Beacon Sunday Service November 5th 2023

Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving. Let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise. And together, for the Lord is a great God, and a great king above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth, the heights of the mountains are his also. Amen. And that is the God that we believe in. He is great and mighty over all things, the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings. And let us worship him this morning just in joyfulness and gladness.

And Lord, we want to lift your name on high.

For the words you've done in our life.

Yes. In the city of our God the Lord.

And Lord, we want to thank you for the words you've done in our life. And Lord, we trust in your unfang. For you not God eternal throughout earth and for what we want to live your name. And Lord, we want to thank you for the words you got in our life. And Lord, we trust in your unfavor. For you alone, our God eternal without.

And it's just so amazing that our great God being as great as He is, and how high and lofty He is that He would call us His own to bring a salvation unto Him. And so may we just continue our time of worship with that.

As I bear its image, oh may I not fame the Holiness I hold in its perfect. I belong, I belong to the Lord, for I am now I am I belong to the Lord, I am not mine, I belong for this I know, I belong to the Lord, I am not my own, and if he has redeem me, I am not my own.

He declares my sanding, and he declares my saint, so I will know myself by the name I belong, I belong to the Lord, I am not high, I belong to the Lord, I am not high, I will honor for this I know I belong to the Lord, I am not right.

Oh Maker, come and make what you will of me. There is nothing broken that you cannot make. So Lord, I leave my life in your love being there. I belong, I belong to the Lord, oh I am not mine, I belong to the Lord, I am not my own. I will honor him for this I know. I belong to the Lord. I am not I will honor, I will honor him for this I know I belong to the Lord.

I am not amen. We are his.

What the church is. And here's the question. What is the church? And together, God chooses and preserves for himself a community elected for eternal life and united by faith who love, follow, learn from, and worship God together. God sends out this community to proclaim the gospel and prefigure Christ's kingdom by the quality of their lives together and their love for one another. Amen as we come to you to be the food and your will take your land us she and fashion us in your life that the life be today in our soul and our dream and perfect comes teach us, Lord, teach us Lord only test our thoughts and our tool in the glory contact your magic words I can prevail let their true prevail over me speak alone speak oh Lord and renew our mind help us grasp the height of your plan for us unchange from the time that time that I will go now through eternal by grace and by grace will send on your sin at walk and speak your church is built and the earth is filled with your glory.

Good morning, church. As we get ready to have a corporate time, confession of sin. I just wanted to remind you that the Lord asks of us to be transparent. I use that every week, but he just wants of us to confess what it is that we struggle with on a daily basis. And as you reflect upon this week, the struggles that you've had, um just be reminded that you're not supposed to hold on to this, the weight of sin, because it's already been lifted from us by the sacrifice of our Savior. So as we take this time corporately to confess our sin, just be reminded of that. Um, and then we'll have uh uh a personal time where we confess our sins personally to the Lord. So let's do our confession of sin together.

God our Savior, you who are mighty and holy, please look upon our humble estates and forgive us. Your mercy is for those who fear you, who magnify your holy name. We have been scattered and brought down by our prideful thoughts in humility. We return to you, the one who fills the hungry with good things. Because of your mercy, our souls rejoice in Christ the Lord. Amen. Please be seated. Let's take in a personal time of confession to our Lord.

Here's your assurance of pardon. By faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen. This week's prayer request or prayer time is uh inspired by the short book of Philemon. Um verses four through seven, it says, I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers, because I hear of your love and of the faith that you have toward the Lord Jesus and for all the saints, and I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ. For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you. Let us pray for um our brothers overseas and those who have a heart to go into missions.

Um we've had a few speakers who are calling us to go, is to go out into the mission field and do something that is very difficult and in regions of the world where Christianity is rejected. Let's pray over them. Let's pray that the Lord's will will be done. Um that we would encourage them, that the Holy Spirit will oversee them, and ultimately that God will be glorified through the work that they do. It's gonna be a tough road. And last week, uh our brother Alessandro shared that it's it's a tough journey, even just getting acclimated to the country that you move to. So let's lift him up. Let's lift up people that we know. Um, and ultimately for our church, the beacon, um, our ultimate goal is to be able to go out and into the mission field and do the same.

Um, one of our long-term goals is to rise up a missionary and send them off. Um, and it feels like we're so far off, but the Lord can do amazing things in a short period of time. Uh so let's pray for those brothers who are missionaries in the field.

Father, we lift up those who have a specific calling to go into the mission field and to share your gospel to those who do not know you. We pray for those brothers and sisters and even those children who go and get adjusted to a new culture, a new country. We pray for acclamation, we pray for adjustment, we pray for even just logistical administrative things that need to take place, um, financial support. We pray for them, Lord, to have those things taken care of so that their focus would be solely on uh making sure that your kingdom is growing, Father, in this sinful, ever-growing sinful and wretched world, Lord. We know that your gospel message is needed more than ever. May we be also reminded that we do not have to go to a country, another place to share the gospel.

