Don McClure delivers a profound overview of Matthew 5, emphasizing the significance of the Beatitudes and the transformative power of Christ's teachings. He highlights the importance of recognizing our spiritual poverty, mourning over our sins, and the necessity of a strong will to follow Christ's commands. McClure stresses that true happiness comes from living out these principles, which lead to a life filled with mercy, purity, and peace, ultimately reflecting the character of Christ. He challenges listeners to examine their hearts and wills, urging them to allow Jesus to reign in their lives and to embody the salt and light of the world.

Matthew chapter 5 and If you'll stand I want to read a little out of it And we are going to do just to tell you what's happening here. You're looking Matthew 5. Wait a minute Here's the point. If you don't do it, right the first time you have to do it over again So we're gonna start all over No, actually, I'm tonight in next Wednesday. I'm gonna do an overview of the entire sermon tonight chapter 5 next week Six and seven we've been in it for so long I just kind of want to take a couple evenings and wrap it up by going back in and doing a thing through it But I just want to read What we know of course is the Beatitudes and but verse chapter 5 verse 1 and seen the multitudes He went up unto a mountain and when he was set his disciples came unto him and he opened his mouth and he taught them saying Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven Father we thank you for this Unbelievably wonderful and awesome sermon and Lord we pray that as we just kind of wind it up that you would just bring to the forefront of our thoughts on this sermon things that are Critical to our lives and our understanding of it We thank you for it. We asked Lord you'd write this very sermon in Wonderfully in the tablet of our own heart. We ask it in Jesus name. Amen Well, the sermon on the mount is I think I probably said more times that I even could recall in one sense it to me It is truly Truly an awesome sermon I suppose if there's any time you could really use the word awesome in in a way that have really been held in awe of Something I believe that's the way we ought to be about the sermon the mount in the sense that it's it's awesome in its simplicity You don't have any trouble figuring out in a sense of what it's all about. It's awesome in its clarity It's awesome in its power. It's awesome in its truth It's also an awesome in its wisdom in its ministry to us here in these three chapters. I personally believe there is more To chew on in these three chapters, I suppose in any other three chapters in the Bible. That would be my own assessment of it and You can it's a you need the rest of the Bible I think to meditate on it and to be able to put it together in a sense But once you begin to see the message and see its flow it to me. It's absolutely awesome And it's also though to me a message that when a person begins To hear it begins to listen to it there. The difficulty isn't following the sermon to me at all The difficulty is never an understanding the sermon sometimes I think we sometimes in life, you know We just have a difficulty tracking with something or we have a difficulty understanding or Comprehending or well, what do we do with this? Well to me the sermon the mound it's it's none of that The only real difficulty I suppose to me that there is in the sermon the mound is the issue of the human will The will to once you understand it, it's so clear. It's so simple But then to follow it then to adhere to it then to love it to agree with it to let the sermon do its work To long that its message would truly be written in the sense You might say on the tablet of our own heart That there were the will to love the sermon and to have it come to life in in our lives And I suppose that's to me one of the great issues of the issue of the will and One of the things to me about the human will that's always interesting to me a little bit is sometimes I listen to people and they'll Talk about their life and their struggles in life, and they say well my problem is I'm a strong-willed person And or you know, we there's all sorts of books and psychologists have picked up on this thought, you know of being strong-willed and strong-willed children and raising Strong-willed children dealing with strong will and I don't know about everybody else particularly But I know a little bit about myself I suppose and I think I'm somebody that could easily fall into that category of having people think you can be strong-willed But in my own personal estimation, my problem has never been being strong-willed It's been weak-willed in the sense of where when God's will is laid out And when God's will is made known when it's right in front of me. I know what it says. I understand it It's clear. It's simple. It's obvious but to having my will so weak so Lack of courage within my own heart there within my own life to determine. Yes. I don't care what it cost I don't care what the issue to me That's not when I go off and do my own thing that isn't a strong-willed or a rebellious will it is that I suppose But it's a weak will It's having a will on one hand, you know to to want to do something But yet not having the will to truly follow up on it and to carry it through And to me, I think one of the great issues in the Sermon the mount is when I look at something and I read it do I truly want this more than anything in the world and Or is my will so weak That I just kind of end up going wherever anything else is going around me And not to say that the will is the answer in and of itself or it certainly is Paul says in Romans 7 18 for I Know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth. No good thing But how dare he says but how to perform that which is good He says I or that that which is good. I find not he says to will is present within me I just don't know how to do it. And so Paul though was a man. He was to me I suppose you could call him a strong-willed man and in the right sense of the word He was a man that when you look at Paul, whatever it was that he believed God wanted him to do and be He did it He was a man the law as concerning the law or keeping the law or a Pharisee and the level of will no matter what it Took he would live up to it with everything that there was within him It's just that how to perform that which is good. He didn't know he had the will to do it He didn't know how to do it and to me There's a huge difference one when Paul finally found out the message of the gospel and he found out how to perform it And then you take a will that was truly a strong will like Paul's not a weak-willed person a strong-willed man And then you take that will and then when he found out how to perform that which is good And you mix those two things together. You've got a fabulous Christian experience