The sermon by Scott Brown explores the Beatitudes as outlined in Matthew 5, highlighting the characteristics that define a true Christian. Jesus, as the good shepherd, provides direct and personal guidance to his disciples, teaching them about the essence of true happiness found in the Kingdom of Heaven. The Beatitudes are presented as foundational elements of the Gospel, beginning with 'Blessed are the poor in spirit,' and building upon each other logically. The sermon emphasizes the transformation of dispositions in God's kingdom, particularly focusing on mercy, which is seen as a divine attribute that involves recognizing and acting upon the pain of others. The sermon contrasts worldly interpretations of mercy and peace with biblical definitions, stressing that true mercy is rooted in God's character and often involves action rather than passivity. Jesus' teachings suggest that happiness and peace in the Christian life often come through persecution for righteousness' sake, highlighting the paradoxical nature of the Kingdom of Heaven. The sermon calls believers to examine their hearts, focusing on pure motives and the vision of God, and to embrace the journey of sanctification. It concludes with a reflection on the profound joy and happiness that come from living in alignment with God's kingdom, despite the challenges and persecutions that may arise.

We'll be reading Matthew 5, 7 through 12. 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 they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, For great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. May God's Word bless you in this day. Amen. Have a seat. The Lord Jesus has gone up to the mountain.

He is seated and He is teaching His disciples. He is a good shepherd and he speaks very directly and very wonderfully to his disciples. He's speaking to them and of course the multitudes are there as well, but you get a window into the personal discipleship of the Lord Jesus Christ as He instructs His children. While we were singing this song, you know, come let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker. You know, He is our Shepherd.

He is such a good shepherd. And what we see in this passage is another wonderful example of what a good shepherd he is. As a shepherd, he takes us right down to the most important areas so that we can consider them. So the poison might be taken away so that the troubles, the cares, and the sins can be relieved. And so here Jesus Christ is teaching his disciples.

These are of course called the Beatitudes. He's laying a foundation. The Beatitudes work in a very logical manner. And Jesus begins really with the beginning of the Gospel. Blessed are the poor in spirit.

Those who realize they have nothing to bring to God except the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. That they're a humble people because they recognize their sinfulness, how short they fall before Him, And so that's the kind of people they are. So he begins laying a foundation, and each beatitude builds on the next. If one is true, then the next can be true in your heart as well. If that one is true, then so the next one can work as well.

And Jesus is moving through in this manner. Now the Beatitudes really are telling about what it means to be a Christian. What does true Christianity look like in the heart and also in the world? And so what he's doing, he's explaining what it means that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. He's explaining what it means when you pray, thy kingdom come, thy will be done.

He's showing you what the Kingdom of Heaven looks like, and it's very different from the Kingdom of the devil, the kingdom of this world, and it's so very different from the little kingdoms we've been building in our own hearts. And so Jesus comes and says, no, my kingdom is so good. It's far superior. It's wonderful. And so That's why he and his prophets so boldly say, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

You want pure water, there it is. You want bread that's satisfied, there it is. You want light that's truly light, then there it is in my kingdom. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." And so what we see here is that also the Beatitudes and the whole sermon here has a very, very clear structure. He's beginning to speak about the essence of true happiness, and that is the entering into the kingdom of heaven.

There's really only one true happiness, and that is in the Lord Jesus Christ. We search, we long for happiness, we try to put it together by acquiring things, by shining up ourselves and doing all kinds of things. But in reality, there's only one true happiness in the world, and that is the seeking of the Lord Jesus Christ. What the world is so searching for is really to be found somewhere. You can get it, but you can only get it in the Kingdom of Heaven.

And so he's saying, what does this look like? What does this happiness in this kingdom look like? And then after going through this, he says, well, here's what it's like. It's like salt and light in the world. So he begins to work from the heart, and the first four Beatitudes are really about the things between God and man, the things in the heart between God and man.

And then the second set, the last four, are about what it looks like in the world. And he ends by talking about salt and light. So you see the logic of how Jesus is moving through here. He's taking his disciples, you know, one step at a time. And then after he speaks about the light and the salt, there's another way that life, the life of the Kingdom of God is given into the world and into the human art, and that's through the law of God.

He spends the greatest amount of time speaking about the applicability of the law of God. The church needs the law of God. The world needs the law of God because of this happy kingdom. And so while the law has gotten such a bad rap today, Jesus is really presenting the law as a source of blessing, as a source of the help and the goodness of His kingdom. And So you can see the structure that is here.

So the first three focus on God's relationship to man. And then the first four, and then the final four focus on the way that we relate with people. But notice this, the way that we relate with people is not just about shining up our outward selves. It all begins in the heart. So That's sort of the basic coordinates for this whole thing that we're involved in here this morning.

And then we come to verse 7, blessed are the merciful. And what Jesus is saying is that in His kingdom, our dispositions are transformed. And we begin to think like God. When you look at the use of this term in the Bible, particularly if you look at the Old Testament, you find that this term is used of God. This is one of God's great characteristics.