I pray, Father, for the beacon, for the people in this room, that we are reminded that we are called to be disciples and to make disciples, Father. So, Lord, may we use that urging and that calling to share the gospel with those that we know. May we take every open opportunity and be bold to speak and to share what we know, even if we ourselves do not feel confident in the way that we can share, Father. May the Holy Spirit just give us that boldness and work through us through the words that we speak, and ultimately, Lord, may your kingdom be glorified. May your kingdom continually grow because that is what you call us to do, and that is what your will demands. So we thank you, Lord, and in Jesus' name we pray, Amen.

Children, you're dismissed for Sunday school. Today is teacher Stephen. Please have a great time. And uh teacher Abraham will be assisting today. As the students are being released, I'm gonna go over our announcements today. Lighthouse Community Church is hosting a kids' mini conference next Saturday. Can't believe it's already November. Um, it's only from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. And registration is still open, I believe. It's only ten dollars. So Tiff and I will be going next week. They have child care. So if you want to learn more about children's ministry or would like to just go and be fed in some way, um, our brothers at brothers and sisters at Lighthouse Community Church have graciously opened the doors for us to join them.

Um we have a children's ministry signup sheet in the back. Um, if for those of you who have already filled it out, thank you so much. If you would not, if you haven't yet taken a look at it, please fill in open spot backup spot opportunities. Um, one announcement that's not up there is that our sister Tiff took some initiative and wanted us to pray in the month of November. So she's been sending out uh daily emails for us to pray together to have the same mindset and prayer topics so that we can honestly say that as a church, we are praying over the same things every day. Um depending on what time of day you check your email, though, um, there is a hard copy for the week. It's a sheet in the back, it's on the back table.

Please take one as you leave. Uh, and just in case you miss an email, you'll have it tape it to your your wind your mirror as you brush your teeth in the morning. You can just pray over things as you're as you start your day. Uh, and of course, our offering options, are Zel, Venmo, Cash, and Czech. With that, I'm gonna welcome our next guest speaker from Lighthouse Community Church. Our brother uh Brian Chang is a native of Southern California. He grew up in Orange County and attended UCLA for his undergraduate years. It was in college that Brian fully understood the gospel of Jesus Christ through a series of divine events. After coming to faith in Christ, Brian attended seminary at the Master's ceremony in Sun Valley.

Brian served as a young adult pastor at Lighthouse Community Church for five years before the Lord called him back to secular work, and he currently works at an ad tech company. He's married to his wife, Kristen, and they have two sons, Beckham, who's two and a half, and Jackson, who is eight months. He's currently helping lead the men's ministry at Lighthouse. Let's welcome him. Well, good morning. It's good to be here with you all. Uh this morning we're gonna be in Matthew chapter five, verses one to twelve. Uh, we're gonna be looking at the Beatitudes. So if you have your Bibles, uh, please turn there with me. We'll read the passage, I'll pray, and then we'll we'll jump into the message.

But as we read, uh, let's stand together. Uh and I'm reading from the ESV version this morning. Matthew 5, verse 1. Seeing the crowds, he, Jesus, went up on the mountain. And when he sat down, his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. This is the word of God. Maybe seated. Let's pray. Father, as we come before your word this morning, I'm so thankful to have the opportunity to share your word. And Lord, as we come before your word, pray that you would help us to have humble hearts to hear and to listen to the words of Christ. We thank you for this morning. We thank you for your provision beyond what we deserve.

We give you all the glory. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, it's uh a blessing to be here with you. Uh yeah, my name is Brian and from Lighthouse, and I uh I'm a lay leader over our men's ministry. And I want to spend this morning uh simply talking about Christian living, right? I know you guys have been going through a little bit of the Old Testament, uh kind of uh run around with some of the Lighthouse guys, and so I wanted to get into one of the gospels in Matthew chapter five and this morning, namely to talk about what gospel uh gospel centered, living gospel-centered life. Uh and and so gospel-centered living, right? How Christians are called to live distinct lives because we've been transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Now, uh, before we get into it, talking about gospel-centered living is a very dangerous thing. Um, because very often we can confuse gospel-centered living with just living a moral life that could be devoid of the gospel altogether. But we all want to be good people to some extent. And so it's dangerous because, like children who play with their parents' clothes, people often want to act like a good Christian, yet without growing up in our faith and our dependence on Jesus Christ alone. And you're going to find in the Christian life that it doesn't work that way. Right? Gospel-centered living, living a life that is focused on Jesus Christ, springs forward from a faith and a dependence on the gospel.

So you can't live a gospel-centered life without first placing your faith in the gospel. The same way you can't have church without people or a wedding without the bride and groom. You see, I can walk around as a moral person. I can do good things in my life. I can say all the right things on the outside, but if my heart is unchanged by the gospel on the inside on a daily basis, and if my life is led to worship other things, right, grades, my career, money, my reputation, my relationships. If I place all of these things above my love for Christ, then it is impossible for me to live a gospel-centered life, a God-glorifying life. Because man might look at the outside, but God looks at the heart.

