 We ask it all in Jesus precious name In World War two there was a man named Francis Chichester who was teaching plane Navigation aviation to military students in the British Air Force on One particular day of his training Two of his students who were learning navigation and aviation from him did not return Chichester spent days looking for them in his light aircraft without success Three months later he learned that those two young men had become prisoners of war What happened was they misread the compass by exactly 180 degrees in the wrong direction and They crossed the English Channel thinking that it was the Bristol Channel so they cross over and They were so relieved and happy because they see an airfield with searchlights on so they land on this runway they open the hatch and The next thing they know they see a rifle from a German soldier Into their cockpit as they hadn't landed on a German airstrip They misread their navigation Indeed getting lost is something that's very deep in our psyche There's a lot of fairy tales like Hansel and Gretel about getting lost probably a lot of us when we were children Worried about getting lost in the store or getting lost in the wilderness It's very interesting in The 18th and 19th century one of the leading causes of death believe it or not for children in America was getting lost in the wilderness It's one of the top causes of death This was long before everybody had maps and compasses and people would not be able to find their way back I'm going to be talking today about a road map for our discipleship I'm going to be building on what we heard earlier In that that talk from brother Dale about structure and I want to ask you the question Do you have a road map for discipleship? I think a lot of us know the story of pilgrims progress who starts from the city of destruction and makes it all the way to the Celestial Kingdom Where are you on this journey? Do you have a road map? Do you have a plan if I were to ask you what that is? Could you tell me? I know that none of you would build a house without a blueprint You would say oh, I'm building the foundation. I'm putting in rebar. I'm doing electrical. I'm doing plumbing I'm doing drywall. There's there's different stages there Similarly, I'm asking you today. What is the plan for your discipleship or is it aimless? So my goal is very simple for this morning is to give you that road map for your discipleship and Then to give you some sense of where you are on this map So this is going to entail some heart-searching. This is not for the person next to you. It's for you And so with that I want us to turn to our passage, which is Matthew chapter 5 We're only looking at one passage. So if you could open your Bible or your reading device to Matthew chapter 5, we're going to look at verses 1 to 12. This is a very familiar passage It's the opening of the Sermon on the Mount Matthew chapter 5 verses 1 to 12 and Seeing the multitudes he went up on a mountain and when he was seated his disciples came to him Then he opened his mouth and taught them saying Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be 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 sons of God Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake Rejoice and be exceedingly glad for great is your reward in heaven for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you Okay, so here we have the opening of the greatest sermon by the greatest preacher of all time This sermon is of course normally called the Sermon on the Mount It's Jesus's discourse on discipleship It's Jesus's longest sermon that we have in the whole Bible and it's where he tells us what it means to follow him It is only fitting that Jesus give this sermon up on a mountain Because when Moses gave the old covenant laws, he of course was up on Mount Sinai In fact in the Bible because God has mercy on us and we're slow He's very careful to have the most important events happen up on a mountain. Okay, so I already told you Moses's reception of the law happened at Sinai Zion Mount Zion is where the people are in Jerusalem. It's where the center of Jerusalem is Here we have of course this famous mountain where Jesus gave the sermon Calvary is another mountain where Jesus dies At the end of Matthew it says of the Great Commission that Jesus goes up on a mountain It's a different mountain in Galilee and he tells the disciples to go into all the nations and make disciples and Then when he is ascended into heaven, he goes back to the Jerusalem area and he's he ascends from Mount Olivet So like I said because we're slow God says okay pay attention if something is really high up if it's prominent It's gonna be important So God wants to make it obvious and so the sermon on the Mount is The place where God is trying to communicate the importance of the message by its lofty position This is no ordinary sermon This should be the defining sermon of your life Now I'm gonna walk through just these verses verse by verse here and hopefully Bring out some new thoughts for you here and give you this roadmap now verse two might seem a little strange It says he opened his mouth and taught them Now a lot of people they read that and they think isn't that redundant? Like why would you say open your mouth and teach them like I'm obviously opening my mouth when I'm teaching you right well This is because all the way back to the early church people have noted