ahead of you. You've got a wonderful Life that's going to be laid out but more often than not our problem is being strong-willed. It's being weak-willed It's knowing it's all there. God's made it known now. Do I want to do it? But the wonderful thing I suppose about the Sermon the mount is that it tells us how to perform that which is good When I look there and say God, I want to live a godly life. I want to live righteously before you I want to live the way you want me to live. I really and truly do Then is when this wonderful message begins to come together and I believe lays it out And here is Jesus. It says seen the multitudes He went up unto a mountain and when he was said his disciples came unto him and he opened his mouth and he taught them Here looking once again at the crowd Seeing the crowd he goes up into a mountain sits down as disciples come and he begins to me to unfold to them Graham Scroggie once wrote a series of books. I liked it was called the unfolding drama of redemption I love that title and I and to me the Sermon on the Mount is almost like the unfolding drama of redemption how does God bring me into a great sense of redemption in my life and Here in the the Beatitudes are where it's all starts Seeing the multitudes he goes up and he sits down and they open his mouth and he taught them and he said blessed her Oh, how happy are the poor in spirit here? He looks in the very first quality of somebody that wants to know how to perform they want to live they want to fulfill It's coming to that place that they can look at their own sin nature and we realize it's there. We realize how sinful we are We realize that our inability to live righteously to live pure to live godly to live morally to live spiritually We don't have it and we find ourself becoming Spiritually poverty-stricken we look around and say God what went wrong and then Jesus said oh how happy them are the meek when somebody there He can just be honest about himself And the wonderful thing about being immensely happy. There's no task to it. There's no job to it There's nothing you got to do other than then will to be honest And if you and I can be honest with ourselves, we won't have any trouble being poor in spirit All it does to be poor in spirit is just require honesty No more superficiality and thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought to think but just cutting it down to the real truth of what? We are and then it's when I say well then I've got to admit I'm poor in spirit And then he says oh how happy are they who mourn? Somebody there they see that poverty-stricken state of their life and they mourn over it there's a genuine grief as you may recall even when a loved one has died a Sorrow that a death has occurred and I'm looking there in a sense outside myself into my own heart and I'm saying this is so sad Somebody created in the image of God and yet something has robbed me. I'm Spiritually poverty-stricken. I was made to be like God and look at me It's tragic and I begin to mourn I sorrow is at the death of a loved one But then that produces a meekness. Oh, how happy are the meek now that there is something that occurs instead of coming before God and shaking my fist at him and tell him you owe me this or this isn't fair or all the other things that in life That we can so often and so easily say I just gent Humbly and meekly I come before God and as the publican who couldn't even so much as look up and lift up his Head under heaven and he smote himself on his breast. He says God be merciful to me a sinner I've blown it. I don't deserve anything and I hope you won't give me what I deserve I just asked for your mercy and Jesus said this is gonna be an immensely happy person poor in spirit They mourn over it They become meek before God and that will always Produce you take three things like that and you drain a man and drain a man and drain a man you let somebody Get reduced down to next to nothing and it produces it in an intense Hunger and here Jesus said oh, how happy are they that hunger? After it and thirst after righteousness They're not they're not hungry for the old life, they're not hungry for the nature of the flesh their own weaknesses don't carry God I'm I'm hungry for an entirely different diet than myself. I'm hungry for righteousness And of course, there's none righteous No, not one save Christ himself and I begin to be hungry for God and hungry for his spirit and hungry for his kingdom I begin to have something happen. I realize God I truly want you In my heart and in my life, there's a hunger. There's a thirst it pulsates It's something that just as you wake up every day hungry and you go through the day even have to eat you're hungry again Routinely and a person just because they're hungry. It doesn't mean they didn't eat It just means that they're creating an atmosphere of hunger by their by their lifestyle And to me that when I look and say God, I'm hungry for you And I'm constantly hungry for you in longing for you And when somebody has that I hope it's something every one of us tonight within our heart. We can realize God I do want you and I want to be hungry for you thirsty for you And Jesus said they'll be filled Of course God only has one thing to fill anybody with one thing that he's interested in filling anybody with himself To think of it tonight that God wants to fill you Fill me more than I even want to be filled more. I don't have to come and beg him God, please please fill me Well, I don't know You know, I I just don't know about it. You're just I just don't like filling you You're just no fun to fill or something like that. God isn't that way he is. Do you realize how? Deep his desire is longing to touch and to fill your heart Even a night so we sit here and realize God the only qualification you got to be hungry You got to be thirsty for him. There's got to be something happening. Well, what I really want isn't something from him. I want him And then is when God begins to fill somebody and then he goes on and he says oh how happy are the merciful that now God begins to so fill and so live within me that one of his deepest of all of his attributes deepest of his Characteristics one of the most profound things that there isn't all the world that we'll have all eternity to contemplate is God's mercy That the likes of you and me loved us and he redeemed us and he sent his son for us. He blotted out our sins Conforms us back into his image and why did God do any of this? It's his mercy It's his desire to look at us where he in realizing this pity that he has I know who you were I know what you were made to be. I know what I long to see you again And I want to fill you with myself and when I do I want to give you a merciful heart Towards others, you don't have to live high with a hostile heart or an angry heart Frustrated heart God. Just give me your mercy No, I happy are the pure