Mike Bickle emphasizes the significance of the final four beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount, focusing on mercy, purity, peacemaking, and the reality of persecution. He explains that true mercy involves a commitment to righteousness and the importance of showing tenderness to those who mistreat us. Bickle highlights that purity of heart is essential for experiencing God more deeply, while peacemaking requires both avoiding strife and actively restoring relationships. He concludes by addressing the inevitability of persecution for those who stand for righteousness, encouraging believers to respond with joy and humility, knowing that their reward is great in heaven.

Thank you for the spirit of grace. Lord, I ask you for the manifestation of your grace and the speaking and the hearing of your word. I ask you to mark our hearts even now, Lord, in the name of Jesus. Amen. Well, we're continuing on our series on the Sermon on the Mount. Today we're going to look at the final four of the eight beatitudes. We looked at the first four beatitudes in our last session. We'll look at the last four beatitudes, just very brief, each one of them in this session. For those that are new with us, I'll give the quickest review. Paragraph A, the Sermon on the Mount is Jesus's most comprehensive statement of how we are to cooperate with the grace of God. And the high point on the Sermon on the Mount is to walk in the eight beatitudes. That's what Jesus is after, that we would intentionally focus on developing these virtues in our life. These eight beatitudes reveal what God's like and they reveal what God wants. We need to have our faith strengthened for grace to walk out these eight beatitudes. We hear about faith teaching, typically it's focused on miracles or finance, but we need faith teaching to give us confidence that the eight beatitudes are really within reach in the first four beatitudes, the ones that the world sees as negative qualities. The last four beatitudes the world sees as positive qualities. Those are the ones we're looking at today. Paragraph B, in each of the eight, the Lord promises blessing. Blessed are the merciful, blessed are the pure. He says this eight times in a row and there's several facets that are involved in the idea of this blessing, but the one I've been focusing on is the blessing of having a vibrant heart, a vibrant spirit, that we feel the presence of God in our heart. We enjoy the word, we're fascinated with God. There's an anointing of God on us when we pray because our natural or typical experience is to have a dull spirit, to feel bored, spiritually bored, though we love God. The word's boring, prayer's boring, the whole thing's boring, but we love God. And Jesus is saying, if you will intentionally, consistently pursue these eight beatitudes, as a lifestyle, you will have a heart. Most believers, they mourn over and they're pained over a dull spirit. They try everything but the eight beatitudes as a lifestyle. And I want to say this, there is no other way to a vibrant heart. Every other way will be a disappointment. These eight beatitudes as a intentional and consistent lifestyle is the only way to the blessedness, Jesus says. It's not one of the ways, it's the only way. Well, let's look at the first one. We'll spend more time on mercy than we will the other three. Jesus said, blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. Now, he's talking to people who already have received the mercy of being born again. He's talking to people already forgiven, people in the kingdom, citizens of the kingdom. And he's saying to those that have already been forgiven, they've received that introduction to the grace of God, he says there's a a greater experience of mercy in your everyday life than it's yours. But it's contingent upon you walking out mercy. Now, the subject of this mercy Jesus is talking about is a big subject. There's a full range of of heart attitudes that are involved in this one beatitude called mercy. It's a many-faceted diamond. Now, giving this mercy to people is essential to walk in blessedness or vibrant spirit. Now, there's a lot of understanding around the subject of mercy because some folks reduce mercy to God, the idea that God doesn't care about our sin, you know, boys will be boys and, you know, hey, you blew it. I'm God of mercy, don't worry about it. And there's a lot of misunderstanding about mercy. The call to mercy is not the call to be casual about sin. I call that unsanctified mercy because in our receiving and giving of mercy, it's always with the view to strengthening people's resolve to walk in righteousness. Now, King David understood this in Psalm 130, verse 4, talking about the mercy of God, he says, Lord, with you there's forgiveness. We can receive mercy, but there's an end goal in mind when God offers His mercy. It's that we would renounce our sin and walk in the fear of the Lord. Lamentations 3, verse 22, tells us His mercies are new every single morning. Here's the idea. God will offer us mercy every single day to give us a new beginning every day. But the purpose is that it would give us confidence to renounce our sin and walk in the fear of the Lord. Two examples I don't have in the notes where Jesus offered mercy in John 5 when He healed a man. He healed him and then He said, now don't sin anymore. You've received the healing, now follow through with the meaning of the healing. Don't walk in sin anymore. John chapter 5, verse 14. Then when He forgave the woman, the immoral woman, John chapter 8, verse 11, He said this, I've forgiven you, I don't condemn you, but now don't sin anymore. He said the same message to the man He healed as to the woman He forgave. God is equally merciful as He is holy and righteous. He never suspends one attribute to exercise another. He doesn't suspend His mercy to show righteousness, and He doesn't suspend His righteousness to show mercy, but He expresses