that Jesus more commonly taught people by his actions than by his words in Fact some of his greatest teachings were simply his actions Did you know that for any teacher? His life is his message and this is something that all of us who any kind of teaching role should should know Whether smoke pulpit or teaching in a classroom or a home school Your teaching consists of your actions and your words So it's not redundant in verse two that he opens his mouth and teaches them. He's now teaching us verbally in this sermon Okay, the very first word out of Jesus's mouth in the original Greek and in English is the word blessed The word beatitude is the Latin word for blessed This is a word that we struggle to understand that we struggle to grasp It's a little bit of a Hobbyhorse of mine that we overuse and misuse the word Blessing or bless, you know, so we say it when we sneeze. I'm not totally opposed to that A lot of times something good happens to someone. They'll say well, that's a blessing. I hear that a lot. That's a blessing. I Notice it's become popular all those kind of fading now that people will in their emails They'll say instead of sincerely blessings comma and then you write your name. You've seen that, right? A lot of people do that In the world, you'll see someone snap a picture of them drinking a margarita on the beach I'll post it on some forum and then the hashtag will say blessed In the cabin where I'm saying right now, there's a bunch of like Etsy type I don't know from Etsy, but they look like from Etsy type type things up on the wall that have like blessing and blessed and all that and It just it doesn't feel like a very powerful word. It feels more quaint than powerful The word has been very deluded or misused I've even seen some translations. There's a couple of modern translations that actually say Happy instead of blessed so they'll say happy are the poor in spirit and they use happy all throughout now I don't like that translation. I think that's a mistake because it almost seems like Jesus is making some kind of description some sort of factual Description about where people are at Blessings are totally different totally different. They are not just descriptions In a blessing something is actually happening forces are moving Forces are flowing and reality is being changed So let's consider one of the most famous examples of blessing in the Bible, which is the blessing of Isaac and Remember how Isaac has the two twins Jacob and Esau? We know that story and Esau is the one who's supposed to get the blessing, right? but we know the story Jacob tricks his father and Puts the the animal skin on his arms and he gains the blessing for himself and Esau finds out about this and he's Devastated and he goes to his father Isaac and he he's weeping I saw his weeping and he says isn't there a blessing for me and Listen to what Isaac says Isaac answered and said to Esau indeed. I have made him your master and all his brethren I have given to him and I have given to him as servants with grain and wine. I have sustained him What shall I do for you now my son? And Esau continues to weep there Did you notice what happened in Isaac's mind when he blessed Jacob? It wasn't just a description of reality. He believed that he changed reality without blessing And Esau's devastated because Esau thinks like there's nothing and he's right the blessings gone. It's already been transferred to my brother What's left for me? Blessings like I said are not just descriptions. They are reality changing pronouncements people have used analogies like a judge declaring guilty or innocent when I was in When I was a teenager my grandfather who lives in South India who lived in South India was old and sick lives in a state called Kerala and He gave a call to my parents and said I think I'm about to die I want to give my final blessing and he said would Finney be interested to get that blessing I was in college at the time and this was no small feat This was in California But I had enough sense from the Bible to know that I needed to drop everything jump on a plane fly all the way to India and I got to this small village where my grandfather lives I Nell down there. He put his hands on my head. He prayed this beautiful prayer in Malayalam and Which is the language he speaks and he gave me his final blessing. It was a very very moving experience Now let's think back to what I just mentioned about the blessing of Isaac if the blessing of Isaac could confer that kind of reality changing power Let's pretend for a moment Or let's pose the question how much greater would be the blessing of Jesus Let's say let's say it wasn't me standing up here But let's say Jesus and the flesh was up here and he said alright everyone after this meeting I'm gonna stand here and I'm gonna put my hands on you and bless whoever wants a blessing from me Jesus I hope the line would stretch all the way back to the very end of Roxbury and not a person would neglect that I hope that right Line up even it was an hour wait. I hope you would Well what we see in the Beatitudes are how Jesus is telling us how he's going to bless us This is the way that if you want Jesus to bless you, this is what you're gonna follow The Beatitudes are the core the very core of what it is to be blessed by God So we should be reading this with bated breath. We should think wait a minute I get to get the blessing of Jesus Not just Isaac or some