And that's why in, that we read in Micah chapter 7 verse 18, that God delights in mercy. So we're coming into something that God delights in. It's something that he loves. And what is mercy? Mercy is many, many things.

But let's just try to jam it into a box, and all of mercy doesn't fit in this box. But mercy sees the pain. Mercy has the ability to see that there's pain. And then mercy does something about that pain. And so he says, blessed are the merciful.

So it's a disposition of the heart that cares about the sufferings of others. Now we live in this world and we go through different experiences that harden us to suffering. When we get right down to it, we realize we only care about our own suffering. That's basically how we seem to be wired. But there's something that happens to a person when they enter the kingdom of heaven.

And that is that power of sin is broken. But often that power has been so great and it's developed so many patterns that mercy is hard for us. True, true mercy. We know that some people seem to have a greater capacity for mercy than others. One of the things that I've observed over the years is typically in a church where deacons are appointed, typically the deacons cry more than the other guys in the church.

Why? They're ministers of mercy, that's why. The biblical office of deacon is an office of the administration of mercy in the church and in the community. And so it's a quality of God. It sees sufferings, it sees hardships, and then it sees the pain, and then it does something.

Turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter 12. You'll see how this works out in everyday life. Romans 12 beginning in verse 9. Let love be without hypocrisy, abhor what is evil, cling to what is good. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor, giving preference to one another." He brings up the whole idea of being kindly affectionate.

Mercy bears fruit in affection. It's something that happens in the heart and then it bears fruit. In verse 11, not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. I think that captures the idea of the merciful person. He does something, it begins in his heart and then it moves out.

Rejoicing, not lagging in spirit, serving the Lord. Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer, distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality. These are all acts of mercy. Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.

The whole ability to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice is part of this whole area of mercy. That we are aware of one another, that we see what's going on in one another's lives and we actually care about it. God desires to create a kingdom. That's what His kingdom is about. That's what His churches ought to be about.

It means that we should be knowing one another well enough to understand whether there's a need for mercy. Verse 16, Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own opinion. Repay no one evil for evil.

Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. If it is possible, as much as it depends on you, live peaceably with all men. Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath. For it is written, vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord of Hosts." So there are many sort of fruits of mercy that we see in Romans 12, and there are many, many places that we can go.

We know that God is rich and mercy, and he gives his only begotten son. God here, he looks down upon sinful mankind and he sees his sheep, you know, caught in the brambles, fallen into a pit, crazed sometimes and he is rich in mercy and he sends help from heaven in the form of his son. And it comes out of his great love. When we get to chapter 9 in Matthew, we'll hear Jesus say, Go and learn what it means. I desire mercy, not sacrifice.

I desire... And what he's saying is that, you know, Human beings, they desire outward formalities. They desire to clean the outside of the cup. And Jesus is saying, no, go and learn what mercy really is. Go and learn from me that I desire mercy and not sacrifice.

This is what we see all over in the Gospels in the life of Jesus. He sees the demonized man who's cutting himself and he's terrifying everyone in the countryside. And Jesus has mercy upon him, he has compassion upon him. And he goes to Him. You know, when Jesus speaks of those who are truly His children, He says, I was sick and you visited me.

Well, He's speaking about mercy, that there is this quality of the people of God. Now here's what I know about you and here's what I know about me, that there are people in this church in whom God has helped them to show more mercy than some of the others. And so this quality is presented here before us as a quality of the kingdom. It's for all of us. It's not just for those who have an enormous gift in this area of mercy.

But he would have us all touch this way. That we would be a church, a merciful church. That our hearts would not be hardened toward those who are suffering, who've been beat up, who have been tormented by the devil in their lives, who have made enormous mistakes and sinned and now are getting beaten to death because of their sins. What happens to us when we sin is that we bleed. And here the Lord Jesus says, blessed are the merciful.

Now, this is not a secularized kind of mercy. This is not a feminized kind of mercy that Jesus is talking about. Now there are a number of ways that we misunderstand mercy, And that's why we have to go and look at God, because God is rich in mercy. So in order to understand mercy, you have to understand God. What does God do in showing mercy toward His people?

His great act of mercy toward us is that he killed his own son. So mercy includes things other than just having nice feelings about people. It actually does something and mercy has an enormous cost to it. For example, we might misunderstand mercy and we might think that mercy is like passivity, where you see something is going wrong and out of your passive nature you don't do anything about it. You might feel something about it, but you don't do anything about it.

Mercy is not the same as being passive. Mercy is not the same as ignoring sin. We often think that mercy means you ignore the sin. That's not the biblical content of mercy. You might think that when you're indulgent, that you're performing an act of mercy, that's not always true.

Mercy is indulgent, but it's indulgent in a particular way. And often indulgence is a disfigured kind of form of mercy. It's not mercy at all. Apathy is one disfigurement of mercy, where we see things that are going on and it's rather our apathy rather than our... We call it mercy, but it's actually apathy, because nothing is done.

