.
But that's the standard.
That's the goal is to just rejoice in the Lord and be thankful for everything that God's doing for us.
He goes on to say this in verse 13.
He says, ye are the salt of the earth, but if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted?
It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and to be trodden underfoot of men.
Here's what he's saying here.
Christians are the salt of the earth.
Christians, and here's the thing about salt.
Salt has a distinctive flavor.
And here's what he's saying.
Christians should have a distinctive flavor.
But if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted?
It's good for nothing.
Here's what he's saying.
Christianity that is not different than this world is worthless.
Does everybody understand?
Okay.
Now look, obviously when it comes to salvation, all we have to do to be saved is just to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Bible says that we're saved by grace through faith, not of works lest any man should boast.
But after we're saved, God wants us to live the Christian life.
And that involves us being salt and light in this world.
And salt means that we have a distinctively Christian flavor.
We have Christian attributes in our lives.
And what we have today is a Christianity that expects nothing of Christians.
So you go to a church and they expect nothing of you.
They're not telling you, hey, you need to be doing this.
Hey, you need to stop doing this.
Hey, the Bible says to start doing this.
Hey, the Bible says quit doing this.
They make no demands on the Christians.
It's just whatever.
Do whatever.
Everything's okay.
Everything's fine.
They get up and just give you some little, you know, 15, 20 minute little sermonette
that just kind of, a little encouraging, little platitudes, maybe a little tear-jerking story,
maybe a little bit of humor, a little bit of comedy, a little bit of an illustration or something emotional,
a couple verses from the Bible.
But they're not really asking you to change anything.
They're not really asking you to do anything.
Right?
They're not really making any demands on you spiritually or morally.
It's just not very demanding, right?
And that is salt that has lost its savor, where you walk into the church and it doesn't even feel like church.
You just kind of feel like you're at a worldly social gathering.
You just kind of feel like you're at a Christian version of like a rock concert or you're at like a TED Talk.
You're like a Christian version of like a TED Talk.
You know, and it's just like, it doesn't have a distinctive flavor.
And then also we can think of just Christians in our lives.
We're supposed to live differently than the people around us, right?
We shouldn't just be living like everybody else.
We should be distinctively Christian in our lifestyle, right?
Because we're doing what?
We're reading our Bibles.
We're praying.
We're singing the hymns, right?
We're talking about Christ.
We're sharing the gospel with people.
And we're living according to a moral code found in scripture, not just American, whatever American morality is this week.
You know, whatever is considered ethical today.
No, it's just, it's like an unchanging biblical standard of morality that we're living by.
It's going to make us different than the people around us because maybe they're boozing it up and we don't drink.
Maybe they're into drugs.
We don't take drugs.
You know, they want to stay out late and party and be, you know, fornicating or gambling or whatever.
You know, and we're not doing those things.
You know, our goal as a young man or a young lady is to get married, to remain pure, to get married, to have a family, to work hard, to do right, to go to church, to win souls to Christ.
You know, it's just totally different than what this world is out there doing.
But when you have a Christianity that says, well, we got to be like them to win them.
We got to be like them to reach them.
Here's the thing. It doesn't work.
The salt can't lose its savor in order to be effective.
It's got to be salt. Salt's got to be salt.
You know, you see all this stuff like church for people who don't like church.
This is the kind of advertisements you see.
And I'm just thinking like, well, I like church, so I'm not going.
I want to go to church for people who like church.
But what's funny is I saw this meme and it was like, it was like this me and I kind of like memes.
OK, I'm sorry.
But like there was like the Buzz Lightyear toy and then there's like shelves of like millions of them.
It showed like a zoom in on the Buzz Lightyear toy and it said, we do church a little different around here.
And it was just like every mega church.
They're all they're all doing church like a little different for people like they're all just worldly.
And it's all kind of the same thing.
But the salt has lost its savor.
Now, I want to give you a thought tonight.
And this is probably the last thing that I'm going to talk about in the sermon.
I want to give you a thought tonight about why it is important for you to live a serious, separated, clean Christian life.
If you're going to be effective at reaching people for the gospel.
OK, why your salt can't lose its savor.
Because again, we were told in the previous generation that we were just going to bring tons of people into Christianity by getting super worldly.
So by turning the church into something like a worldly place of entertainment, that's just going to bring in the masses.
But what happened is it did bring in a bunch of people.
But what you win them with is what you win them to.
And so they showed up and they came to the party, but they just came to a party.
And then we go out and knock these people's doors week after week.
And so many of them, we ask them, you know for sure you're going to heaven.
I hope so. I'm a good person.
You know, there's no clue about how to actually be saved through Jesus Christ.
OK, so it's a failed experiment.
The New Evangelical Movement, this kind of be worldly in order to reach more people.
People are nervous about going to church.
Church is too churchy.
So we need to just get super laid back and super worldly.
It doesn't start at 1030. It starts at 1037.
You know, and then the pastor is just up there and he's just kind of just this cool dude.
And it's just all super worldly.
And that's going to bring people in and reach people.
It's been a failure.
It hasn't worked.
It's not changing America and making it more godly.
It's just not working.
Let me tell you why it doesn't work.
OK?
And let me tell you why it's important for you, member of Faithful Word Baptist Church,
you, saved Christian who wants to get other people saved,
why is it important for you to live a clean, godly Christian life and have a good testimony
where people can look at you and you're distinctly Christian.
You're not, you don't look like a drug addict or a cannibal or a prostitute when you're given the gospel.
Let me tell you why.
Here's why.
Because think about it.
Let's say that the people around me know, I'm talking people at my job,
people in my neighborhood, people at school, whatever situation you're in,
people on the sports team, right, whatever situation you're in.