human but Jesus himself Okay, I want us to sing the song before we go on let's sing the song Lord prepare me to be a sanctuary Okay, so we're getting ready to have Jesus bless us here now the structure of the Beatitudes is carefully organized I don't have enough time to go into this and a lot of details There's seven Beatitudes that we do And then the eighth Beatitude is something that happens to us Number one and number eight and with the same blessing for theirs is the kingdom of heaven And interestingly the first four Use alliteration in Greek. They all start with the letter p Someone has tried to render this in English Did a decent job David Garland who says blessed are the poor in spirit the plaintiff the powerless and those who pine for righteousness He was trying to capture the rhythm of what Jesus was actually saying there This is a sermon that was given with a high degree of intent for us to remember everything about it The first four Beatitudes contain exactly 36 words The second four blessings contain exactly 36 words And these are not unrelated sayings. It's not some jumble here One writer McLaren says it this way. There is a vital connection and progress in them The jewels are not flung down in a heap. They are wreathed into a chain I like the way that Spurgeon describes it. He says our lord has in a few telling sentences told us all about it without using a solitary redundant word Or allowing the slightest omission The seven golden sentences the first seven beatitudes are perfect as a whole and each one occupies its appropriate place Together they are a ladder of light And each one is a step of purest sunshine They are the natural sequel and completion of each other I love that expression ladder of light. Okay, so we just heard about structure. This is Jesus's structure for discipleship now in the secular world. I think we all know there's this concept of Making steps and you recognize those steps and you assess progress at every step So in the medical world, for example At the end of the second year of medical school you take an exam called step one of the boards It's a 12 hour test or at least it was when I took it 12 hour test And they want to know that you know all the things that you've learned in your first two years of medical school Then you do what are called shelf exams after you do Radiology and neurology and pediatrics Testing you on each of those disciplines and then you take step two, which is a nine hour exam Then you do your residency and then you do an 18 hour exam I mean, it's it's intense and you can't go on you will not get your license unless you pass every single one of those Someone who's an electrician was telling me they have something not as elaborate But something like that in the electrical world So here jesus is giving us levels of discipleship These seven beatitudes are the ascent of god's holy mountain. So let's look at each one in turn Beatitude number one says blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven Poor in spirit Basically means humble It's it's a way of expressing humility And i'm very glad that jesus starts with humility. He starts with something Which is like the abc's he doesn't start with calculus. He starts with the abc's The question is is why doesn't he say blessed are the humble? That would be a natural thing to do, right This is where the greatest teacher of all time shows us his master skill What he does is he gives us a picture That we can better understand what humility is like now I love pictures more so than abstract ideas. So jesus teaching suits me well And the picture is simply this picture an utterly destitute person who has nothing Maybe just a few scraps of clothing on their body, but that's it The greek word that's used here designates not just an ordinary poor person But the absolute most destitute person that you can picture I remember when I was a young boy in the 1980s. I was in india and I was with my parents. We were Riding on a bus through back then it was called bombay now. They call it Mumbai And we were riding on this bus and it was monsoon rain season I don't know how to maybe ever experience monsoon rains, but they're nothing like what you have in america What we have in america they are intense just Torrential just goes on and on and on these monsoon rains. Well, we were on this bus driving from one part to another part of Mumbai and whenever we would stop It was it was hot even though it was monsoon rains whenever we would stop the windows were open All these beggars would come and surround the bus. I mean 360 360 degrees around the bus and they would stick their hands inside the window So it was about a foot away from your face So you're riding through this bus and you have all these every stop I mean as soon as they can they would just get there and just put their hands right in front of you And you look out how can you not look at these people and they're with the other hand They're making this gesture here, which is that i'm hungry. These people were sticks. I remember seeing a lot of nursing mothers I remember seeing a little boy who looked just like my brother the picture still haunts me and What a scene to just stop after stop have people who have nothing but the clothes on their back begging That's the picture when I think of jesus being describing the poor in spirit. That's what I imagine Now this has a very powerful effect on us because the poor and