them together. He gives us mercy that we would be emboldened and enabled to walk in righteousness. He calls us to righteousness, but He knows we're weak, so He offers us mercy. The idea I'm making, the point I'm making, the kind of popular view of mercy as disconnected from righteousness is not a biblical view. It's mercy under righteousness. Paragraph B. Now there's various ways to show mercy, and some of them are quite different from one another. I have several of them written there, and we could add to that list, but I'm only going to highlight three of them. Various ways to show mercy. We are to be tender towards people who mistreat us. That's an expression of mercy. We're to be tender towards the people that annoy us. They don't mistreat us. They just bother us. The Lord says, be merciful. We don't think of mercy related to that, but, or people that complain against us. They don't always say it to our face. They sometimes whisper behind our back. The Lord says, be merciful towards them. People that are different. They're just different. They act different. They talk different. They want different things, and we go, you know, we might be put back, and the Lord says, I want you tender towards them. It takes the grace of God to do that. There's mercy towards people who fall in scandalous sins. The Lord says, be tender towards them. There's mercy, and one of the primary definitions of mercy is showing sympathy followed with good deeds, with action to people in great need. They're suffering because of poverty. When we reach out to the poor, that's a ministry of mercy. Or those that have a chronic sickness, or those that are in oppression that we want to help deliver, or those suffering various trials, that in the scripture is called giving mercy. Now, in all of these situations, the end of paragraph B, here's the point. We are to help these people, very different situations, each one of them, to feel accepted by God and to feel valued by God. Part of extending mercy is to seek to convince them of how valuable they are to God, and the fact that God really does accept them if they will say yes to him. But it's not just that God accepts them. The ministry of mercy is also to convince people that you accept them, and others in the body of Christ accept them. And when people feel accepted and helped, that is what mercy is about. But the most challenging is when the people we want to feel accepted by God and helped and valued are the people mistreating us. That's when mercy becomes up close and personal. That's when mercy becomes costly in terms of our fleshly, you know, perspective. Colossians 3, Paul said, put on tender mercy. Mercy is related to a tender spirit. There's a tone about mercy that is to be tender and not to be harsh and annoyed. Be kind. Kindness and tenderness are closely related. He goes on to say humility and meekness, those are similar. Then long suffering. Now, of course, long suffering means to suffer long. We actually suffer. They bother us so much. The Lord says, I know you're suffering, but suffer long. It's real. That's what he calls us to. He goes on in verse 13. He makes it really personal. He goes, bear with them. The reason you have to bear with them, because they're troubling you. Then he goes on, he goes, some of them are complaining against you. They think you're wrong, and they're talking about it. Paul goes on at the end of verse 13. He says, forgive them and deal with them tenderly. You must do this. Look at that, the end of verse 13. You must do this to walk in the kingdom lifestyle. It's not optional. Now, we start showing tender mercy in our families. Sometimes the most familiar relationships, the marriage and the family, that's where we can be the, the most presumptuous in our Christian life. So, well, you know, it's my husband, my wife, my children, my parents, my brother, my sister. You know, I've known them for years. It's not a big deal. The Lord says, no, that is the premier place to exhibit tenderness. It's the most challenging. Then in the workplace, the people you work with, or on the ministry team, the people that you're working closely together with in the Lord, or in the neighborhood, that guy two houses down that just absolutely bothers you. The Lord says, I want you to have a tender spirit. Be kind to them. Kind? I'm just going to ignore it. I'm going to look the other way. The Lord says, that's not, no. I want you to give mercy, and if you'll do it, the Lord says, I will see to it that you will experience more mercy. Not forgiveness in the sense of your salvation. That's already yours. It's a free gift. You will experience more mercy in your circumstances, on your heart. You'll feel the presence of God more. And I will see to it that other people give you mercy. I'll orchestrate events. So even as born-again believers on our way to heaven, the free gift of salvation, the way we show mercy will actually determine the measure that we experience in this life. Let's look at the three, just real quick, of the long list I gave of the people we show mercy to. Number one, to those that mistreat us. Now this is the most common application of mercy within the spiritual family. We're all believers. We're all working together, relating together. But some believers, they mistreat you. Those that are close and some far away. They tell lies about you. They don't think they're lies. You say it's not true. They're subtle lies, but they're untrue. And they take your stuff. They want your position. They want some of your honor. They want to see you pushed aside, and they want to be in your role. Whether in the marketplace, in the ministry, whatever. You work closely with them, and the Lord says, I want you tender towards them. I want you kind towards them. Kind? I just ignore them. Okay, we'll call it even. No, I want you to actually show them mercy. This is really challenging. This is demanding. Now in the IHOP world, I've never seen mercy