If the people know you and they know that you are living a sinful life,
whatever that looks, whether that's drinking, fornicating, whatever,
if they know you and they know you're living a sinful life and then you come to them and tell them,
hey man, salvation's by faith alone.
You don't have to do any works to be saved.
You don't have to keep the commandments.
It's just faith alone.
You know what, you know what they're thinking?
They're thinking, well, yeah, that's a doctrine of convenience for you.
Of course, you think that.
You want to think that because you're living a bad life.
So of course, because you're not doing the works, you're going to say,
of course, you're going to say it's not of works.
Of course, you're going to say that you don't have to repent of your sins because you're living in sin.
You see what I mean?
Like people aren't going to take it seriously because they're going to think that's why you're saying that.
But you know what, it actually is way more powerful when somebody comes to them
who's living this really straight laced life and saying,
you don't have to live a straight laced life to be saved.
Somebody who's not drinking says to them, you don't have to quit drinking to be saved.
It's going to be a lot more powerful than, hey, you can drink and be saved.
They're just going to be like, well, yeah, of course you think that.
Keep telling yourself that, buddy.
But you know what, when you come to somebody and you're living a godly life,
you're living a pure life, you're going to church three times a week,
and then you tell them, hey, you don't have to go to church to be saved.
Now that actually has more weight when it comes from somebody who goes to church.
When somebody who's going to church is telling you,
you don't have to attend church to be saved,
that's a lot more powerful than a guy who just is too lazy to go to church saying,
hey, you don't have to go to church to be saved.
You're just saying that.
But you know what, if you're actually doing the works and living a right life
and then you tell people that it's by faith alone that you're saved,
you know what, that's going to get their attention.
And then they're thinking, well, this guy knows the Bible
and he's showing me these verses in the Bible
and he is not doing this because he's just looking for, like, a lazy man's religion.
No, he's telling me this because he knows the Bible and it's true.
He's telling me the truth.
But if you're living a sinful life,
your gospel witness is not going to be as powerful as the witness of someone
who is actually following Christ on the daily with the way that they live their life.
Okay, and that's a big reason why the New Evangelical Movement has failed.
Because people don't take the gospel seriously from people who aren't serious about Christianity.
People who are serious about their Christian life preaching the gospel is way more serious.
And you want to know what's funny about these big liberal fund center churches
is that if you go to their statement of faith,
a lot of time they'll be right on when it comes to salvation.
You can literally go to their statement of faith and the salvation is dead on.
You could walk up to the pastor and ask the pastor what it takes to be saved
and he will sometimes give you a great answer.
Now, sometimes it could be a wrong answer, a wrong apostate church,
but I'm saying some of these fund centers, they'll give you a great answer.
But then what happens is you go to all the members, you go to all the people in the pew
and nobody has a clue because he's not communicating it.
Okay? Or people aren't taking him seriously because he's not a serious guy
because he's just like a little half-time show at the concert.
He's just sort of a little like sideshow Bob or something in the middle of some kind of a, you know, a circus.
You know? And then it's like, oh, we get a little 15 minutes.
I mean, look, I've been to these teenage youth groups. It's all about the music.
It's all about the games. It's all about the fellowship.
And it's just like you just kind of put up with a little 5, 10-minute thing.
You just kind of zone out. It's like school or something.
You know what I'm saying? Like people aren't coming for the preaching.
People come to a Baptist. People come to a fundamentalist Baptist church for the preaching.
People go to a liberal fund center for everything else, typically.
And again, if they're just coming for the fun and games, they might not be taking the message that seriously.
And if the pastor himself is not serious about the Bible, not serious about his Christian life,
not serious about right and wrong, it's kind of hard to take him seriously when he's telling you that the gospel is a free gift by grace and faith.
And so that's something to think about when it comes to being the salt of the earth. Right?
Being distinctly Christian. Ye are the, we're just about done, but it says ye are the light of the world.
A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.
Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bush open on a candlestick and they give it a light unto all that are in the house.
Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father, which is in heaven.
It sounds to me like when people see you being a Christian in your lifestyle, then that actually makes them glorify your father in heaven.
And it actually makes them more likely to listen to you. You can light up their darkness. You can salt them with the truth of God's word.
And so yes, salvation is a free gift. Yes, salvation is by faith. Yes, you got to be poor in spirit and humble and trust Christ as your only hope of heaven and not trust in your own self and be all prideful about your own works.
But once you're saved, it's true, you can never lose your salvation. But if you want to be taken seriously by other people, and I hope you want to win other people to Christ,
you've got to live a good Christian life if you really want people to take you seriously when you preach them that gospel message.
Because otherwise it's just, oh, of course you'd say that because yeah, of course, you know, you know, do works. You're not doing any works.
But what if you're doing Boku works and then you're saying it's not of works? Well, that's worth listening to.
That's about enough word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord. Thank you for this powerful sermon on the mount.
Lord, help us to take these things and apply them to our lives. Help us to continue to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
And it's in his name we pray. Amen.
Amen. Let's turn our song books to song 106. Abide with me. Song 106.
106.
Abide with me as all sleeping times.
The darkness deepens, Lord, with me abide.
When other helpers fail and conquers me,
Help all the helpless to walk by with me.
Straight to his voice, send out life's little being.
Praise, joy, hold him in, glory to pass away.
Change and gain, gain, gain, all around I see.
O thou who changest not, but thy will be,
I heed thy presence, every passing hour.
Lord, let thy praise fill, for the tempters now
Who, like thyself, on God has shaken me,
Through cloudless sunshine, O loud light, pray in me.
O loud light, cross me for my closing eyes,
Shine through the blue land, pointing me to the stars.
Let glory, grace, and birth make shadows ring,
In life and death, O Lord, a part in me.
Praise, joy, hold him in, glory to pass away.
Thank you for watching.