spirits See themselves as needy and powerless If you look into the eyes of someone who's truly poor if you just gaze into their eyes for a moment You will see them speaking with their eyes saying please help I got nothing. I can't help myself. I need you to help me The poor in spirit are those who are utterly desperate Who is the the poorest person of in spirit ever to live? It was jesus Jesus was the one who said I can do nothing apart from my father in heaven Another genius aspect of this metaphor is that the poor in spirit need provision daily So if you're a poor person and someone gives you a sandwich or a cup of chai or some rice That's going to be great for today, but tomorrow Guess what? You got to go back to the streets again and beg The genius of jesus's picture is that he wants us to see that the poor in spirit person Goes to god every single day with this portrait of being humble of being desperate One of the best tests. Okay, so i'm going to ask you now Remember I say i'm giving you a roadmap for you to test where you are one of the best tests to see if you are Poor in spirit, which is the very first rung in this ladder of light as spurgeon calls it is simply to ask Do you have daily times of prayer crying out to him for mercy and help? Are you desperate for god every day? It's been said that if you're not hungry for god, you're full of yourself I think this is an excellent test for Whether you've even begun this journey Again, look at jesus. Look at his prayer life. Look at his dependency on the father This was a man who cried out to prayer even though he was the sinless son of god The poor person whose poor in spirit also sees himself or herself accurately The poor in spirit person may not have much by way of possessions, but they have the truth In a spiritual sense, we have all become debtors to the tunes of millions of dollars We've squandered our father's inheritance Do you see that do you feel that do you feel that sense of debt right? What does jesus tell us to pray in the lord's prayer forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors One of the if you get this then one of the things that will happen to you Is you suddenly won't really care what people say about you? I have a set of quotes that I read through every day. It's different every day But my quote for sunday, which is today it's a whole several pages of quotes But one of mine for sunday I was reading earlier Says if any man thinks ill of you do not be angry with him for you are worse than he thinks you to be Okay, it's true Somebody insults you. You know what you don't know the half of it. You're right That's what the poor and spirit person says Another genius element in this portrait is that the poor in spirit person sees himself or herself as the person in need They're begging because they got an empty stomach They're not asking for joe or susie over there This is a personal need when you look at some of the greats in the bible I think of of uh isaiah Famous chapter in isaiah 6 he sees god in the throne room and he cries out. Whoa is israel No, i'm seeing shaking heads Whoa is me He he starts with himself jesus tells Another famous parable in luke 18 he talks about Pharisee and a tax collector and the Pharisee goes and I love how the new king james renders that he says the Pharisee stood and prayed with himself It's like praying to himself kind of an interesting picture god I thank you that i'm not like other men extortioners unjust adults or even as this tax collector I I fast twice a week. I give tides Of all that I possess And the tax collector standing afar off would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast saying god be merciful to me a sinner I've read this verse in greek and I am disappointed in the english translations if you if you read it in greek You can check me on this What that literally says what this tax collector says it says god make atonement for me the sinner The sinner it's like in his mind. He's the only sinner Isn't that amazing? God make atonement for me the sinner in Back in india true story this there was a family who The the father was was was a drunk He would waste a lot of the family's money. He was he was cursed. He was come late lots of problems very Very dysfunctional home because of him and His wife had converted to christianity and he knew that his wife as part of her Part of her day would spend some time in prayer and so this This man this this man who was not such a good character. He He decides one day that to spy on his wife and listened to her pray And this is what she prayed. He thought she would pray god help my rotten husband Who who's just this you know messed up guy who's wasting our money all that But you know what she prayed she prayed god help me to be a better wife. I'm failing him What am I doing wrong? That is ladder one of the Sermon on the Mount most people I say this to In all in all love. I truly believe this most most people most churches Of all stripes fail to really practice the Sermon on the Mount Which is a tragedy, but there's something that's even a greater tragedy than that which is seeing it more for other people than for yourself If you see the Sermon on the Mount more For the person next to you or for somebody that you're having problems with back in your home church Then the Sermon becomes ugly If you read this and think wow such and such really needs to hear this You're not poor in spirit