And this is what Jesus points to to the Pharisees in Matthew 23, verse 27. He says, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. For you are like whitewashed tombs which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanliness. And so you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. Alright, so our motivations for living the Christian life matters. And the Bible says that it matters. And this is what Jesus says in Matthew 6, verse 1: beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them. For then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. See, Jesus Christ cares about the motivation for why we live the way we live as Christians.

He doesn't want us to just be good people and live moral lives. And this morning, we're not building a checklist for the Christian life or a moral life. We're looking at these distinguishing marks from the beatitudes of a life that has already been transformed by the gospel. And I hope that you're encouraged to pursue these things even more as believers. So living the gospel-centered life means that you have seen, you have understood the gospel and the sinfulness of our own hearts.

And but just as the Bible tells us that God created the world, it tells us three chapters into Scripture that sin has infiltrated the world and our hearts and has corrupted everything good that God has created. And so because of our sin, we deserve this eternity in hell, this punishment in hell. Romans 3 23 says, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Meaning no one here is without sin in Romans 6 23 says, for the wages of sin is death, that we all deserve death and punishment for the sins that we've committed before a holy God. And so as a Christian, you've seen your own sin, the offense that it is before a holy God. And yet, as Christians, we've put our faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, whom God has sent to live the perfect life in our world to take our place.

Jesus Christ who sacrificed himself on the cross for us, Jesus' death on the cross offers us grace and undeserved reward and is purchased for us a right relationship with our Creator God. And our life in this gospel of Jesus Christ, it is the focus of our lives because the Lord has purchased us with Christ's blood on the cross. It's gospel-centered living because our lives revolve around the beating heart of this gospel message, and it impacts and influences every part of our daily lives. So as believers, our lives start always start with the gospel. As Philip mentioned, I have I have two sons, uh Beckham, who's two and a half, and Jackson, who's nine months and gaining weight like no other.

And the older that I get, I find myself thinking and dwelling upon wanting to have a good life for myself and for my family. Right? I want to have a good life. And not only that, now I want my sons to have a good life. I want them to be protected. I want them to be safe. I want them to grow up, be experiencing all kinds of different things. Now the problem is that my idea of the good life is constantly changing. I remember when I was a little kid, I wanted, I thought the good life was being a ringleader at a circus because I like the costumes that all the circus ringleaders wore. And then as I grew up a little bit more, I wanted to be an Air Force pilot because I wanted to fly jets. And then, and then I wanted to be a graphic designer.

How I got from Air Force pilot to graphic designer, let's not discuss that, but I wanted to be a graphic designer, and then I wanted to be a lawyer. And it changes all the time the older I get. And it's amazing how my idea of the good life or the happy life has been influenced over the years. So for you, what comes to mind when you think about the good life? Do you think about fast cars and big houses? Do you think about that perfect vacation in Hawaii or a bank account full of money, so you'd never have to worry about finances again? You could do anything you want. Is it a boyfriend or a girlfriend who will fulfill you, who will love you to the moon and back? Is it going to that perfect sporting event?

Or maybe your life is happy and good when the people around you are happy. Your parents, your brother or sister, your boyfriend or girlfriend, your spouse, your friends and family, maybe your idea of a happy life is one where you become successful and everyone around you loves you. We all have these our own ideas of what living a good life looks like. Now, when it comes to living the Christian life, what do you think about? What comes to mind when you think about the Christian life? Do you think about church and serving on the weekends? Do you think about the Ten Commandments and all the things that you can't do? Or maybe it's just a weekend activity for you, right? If your coworker or a friend comes up to you and asks you what the Christian life looks like, how would you respond?

You see, as Christians, I think, as disciples of Jesus, we are often confused about what the Christian life is supposed to look like. Right? Maybe we've seen bits and pieces, we've heard stories of how other people's lives live their lives, of what disciples of Christ looked like, but these are just puzzle pieces that haven't been locked together yet. And even if we know what we should do as disciples of Christ, do we think of those things as good? Do we think of those things as blessings? Is the Christian life supposed to make us happy? Well, this morning we're gonna see that God does want us to be happy. God wants us to be blessed, but not necessarily in the ways that the world tells us. As we look at the Beatitudes this morning, we're we see the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, right?

Uh that spans from Matthew 5 to 7, and there's this rich depth to the passage that we're only going to scratch the surface of this morning. You can preach this portion of scripture in seven or eight messages, but we're gonna do a flyover, kind of a bird's eye view of the beatitudes of these eight pronouncements of blessings that Jesus gives us on the Sermon on the Mount. And joy and blessing are the central theme of the Beatitudes. Right? The world, the word blessed actually speaks of this deep abiding happiness and internal joy, which Christ says belongs to all who are characterized by the qualities he describes in the Beatitudes. Right? These are blessings that are part of the gospel centered life, and that Jesus is for our joy, brothers and sisters, not against it.