more challenged than when one worship leader steals another worship leader's bass player. I mean, that's intense. I mean, they'll give up their boyfriend or girlfriend before they give up their bass player. That's funny because you're not a worship leader. But I've seen drummers and bass players, the two highest commodities, go back and forth, and all kinds of turbulence happens. And we think that's funny, but it's not funny to the worship leader at all. Well, you could think of analogies in every single sphere of life, but because we're all believers does not mean somehow we're in a situation where we don't need to constantly show tenderness, literally, not figuratively, literally kindness and tenderness. It says in Matthew 5 verse 44, bless those that curse you and do good to them. They spitefully use you. This happens within the body of Christ. It's not just unbelievers using you. It's believers using believers because just because you're a believer doesn't mean that God's finished working on you. Now this happens. We need to bless those people that spitefully use us in our families, in our ministry departments, in the marketplace, on the worship team, in the neighborhood, in the workplace. We have, they spitefully use us. They mean to use us. It's not accidental. They actually mean to. And the Lord says, I know that's how it works. I want you tender towards them. I want you to bless them. Top of page two. Now a very different application of mercy is showing God's tenderness and sympathy to people who are suffering. It's a very different manifestation of mercy. This is the illustration, this is the application of mercy that Jesus talked about in the parable of the good Samaritan. In Luke 10, in verse 38, he calls it mercy. Where there's a man suffering on the roadside, a couple people pass by and they ignore him. They see his suffering, but they ignore him. The Samaritan passes by. He sees his suffering. He crosses over the road to the suffering man. He bandages up his wounds, carries him to the end, pays the bill, leaves the guy at the end and says, I'll be back later to pay even the bill that develops. Jesus said that that's mercy. That's what I want you to do. It's the, it's being moved to action to help alleviate and minimize the suffering and the misery of other people. It's sympathy that takes action. See, because a lot of guys walked by that man on the road and they no doubt had sympathy. He was bleeding and beaten and bruised and they just said, I just can't stop. Undoubtedly they felt something, but it's not mercy if there's not action that follows. Now when I look at the IHOP family, I see a lot of people who take action. They put action with their sympathy. And one of the highlights that I just got a couple that come to me that I just want to affirm is in the last three or four years, the rapid increase of the number of families that have adopted fatherless children into their home. It's remarkable. I mean, it's very God-like to do that. I mean, to take a fatherless unwanted child into your home and make them yours for you. You shall receive mercy even in this life. You're already forgiven. We're not talking about forgiveness. We're talking about God will order that mercy comes your way. He'll make, he'll see to it that you experience more. While you say I haven't, I'm not called to take them into my family, but there's a lot of families helping families. A lot of individuals helping families, a lot of singles that are helping families that are taking in children. Beloved, that's action. That's mercy. I think of the work we do in the Hope City, down among the poor in the inner city. There's no financial return. There's not much recognition at all, but God sees it. You're taking action. I still think of the work in the Exodus Cry and human trafficking. And I could go on and on and give a number of examples. Paragraph C, there's another dimension of mercy, different than the two. It's showing tenderness to somebody who has stumbled in a scandalous sin. Now all sin is serious, so what is a scandalous sin? That's not a biblical category, but what I mean is a sin that's of the level that it alters their life and their relationship. Some sins, if you partake in them, it alters your life and your relationships. A marriage is over. A guy goes to prison. I mean, it really alters things. The Lord says, be tender towards that person. Don't affirm all the things they did, but be tender towards them. Help them have confidence with God. Show sympathy to them. Yes, they deserve it, but the Lord says, I don't want them to get all that they deserve, just like you don't get all that you deserve. And I want you to have a tone of tenderness in your dealing with them and strengthen them. Paragraph C. Now we typically only give mercy in these many ways. I've only highlighted three examples, but the list was longer than that. We typically only give mercy to the measure that we understand that we've received it. The reason I'm saying that, because when you look at somebody that's mistreating you and you don't want to give mercy, you want to fight back. Or you're looking at somebody that's stumbled in a scandalous sin and you think, well, you know, I'm just, that guy caused so many trouble to so many people. I'm just kind of glad he's getting his own for a while. The Lord says, no, don't do it that way. Don't go that way. And whenever we come up short in our mercy towards others, which I do often, the way to strengthen your mercy towards others is to meditate on the mercy you've received from the Lord. And when I see more of the truth of the mercy that I've received, it strengthens my mercy to give to others. Now we've received mercy in a number of ways far beyond what we perceive. Now we all know we are forgiven and we all know we've got those two or three issues we're still struggling with. And every now and then we mess up on them, but you know, it's a lot of times we don't. Now