You're haughty in spirit You may be able to live some of the externalities of the Sermon on the Mount, but if you don't have the The the the foundational step this poverty of spirit. You're going to be legalistic ugly and condemning I've seen this all too often They say that holiness without brokenness produces legalism We can judge and condemn and not ourselves be healed or have compassion I know there's a lot of pressure in our settings in many settings to look good and appear put together It's hard sometimes to to confess our sins openly. It really is My plea is that you begin your journey of discipleship with poverty and spirit confess freely I Brother tim kipper who you heard yesterday up here. He and I are involved in what are called freedom groups it's groups that work with with men and women who are addicted to pornography And I always listen and pay attention to how people confess And it's very interesting. Some people will say things like I fell into pornography And even that language I fell into it. It's almost like they're a victim, right? Like I was just walking along and there's this hole and I just fell into it And our language pay attention to the language that you use that most people use it's very Blameshifting we tend to minimize our sins even when we confess Think about how you receive an act on admonishment. That's another powerful indicator Okay, I'm going to go very quickly through the remaining seven So I can illustrate more high-level principles The next beatitude is blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted So the first step is knowledge of our of our of our of our self of our poverty The second step is to translate that into Our hearts to have it be something that is a A sacred grief that is not just a head knowledge But it is something that we express in our hearts We grieve I worry I genuinely worry when I see people who don't have a well of tears that flows You know Jesus weeps often I mentioned on my Friday night message That Jesus's prayer life was characterized by loud cries and tears Hebrews 5 7 He weeps publicly. He weeps over Jerusalem. He weeps over Lazarus He weeps the psalmist says my eyes shed streams of tears. Jeremiah Is called a weeping prophet Nehemiah weeps paul weeps Are you someone who is known as a person who mourns? Or are you the jokester or the comedian? People confuse mourning with moping. There's a world of difference moping is self-pity It's not hoping god the person who mourns is moved to action The person who mopes is stagnant and and Despairs now one of the the test here. I gave you one already was that are you a person who weeps? You should be weeping in your prayers. You should be weeping in front of others You should be weeping as you as you speak with others. If not, there's something wrong your heart is still stony One of the other tests here paul describes this in second Corinthians where he talks about godly sorrow versus worldly sorrow If you are struggling with the same sin again and again and again That means you're in worldly sorrow. You have not attained this wrong of the latter yet The third beatitude is blessed or the meek for they shall inherit the earth Now the word meek a lot of people confuse that with With being weak Right, they think meek and they think uh, I don't know if I want that They think meekness is weakness There was one individual bill farmer who who uh Who has a newspaper column and he he published an article by j. Upton Dixon Who founded a group of a group for meek people and called it doormats? doormat stands for dependent organization of really meek and timid souls D o o r m a t s dependent organization of really meek and timid souls And you know their motto was the meek shall inherit the earth if that's okay with everybody And their symbol was the yellow traffic light Now everybody here when they're hearing jesus is thinking is this the messiah And I think a lot of people when they heard this they would have just said like oh no No, please no a meek messiah I want a conquering messiah Give me a hercules. Give me a samson. Give me a warrior who can go out and shatter some skulls of some romans That's what I want But in instead jesus shatters the expectations of their world to bring in the new world order that he is inaugurating He's going to bless the gentle Instead of telling people to hunger and thirst for power. He's going to tell them to hunger and thirst for righteousness The picture that I like to use when I think of meekness is a muscular stallion So we've all seen very muscular horses right and You know that stallion that's untamed it kicks people and it's terrifying You don't want to get near it But now somebody tames that horse and it's still a muscular horse, but now it can be ridden it can pull things Is the stallion any weaker now? No, it's simply having its strength in control So meekness is not weakness. What is it? It is power under control Strength harnessed for service Meekness is primarily something that we exhibit one with another. It's an interpersonal virtue. It's almost like horizontal humility It entails being gentle submissive forgiving Many of you know the word glass and height. I think glass and height is very close to this word meek here that jesus speaks to It's being a team player. I mentioned on friday night that one of the cancers of the world today is individualism Way too many people way too many people are wise in their