in heart somebody whose heart Is now be you know becoming pure Not a you know a divided heart and a defiled heart But something there to where we find ourself God. Give me a pure heart Give me a heart that is just holy for you Jesus and when that's happening within somebody there on the road to intense happiness great happiness to an intense joy That they can have when we find ourself God fill me Give me a merciful heart and give me a pure heart And then she said oh how happy are the peacemakers here is somebody now that simply God has taken our own heart our own Emptiness our own sinfulness our own guilt our own inadequacies our own frustrations And he has given us peace within our heart as Christ begins to reign and after he gives us peace Now we begin to have a message to bring peace to other people's lives Don't you love that when you see these things happening within your own life? You begin to you come to the Lord He shows you the way of peace and of hope and of joy He shows you the way of his love you begin to submit to him and you know his lordship And then you begin to see other people whose lives are troubled and messed up and all of a sudden you know Oh, hey, I know what's wrong with you You're messed up And but that's okay. I was messed up Almost as bad as you not quite that bad Though in all honesty, we just aren't prepared to tell him the whole truth But there we look at him and we but but God can fix all of that There's nobody can't think God is not willing that any should perish, but all should come to repentance God loves you He wants to forgive you the battle isn't with your husband or your wife or your job or your health and upon the battles with God You've got to submit to God. You've got to be hungry for him You've got to let him take over your heart in your life. And if you will, you'll know peace Just like that bumper sticker that's been or you see it come and go through the years kind of it's it's you know No, Jesus, no peace. No Jesus no peace, but it's spelled different each time. No Jesus there is no peace Kno Jesus know Jesus and you will Kno peace you if you know him You know peace and the peacemaker is somebody that he knows that and he's usually seen the bumper sticker, too But anyway, but something where we find ourself to where we look say God give me This peace and then let me begin to share it with others And then he goes on though now after this time when somebody's giving their life, they're following the Lord. They're serving the Lord They're thrilled about who the Lord is and what he's doing Amazingly enough instead of the world being so happy that they're now on the planet So happy that we're saved and we're converted and we've given our life to Christ and we're sharing it instead of that There's many in the world that look and say I don't like that. I don't agree with that The Bible says men love darkness for their deeds are evil. There will be some that'll look there and won't go for it Jesus said, you know, he says the servant is not greater than his master He says they've hated me and they'll hate you. They persecuted me. They'll persecute you And he says don't be surprised when this happens And but nonetheless he hearing so he Jesus good now goes on. He says blessed or oh, how happy are they? That are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven He says you'll even be happy when you go out and you share and you live your life For me and for the kingdom and even when people reject it Even when people don't like it, but if you've got the courage and the will To surrender and to live this life you will be happy These are promises. Oh how happy is how? Intensely happy this is a promise. This is a truth not a maybe and That real happiness and we're looking for when I will God. This is the happiness I will to know and to know it all I don't have to learn Greek in Hebrew I don't have to become a great Bible student All I've got to do is be honest with a few verses and I'm on the road Where the gospel and the most wonderful things are laid right out there that you can have walked in here tonight Not be a Christian not know anything at all about the gospel not know much about religion But I believe if you're an honest person you can say I'm poor in spirit. I Am there's something wrong And also in and hopefully if you're honest, you can be sorry about it. You say it's my fault I take the blame and I mourn over it and it can produce a humility a meekness within our heart and out of that and begin to have a hunger for God and These are things that set a person immediately down the road to service and the living before God and then Jesus he goes on He says blessed are ye You know when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake Rejoice and be exceedingly glad for so persecuted. They the prophets that are before you Jesus looks and he says you'll even be happy when you just go out and you can be exceedingly glad When people don't agree with it and they don't want it, but nonetheless to realize Lord I'm included in a great company of prophets and of witnesses that have lived before and And serve the Lord and now I'm included in them Jesus now he goes on and he looks at us and he says after a person has now gone through these beatitudes poor in spirit Mourn over it become meek before God hunger and thirst after righteousness a merciful heart a pure heart become a peacemaker a Willing-to-be-persecuted for righteousness sake I even rejoice when it happens Jesus now looks and he says you are the salt of the earth And if the salt has lost its savor Where was shall it be salted is henceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under the foot of men He now looks at every one of us In the night if you're a Christian and you have given your life to Christ, you're the salt of the earth This isn't something where some people are. You're the salt of the earth if you're a child of God And the thing here is that so often we forget that because we think we're other things But I'll tell you the greatest thing you are is to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world You may be other things But it ought to be compared to being the salt of the earth It's nothing you might you know that you may be a butcher or a baker or a candlestick maker You know or something or you may be a doctor or a lawyer or well I don't know if you can be a lawyer But anyway, but I'm just kidding but the but you may be something else and that you do but that is not what you are She said you are the salt of the earth and when you and I will to do that Wherever you go and whatever you do so often so many of our problems are because we go out in that world thinking I am something else I'm a butcher a baker or a candlestick maker You know, or I'm a something else out there rather. No, I'm salt who happens to butcher Whatever a butcher or bake or make or whatever else you do I