the Lord's answer would say, yes, all that's true, but I am in perfect holiness. And there's many areas of your life that are tainted with pride and brokenness and darkness that you don't even see. And I'm giving you far more forgiveness than you have any idea of. And I'm blessing your circumstances far better than you think. We think, you are? It looks like things aren't going that well. Well, I just remind you, and I remind myself, that the house or apartment you live in, the car you ride in, whether it's yours or not, the role that you have is all mercy. Most people in the world don't have what the poor in our nation have. Most people in history, that would have been called wealth. If we took all the human beings of human history, the poor in America would be wealth to them, to the majority of the human history. My point is, we are getting so much more, even in our circumstances, than we perceive. You say, well, but I worked for it. The Lord says, yeah, but I gave you the ability. I put you in a setting where you could go to school and I gave you the opportunity to make the money after you got the education. I give you all of that. A lot of people don't have that school, don't have that ability, and if they did, they don't have the opportunity to get the money. So even though you built the ministry, you built the business, you bought the house, so much of that was mercy beyond what you deserved. So when I lose my way on showing mercy to people, I take a step back and I lock in, in an intentional way, and I begin to meditate on how much I've been forgiven, and I can't get the full measure of it, but if I focus on it, I see more than I normally see. There's more in my life, tainted with darkness of pride and ambition, more than you know, more than I know, and the Lord's being very gracious, and that whatever level of circumstance we have, it's really more than we ever could have deserved if everything, all the information was on the table. Because if all the information was on the table, we deserve judgment. We don't even deserve that house or business we have that we don't like. So gratitude for having received mercy fuels my heart, and it fuels your heart to show mercy to other people. Paragraph D. Now here's the issue of perception. I'm just going to take a moment on this. Perception. Justice is getting what you deserve. Mercy is receiving what you don't deserve. We all get that. Now here's the point. God always gives you at least justice. Always. Because He's a just God. He's never acted less than perfectly just ever, ever, in all human history. Never once. Whatever forgiveness you have, and whatever life circumstance you have, I promise you it's at least what you deserved in the positive sense. When God measures all of your dedication, and He measures all of your labor, how hard you've worked, and how dedicated you are to Him, you are getting more than you deserve. No one has ever come up less than what they deserved, and then charged God with lacking justice. Now here's the problem. We get what we deserve, that's a fact, in the positive sense. I mean that we've labored for, that our dedication to God deserves. But here's where the problem comes in. God always gives mercy. He gives beyond that. And the problem is, in our perception, He gives the guy next to you more mercy than He does you. The guy next to you, he got what he deserved, plus more. You got what you deserved, plus more. But the more is different. So we look at the plus more, and we say, how dare you God treat me this way? God says, no, I give you everything you deserve. You just got a wrong perspective. You're comparing the amount of mercy you've received to the amount of mercy the other guy receives, and you're mad. And now you have a sense of entitlement. I've not shown you any injustice at all. I've given you everything you deserved and more. You just want your and more to equal His and more. And the Lord says, no, that's my business to give mercy more than you deserve, according to my wisdom. Matthew chapter 11, the parable of the vineyard, that was the issue. The guy worked for 12 hours. He went to get his pay. He got his pay. The guy worked one hour. He got the same pay. He goes, wait, I worked 12 hours and got this amount. He worked one hour and got it. And Jesus says, yeah, but I agreed to pay you that exact amount for 12 hours. You got it. You got everything we agreed on, perfect justice. You're troubled because someone else got more than justice. They got mercy in addition to justice. And when we compare, instead of have gratitude that we really have received more than we deserved, it gets us into a negative complaining spirit and we get a sense of entitlement. And with that entitlement, it short circuits our ability to give other people mercy. When we feel ripped off by God or by God's people, we can't show mercy to other people. We're shut down. And so Jesus says, if you'll go through all the spiritual exercises to refocus on truth, get the right perspective, don't compare, but rather have gratitude for what I gave you, that it's beyond what you deserve. You will have an overflow of mercy to show other people. He's saying a whole lot in this one simple beatitude, mercy. Paragraph E. The measure of gratitude you have is the measure of the understanding of how much you've received. If you don't have much understanding that you receive more forgiveness than you really think, and you've received more blessing in your circumstances than you really think, study that and your gratitude will go up. The measure of our anger is the measure of our lack of understanding of what we really received. Micah 7, verse 18. God delights in mercy. God loves to show mercy. But here's the issue that I'm focusing on. He wants us to delight in showing mercy. Now we delight in receiving mercy. I love mercy. I love, I love that stuff that's way beyond what I deserve. I love it. But the Lord says, I want you to receive