own eyes and they don't know how to submit to a body All right, the fourth beatitude is blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be filled I'm not going to spend too much time on this one. Jesus is going to describe that righteousness in a lot of the Sermon on the Mount It's the bulk of the Sermon on the Mount I will just say this that whether you are 18 years old or 80 years old You should be hungering the this is something that is an ongoing Process you should be still so that you're dying day thinking what new heights do I need to stretch for? We have never arrived. You need to be always be pushing hungering thirsting reaching The fifth beatitude is blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy Now the word mercy in english we often think about that as withholding punishment But the greek is very different than that. It's a much bigger word It's the word that jesus uses when he describes the good samaritan So the good samaritan didn't just withhold punishment. He actually actively loved this individual who was robbed and beaten up This is a The concept of compassion and kindness are very closely bound up with the biblical notion of mercy This is a great test. I can tell you right now certain people Are really good at loving people and showing compassion and kindness and a lot of people are just not They don't look people in the eyes. They haven't really studied how to love people well how to serve people well How to care for people it is a rare skill Study people who care for people. Well, I Without naming a name. I'm I'm always so blessed every time before I come up here There's one brother here who always walks up to me and prays for me Before I come up and speak and it just it touches me because I think wow He's thinking of me. He's he's concerned for me That is a great skill ask three or four people who know you well How good am I at loving people well? The sixth beatitude is blessed are the pure in heart for they will see god Now a lot of people when they think pure in heart they think of sexual purity. That's not what's meant here purity in this Sense and I have a lot of online messages by the way that go through the beatitudes very slowly almost an hour per for line if you want to go and Impact this there, but just to give you the conclusion here purity here refers to the opposite of being unmixed or Really the opposite is double-minded in James four which james is jesus half brother He kind of gives a commentary on the sermon of the mount and what he says is He says Draw near to god and he will draw near to you cleanse your hands your sinners and purify your hearts you double-minded So pure is the opposite of double-minded. There's a there's a writer sword kirka guard who I love the way he expresses that He says purity of heart is to will one thing. It's people who are just totally determined They have this laser like focus in their lives and we all know people like that right people who are driven Who are determined who are relentless other people are just more kind of floating around and don't seem to have that drive inside of them One author says a great book begins with an idea a great life with a determination paul expresses this well in philippines 3 he says I do not count myself to have apprehended but one thing I do For getting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of god and christ jesus paul was a man who was driven. He was pure in heart. He had a singular passion to see The gospel advance to all the nations Some people struggle with being indecisive Oh, should I do this this and just oh this way that way If you are indecisive, you are not pure in heart These people who are indecisive will struggle with all kinds of doubt all kinds of of issues that will plague you All right number seven blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of god Okay, there's two dimensions of peacemaking One meant one way to understand peacemaking is conflict resolution. It's just helping people to to not fight So there are people who go into conflict-ridden areas And mediate there that's that's great the second dimension of peacemaking is Make having people make peace with god Okay, so there's peace with one another and there's peace with god the other name for that is evangelism Both of those are built into peacemaking There are two common mistakes with peacemaking evangelism in particular And I'll I'll grossly oversimplify here and say that generally speaking older when I say older greater than 40 tend to struggle with apathy And they've really lost the ability to dream that they will evangelize and they will be effective when they've sort of given up The other error is to be so excited and zealous But not necessarily having the right heart qualities or preparation So some people are like evangelism, evangelism, evangelism, we got to evangelize the world But but they haven't actually done so well at at their own hearts and their own personal discipleship If you don't have poverty of spirit, which was which was the first level You're gonna your evangelism is going to be like the Pharisees. Remember what Jesus told the Pharisees? The Pharisees were very evangelistic by the way He said you travel over land and sea To make a single convert and then make that person twice a child of hell as you already are So they were evangelistic, but they themselves were not in the right place to be effective in their evangelism You