just happen to do those things. But what I am while I am doing them all of them. I'm the salt of the earth I'm the light of the world While I'm doing them and to the degree that I'm experiencing the beatitudes I'm experiencing Christ in my life having him enthroned in my life And here this is what the beatitudes are all about just simply the mature Christian life somebody that says I want the Lordship of Christ I want to be mastered by Christ. I want to be a follower You can call it the spirit-filled life the victorious life the deeper life though There's all sorts of things people want to call it But all of this is just as I think watchman knee you're called it the normal Christian life Just the way the Christian ought to be is that I look sir. I am the salt of the earth I am it and And then he goes on he says you're the light of the world He's a city that is set upon a hill cannot be hidden neither to been light a candle put it under a bushel But rather on a candlestick that it giveth light to all that are in the house So let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father, which is in heaven He says you are the salt of the earth You're the light of the world And he says in it and you need to let that light and shine Go to work go to school be in your neighborhood with the opportunity Looking for any and every opportunity God I want to be a friend and I want to be a neighbor and I want to be a good person But I'm not a good friend and I'm not a good neighbor and I'm not a good person if I have the cure For eternal separation from God and don't care for my neighbor enough to shed and I know why the Tendency the reason I believe Jesus said neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel as we do that very easily You can be a Christian and yet at the same time. You're kind of what they used to call The Lady Clairol Christian, I guess that's what it was, you know, we're With Lady Clairol, I think the advertisement used to say nobody knows, but your hairdresser, you know And a lot of Lady Clairol Christians, nobody knows but God knew you know But here it ought to be that everybody in the world we come across We long that no matter what else you may know about me whether you think I'm a good butcher or baker or candlestick maker I don't care about that. I want to know do you know I'm a Christian Do you know that my life belongs to God? That as much as you maybe think you need some meat from the meat market or you know So loaf of bread from the bed from the baker what you really need is life in Christ You know the meat and the bread will get you through another meal But the life of Christ will get you through eternity and when we realize this is why I am alive Yes, I've got other things to say and other things to do, but I want to be the light of the world I want to be the salt of the earth and when Jesus is saying these things I suppose the people must have almost as they would ponder this if this is a new religion I've never heard anything like this. What's he doing? And And so Jesus almost has to put a little parentheses here in his sermon and sidestep it a little bit when he says by the way He says think not that I've come to destroy the law of the prophets I haven't come to destroy it but to fulfill it. He says verily or truly I say unto you There won't be one jot or one tittle that will pass away until all be fulfilled He's looking there and he says this this is what I'm telling you about This is what God wanted through Moses and through the law and through the prophets It's the Beatitudes to tell a human being if you can come before God Offer him your life. Let him take over. Let him fill you Live in his grace live in his power Know his mercy. This is what you're alive for This is why all human beings remain Jesus and I'm not that what I'm telling you right here is new and as radicals It sounds this is the law. This is the prophets. This is the central message of history to man Who God is and who they ought to be before him and here as he shares these things, you know He's so clear on and he goes on He says whosoever Therefore shall break one of the least of these commandments and teach men So the same should be called the least in the kingdom But whosoever shall do and teach men so the same should be called great in the kingdom of heaven He says I'm telling you you want to know how to be great in the kingdom. He says do these things Believe these things you're you'll find a greatness before God. You'll find a greatness in life. You'll find a greatness in existence And if you don't to the degree you don't and you break it is the least down you'll go into it the the you're the experiencing the doldrums of Christianity, but the more that you long to do it and to follow it is Is how your life was gonna be enriched and So then he turns and he said I think not that I've come to destroy the law of the prophets I haven't come to destroy it, you know, but to but you know to fulfill And after this he then after that now they're thinking maybe of the Pharisees and then he says I'll tell you something He says except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees You'll in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven now he turns and he says listen folks What I'm talking to you is so important that these people out here that think they're living such wonderful lives They're not impressing God at all if you want to think you're righteous don't look at the Pharisees because you got to be far more righteous than them and Now to me Jesus now shifts over at this point to get to the real message You might say of the of the Sermon on the Mount in the sense now the the practical aspects of it Because here he's looked there and through the Beatitudes he's saying the whole issue of the Christian life is first to get you out of it and to get God in it and That's what to happen in the Beatitudes when you're poor in spirit and you mourn and we're meek before God We're getting out and through being hungry and thirst after righteousness through becoming merciful pure in heart and a peacemaker Standing before God be the salt of the earth and the light of the world through this price is beginning to live in me And now that you might say I've given my life to him and there's an exchange that's happened and Jesus is being enthroned within my life Now comes the critical things of the tests of life. Did it really happen? Am I really doing it and now in the rest of chapter 5 that will you know finish off the evening with here? Jesus gives us six illustrations Very real things in every one of our lives that we have to deal with and if it's me and my flesh that is still living I'll know it If it's Christ by his spirit that is really ruling. I'll know it For now he turns he said you have heard that hath been said by them old time thou shalt not kill and whosoever shall kill She'll be in danger of judgment