Silence might be an expression of what's something that we might call mercy, when actually it's hatred. So we have to define mercy properly. We have to understand God and how He expresses His mercy. Because the content of mercy is often delivered Through things like justice and righteousness, and sometimes even through punishment, you might think, well, I'm being merciful to my child, I'm not going to spank them. That actually might rather be an act of hatred rather than mercy.

So we have to define our terms. Scripture helps us to define the terms so that we understand what true mercy is. Yes, mercy, the heart breaks at mercy, but what does it do after its heart is broken? In Leviticus 19 verse 17 we read, You shall not hate your brother, you should rather rebuke. And so even in rebuke is mercy.

So rebuke can be the most important act of mercy that you might find. You know, somebody said in a Bible study, those who drive around in their cars with bumper stickers that say coexist aren't actually defining mercy the way that God defines mercy. Mercy is not just coexistence. Now when it was mercy, it was mercy when Jesus met the woman at the well and He said to her, you have five husbands. That was mercy.

It was mercy when Jesus met the woman at the well and He said to her, You have five husbands. That was mercy. It was mercy when Jesus said to the harlot, You go and sin no more. It was mercy when Jesus said to Nicodemus, you're a dead man, you must be born again. It was mercy when John the Baptist said, you brood of vipers.

So mercy often doesn't look like the way that it's most commonly defined. When Jesus said to the demon, get out of him, or when he said to Peter, get behind me Satan, It was an act of mercy. So we have to understand what mercy really is. The merciful person is not winking at evil, it's not ignoring sin, it's not smiling it's not smiling upon law breaking. It's mercy when you say to the brother who's out of work, if a man doesn't work neither shall he eat.

That's actually a merciful statement. So we often pervert justice and mercy to the poor, to ourselves, and all kinds of other people because we don't understand mercy. So godly mercy presupposes that there is sin there, and it takes action. Now we learn in the book of James that if anyone is sick, let them call the elders of the church. And then in James 5, what we learned that part of the conversation is supposed to be about sin, because often sickness is related to sin.

So in this act of mercy of going to the sick and anointing them with oil and laying hands on them and praying for them, all that mercy also includes asking them, Is there any sin that you need to repent of? Whenever you go and pray for the sick, you should consider whether there has been sin there. And that's also an act of mercy. So here, even in the calling of the elders of the church, you see how mercy is actually defined. It includes facing up to the real issues that are going on in your life.

Mercy goes out of its way, like the Good Samaritan. So when we read this, Blessed are the merciful. Here's what we ought to do. We should examine ourselves and ask ourselves whether mercy has left us or not. And We need to recognize the danger that our souls are in when we've lost a sense of mercy.

And I want you to turn to Psalm 109 to illustrate how true this is. Psalm 109 beginning in verse 8. Now when we pick it up in verse 8, what we find are really some terrible things said about a certain person. In verse 8, Let his days be few, and let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.

Who would wish that on anyone? Let his children continually be vagabonds and beg. Let them seek their bread also from the desolate places. Let the creditor seize all that he has and let strangers plunder his labor. Let there be none to extend mercy to him, nor let there be any favor, any to favor his fatherless children.

Let his posterity be cut off, and the generation following, let their name be blotted out. Now, go to verse 16. Why? Why? Because he did not remember to show mercy, but persecuted the poor and needy man that he might even slay the broken heart.

Now, we should examine ourselves regarding mercy, because there are terrifying implications to it. God, when He looks down upon us, He sees our lack of mercy. He sees how bankrupt we are in it. He sees the ways that we have ignored His mercy. He sees the ways that our hearts have not broken for our brothers and our sisters.

He's seen us walk by the unbelievers in this town and sneer at them because they looked in a way that was displeasing. He sees our lack of mercy. And so here, what Jesus is saying is that the Kingdom of Heaven is about mercy. And mercy sees suffering, and then it rises up and and it does something you know what you know what does more damage to mercy is that people love their comfort more we we might We might have a pang of brokenheartedness when we see something, but because we love our own comfort, we don't say what we should say, And we don't do what we should do. So Jesus is saying to his disciples, this is the kingdom of heaven.

Now, Jesus Christ comes and he breaks the power of sin in his children. And he sets in motion a force in their lives. It's the work of the Holy Spirit, it's the work of sanctification, that they might grow in mercy. I dare say that no one here in this room has grown enough in mercy. I know that for me, this week, I flashed before my eyes many, many of the things of lack of mercy have come back to me.

And I've seen how merciless I've often been. I think I've been merciless to almost every person I've ever known. I've been merciless to my wife. I've been merciless to my dear daughters. I've been merciless to my son.

I've been merciless to my fellow elders. I've been merciless to everyone I know. That's what... We need to understand As we're here before God, desiring to seek the Kingdom of Heaven, that we're on a journey here. And part of that journey is the journey of mercy.