have to be someone who mourns that second ladder One one person says it well winners of souls must be weepers for souls If you're an evangelist and you're not a team player, you're not someone who's meek The third wrong you're going to be setting up your converts for failure because they're not they're not going to be integrated into the body You're going to be a solo out a solo person out there The final beatitude Is the eighth one which says Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs as the kingdom of heaven Now the structure of the beatitudes as I said is seven character blessings Plus one consequence blessing and I've given you tests here By the way, I'm going to say one more thing on the peacemaking one. So this is a huge Generalization and I don't mean this to be taken in any kind of a hard and fast rule But I will say this having seen this many times with many individuals in many settings That normally speaking if someone is committed to god if they're on fire if they've got those first Six ladders intact. They will normally be leading about one person to the lord per year I think that's a common that's what I've noticed in my observations and historically people have noticed that as well If you don't if you look around whatever congregation you're from and you see a bunch of blanks It's time to really be honest humble yourself and say we got to go back to the basics here Maybe even back to rung one It's not like I said, that's not a hard rule, but it's a good rule of thumb Okay, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven Notice he does not say blessed are to you if your ancestors were persecuted 400 years ago This is something that has to be reclaimed every single generation If you are the successor to the men and women of god if you are the heir to the claim of The Hebrews 11 that that great chapter of faith. This is something that you have to reclaim and own for yourself Suffering and persecution are the badge of faith, you know, even in in acts when they they get beat up for Preaching jesus they go back rejoicing. They're like, yeah, great. We're experiencing what we're supposed to experience If you're not experiencing that it's time to look deep within and to have some heart-searching conversations about the structure of your life There's one myth that's out there, which is that persecution doesn't happen in america. It's only for muslim countries and places like that Yesterday I went over to david brosso's house. I'm not sure if he's here, but I was at david brosso's house for breakfast and we were talking about this topic and I was telling him about my friday night message where I mentioned that verse that I find very convicting in romans 8 Where it says for your sake, we are killed all day long and I said, wow, we're going to quote this We got to do some real heart searching here because that doesn't necessarily feel so true to the experience that we're having And he said something that really struck me. He says when I was a jojoba's witness He said those were some of our favorite verses We camped out on those verses because that was our experience He said we would go out and we would evangelize and we would go out and really push and he said We would read those those passages and find comfort because we could see our connection to the early church And this is in america. He did not live in some foreign country I have friends from other groups not jw's that experience these things in america and what I've consistently noted Consistently noted the groups that are actually experiencing persecution are ones that are active intentional and organized about evangelism If you're not you probably won't if you are you will In a disciplined manner in america by the way, and I could tell you stories there in the interest of time. I won't Okay, so there we have it jesus is seven plus one beatitudes that should be the roadmap of your discipleship Where are you now? I want you to just again think carefully with me and be brutally honest You know we get no points here from faking each other out. Where are you on this ladder? I've given multiple tests here for this ladder of light And if you have any confusion or uncertainty speak to other people Have them speak into your life. It's a very powerful way to gain a sense of where you are You can and should spend enormous amounts of effort on every one of those steps reading studying learning from others practicing getting feedback As I wrap up I'm going to read the last the last four verses after the beatitudes So you can look at verse 13 here with me and I'll read 13 to 16 You are the salt of the earth But if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing, but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men You are the light of the world a city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket But on a lamp stand and it gives light to all who are in the house Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven okay, so Jesus moves from the beatitudes directly into a section which is about the relationship of his disciples to the world And he calls his disciples salt salt of course in the ancient world was used For many purposes seasoning some but even more so as a preservative They didn't have refrigerators back then right? So if you had a hunk of meat the only chance you had to keep that Preserve was to dump a lot of salt on it desiccate it and store it This is