it and like it, but I want you to be a vessel of mercy that delights in giving it. Now everybody delights in mercy. We rejoice over the gang leader that met the Lord at the altar call. We all go, glory to God, the mercy of God. And we all rejoice in that mercy. But that's, there's a lot more to mercy than that. Romans 9, verse 23. Paul uses a phrase, he calls it vessels of mercy. God wants you to be a vessel of mercy and in order to other people, to be a supply of his mercy to other people. Now here's the problem. The guy mistreating you, God has a redemptive plan for him. God wants to show mercy to that guy mistreating you. And he wants to show the mercy through you. He goes, not only do I have a plan for your enemy, I'm going to use you to win him to my mercy. Isn't that amazing? Well, Lord, how about let me touch his kids or something, not him directly. And the Lord says, no, no, I want you to be a vessel of mercy of my heart, a conduit to show it to that guy. But you've got to delight in mercy the way I do. Well, if we do it, paragraph G, you'll receive more mercy. You'll experience more mercy at the heart level. God will actually allow you to experience far more than you deserve. I mean, we already are receiving more than we deserve, but that measure can increase. We can have mercy in our circumstances that increases and mercy in the way people relate to us. The Lord says, I will orchestrate it life in a way where I will raise up people that respond to you in mercy because you've given mercy to the needy, the fatherless, and all the many categories of the needy. You've shown mercy to the people that mistreat you, especially the ones on your worship team, the ones nearest to you in your family. You're tender with that spouse or that child or that parent or that sibling. You have tenderness when they don't deserve tenderness. I'm going to raise up people that will be tender towards you. Wow, I love that. Well, we spent the most of our time there. Let's kind of go quickly through the final three beatitudes. Top of page three. This is a beatitude we approach with a sense of awe and wonder. I mean, this has to be the mountaintop itself. Blessed are the pure in heart. They see God. There it is. That's the high part. They see God. Now, to see God means to have living understanding by the anointing of the Spirit of God and to experience God. To live with a fascinated heart. Not to live spiritually bored like most believers live. They love God, but they're bored in their interactions with God in the Word and in prayer. Now, they like his presence, particularly if the music's good, because they confuse the music with the presence sometimes. But Jesus is offering the human race the ability to live with a fascinated spirit. But he puts a very clear condition. They have to walk in purity. He's talking to believers now. We're in the kingdom. We're on our way to heaven. We've got salvation as a free gift. He says, do you want more than the experience of forgiveness in this age? Do you want to live fascinated even between now and when you meet the Lord? We go, yes. He goes, well, then it's critical that you develop a pure heart. Now, I have three areas involved with purity. Morals, motives, and methods. Now, we all know about morals. Having purity in our morals. Now this purity, by the way, is thought, word, and deed. Not just deed. Thought, word, and deed are morals. Because here's the issue. There are fleshly lusts, and lusts are more than immorality. There's a number of categories of lusts that are germane to every human person, every person. These lusts that we're born with, they war against our ability to experience God more, even as believers. I mean, we're on our way to heaven. We've got salvation. That's clear. But we want to experience more between now and then. But there's a war to diminish and defile and shut our hearts down in a spiritual way. Jesus said, Mark 7, 21 to 23, he goes, these lustful feelings and thoughts, they defile you. They diminish your capacity to experience God. You're still saved, still born again. But they hinder your spiritual capacity. They defile you. And the place of the word defile put, hinder or diminish my capacity to experience and enjoy God as a born-again believer. We have to resist those lusts. Now that's a private battle. Nobody really knows what we're doing if we don't walk it out with a deed. And the Lord says, yeah, but it's not an issue of getting caught or getting away with it. It's an issue of you want to experience me more. And this is the only way to do it. It's not an issue of faking out people around us. Beloved, I want a fascinated spirit. I mean, there's nothing more exhilarating than God. Well, purity is more than an issue of morals. Purity touches motives in our relationship. We can walk free of, of immoral behavior and pursuits, but have motives that are not pure in our interaction with people. In just one sentence I have written here, purity is to seek to give to people more than we seek to take from them, to receive from them. That in our relationships, it is, it's our natural bet in a relationship to, to gain an upper hand. We have a person's working for you in the marketplace, or they joined your ministry, or you're interacting with them in another way, or there's a friendship. It's germane to humans to want to get a little more than they give. And though Jesus says, that's not pure. Seek to give more than you take, or take in the positive sense of receive, I mean. You know, when young people come to me, and that happens all the time, and they say, the Lord is redirecting me to another ministry. And I'm always on their team to help them be, to land somewhere that's better for them at that season of their life. Our leadership team, we're all in unity about this. We look at our staff, not just our young people, but our whole staff. We want people to go where it's better in the will of God for them. Our goal is not to keep