And he said I know you've been told these things now. I want to test you on something And he says but I say unto you That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause is in danger of judgment and whosoever Calls his brother Raka or worthless fellow is in danger of the council and whosoever shall say thou fool is in danger of hellfire He looks there and he says do you think that simply because you haven't killed anybody that you're doing fine? I'll tell you you're not If Christ is really in your life The evidence isn't the fact that you haven't murdered anybody. The evidence is you don't care about murdering anybody You don't have the anger towards anybody. You don't have the hostility towards other people You aren't out to look at people and there's nobody worthless to you Because Christ died for them all and now Christ is ruling in his reigning and he's living in your heart And if you find yourself walking around and you can write somebody off and say worthless fellow that one's a fool I'm angry at this one Then he says now you got a product now that the the lordship hasn't happened you need to go back to the Beatitudes You need to go back and realize I'm really not very poor in spirit. Am I I Can I'm still going on here and I'm looking at people and here Jesus said if you Can just carry on in your life being hostile being angry looking down on people Calling them worthless and he said yeah, that's not the the transfer of power hasn't happened Jesus isn't enthroned. He isn't sitting in a heart the way in the place that he wants to have I'm still there and this weak pill-willed person now when somebody comes along and now there's that guy is makes me so mad Why do I have to work with him? Why do I have to live near him? Why do I have to deal with him? But when Christ is enthroned, there's a merciful heart. There's a pure heart There's a peacemaker's heart and now that very person I couldn't get along with I was so angry with Now there's something I find there there with the desire to work it out I didn't want to now come before God and worship and he says Therefore he says if you come to the altar to worship and there you remember that thy brother hath ought against thee And he says there first he says go leave your gift He said I'll first go and be reconciled in your brother and then come back And offer your gift And he says there's something that if you find in your heart God, I don't love I don't care That right there Something stops and says I can't go on And I want to go and get it right I want to be reconciled to my brother I want to get it right with that person as much as I can And then he then goes on as a proscript and he says now be here I also suggest you agree with your adversary while there are the quickly while there are and in the way with him Less than adversary turn thee over the judge and the judge turn thee over the officer and the officer throw you in prison And he says I tell you you won't get out from thence until you've paid the uttermost farthing He looks there and he says you will put yourself in a in your own prison You'll put yourself in your own jail when you've got people you don't like because there's a heart in you that knows I love people I Ought to be caring and yet there's somebody you don't love and you can spend the whole day telling God why he should hate him, too You ever do that? God, I don't know why you're not mad at him because I'll tell you God if you knew him like I knew him You'd be really sore. You know, you'd fix him. You really smack him around, you know And then do some work on him and God says I'm glad I don't know him like you and you should be glad I don't know you like he knows you too Because you know and so often how we look at people and we write them off and then when we do that Now we all go to jail You all go to prison You remember that mean to me the thing is is you may have never been to court You may never have been to jail. You may never been thrown in prison on the outside But I the average Christian I think is in court half the day Fighting the case God or you know, we're too with you Do you know I can't why that you know trying the case presenting it before an audience that isn't there doesn't care to hear it But we're still trying to driving down the street talking about him thinking about him telling other people you want to be a witness for him I'm looking for to put together a jury trial and I want to stack the jury, you know And we're doing all this stuff wanting to take people down So often and then we end up by then we get thrown in prison We sit in our own little incarceration in jail of the loneliness of our own heart because we have written off people The flesh doesn't care about people God does and if God is ruling then I'll care Then I'll care And the next thing he goes on The secondary there he says, you know, you have heard that hath been said by them all time, you know that thou shall not commit adultery and But I say unto you that whosoever, you know looks at a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart and Now Jesus looks at another area if the flesh is in control If the if I have really given my life to Christ Then I'll know it if I haven't Then I'll know it Simply by walking around the planet Just by going to work Because of you know, the natural man, he will lust he will covet the natural person will want people they will want Sexual desires they will want stuff They will want things give it to me and he'll be wrapped up in craving for it The spiritual man is worried about them and here Jesus looks he says, you know I know you've heard that you just don't actually go commit adultery I'm saying to you that if you're having to live under your own skin Fighting these battles of lust and of the covetous heart all the time That is what the flesh is and that ought to tell us that the flesh is still ruling The flesh is still quite alive the flesh is on the throne and the flesh is in control if I'm hating and or if I'm Coveting or lusting it's something there that just simply says these are the byproducts of the flesh The spirit has no problem coveting doesn't do it in interest. It doesn't lust It's pure but my flesh is completely impure and These are the places that we ought to be looking at wanting to you know to deal with within our lives And coming to grips and saying God this is a problem This morning usually Brian and John and Chuck and myself will meet together on Wednesday mornings for a while and Brian and John were gone today So Chuck and I met together and I get in there and Chuck sits down. He wants to show me a video and so I said sure so we sit down and we start watching this video and the video was done by Bill Gallatin's fellowship back it in Calvary and Finger Lakes, New York And it's we ought to get it and let people watch it it's short but it's tremendous that they evidently they went out to a College campus it looks like and they interviewed college students That's who it looked like and they're just interviewing Non-believers just standing there who are willing to answer some questions in a microphone and they asked them. Is there are you a good person? And virtually all of us. Yes. I'm a good person. I'm a good person. I'll you over and over of all of them I'm a good person as they just kind of bunched all that part of the interview one after another and then they came back and Asked them all okay, you know ask them another question, you know, do you you know believe that the Ten Commandments are from God? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Oh, yes. Yes. They're good. They're good and then it's good. That's good And then they said do you believe that you should live by the Ten Commandments? Yes. Yes, I do I really do I know one after another all these interviews stacked one after another packed in and yes. Yes. Yes. Yes Every and I'm a good person. Yes Ten Commandments are good. Then they asked him. Have you ever lied? They said they disliked it he stopped for me. Oh, yes Now, what does that make you in one afternoon's liar? Liar liar liar they all eat a virtual all of a liar and then they you know ask you to another one You know Bible says that if you lust after a woman you've committed adultery. Have you ever lusted after anybody? Yes. Yes Now what does that make you Adulterer adulterer and one after another they say, you know and liar adulterer now Have you did the Bible says I should not steal have you ever stolen? And they're looking Yes. Yeah, I stole. Well, what does that make you thief? You know? The Bible says that you're not to take the name of the Lord your God in vain one after another did you stack these up? It's absolutely fabulous to watch you to say and they said you to ever take the Lord's name in vain yes, you know and the Well, what does that make you and one guy he's sitting there after he said gone. I said I'm a good person I'm really a good person the Ten Commandments are real and usually but those are from God and then after a few minutes He's sitting there. Well, I'm a lying thieving adulterer blasphemer and we've just started, you know I mean in here the guy but amazingly Amazingly after the full admission a number of them said but I'm still a good person Hello, what do you mean in other words? There is not something that has happened where there is there there's a poverty of spirit. There's a mourning nature over There is a meekness before God fill me with another nature. I am tired of being a lying thieving Adulterous blasphemer, you know, I'm tired of having these things within my nature and within my life I am tired of my hatred. I'm tired of this murderous heart I've got I'm tired of this lustful heart and the only escape for that that God gives anywhere in the Bible is his spirit The Bible says by this spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh The only answer ever given anywhere in the Bible. There's not a verse in the Bible that says well Let's see if you don't want to have victory through the spirit I guess maybe if there's a 10-step program You know that we can put together for the people that don't want to have victories through the spirit And maybe if you try real hard you try harder I mean we kind of did the Holy Spirit here for people that weren't really willful But if you can really be willful then maybe you can have victory without God Or else we realized no God made me I fell I now have a nature that is With without the potential of correction of Reformation of repair it is something there that is merely now to be rejected and And can be and ought to be rejected as I want Christ to be enthroned Jesus saved me from the worst enemy in the world myself That's the person now Jesus. He said it looks there and he says you have heard thou shall not you know kill You have heard that thou shall not commit adultery and he says I tell you he says cut it out He says if you're right I offend they pluck it out Therefore it's more profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish that the whole body should be cast into hell He says if thy right hand offend thee cut it off cast it from thee for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members Should perish then that the whole body should be cast into hell and you hear Jesus said you won victory here it is You have heard that hath been said You know that if a man put away his wife let him give her a writing a divorcement you know and and but I say to you that whosoever puts away his wife saving for the cause of fornication causes her to commit Adultery and whosoever marries her that is divorced Committed adultery Here Jesus now looks and he says if you really have the will to live the Christian life if you here's the battleground Here are the issues that every Christian of every generation and kindred and tribe and tongue will have to deal with He's gonna have to be confronted. Do I truly want Christ to reign in me? Do I will to have his life in his power? Flooding and filling my heart in my life so much. So I want to be poor in spirit I want to cry out to God. I want to mourn over my sinful state I want to grieve of it that I can be free of it and be filled with him And if I truly mean it the evidence of it will be that when I see somebody that my nature would be angry with but I see a love I See there a desire to get right with them. I want to agree with my adversary That's the evidence Christ is beginning to rule when I see there that my own nature that would reach out and covet and In lust and there's something that God I don't like that. I don't want that. I Want you to take out of my heart this this flesh that rules and reigns and Jesus you be enthroned in his place And now he looks there. He says no day and you'll also know the difference in your relationships in your commitments and the commitments of life there as he looks there, you know at the third one here where he looks at marriage and The issue of the will again to me You don't have most people at any rate You don't have to be married very long to you come to find that to make a marriage work it takes a sense of will That I had a longing God. I want your will I Want you to be the one to work in this marriage and to save this life and to save our home to build our That is something there to realize the only way that I can keep this commitment The only way I can keep this thing called marriage Is there's God you've got to do a work It's a supernatural work of God because you don't have to get married very long until you realize how selfish you are Did he had did how many of you thought you were selfish before you got married? I never I was not a selfish person before I got married but boy, did I find out how selfish I was when I got married and Basically when I was not married, I just did what I wanted