So we should really examine ourselves this morning about this matter, about where has mercy fled us? And you're probably like me, you can think of lots of different people and lots of different situations where when you look back at them you're so sorry that you were so stupid and blind and sinful and selfish and seeking your own comfort. But Jesus is a good shepherd and he's teaching his disciples what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. He's showing them. He's taking...

Do you think the disciples had all this mercy thing wired? I don't think so. We can point to dozens of situations where we know they had no mercy at all, but they needed a shepherd. And here we have a shepherd, our Lord Jesus Christ. And then in verse 8, blessed are the pure in heart.

Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. What is this purity of heart? Jesus is speaking of our innermost motives, and He's identifying the way that sin operates on our motives. Our motives are mixed. We have many mixed motives in all of our conversations, in all of our dealings, in all of our thoughts, in all of our planning.

We have all these mixed motives. And so Jesus is speaking about mixed and unmixed motives. And of course, to be pure and hard is to be unmixed in motive. And Jesus uses a beautiful word here that most of us are probably are familiar with with its English form. It's the word catharos, and it's the word from which we get catharsis, a complete purification.

It's a word that indicates just a total cleansing of the heart, of the motivations of the heart. So there's a moral purification. As I'm saying this, I'm pretty confident Most people are really clear in their mind that they don't have this kind of moral purification. And what we see with this beatitude is what we see with all the beatitudes. And that is that the purification for it can only happen one way, by the one who was pure, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ.

He is our purity of heart, when we don't have purity of heart. You know, in the same way that when Moses preached the law to the children of Israel, they realized that it killed them. They realized that they could not stand before it, and they cried out. And we too are the same way. When we read this, when we read this law of purity, we realize that we can't stand up against it.

We have no defense. We have no way to argue that somehow we have this. We can argue that we've been saved by the mercy of Jesus Christ and He has unleashed a force in us for our sanctification that there would be a progressive purification, sanctification of the motives of the heart. This is what's hopefully is a blessing about being in Christ many, many years that one year after another the purifications are, The purification is greater. Now what hypocrisy does is that it presents an outer presentation, an outer shell, but it always has behind it an impurity.

And so Jesus is speaking about this. And it's a wonderful study to consider what God has said about the heart. There was a book written several years ago by a man. It was a book for men, and the book was called Wild at Heart. Maybe some of you read that book when it came out.

But the proposition of the book was follow your heart. But what the author failed to recognize and thereby led millions of men astray into a completely wrong understanding of their lives and how they should construct their lives and how they should see themselves as men. At the beginning of the book he properly diagnoses really the loss of manhood and then he replaces it with this wicked proposition to follow your heart. When we know, we know from Scripture what happens in the heart. In Genesis chapter 6 verse 5 we read that the Lord saw the wickedness of man and that it was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

This author, he failed to recognize what Jeremiah said in Jeremiah 17 that the heart is deceitful above all things and Jeremiah actually says it's beyond cure you can't even cure it there's only one cure The man cannot cure this impurity of heart. It's a work of the Holy Spirit. The word working with the Spirit in the progressive sanctification of the believer is the only way that this is actually even accomplished. Jesus himself said in Matthew chapter 15 that out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander. These are the things that reside in the heart.

So, men, you have no business following your heart. Your heart is deceitful and wicked. This is why we read in Scripture from both the New and the Old Testament, Love the Lord your God with all of your heart. That's really our only hope. That is how the Kingdom of Heaven is unleashed in our lives as we consider our hearts before God.

So we ought to be doing a heart check. Now remember, blessed are the pure heart. He's talking about motivations. So what we ought to think about when we consider this verse is our motivations. And so it's appropriate to ask, what's driving you?

Why aren't you doing what you're doing? When you're sitting with your wife, more this week than the previous week, I've been asking myself, why am I saying this to her? Or sitting with another man? Why am I saying this? Why am I doing this?

Why am I picking up this book? What are my innermost motivations? Are they pure motivations? Are they motivations that come out of a vision of God or a vision of my own self-promotion? You say, blessed are the pure heart, for they shall see God.

So the condition of our hearts is very connected to our vision of God. They're intimately intertwined. And we always have to ask ourselves the question in our motivations, what God is driving those motivations? Is it the true God? Are you seeing God, the true God?

Or are you being driven by another deity? Now we read in John that no one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him. So no one has seen God at any time. But here, we learn that there's a way that you see God.

But I thought God was immortal and invisible, the only wise God. So how is it that we can see God? Well, it's obviously not something that we see with our human eyes. It's not something physical, it's something that is spiritual. You can see this in the book of Hebrews, turn to Hebrews chapter 11, verse 24, where this whole idea of seeing God is displayed before us, Hebrews 11, 24.

By faith, Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin. Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than treasures in Egypt. He looked to the reward. By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king. For he endured as seeing him who is invisible." He was seeing him who was invisible.

So what does it mean to see God? Moses is a great example for what it means to see God. Moses saw two things. He saw two different kinds of pleasures. He saw the pleasures of the world and he saw the pleasures of God.

Those two things were set before him. They're two very different kinds of pleasures. There's sort of, there is a kind of pleasure in evil. It's very short-lived, it's very destructive, and it will kill you. It tears you apart.