them here. Our goal is to see them with confidence in the will of God, wherever in the earth that is. So I don't look at a person and say, you're a good singer, stay here. I look at a person and say, you're a son of God, a daughter of God. You may have a different assignment in a different city, and that's my commitment to you. And when I begin to do it different, the Lord says, that's impurity. So you can be free of any immoral pursuits, but live in impurity in this way. Well, let's say that our motives, of which all of these, I always do wrong, and then I have to realign myself to God, it's called repentance, line back up, but if you do it continually, Jesus calls that purity. You know, I talked, I'm looking at the word methods right now. I talk to people and it's common, they'll brag about how they manipulated or distorted the information to get the better deal. Man, I had this house, I sold it, I had the car, I had the ministry opportunity, I went there and I actually got more because they didn't know this and I did that. And I go, you know what? You may fake out the person and get the better deal, but you'll never fake out God, the Holy Spirit, never. We can get a better deal and actually lose out with God. We are to be of the people that if we're dealing with an unbeliever in business, we give them the really the right deal. We don't hide as much information as possible and then hopefully they don't catch it till they sign the deal. That's not, that's impurity. Impurity is not just an issue of morals and motives, it's actually the methods of how we walk out business and ministry and relationships with people. They're going to be, they'll see God. This is the most awesome reality. They'll have an increased capacity to experience God. The big challenge in my life and yours is our small capacity to experience and feel and understand God. And we want to get rid of all the diminishing power and influences to increase our capacity. This is what it's all about. Paragraph C, Jesus said this is the point of eternal life. They'll know me, to know God. To know God, to see God, to experience God, are all the same thing. This is the point of eternal life, to encounter God in this age and the age to come. That's the high point. Now life is a person. His name is Jesus. Sometimes we think eternal life means eternal existence in the Garden of Eden in heaven. Beloved, eternal existence in paradise is not life if Jesus is not there interacting with us. Still eternal existence in paradise, but if we're not interacting with God, it's not eternal life, L-I-F-E. Jesus says that's the whole point. In Matthew 5, 8, this beatitude of seeing God is pointing to this reality. D, there's no substitute for purity, none. The writer of Hebrews says without purity or holiness you can use those interchangeably, no one will see God. Even a believer who's in the kingdom, without pursuing purity, you won't increase your capacity to feel and encounter and understand God at the heart level. You can have theological knowledge, but your heart won't move be moved by it. Now purity doesn't earn us revelation, but it positions our cold heart before his fire. Paragraph E, this is a really important point here. God is light. There is no darkness in him at all. None. Zero darkness in the one we relate to. Jesus has no darkness at all in his being. In the spirit realm, light and darkness don't mix. They can't mix in the realm of the spirit. So we will only see God, meaning feel, encounter, understand him, more than just head knowledge. I'm talking about heart understanding. We'll only see God to the degree that we think like God. And that purity of motives, morals, and methods, we need to think like he thinks. This is the big challenge in our life. But the more we're committed to it, the more we will see him. Because without purity, we won't see him. The last thing I want to do is fake you out so you think that I'm walking radical with God. Be living that way over the side and spend the next 20-30 years with a dull spirit, spiritually bored. Now what benefit is that? Well, everyone thinks I'm radical for God, but my spirit's dull. I'm bored with God. I love him, but it's the words boring, his presence is boring, prayer is boring. I'm always looking for something to do. The Lord says you pursue purity and we'll get rid of that problem of spiritual boredom. Top of page four, the next beatitude, peacemakers. Now there's a two-fold dimension to the peacemaker. Blessed are the peacemakers. Paragraph A, one facet of being a peacemaker is to avoid creating strife by our own pride and selfishness, our own choices and our insistence on things that come from our pride. When we avoid bringing into relationships things that break the relationship, that's called being a peacemaker. That's facet one. But the second facet of being a peacemaker is the hard work, and it is hard work, to repair and restore relationships. It takes time to hear people's hearts, to honor them properly. It takes time to repair relationships. Now a peacemaker, they're, they're rare because often the peacemaker gets nothing out of it but the joy that they've been pleasing to God and they've helped people get together. Often the peacemaker gets nothing directly out of it. Now peacemakers see the value of investing the time and the energy to bring peace between two individuals, within families, between families and within families, between races, between ministries, in the marketplace. Now we've all done the work of peacemaking at various times over the years, if you've been in the kingdom for a few years. Here's what I've found many times. Peacemaking, not only is time consuming, it's risky. You know, I pour in 50 hours over six months getting two guys to dwell in peace together. Now remember the beatitude before is purity, so the peacemaking has a, you're pursuing peacemaking that's based on purity, so you're insisting on dimensions of purity in the