another one of my pet peeves. So I'll say it here A lot of times you hear people Just just get up on pulpits and just like really decry the world We'll say oh look how downhill the world is going with sexuality and violence and greed And you can you can score some points you can get some people to amen that right when you can you can slam the world of all kinds of things But do you know that every single one of those declines is actually a failure of the church? Jesus says here salt that the church was supposed to be What what retained goodness and then in the second stage winning people over as a function of the light that it exhibits It really really irks me when I hear that because The the church has failed to be salt it that would have halted the rotting We should constantly be asking the question. How have we failed? Notice what jesus says to he says if the salt does not do its job, what will happen to that salt? It's going to be cast out That's serious language there. It's going to be cast out. It's going to be trampled If you're not pushing higher up on this ladder if you're not moving higher on this We we have to be sober here. We have to be sober about the day that we stand before god one day One of my life verses I often quote this at kfw. It's first first Thessalonians 2 19 to 20 Or paul says for what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting paul is writing to the to the thessalonian church Is it not indeed you before our lord jesus at at his coming for you are a glory and joy He's basically saying there. What's my hope? What's my joy? What's my what's my boasting? How do I know? That when jesus comes one day that i'm going to have A ground to stand on he says it's you thessalonians my disciples. That's my hope my joy my crown of boasting If you've got a bunch of blanks in your life What is your hope? What is your joy? What is your crown of boasting? I say these things not to Terrorize or to to provoke needless fear but to ask us to search our hearts. This has historically been a weakness in our communities Spurgeon says it well again. He says the bible is not the light of the world It is the light of the church the world does not read the bible the world reads christians You are the light of the world Very true I I often say I deeply believe this with all my heart that the sermon on the mount is the answer To all the major problems of the world and yes, I mean all The sermon on the mount we didn't read it all but the sermon on the mount is the answer to all the world's major problems Think about it war divorce Broken families poverty sex trafficking. It's all right there It's all right there. We could we could fix it all if the church will will We're to simply live it out. I'm going to close with reading a story here I read this story to myself and to others about half a dozen times a year Some of you may have heard me read it even if you have it's good to have us Have us meditate on this. It's a true story about a nine-year-old girl who lives in northern napal Her name is maliha A charming slave trader deceived maliha's poverty-stricken single mother when he promised to help provide for their family By helping maliha get a well-paying job in the city at the bottom of the Himalayan mountains He promised to send the money she earned back to the mother And to bring maliha back to visit her family at least once a year The mother reluctantly agreed but the man did not keep his word Maliha's new job was to sit outside a restaurant in the city Where customers would see this beautiful girl A man would grab her by the hand and she would quietly follow him into one of the booth There he would eat and drink And then either take maliha upstairs to her room or stay there right there in the booth and force her to do Whatever he told her to do After he was finished she would go out and wait for another man and then another man and then another man Sometimes on a busy night 15 or 20 different customers would have their way with maliha. However they desired This was maliha's life and there was no way out The man who first smiled at her in her village months before had gone back to find other girls And maliha now worked for other men They told her that if she tried to stop working at the restaurant They would go back to the village and bring her sister her little sister there to take her place They assured her that her work was providing for her family back home Little did she know that her mom never received another rupee Meanwhile for all her mom little brother and little sister knew maliha had completely forgotten about them when she got to the big city Even if maliha could have escaped where would she go? She had no clue where she was and no idea how to get home She knew no one but the men who owned her She had nothing to her name. The only thing she had was her shame True story. I have a nine year old daughter. So it's especially emotional for me here, but This is an example of the church's failure Why is maliha in this predicament because of us? That's the answer. I plead with you all consider deeply the words of the beatitudes consider deeply this notion Of what it is to be a true follower of jesus The sermon on the mount again has the answer to all of the world's major problems The only question is if we will rise to the occasion and practice biblical discipleship Let's close by again singing the song lord prepare me to be a sanctuary I'll be a