He goes on to show us what a distinct life in Christ looks like. And so our key idea this morning is this that the disciple of Christ is distinct from the world and lives the good life in joyful obedience to God. The disciple of Christ is distinct from this world and lives the good life in joyful obedience to God. So three distinct marks of a disciple of Christ. The first is that disciples live with humility. Disciples live with humility in verses three to five. Look at verse three with me. Jesus says, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. So up to this point in the Gospel of Matthew, we read about the beginning of Jesus' ministry, right?

How he had been preaching about repentance. He was calling disciples to himself. In Matthew chapter 4, verse 23, we see that he's teaching in synagogues. He's proclaiming the gospel. He's healing every disease, every affliction among the people. Right? He was creating this, he was gaining fame and creating this disease-free, pain-free, demon-free zone everywhere that he went. And so you can imagine the scene. All these people are gathering around Jesus. They're waiting and they're wondering what miracle he's gonna do next. What amazing thing he's gonna do next. And the people might have thought that he was entertaining or he was just different. He was someone they wanted to follow. He was new.

And just as Moses goes up the up Mount Sinai in Exodus 19 in the Old Testament, Jesus, he begins to walk up this mountain, and he sits down and he turns to his disciples who are directly in front of him, and the crowds who are hanging on his every word, and he refocuses his followers on the joy of following God's law that they had lost. And so he looks at the crowds among him and he starts to speak, and he starts with blessed, and everyone is hanging on his every word. Yes, he's gonna talk about blessings. He's gonna talk about happiness. He's gonna give us the key to life, the key to joy and happiness in this life. And he says, blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall inherit the kingdom of God.

So the crowds are looking at each other thinking, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's not a good start to a sermon. Blessed are the poor. This isn't what we signed up for. That's a horrible introduction, Jesus. We want this uplifting message, something to inspire me to be better, to make my life better. So you can imagine the shift in the crowd's attitude, the shuffling of the feet when they heard that. But Jesus isn't trying to speak into our worldly expectations, but he's speaking to something greater. So Jesus looks at his disciples, he looks at us and the crowds behind them, and he says, You have to start here. That true happiness is for the humble, because they alone will inherit the kingdom of God.

Jesus begins his message by peeling back the layers of our external actions to examine our hearts. He says that happiness and blessedness is for the humble. When we think about humility, we often think about the person who's really good at something and gets this award, this prize, but doesn't really bring it up, right? Thanks everyone else, even though they've won this award, the athlete who's best on the court. But during the post-game interview, thanks all of his teammates. Or the artist who accepts an awards and thanks the fans for their support, their voting for them, the musicians for voting for them. But when Jesus talks about humility, it is first and foremost in relation to God. It is our humility before an infinite God that spills into humility in other areas of our life.

Humility appears in the life of the disciple in two main ways. First, we're humbled by our sinfulness. We're humbled by our sinfulness. So when Jesus says, Blessed are the poor in spirit, and then he says, Blessed are those who mourn, he's talking about a humility in response to God because of our condition before God. Humility is the divine work that God does in us, and he opens our eyes to see how desperately we need a Savior. This word for poor in Matthew 5, verse 3, is describing a begging poor. That we don't have any resources to keep ourselves alive. We are spiritual beggars, spiritually bankrupt, with no way to pay the cost for our own sins. And those who mourn is describing a godly sorrow over sin.

It's when I desperately want to belong to the Lord, but I know that there's something that's keeping me from being there. A godly sorrow calls me back to God. And that's what we mourn about. 2 Corinthians 7 10 captures the essence of this godly sorrow when Paul writes, for godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret. Whereas worldly grief produces death. So when I'm doing counseling and someone is confessing a sin, I'm talking about is this worldly grief or godly grief? Is it a worldly grief because you got caught in your sin? Or is it a godly grief that is going to lead to repentance and salvation? So for the Christian, we are humbled by our own sins and we grieve over them.

Like when I'm short and impatient with my parents, or maybe with your friends, it's not just a tension in the family, but there is a barrier set up between me and God first. Are you grieved over that? Are you grieved over the obstacles that we're placing before God in our pride? When you give into lust or you cheat, or you cut corners at work, you get into an argument with a coworker, you're discontent with your life, you're not trusting God. Do you have a godly sorrow that calls you back to the Lord? Are you humbled before God first? Disciples of Christ are humbled by our own sinfulness, and we are far more dependent and needy than we realize. So God shows us that in our own sinfulness. And then Jesus contrasts our sinfulness with God's holiness.

And so, secondly, we are humbled by God's holiness. Right? In verse 5, Jesus says, Blessed are the meek. Now, this meekness is in relation to God's holiness, right? That we enjoy the warmth of the sun, but we can't stare directly at the light. Meekness describes our gladness in God and the acknowledgement that he is holy and we are not. We are meek because we see our sinfulness in contrast with God's holiness. Alright, so he's holy. We say that all the time in church, but what does that mean? God is holy, meaning that he is set apart, that he cannot stand the sight of sin. He is set apart from sin. And so there's this great contrast between our sinfulness and God's holiness. And yet an amazing thing happens when we are humbled in these ways.