process. Well, both of them don't like it. They want to be impure and get all the stuff. So I've done this, I'm sure you have too. Pour lots of hours in, lots of months, they're both mad at me and they're still mad at each other. I go, well there you have it. I'm not going to do this no more. The Holy Spirit whispers and says, no, the very process you went through is honoring to me and it's like me. I've been pursuing billions and they say no clear to the end of their life. It's like me to do it. Don't quit doing it because they're both mad at you. The Lord could say that happens to me all the time. I pursue them their whole life and they all end up mad at me, but I'm a peacemaking God. That's why I sent my son. Well, in terms of your not wanting to bring strife into a relationship related to our own pride, paragraph B, being a peacemaker, part of it, refuse to be argumentative or contentious. Don't push your agenda at all costs. As much as it depends on you, walk in meekness and tenderness and you'll bring peace to situations. Paragraph C, so you're not confused by peacemaking. It's not peace at any price because this peacemaking was qualified by the beatitude before purity. We want peace on God's terms is what we're aiming for. And so we don't compromise truth and righteousness in our peacemaking. So sometimes the peacemaking turns against us. That brings us to the final beatitude. Persecution. Matthew 5 verse 10 to 12, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom. Blessed are you when you are reviled, when they revile, let's speak evil of you, when they say all kinds of evil against you. He says in verse 12, rejoice, be exceedingly glad because your reward is in heaven. No, not your reward is in heaven. Your great reward is in heaven. Because sometimes in the pursuit of purity in your own life and the pursuit of seeing purity in the lives of others, that's called peacemaking. There's a violent resistance against it. Not everybody wants God's ways. So it's a paradox because the very apostles that brought the ways of God to the nations, that brought peace to many people, were the very ones that brought persecution. That, I mean, persecution was the result against them. Paragraph A. Now Jesus blesses any who endure persecution. Here's the key thing, with a rejoicing spirit. Remember verse 12, he says rejoice. Now I give some definitions of persecution here in the notes. Paragraph B. What Jesus is doing in this passage, he's warning us that persecution does exist, and then he's telling us how to respond to it. There's three blessings I have identified here that come out of persecution. There's more than three, but I just highlight three. Number one, persecution, the process of it, produces godly character. Here's what happens. We're taking a stand for righteousness. That's the key phrase, by the way. In verse 10, persecuted for righteousness, or verse 11, persecuted for my sake. It's not persecuted for fleshiness or foolishness. This is a really important point we'll get to in a minute. But I've taken a stand for righteousness, and I'm taking a bold stand for righteousness over the years, and I got somebody persecutes me. We've all had the experience if we've been in the kingdom for a few years. Everybody does. 2 Timothy 3.12, I don't have this in the notes, 2 Timothy 3.12 says, all that live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Everybody that takes a stand for purity and talks about it will have people mad at them. If you take a stand for truth, purity in God's terms, I mean talk about the truth of Jesus and what he represents. You'll be persecuted within the church, and you'll be persecuted outside the church, both. So don't be troubled by it. Every believer will experience that if they take a stand for truth and purity, and they talk about it. Well, so I take a stand for righteousness. So somebody resists me. The Holy Spirit whispers, ask me, are there any blind spots in the way you're standing for righteousness? And I don't like to ask him that question. I like to just be, you know, have a certain attitude towards the guy persecuting me. The Lord whispers, ask me, are there any blind spots? Because the guy against you can be mostly saying false things, but there's still blind spots in our heart. Because it's not enough to take a stand for righteousness, we have to take a stand for righteousness with tenderness and with humility. You can preach righteousness without tenderness, with a harsh and proud tone. And so, take a stand. The Lord says, ask me. And every time, even on the occasions where what is being said is totally false, the Lord points out, look at the way that you spoke on righteousness, the tone you had, the pride you had, the lack of tenderness, the lack of meekness, the lack of wisdom. You didn't say it as clear as my Word says it. Oh, you mean I produced part of the problem? Yes, but don't worry about it. Because that guy has a wrong spirit, but I've used him to show you blind spots. Blind spots in your wisdom, blind spots in your character. Beloved, the guy persecuting you that reveals blind spots, it's a free research team. You're not paying him anything, and he's giving you high-level information about yourself you can't see. You refine your message so it's wiser and more in line with the Word, and you humble your spirit. It's truly awesome. It really is, because you can't see that part of your blind spot without the persecution, without the adversary. I remember when this first came to me some years ago when I was talking with some guys, some guy on the radio, there's a number of guys on the radio that have said some less than nice things about us, and one guy was just really saying these horrendously false things. They were not remotely true. One guy said, let's pray in the name of Jesus and just shut this radio program, and we're like, yeah, right, glory to God, let's all get together. Shut this thing down so the world can see how