Nobody ever escapes the judgment and the wrath and the collapse from entertaining sin. Nobody ever did for a minute. You might say, well, sin is bad long term. No, sin is bad short term too. It's bad instantaneously.

If you commit adultery and it might feel good for a minute, no, you might think that felt good for a minute. No, actually, you're not seeing it right. The poison of the devil was there. The knives of darkness were stabbing you at that moment. No one ever participates in any kind of evil for a second without getting harmed by it, even though it might seem to feel good for a second or an hour or something like that No, nobody nobody is able to beat that system But Moses he saw that kind of pleasure He saw the pleasures of God and pleasures of man And he turned away because he had a vision of God, because he understood that God was good.

He understood that there was a good shepherd. He understood that there was light and bread and water that was pure and good and pastures that were green. He understood that. And so Moses was, because of his vision of God, he was able to see the two things standing in contrast. And so he rather chose, he chose the pleasures of God rather than the pleasures of Egypt.

So Moses had a vision of God. Here it says that he saw God. So that's the kind of seeing God that happens in the purity of heart. The best thing you can do for your children, the best thing you can do for yourself is give yourself a vision of God so that you can see how good that He is. The most important purification of The heart happens in theology, in understanding God.

The doctrine of God is what we need the very, very most. It's so steadying, it helps us to understand. So when Jesus is up on the mountain, he's with his disciples, he's playing the role of a good father, of a good shepherd. He's teaching them about the relative value of purity and impurity, and what it gets you, and how you get it, and what happens to you. It seems to build on itself.

If one is aware of the impurity in his heart and he confesses it and he turns toward God. He sees God. And his vision of God comes back around to strengthen him again. It's a repeating cycle that happens. The confession of sin leads to a vision of God, which leads to more purity.

And so our motives become less and less mixed. Hey, think of the value of a friend whose motives are unmixed. Can you imagine what a blessing it would be to have a friend like this? Can you imagine what it would be like if you were a husband like this? Think of the woman who's married to a man like this, whose motives are pure, whose repenting of his sins and he's seeing God.

There is such enormous value in a husband or a wife or a friend like this. So many of our problems are related to this issue right here. I dare say that most of the problems in your marriages here in this room, the conflicts that you have, the difficulties that you have, you can trace it right back to this purity of heart and a vision of God. You have all these motives, you're so self-driven, you're so selfish, you want what you want when you want it the way you want it and as a result you're in conflict but it all goes back to purity of heart you've been converted but you have so far to go in your marriage because you because this is still this responsibility is still upon you to examine your heart and see if there's any wicked way in you. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Think of a church full of people like this. What a blessing it is to have a church like that. And think of the kind of community that God desires to build. God is building a kingdom, and part of that kingdom includes the way that we relate with one another in a church. This has to do not only with what you're like as a husband, not only what you're like as a wife, not only what you're like as a mother, not only what you're like as a friend, but it also has to do with the corporate gatherings of God's people.

That as we collectively, our hearts are broken for our impurities and we're aware of them as we're speaking to one another and we stop scamming one another, we stop playing games with one another, We stop trying to be somebody before one another. Rather, our hearts are pure. We're there before God with the vision of God with our brother and our sister and our eyes are clear and our motives are unmixed. And what a blessing it is to have a church member like that. You see the kind of kingdom that Jesus is speaking of.

What a wonderful kingdom. Here Jesus is up on a mountain teaching his disciples, like a good shepherd, what good kingdom there is in his name. And then, blessed are the peacemakers, verse 9. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Now, what is peace?

Again, as we've seen in previous Beatitudes, definitions matter. And the term that Jesus is using here is a term that indicates things being set in order. Things that are of such a character that well-being, you know, describes them. And I want to suggest that there are two kinds of peace that are being suggested here. Peace with God and peace with man.

Both of them are here. There is a horizontal peace, the peace with my wife and my children and my brothers and sisters and my co-workers and customers and suppliers and the government and everyone, there's a kind of peace that's implied here. And the Bible gives us so many ways that we operate together so that there is a kind of peace with one another. Like for example, the Lord's bond servant must not be quarrelsome. So there are all kinds of qualities.

Be tender-hearted, forgiving one another, looking unto yourself. There are all kinds of ways that God gives us to show us how we have some kind of peace with one another. John Calvin was right to say it's not the same thing as being peaceful. He said this, to be at peace with everybody would mean you have turned your backs on God. So it's not that kind of peace.

There are different categories of peace that I believe are implied here. But this is a person, and this is what I think we need to really understand. This is a person who makes peace. So it's about an action. Remember we said earlier that The first four beatitudes are about your relationship with God, and the second four are about your relationships with men.

This is about how you're a peacemaker in the world, what you do. So the focus really is upon action, making peace. And it's a very unusual word that's used just right here, but it's about a person who is intent on making peace. And of course we would have to say that that means that a person would have to make peace in God's way, not in man's way. It may mean that you make peace by being swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to rap.