When we're humbled by our sinfulness and recognize God's holiness, we realize that our greatest need is for a savior from our sin. It's not money, it's not security, it's not our reputation because those things are fleeting. Our greatest need is answered in the gospel of Jesus Christ. That through Christ we have inherited the kingdom of heaven in verse 3. Through Christ, we have received godly comfort in our times of sorrow or distress. So the blessing is this in 2 Corinthians 5.14. Paul, a man who used to hate Christ, says that our humility is answered in Christ, and that the gospel transforms our source of joy. 2 Corinthians 5.14. For the love of Christ now, therefore controls us. Because we all concluded this, that one has died for all, therefore all have died, and he died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

So he's saying, look, you used to live for yourselves, but when you're humbled, when you humbled yourself, when you put your faith in Jesus Christ, your life changed, and you now live out of a love for him. So humility is important because it drives us toward love of God. It drives us away from our love of self, understanding our own sinfulness, and toward a love for God. That we no love no longer derive joy from just placing, pleasing ourselves, but we gain our greatest joy from loving God. I think the world is tempting, right? And it tells us that the good life is about us. The good life is all about us, about our lives and our money and our relationship, and the world teaches us that pride and self-confidence will help you gain everything that you want in your life.

So some of us might be thinking, well, is the Christian life of humility really the good life then? Because the world is telling me otherwise. And Jesus unequivocally says, yes. The Christian life is better because you have been adopted, you've been called sons and daughters of God. The condemnation that we deserve for our sins has been wiped out by the cross, and you are no longer compelled to live in this life to pursue empty promises that the world offers. But we are now compelled by our love for God to pursue life with God. That has a deep, abiding and lasting joy. Ever since I've been married, I you know, things change. I've been married for almost nine years now. And I used to do a lot of manly things, and now I watch cooking shows and I know how to make rice crispy treats.

There's some habits that are ingrained that were ingrained in me as a single man that have been painstakingly corrected. Now, let me be clear, these are not things that I would did before before I was married, but I do these things now because my life is different. I do it because of my love for my wife Kristen. And I find joy in them because she does. Brothers and sisters, when we turn our eyes away from ourselves and we look to God in love, we will begin to experience a deep abiding joy that comes with living as a disciple of Christ. When our relationships are no longer about what I can get out of them, but how I can love God through them, then we'll experience lasting joy. When my money is not about what I can benefit from it, but what how I can love God through it, then we find true happiness.

Because a gospel-centered disciple experiences true joy and the good life when he loves he or she loves God fully. So do you come before God and his word humbly? Do you recognize the sinfulness of your heart and does that humble you before the holiness of God? Are you aware of your sins and do you cry out to God for help? Disciples are humble, and humility produces a selflessness. Secondly, disciples pursue holiness. Disciples pursue holiness. So we just talked about God's holiness, but disciples here, Jesus shows us in verses six to eight pursue holiness. Our staff used to always talk about this a lot, but uh I used to pastor our young adult ministry, and they would have events every single week for every small occasion, big occasion.

And being on staff, I kind of developed this thing that on staff we like to call phoby as we're getting older. I don't know if you've heard about that. It's the fear of being invited, right? It's the opposite of FOMO. We all of us on staff have phobia now. And I'm thankful for the invites, right? Surfing events, you know, volleyball events, all these things, but they're kind of stressful, right? To kind of plan around and organize your schedule, especially with young kids now. Uh, I was uh invited to to go hiking with my um my brother for his bachelor party several years ago, uh, and he took a trip to Yosemite. Uh, and as I was preparing for it, I kind of had this hard time understanding the draw of hiking.

Right? I'm a Southern California kid, grew up in Orange County, there's a lot of space. It's very nice out there. But for hiking, right? Are there any avid hikers here? Okay, good. You guys understand me then. But you have to get all this gear. You have to get backpacks, shoes, water packs that you strap to your back, walking sticks, right? So any activity that requires a stick just to walk, I feel like is is not fair game for me, right? Um, you have to do all of these different things. I don't understand the idea of bringing along cooking supplies into a forest where there's no electricity. Uh when you have a perfectly good kitchen at home, you hiking is dusty, right? It's tiring, you sweat, you're walking for hours in a direction that you're not sure of in the middle of nowhere where there are thousands of species of animals waiting to kill you, right?

Now, I know that there are a lot of die hard hikers out there. There's a lot of diehard hikers on Instagram at church. But when I was in Yosemite, uh it was it was amazing for me to see God's creation, yes, and to finally breathe in fresh air, and the pictures came out great, right? No filters needed, but I can't ever see hiking being a hobby for me, right? I'd rather just kind of sit at home, uh look at nice pictures on Instagram or on social media of other people hiking. That's great for them, right? They're really intense about it, they have all the cars, all the equipment. That's great. Hiking is just not for me, I concluded after that trip. Now, is it possible that we look at holiness the way that I look at hiking?