right we are. I mean, they need to see how right we are. And I said something. It was like a word of wisdom. It bypassed my brain. The best stuff I ever said just bypassed my brain, and I was the first one to hear it. I went, what? I mean, the best things I've ever said, the few over the years, were things I didn't think about beforehand. Now, there's a warning on that, because I've got a bunch of the other ones, too, where I didn't think about them. They end up being bad, but I said this. I go, I said this thing. I said, if God takes this guy off the air, he will allow three more to replace it, because we are in need of adversaries. The guy goes, yeah, that's right, and I went, wait, ouch, I just rebuked me, you know. I went, what? And it struck me that was, that was true. That was the wisdom of God, and I could just imagine, through my own words, the Lord saying, son, you're in need of adversaries, because adversaries show you your pride, and they refine your wisdom. Everybody agrees with you, you never see that stuff. I went, oh, you mean, I might as well give up the dream of one day having a ministry with nobody against us? And the Lord's answer is, that will never happen, never in this age, never, ever, but you're in need of it. So, hey, that's not such a bad deal. You get more humble, and you get wiser. That's not so bad, and the guy did it for free. I mean, you've got to pay a lot of money to go to seminars. That's cute, but it's real. I'm saying something real. No, it's okay to laugh at it. Okay, number two. Another thing, Peter said this, 1 Peter 4 14. He talked about when he was being, bearing reproaches, like, believers and unbelievers are saying wrong things about you, and unbelievers, and believers will talk bad about you if you take a stand. Peter said, the spirit of glory will rest on you in that season that you're taking a stand. I mean, and that season where, I mean, you take a stand your whole life, but in that season where you're being reproached in a false way, meaning they're reviling you, Peter said, the spirit of glory will rest on you in a heightened way. But this depends on our response, because if they're speaking against us, and we got a critical attitude, defensive attitude, we're not showing mercy, we're striking back, we're not rejoicing in persecution, but we're complaining about persecution, the spirit of glory doesn't rest on us. We can waste a good trial by having a bad spirit. I've had a few times over the years where people were resisting me in a really intense way, and I was responding by the grace of God in a right way, and there was a heightened sense of glory of God on my soul. Then I've heard far more intense examples of this from brothers I've talked to that have been in the underground church in China and places that have suffered persecution. They said when they were beating us, the spirit of glory was on us. Now I know that in a small way, just in the rebuke and the reproaches, that's very small compared to somebody hitting you and beating you. But it's true, the spirit of glory will rest on you, but you can't be defensive, depressed, answering back. You have to rejoice that you're worthy to stand with the worthy one. If you don't do that, the glory doesn't touch you. You don't feel it. Paragraph three, you get great rewards forever. The exchange rate is so high. We stand with Jesus. He is, now Jesus is the one saying this in verse 10 to 12. He says here in verse 12, your reward is great. He goes, how do I know your reward's great? I'm the one that's personally going to reward you, and I won't forget. I know what you're going through. I went through it in my three and a half year ministry. But here's what Jesus is saying. I'm going to reward you far beyond what you could ever imagine, because you stood with me and it moved me that you stood with me. Nobody was standing with you. Even in the church, they were coming against you. You had nobody to defend you, but you stayed loyal to what I put in your heart, and it moved me. And I'm real rich, so I can pay real well. It's not a problem. I want you to know how I feel about the way you love me. This is amazing. But we really need to lock into this, because the spirit of glory comes on us now. The rewards come on, are given to us then. Paragraph C, final. We have to stand. It's about being persecuted for righteousness sake, or for my sake, he says in verse 11. So whenever we're being resisted by a believer or an unbeliever, always pause and ask the spirit to reveal blind spots in your own character, in your own wisdom. Because often it's partially persecution, and partially I'm contributing to the problem. But other times people are persecuted, or they're resisted, because they're drawing attention to themselves. They even take a stand for righteousness. But they're not doing it for Jesus's sake. They're doing it so they can gain a reputation of how radical they are. They're doing it for themselves. They go, that's for righteousness, verse 10. But Jesus says, well don't forget verse 11. Do it for my sake too. And the guy's taking a bold stand, because he wants the reputation of being the one guy that is more committed than everybody else. And the Lord says, nah, really that's a fleshly stand you're taking. Or they draw attention to themselves in extreme ways that are fleshly. Letting everybody know how dedicated they are. I'm the guy. And then people resist. And they go, I'm being persecuted. And the Lord says, no, you're being persecuted for your sake. And I care about that, because I've been persecuted for my namesake over the years. And that's a waste of energy and pain. Because I don't have any rewards to give me for it. I want to be persecuted for his namesake. And that means real righteousness with tenderness and meekness in it. Amen. Let's stand. You know, as you're standing, I'm going to pray this blessing from Acts 5, verse 41. That's not on the notes. Peter said in Acts 5,