That's a way of making peace. Much of the turmoil in your marriage can be tied to that as well. You're not slow to speak. You're not slow to anger. You just pop off.

You say the next thing that comes to your mind. And then everything is blown up in your family for an hour, a day, or maybe a year, maybe a decade, because you don't know how to make peace. You never learn how to talk. You never learn how to speak to people rightly from God, and therefore you get married and then you don't know how to talk to one another. So every time you have a conversation it's a big blow up because you didn't learn how to make peace, you didn't understand that you're supposed to be slow to speak, quick to hear, and slow to anger.

You didn't learn this better to ask questions and just keep learning before you shoot your mouth off. So there are ways that we make peace in horizontal kinds of relationships. But we have to ask you what kind of peace is being made here? It's not peace at any price. It's not the same as appeasement.

And the world defines peace generally as appeasement. How can you get two parties to come and agree? How can you get to a win-win situation? That's sort of the world's view of peace. And So two parties in conflict come together, and they find ways to make appeasement.

We have diplomats who bring people, try to assemble some kind of peace. But the problem with the world's peace is that you have to, at the end of the day, say, they're just crying, peace, peace, but there really is no peace. It's because it's not a biblical kind of peace. It's a man-centered, worldly kind of peace that compromises the gospel, it compromises the truth, And it compromises love, true love. So it's a different kind of peace.

Martin Lloyd-Jones said it was like this. The peacemaker is one who is not always looking at everything in terms of the effect it has upon himself. Often we don't make a godly peace because we really just care about ourselves and how we're coming out of the deal. And so that's what he's saying. He says we look at everything as it affects us.

And So we define peace that way. He says, what is the reaction upon me? What is it going to mean to me? At the moment, we think that there is a necessity for war, because everybody else is doing the same thing. Everybody looks at it from his own self-centered point of view.

He says the first thing that we need to say about the peacemaker is that he has an entirely new view of himself. So, Lloyd-Jones is saying rightly that in order to make a Godlike peace, you have to look at yourself differently. You have to think of yourself as a different kind of person in the conflict and in the mix. He says this, You have to have a new view that amounts to this. He has seen himself and has come to see that, in a sense, his miserable wretched self is not worth bothering about at all.

The peacemaker has only one concern, and that is the glory of God amongst men. So unless somehow in the peacemaking the glory of God is the goal, then you won't find the peace that you're trying to get to. So when my own comforts or my own opinions or my own whatever is standing in the way of the peace, you will always at the end of the day say, peace, peace, but there is no peace. Because the glory of God is not at the center of the discussion. It's the glory of man.

It's appeasement. It's making man feel good. It's sending man on his own way. We know that Jesus said, I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. So often, when you have, you can have a godly kind of peace, but there be a division.

Often peace is accomplished through division. And it's right, it's right in certain senses to cause division. Because Jesus brings a sword of division. Often the only way you can make peace is by the sword of division. That's by the way the only way that God makes peace with man is by separating the sheep and the goats.

It's the only way that peace can have. He had with mankind only a certain subset of mankind. So peace is not a feminized worldly peace that just says can't we just all get along. It's not that kind of peace at all. That's not the peace of God.

When God wanted to make peace with the world, he sent his only begotten son, and he put his son on a cross, and then poured his wrath on his son. That was peacemaking. So we have to be, you know, we have to be mature about things. Often we have such immature understandings of things, of things like mercy and peace. And what would grow us up?

The knowledge of God. To understand what peace really looks like and how peace is actually made. Now the peace that we enjoy with God came at an enormous price And someone's comforts were compromised. And when we make peace in a godly way, it almost always means that someone's comforts are compromised. Because we're talking about the peace of God that comes from the glory of God.

So in any kind of conversation or situation where the glory of God is not the center, if there's some other motive out there, You will never have the kind of peace that he's talking about here. You know, there are many in the world who have no peace with family members. There's no peace with a brother where there was once peace, a kind of peace. There's no peace with an in-law or father or mother. And This division has happened because of the gospel.

And it's right to have that kind of division. So while we think that we can fix the world by sending diplomats, negotiating one to another, getting to some kind of a win-win. This is not what this passage of Scripture is talking about at all. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they should be called sons of God. Again, here Jesus is showing the disciples how to be a peacemaker.

It's all wrapped up in the whole doctrine of what it means to be a son of God. Jesus Christ was the greatest peacemaker that ever lived. And there was so much tumult. There were so many times when he was attacked and men wanted to destroy him. But he was being a peacemaker.

The division that he caused in the families was as a result of his peacemaking. So we need to grow up in our understanding of peace. My guess is that many of us here today are trying to make peace in a way that will never bring peace, not biblical peace. And then he says, blessed are those who are persecuted. Verses 10 through 12.

Isn't it interesting that he speaks of peacemakers and then he's helping us to understand what happens when you try to make peace. Do you see that there in the text? It's very logical. If you are a peacemaker, while you're fulfilling the commands of God horizontally with people by being tender-hearted and compassionate and not reviling one another or slandering one another. You're making that kind of peace.