to but I didn't drag anybody with me And then if I wanted to ask somebody to go and they didn't want to go that's fine I'll ask somebody else and so I could be selfish all day long I could go everywhere and if somebody else didn't like my selfishness, that's okay I can replace you with anybody else and Somebody else and I'll sort you through and you just live your life. However, you want to live it and Then you meet somebody that say you're pretty you want to marry me and you talk him into it This is wonderful. I just want one person I want to you know, all this and you know to all these many many relationships. I want one, you know strong relationship I think the Lord looks and smiles He says this will be a good test of if I'm king or not, you know, and you know if I'm really Lord of your life You get married. It's very God's very tricky about a lot of things the way he snags us He wraps it up and he's beautiful wedding gowns and he's pretty flowers and a lot of presents Meantime, I think the Lord's sitting there. This is gonna be good, you know You know, it's like now the gloves come off and we really find out if you really want to be a Christian if you really want to get down into because you get married you find out how willful and how selfish and how Proud or arrogant and demanding? Unloving you can be in here. Jesus said, you know, and it's easy just to put it away This is the undead I quit I'm out of here, but one of the great tests of character is when you get married and now There is this is the the issue of the will to say God. This is your life and our marriage is yours We gave it to you. Just like we gave our lives individually to you. And now we've given our home to you and God by the will of heaven Will make it true And you begin to pray and you begin to seek and you begin to ask God to work and to build it and now it's one of the great tests of human will Do I will to have the Lord really? Enthroned in me so much so as I can share my life with another human being and minister to him And one of the interesting things is God was real open right at the out front when he created marriage God looked and he says I want to create a help me Says help me but in the green Hebrew it means mate. I'm gonna make a helper You hear God puts two people together because he says you both need help You know in the end when we'd stop and realize I mean, that's one of the things that's going on, you know in a marriage You need help in fact just a little little test here if you're if you happen to be here tonight with your spouse Just take a moment. Just very quickly five seconds. Just turn two seconds Look at the other person say you need serious help. Go ahead do that. Just look at him say you need serious help That's what God said. He looked at Adam. He says you need help fella in that He says you need help, you know in in the Genesis 2 18 The Lord God said is not good that man should be alone. I will make and help me for him He needs help And when you get married you need you need help Now hopefully I'd like him now to turn to that same person that you just said you need serious help and now say to him And I'm the one to give it. I mean, that's what it's all about But see we'll all agree they need help God they need help. You will tell everybody at work. My wife needs help My you'll go to the neighborhood the leather. My husband needs help. This guy really needs help And he thinks you know what he thinks about he thinks I'm his nursemaid. That's what he thinks He thinks he wants a nurse. He wants a mother. No, he just wants to help her Well, we want he'll never go to me. So, you know some my husband thinks I'm his helpmate You don't do that because that's what he thinks and that's what the Bible says I'll tell you my wife. She needs this. She that she thinks I'm her helpmate. That's exactly what we are and the great test of it is In marriage to where we find ourself. We make a commitment and it's so easy to walk away from it and here Jesus He looks there and he says if I'm enthroned and if I'm King you find yourself doing things differently And he says and again you've had heard that hath been said by them of old time thou shall not forswear thyself But shall perform to the Lord thy nose He says but I say unto you he says swear not at all neither by heaven It's God's throne or by the earth for it's his footstool or by Jerusalem. It's to say the great king And here Jesus looks he says, you know people we we have this Another area that if Christ is really King If he's really on the throne if I'm really filled with him if I'm really the salt of the earth I'm really being this the light of the world. I'm really having my life dealt with Then there's there's something he's dealing with my with other people and my love for people and my lack of anger towards him he's dealing with with my Lustful heart he's dealing with making commitments and keeping looking at the world. I'm here to help you I'm here to serve you. That's why I live That's why every one of us is alive We're all help mates for somebody in one sense We all ought to be here to minister and to care and to think of it particularly though in a marriage And then he says the next thing you notice about the evidence of a Christ is really in throne is when they speak When they open their mouth, you don't have to say now. Do you swear swear to tell the truth? Do you mean that really? Come on, tell you know, you know cross your heart. Hope did I stick a needle in your eye, you know or something? We're here, you know sort of a thing. I want to know that you really mean that truth But here Jesus says that you'd be let your yay be in your navy name for what cometh the more of this cometh of evil He says if you've got to look at somebody every word that comes out they ought to but they ought to know that you're telling the truth Yes, I'll be there. I'll be there tomorrow. Really Will you? You told me that yesterday in the day before now, do you really mean it? Yeah, I really mean it Okay, he doesn't show up. Well, you're gonna be a yes. Yes. Oh really this time on your mother's grave, you know Well, yes all my mother's grave Never did like the woman anyway, or whatever else somebody may think because if you don't intend on keeping your word But when somebody looks there and they find the capacity to to live and whatever they say It's the truth It is whenever they make a commitment Whenever they make a promise It's something that can be trusted and Jesus says this is something that's the evidence of being in Christ enthroned And he said, you know that you have heard, you know an eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth But I say do you resist not evil? He looks there and he said, you know you anytime somebody, you know does something, you know It's always a tit-for-tat always you did this Kevin then this is you know, you know Responding to whatever it