Right? Holiness is this great thing. It's it's great to talk about in church, but it's great for other people to do, other people who are far more intense than me, who want to pursue holiness. I'm happy for them when I hear about it, but it's just too messy for me. It's just another thing that I have to think about, and my life is already too crazy. Besides, the pursuit of holiness is for those die-hard Christians, right? The ones who went to seminary, the ones who spend their time meditating on God's word, who have time for that, right? My life is perfectly fine without holiness. And if we're really honest with ourselves, we might even think that, sure, holiness will be great, but since I'm already saved by grace, holiness is not required of me, so why should I pursue it?

I think this is the blind spot for many Christians. Because pursuing holiness is a distinct mark of a true disciple of Christ. Look at the beatitudes in verse six with me. Jesus continues on, and he says, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. And so Jesus looks at his disciples and continuing his sermon, he shifts from talking about the humility that they should already possess to the holiness that they are to pursue. He says that happiness comes to those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, which is this powerful illustration of a perching per person with an intense longing to live a godly life, as much as a starving man longs for his next piece of bread or a thirsty man yearns for a drop of water.

They yearn to see what is right in God's eyes. Happiness is comes to the merciful. A person who is compassionate and forgiving, just as God is merciful. Happiness comes to the pure in heart. A person who is has an unmixed devotion to God, who turns from lusts of the flesh, lusts of the world, just as God is pure and good. And Jesus' point is this in verses 6 to 8. That the pursuit of holiness cannot happen apart from a relationship with God. And that pursuing holiness is pursuing the things of God. That's it. Loving what he loves, hating what he hates. It is the result of a life that is constantly drawing nearer to God. And this is where the confusion lies. We often make a mistake, make we often mistake a moral life for a holy life.

We might look, we might confuse the Christian life with a life that's all about self-betterment, making it look like we have everything together. We act like the goal in the Christian life is to live a moral life and make ourselves better this better this year than the last year. I'm a nicer, nicer person now than I used to be. I have a better job and more clarity about my career than I used to have. I eat healthier and I exercise more than I did before. I don't get as angry as I did before. And so oftentimes in the church we seek self-betterment. That as long as I'm growing and getting better as a person, as long as I'm maturing as a person, that must mean I'm a good Christian. Yet what Jesus is saying is that pursuing holiness is actually means pursuing the heart of God himself.

In other words, you cannot pursue holiness without pursuing a closer relationship with God. Because God is holy. So as we draw near to God, we cannot help but desire the things that God desires. Delight yourself in the Lord, he'll give you the desires of your heart. People think that as Christians we get everything that we want in our hearts. If we pray hard enough, we try hard enough. But no, delight yourself in the Lord first. Because when we delight ourselves in the Lord, God's desires and our desires match. And so the desires of our heart are the desires of God's heart. So when we go in closeness to God, we naturally hunger and thirst for righteousness because our God is righteous. We will be merciful because God is merciful.

We will be pure in heart because in God there is no blemish. Holiness is not about having much knowledge or doing holy things. Holiness is about knowing the mind of God as it is found in Scripture. Holiness is the result of our desire to know God. Holiness is the reward of learning about God. So that we can agree with God. Hating what he hates, loving what he loves, measuring everything in this world by the standard of his holy word. I think there's a danger for Christians to treat our faith like a one-time purchase. Where we might spend so much time asking questions and looking into the Christian faith, and finally we become believers. At one point, we're ready to buy, and so we make the purchase, and that's it.

We own it, it's done. We've heard the gospel. We've placed our faith in Jesus Christ, and now we don't ever have to think about it again. But the Christian life is not a one-time purchase, it is a lifelong pursuit of knowing God. And my worry is that we don't continue to grow in holiness because we don't always see the joy that God is presenting in it. But we are called to holiness because we've been called to a relationship with our Lord. The Lord was faithful to save me in college from a life of drugs and alcohol. Even though I had grown up in the church, college presented with me, presented me with this opportunity to pursue the things that I thought were the good things in life. That meant joining fraternities, embracing sin.

I thought the Christian life was this all-out assault on my hopes and my dreams, on everything that the world was telling me would be good for me. That if I just had these things that the world was offering, that I'd be happy, my life would be set. So I did everything I could to attain those things. But through it all, there was this underlying emptiness, and nothing I pursued really satisfied me for long. But God, through a series of divine, God ordained events, pursued me. I was discipled by this guy, this guy in college, and every time we met up, he just kept on sharing the gospel with me over and over again. And now that I think back about it, back on it, he lived in Westwood, but was a seminarian, but lived in Westwood.

It's kind of weird. He would just kind of use me for my swipes. But he kept on sharing the gospel with me. And every time I asked the question, he would flip to a passage of scripture and point to it and make me read it out loud. And I thought to myself, man, I want to be like this guy because I can't argue with him because everything he's telling me is coming from God's word. And so I spent more time reading the Bible, less time going to parties, more time seeking to understand God and the gospel. And you know what the strange thing was? Is that I didn't have to force myself to stop going to parties or partaking in all the things my friends were doing. I didn't have to force myself to stop hanging out with certain people.