At the same time, if you are a full-blown peacemaker, In other words, you're not just a half-blown peacemaker who's just a nice person, but you actually are a full-blown peacemaker. Something happens. Things blow up, and you are persecuted for righteousness' sake. So that's the progression. If you are a peacemaker, then you'll find this other thing happening to you.

So here Jesus is with His sheep and He's bringing them up, he's maturing them, he's helping them to see how things ought to be and how they ought to think about these things. Do you think that these disciples had any problems in peacemaking? Do you think they were half-blown or full-blown peacemakers? Well, they were probably one or the other, because that's pretty much what we're like. We're a mixture of things.

So Jesus says then, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake. Now this persecution comes from being different and saying things that would cause people to be different. That's how the persecution happens. And believers are different because they are serving a different kingdom. They have a different definition of peace and love and mercy and goodness and grace.

They operate by different definitions. Their dictionary is this dictionary. And because of that, they think differently, they talk differently, they act differently. And because of their membership in that kingdom, because their kingdom is not of this world. Because of their membership in the kingdom of God, because of their peacemaking, because of their purity of heart, and all the things that have already been mentioned all the way up the line, because of that they cause conflict.

And to be persecuted is to be pursued. It's actually a word that means to pursue. So what Jesus is saying is, you know, as you're poor in spirit and pure in heart and a peacemaker, you know, all these things along down the line, then the result is, you will be pursued. People will go after you. That's part of persecution.

It is the essence, really, of persecution. And Jesus gives them more detail about what persecution looks like. But He's helping them to understand that they will be pursued. And that's why Jesus said in Matthew chapter 10, do not think that I came to send peace on the earth. He's just assuming that they will be pursued and persecuted.

I don't know who was it that said, you know, the problem with Christians today is that nobody wants to kill them anymore. That's a real problem with the church. Hey, there are reasons why nobody wants to kill us anymore to our shame. I really believe that if we were living godliness in Christ Jesus, then there would be people who would want to kill us. And you heads of households, you fathers and mothers, you need to recognize that you must put your family in danger, in this kind of danger.

The Gospel puts your family in danger. But if your Gospel is so whitewashed and so underweight and so worldly that no one wants to kill you and you should ask yourself what kind of a disciple you are. This is a question I've been asking myself. What kind of a disciple am I? My.

Jesus said, you know, a servant, a servant is not greater than his master. If they, If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will keep yours also. So here, again, we learn the beauty of the Kingdom of Heaven, you're pursued, but you're also happy. Now, heads of households need to also make sure that their families are happy.

And your happiness grows through persecution. Blessed are those happy are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness. So it's also a way of happiness. You would think that persecution is a way to discouragement. Well, that's not the way that Jesus Christ meant for it to be.

He meant that these persecutions would cause your happiness. If you find people who have been thrown into prison from a bunch of different perspectives, they become some of the happiest people you'll ever meet. Their prayers are more passionate, their love grows, their happiness grows. People who've been thrown into prison And abused often report how happy they were, that it was like heaven on earth for them, to be in that prison cell with rats and rotten food and abuse and torment. They say these are the happiest times they've ever had.

This is the blessing of the Kingdom of Heaven. God, when He sends persecution to His church, sends it so that they'll be happy. Blessed are you. Happy are you. We learn here that it is a sign of membership in the Kingdom of Heaven, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven and Then Jesus tells the disciples what it looks like You know he's gathered these disciples together, and he's he's actually sending them out to die All but one All but one of them died martyrs' deaths.

And when they joined Jesus Christ, they were signing their own death sentence. And here Jesus is counseling them about how to get through the times of persecution. And he's counseling us now. He says that it looks like this, it looks like reviling, reviling, to be upbraided, to have things said about us. So persecution doesn't always include death, but it does include reviling.

So again, we should grow up and not be so thin-skinned about being reviled. Often when people say mean things about us or they, you know, they put something on the internet about us, we're so disturbed. We haven't really followed the martyrs and their deaths yet. It's a pretty lightweight kind of persecution. But this is part of it, you are reviled.

This is part of persecution. And then there is persecuting, the pursuing, and then there is thirdly saying all kinds of evil against you, and then it's falsely. So things are said against you and that they're false. So people will make up things to say about you. You know, if you've ever read any of the testimonies of Fox's Book of Martyrs, you'll recognize that this is true about the martyrs, that the persecutors of the martyrs make many, many false accusations.

Usually it's about 50-50. About half of them are true. You know, you believe, you know, you don't believe that you should pray to Mary. Yes, that's true. But then something completely not true.

And that's usually how it works. They bear false witness against you. How do you deal with that when people bear false witness against you? All you can do is continue to speak the things that are true. That's all you can do.

And then Jesus says, He commands His disciples to respond in a certain way. Verse 12, rejoice and be exceedingly glad. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad. And then he gives reasons for it. He says, because great is your reward in heaven.