is that happened But one of the wonderful things about the Christian if Christ enthroned when something happens to him They don't have this immediate knee-jerk reaction, you know, that's just gotta come back gotta get even And rather than that, there's a brokenness. There's a humility within them. They know what it is to turn the other cheek To walk the other they are they, you know, they're sued they sue you and you know And for your coat giving your cloak also if and if you they compel you to go with a mile go with them, too When there's this desire now that looks there. Hey, this is a wonderful opportunity. They just hurt me They just said that about me They just did this to me and this is a wonderful opportunity to be salt and to be light and To go rather rather than reacting there, you know to it to find herself. They're wanting to to Respond in love that's salt. That's light, you know Peter He says that about Jesus who that when he was reviled he reviled not again And when he suffered he threatened not but he committed himself unto him that judges righteously There when anything could happen Jesus just said father. This is in your hands You'll take care of this I don't have to worry about it and These are the great evidences and then lastly where we'll hold it off tonight, you know that You know that you have heard that it hath been said, you know that thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy You know, you've heard that any you just love whoever it is You want to love and then who you don't like it's okay to hate him And as Jesus looks at this he says this is not the way heaven operates This isn't the way that the Holy Spirit operates. He says I send you love your enemy You know the wonderful thing I mean on one hand the Bible in Romans 5 it tells us about that if when we were enemies we were Reconciled to God through the death of his son Well much more being reconciled shall we be saved by his life, but he says, you know every one of us We were once an enemy of God And yet Jesus looked at that and he says Not from my side Maybe from your side you resist God and you fight God and you just in the end and you argue against God and you think he's a non-issue and You write him off, but we'll never write you off in one by one. We're sitting here tonight because though we were once enemies That God looked at he says no Over my dead body And then we won't be enemies He looked there and Jesus gave his life his dead body for if when we were enemies We were reconciled to God through the death of his son and here Jesus looks and he says, you know You've heard it's okay to love your neighbor and hate your enemy He's I'll tell you the wonderful thing is is that when Christ is enthroned your enemy becomes your friend before he knows it And you're willing to give your dead body in his place You're willing to pray for him and to love him and to find yourself, you know, caring in ministering and When you and I when we look there and says God this is what I want. This is what Sermon on the Mount is all about Next week we'll pick up and we'll do we'll do the last two chapters But the thing to me is maybe tonight as we as we close it maybe in your own heart You you have an issue with the will I? Hope none of us have struggled with understanding this last what 50 minutes. I Hope every one of us realize I see what the gospel is Now I understand it now the issue is what do I want to do with it? Do I look for example at my hatred that I can have towards my brother? And do I want to keep that hatred more than I want Christ enthroned in my life? Because that's the choice with every one of us tonight Do I want you know The the pornography on the internet or the affairs or these other things more than I want Christ to be enthroned in my life Those are the issues Do I want to break off this relationship more than I want to see what God can do to fix it and to heal it And make me a helpmate Do I want to break my word and go do these other things more than I want Christ to be King and Lord of my life and hopefully we look there and you and I we look and say God I want Jesus Christ to be king and I realized the battleground of where his kingdom really is is in my mind It's in my heart. It's in my anger. It's in my lust It's in all the things that every human being has to deal with always has And when I realized this is where the throne wants to be established and God do I want it so much so as I will I've got to mourn over it God, I am sorry. I Am this way the weak-willed person will just say well It's the way it is. Isn't it? I don't have the courage to do much about it. I just keep doing it But the strong-willed person God if you have an answer and now I know how to perform that which is good. I've found it in Christ Jesus be enthroned Jesus deal with my heart Jesus take this anger out Jesus whenever I find myself lusting coveting Lord be enthroned Enemies tempting drawing me away. There's the battleground be king And whenever I find myself looking and saying no, I don't need this marriage who needs this This man, I don't even think God could fix this woman. I don't even think God could fix this man. Are you sure about that? I'll bet he can But when you and I realize it's gonna take God it's gonna take you to do it he says that's true That's true on the throne of your heart and I can do a lot of things But you've got to be one that's committed to it like I am Then is when I'm enthroned This is what the chapter 5 is all about. Let's pray dear father how we thank you and we praise you for the simplicity and the Awesome nature of this sermon the clarity of it the power of it And Lord, I pray that you would help us to do battle where it really is and maybe tonight some whether it's just keeping their word whether it's Loving their enemy Whether it's really looking at their marriage and being a helpmaker all these areas All different in all of our lives and yet the issue is the same in every one of us Jesus Will you be king or not? Well, I let you be enthroned or not Well, I let you work well, I look in realizing I married to somebody that needs help And then look at you and you say that's exactly why I created you To be a helpmate for them Now help them It's your call It's how you're sold. It's how your light. I'll give you all you need and Lord. I pray that whatever it is Maybe some of us being drawn away by our own lusts Whatever it may be angry at people Jesus take these things out, but may we realize they're only taken out as you're enthroned To want those things to be absent without wanting you to be present cannot happen Lord I pray that tonight we'd find ourself fill me Fill me with your righteousness fill me Lord with a life in such a way as the anger must leave Fill me with your love fill me with your strength in such a way is the last has no place Lord, may you help us. May you strengthen us in Jesus name? Amen