I didn't have to force myself to turn from those things for the sake of holiness. I just didn't feel like it anymore. People often think that Christianity is all about giving up everything that's fun and entertaining, but it's not like that. It just comes down to the fact that Christ is better. The good life that the world presented me became so empty. And the happiness that I found in them was so short-lived that I didn't desire to do those things anymore because I had discovered something so much better, so much more long-lasting. Knowing and loving Christ was so much better than anything that this world could throw at me. Brothers and sisters, we've been saved to something better. Christ is better.

And holiness is a natural result of a life devoted to pursuing Christ. We have a hard time imagining what pursuing holiness is like because we don't associate holiness with the rest of our lives. Holiness means intimately connecting to the Lord and knowing the heart of God. So that means that as you grow in your love for the Lord, your relationships with your parents, spouse, friends, they become more joy-filled because you grow in patience as God is patient. You grow in love as God is love. You begin to see your studies or your job as a means of worshiping God and finding greater joy because you begin to see them as God's blessings to you. A means of sharing the gospel with others because God wants to be known among his people.

As you draw closer to God and spend quality time in his word, you will find the good times and hard are comforted by God. Because God is a God of comfort and joy, a God of eternal hope through all circumstances. You start to begin to discern between things that are temporary, things that are eternal, knowing an eternal God. So, brothers and sisters, are you drawing near to God this morning? Are you pursuing holiness? Do you see how your holiness is intimately connected to the rest of your life and the joy that you find in all areas of life. The pursuit of holiness is the pursuit of a real lasting and satisfying relationship with Christ. So disciples pursue holiness, and thirdly, lastly, disciples practice faithfulness.

Disciples practice faithfulness. The last four verses of the Beatitudes, Jesus, knowing that there are rough waters ahead for all disciples of Christ, he calls us to practice faithfulness, especially in the midst of persecution. Look at verse 9 with me. He continues on, he says, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. So Jesus is talking about suffering, specifically suffering that comes as a result of faith.

Jesus is continuing to teach his disciples, he turns from humility to calling them to pursue holiness, and then he comes to an even more shocking commentary when he tells them to practice faithfulness. He says that true happiness comes to those who stand firm and are faithful to God. Right? Blessed are the peacemakers, or in other words, blessed are those who bring peace between God and unbelievers. As God sees it, peace is more just is more than just the absence of war. Peace is the presence of a right relationship, a reconciled relationship between God and man. And so Jesus says that that happiness comes when we appeal to people to turn from their rebellious ways to make peace with God. So being peaceful is not sitting at work and not saying anything about your faith.

Peace is not avoiding the topic of faith. It is not passively standing by and sharing the gospel with friends and co-workers only when it's convenient. Peacemaking is loving others, finding opportunities to share Christ actively with family members, actively, a coworker, a friend who's hostile to Christianity.

Disciples of Christ share the gospel in love, desiring peace between God and man. Now, some of you might be sweating just thinking about that. Going into work tomorrow and sharing the gospel, and maybe you think to yourself, well, I'm just not good at it. I fail every time. I'm not clear, and I don't know how to talk about the gospel. I won't be good at it. But Jesus isn't talking about fruitfulness. He's talking about faithfulness. Because then Jesus says something outrageous. He says, Blessed are those who are persecuted. Blessed are those who are persecuted. So it goes from blessed are the peacemakers to blessed are the persecuted. In other words, Jesus is saying, look, it's not gonna go well.

I already know the result of most cases. But true happiness is found when you share your faith and then you stand firm and you suffer for my sake. When people spit in your face when you try to share the gospel with them, or when you lovingly call a friend away from sin and back to God and they yell insults at you, that, brothers and sisters, is a blessing. And you have to have genuine faith to understand this, right? You have to have an eternal perspective to understand this, that when we find our ultimate hope in this life and in the things of this world, persecution will come and then we'll be done. Like the parable of the sower in Mark 4, when the seed is planted on that rocky ground, persecution springs up and quit and they quickly fall away.

Or you're like that ship that is easily tossed by the waves and thrown off course. Our faith will be the first thing that goes out of the window when persecution comes. But Jesus says, for the true disciples, we will not be tossed by the waves. They will stay the course. They will remain faithful to him. And when we remain faithful, the Lord is faithful and promises that we will arrive safely to shore. Brothers and sisters, true happiness comes when you are faithful in the midst of persecution. And when that happens, not if, but when that happens, because persecution will come to disciples of Jesus Christ. It's not a very popular thing to say, but even in the church, that if we live true, live true lives, gospel-centered lives, we will begin to live in a way and already are seeing this in our world, in our society.

We will live in a way that is contrary to the world's teaching and expectation, and we can expect to face persecution. And scripture is very clear about the Christian faith being incompatible with the direction of our world.

Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. While evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. Persecution will come, brothers and sisters, if not already. Persecution comes in many forms. It might be the coworker who treats you poorly because of your faith, the family member who's disowned you. It might be a friend who says harmful things to you because you tried to share the gospel with them, or a relationship with a boyfriend or girlfriend that has become tense because you started taking your faith seriously. Persecution is not something that we provoked, but it's a result of a life lived out in faith. So this morning, are there areas of your life where you're being persecuted for your faith?

Are there tense relationships? Or do people treat you poorly because of your faith because you're a Christian? Maybe your friends are challenging your integrity and asking you to do sinful things. Maybe there's peer pressure, or your reputation among your family is bad because of your faith. I know for some it almost seems easier to kind of just fudge our faith in these areas just to keep a friendship. But remember that eternal, that the eternal promises of the Lord outweighs the temporary promises of avoiding difficult circumstances. That true happiness is found in the comfort that God gives us when we are faithful in the face of persecution. Or maybe you're here this morning and you're not facing any persecution.

Well we can think back to the disciples and the crowds who are sitting there listening to Jesus as he gives his sermon on the mount, who are enjoying the ride of this popular leader, a powerful teacher. Everything was good in that moment. And yet Jesus starts talking to them about peacemaking and persecution because though they aren't facing persecution then and there, he knows what's on the horizon. And he's saying, look, the Christian life requires faithfulness because things won't always be this good. So how will you respond to persecution? How will you respond when your love for God is hated by the world? When our faith is real and we practice faithfulness, the world can take away a great deal from us, but it cannot take away God's promised blessings of comfort and strength and joy and deep abiding happiness.

Are there areas of your life that the Lord is calling you to be faithful, even though it might mean persecution? Our eternal reward in heaven is our fuel for joy and faithfulness. Whenever I think of faithfulness, I think of a story of a pastor named Joseph San. Maybe some of you have heard of him. He was persecuted in Romania in the 1970s. I just want to read about his testimony, and we'll close with this. In 1977 in Romania was under communist rule, and Pastor Joseph San recounted a time when he was being interrogated by men who were threatening to kill him because of his ministry. And this is what he writes. He said, During the interrogation, I said to an officer who was threatening to kill me, sir, let me explain how I see this issue.

Your supreme weapon is killing. My supreme weapon is dying. Here's how it works. If you kill me, you know my sermons will be sprinkled with my blood, and everyone will know that I died for my preaching. And everyone who has a tape will pick it up and say, I better listen to this, to what this man preached, because he really meant it. He sealed it with his life. So, sir, my sermons will speak ten times louder than before. I will actually rejoice in this supreme victory if you kill me. After I said this, the interrogator sent me home. Another officer who was interrogating a pastor friend of mine told him, We know that Mr. Son would love to be a martyr, but we are not that foolish to fulfill his wish.

I stopped to consider the meaning of that statement. I remembered how for many years I had been afraid of dying. I had kept a low profile because I wanted badly to live. I had wasted my life inactivity. But now that I had placed my life on the altar of God and decided I was ready to die for the gospel, they were telling me that they would not kill me. I could go wherever I wanted in the country to preach whatever I wanted, knowing that I was safe. I realized that as long as I tried to save my life, I was losing it. Now that I was willing to lose it, I found it.

And when we do these things, we truly find and live a good life found in Christ alone. We rightly see the value of the treasures of this world compared to the treasures of the kingdom of God. So, brothers and sisters, be encouraged to live a gospel-centered life for God's glory. Will you pray with me? Father, we are so thankful for your grace. We are so thankful that we have been called to something better, something greater, Lord, beyond what this world can offer. And because of that, Lord, we can live boldly. We can live pursuing the things of God, knowing that those will bring us great joy. We thank you for the ways that you've blessed us. You've the ways that you've saved us, the ways that you've called us to live in our daily lives.

We ask that you would help us to pursue those things. We give you all the glory. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much for such a good word. For us as Christians to truly pursue humility, holiness, faithfulness. It really means to just pursue God and to follow him wholeheartedly. And sometimes it's discouraging and difficult in this life, but we trust in him because of what he has done. So let us respond in worship. May we all rise and just sing of Christ, how he is our sure and steady anchor. He's the one that we hold to and follow in this lifetime and into eternity. So let's sing together. Christ the shore and steady in theory of the storm.

In the winds of thou flow through me. And my sins have all been torn. In the suffering, in the sorrow, when my seeking hopes up here, I will hold fast to thee. It shall never be sure.

And steady.

I will hold fast to the anger. It shall never become Christ the short steady anger through the God being. Oh bless somehow. Oh my soul now with your eyes to caliber me. With my bow of the shore's love ever.

It shall never be rebound.

As we face the wave of death. When these trials give way to glory as we draw our final breath, we will cross radar for the storm that we endured right the door of salvation, ever faithful, ever to hold fast to the anger. It shall be provided the benediction comes from First Thessalonians five twenty-three.

Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, he will surely do it.