So he's helping his disciples to understand how they should get through persecution that is coming to them. And one of the most important things that they can do is to have their focus on heaven, to consider their reward in heaven, to have their minds focused on heaven, not on this earth. They're going to lose everything, but they will gain the kingdom of heaven. They will have left fathers and mothers and families, and they will have left houses and lands, but they'll receive far more in the Kingdom of Heaven. So Jesus is helping them to get through persecution by helping them to think about Heaven.

That this world is not their home. And then He's also not just giving them a vision of the future, but he's also giving them a vision of the past. He said, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. So Jesus, in such a kind and beautiful way, he says, how do you deal with all the revilings and the false accusations that are going to come to you? Do two things.

Think about the future and think about the past. Get historical. The great help that history is for us. In just a few days, Our family is going to be traveling to a city of great persecution, the city of Rome. And we're going to stand in the Colosseum, where many were persecuted.

We will be doing this. We will be thinking about those, the prophets who were persecuted before us. And we'll be talking about them and thinking about them. This is what Jesus is saying, think about those who were persecuted before you. You should understand what happened to the martyrs.

You should understand Noah. You should understand Jeremiah and Moses and David and the various ways that they were persecuted. And you should also understand how the prophets of God were persecuted and how other people of God were persecuted. So I'm thankful for the opportunity to be able to stand in a place where many were slain for the Word of God. And I'll be doing exactly this.

I'll be applying this verse when I stand there. Well, we can apply it right here now. We can apply it this week by considering history. You know, Jesus said that if the world hates you, know that it hated him first. He said, know that it hated me first.

So Jesus sets himself as the first line of the one in place for hatred. And then those who follow him also are in place for hatred. If the world hated me, they'll hate you. And of course we have to mention that he's talking about being persecuted for righteousness sake. Because often we're persecuted not for righteousness sake.

We're persecuted because we're selfish. We're persecuted because we say things that are not true. We're persecuted because we're immature. We're persecuted because we're hateful and selfish. And we steal and lie and we break the commandments of God.

Often the hatred we get from the world is from that, not from righteousness. And we have to understand that there's a difference. And that every believer is going to stand with both of those upon them. And so here what we find is the Lord Jesus is preparing for a holy church, a fearless church that does not fear man. Now so here we are as a church, and what does that mean for us?

So let's resolve to be this kind of church. That we would not fear the revilings of man at all, somehow. Anyone who has ever tried to share the gospel with an unbeliever understands this fear and has shrunk back from saying things that they should have said, gone places they should have gone, and been people like they should have been. And we so shrink back. I pray that somehow we would be found with this kind of happiness, with this kind of blessedness, that the rejoicings in this church would be so great because we've been persecuted.

If you want a happy church, You cannot have a happy church unless you are a persecuted church. People walk here and they say, you know, I'm looking for a happy church. They need to be careful to understand what they're asking for. I pray that that's the kind of people that we are, that we are this kind of happy church, completely fearless and trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ with our eyes looking in two different directions, Heaven ahead and the prophets who went before us. And know that we stand in a place of history now.

We know who we are. We know where we stand. We have a place in the world. It's ordained by God, and He's placed us as a little church in this community. He's placed us here for persecution.

All those who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. And God has placed us here for that. Some of you moved here from a long way away, and you thought maybe that you were coming to a nice little church where everybody was so good and happy and helpful and families are just such an order and everything is beautiful and it's just such a wonderful community. I am so sorry that is not why God brought you here. He brought you here to persecute you, to convict you of your sins and maybe to kill you so that there would be happiness in this world.

Happiness in heaven and happiness along with all those who have gone before us. So here we find ourselves in the midst of these eight characteristics of a happy people. The characteristics of Jesus Christ's happy and wonderful kingdom. We've just walked through really what is the clothing of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because Jesus Christ is the perfect fulfillment of every one of these.

And so you can say, you can hear the words, blessed are the pure in heart, for theirs is the King of Heaven." And you can say, Oh God, my heart is not, I am not poor in spirit, but Jesus Christ was poor in spirit. And you can read, blessed are those who mourn for their sins. And you say, Lord, I don't mourn for my sins like I ought. Jesus Christ mourned for sin completely. Or the meek or hungry and thirsting for righteousness.

Or your lack of mercy or your lack of purity of heart, or your lack of peacemaking, or your lack of persecution. All of these things are meant to do something for us, and that is to remind us of such a great Savior who made a sacrifice for every one of these sins that we have. And that's why we can say, and be so helped by the gospel of Jesus Christ. And why this whole sermon is about the gospel, we can say, by His stripes you are healed. And that's where all the happiness is.

Let's pray. Oh Lord, we thank you for this wonderful help you've given to us. Thank you Lord Jesus for taking your your own children on on the mountain to teach them to sit there to take the time to explain the world and the way it really is. To shed light in the darkness and to help us understand what's pleasing unto such a good shepherd. Oh Lord, I pray that you would help us to make progress in all these things.

Amen.