Pastor David Shin continues in the series of messages from the beatitudes. “Blessed are the Merciful.”

<p>Pastor David Shin continues in the series of messages from the beatitudes. “Blessed are the Merciful.”</p>

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Hillside O’Malley SDA Church

The Beatitudes

David Shin

Blessed are the Poor in Spirit

Father in heaven, we thank you for this Sabbath, for blessing us with your presence.

We pray that you would inspire us with a new vision of Jesus and of the gospel.

We pray that the Holy Spirit would come, enlighten our minds, speak to our hearts.

May Jesus be uplifted and Christ be seen.

Today we begin an eight-part series of messages on the Beatitudes, and I want to invite you to open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 5.

The Beatitudes are 9 blesseds at the beginning of the greatest sermon ever preached in history by Jesus.

The people were following Jesus up to a mountain.

Richard Davidson, professor of Old Testament at the seminary, says that he believes that he has found the place of the Sermon on the Mount, and he says it's an acoustically natural where the voice projects.

It's just an amazing thing that he indeed has found that spot.

Jesus is at the beginning of his ministry.

People believe that he's the Messiah to come to deliver them from the Romans, and he comes to this place and sits down.

The disciples are in the inner circle next to him.

And you could just picture this scene as Jesus opens his mouth and starts this all too familiar passage we know as the Beatitudes.

I want to read through the Beatitudes, make a few observations, and hone in on today's topic.

And seeing the multitude, he went up on the 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 the 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 persecuted they the prophets who were before you." The Sermon on the Mount continues all the way till chapter 7, and after this, the multitude are astounded.

They're stunned because they have never heard a man speak like this before.

When you study the Bible, it's important to just step back and make a few observations.

1 of the observations, when you look at this collection of blessings, are there are 9 blessings in rapid succession.

Scholars believe that there are actually 8 Beatitudes, not 9, because the eighth blessed and the ninth blessed are actually on the same theme.

It's an expansion of the eighth beatitude.

Jesus spends the majority, or the most time I should say, on the eighth beatitude.

It is a progression describing how we can become a citizen of heaven.

Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, the first Beatitude, and the last Beatitude, number 8.

Bless are the persecuted for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

They are the same promise, do you see that?

Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are the persecuted, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Meaning, It doesn't matter where you are on the ladder of the Christian experience, whether you are beginning the Christian experience, or whether you are growing in grace and at the later reaches of the Christian experience, the promise is the same.

You are saved regardless of whether you've been a Christian for years, or whether you're just beginning.

Another interesting observation about these Beatitudes is the tense of the verbs.

The first and the last beatitude, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, is in the present tense.

The other beatitudes in between are in a different tense, Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.

The other ones are a future reality, indicative of the notion that it doesn't matter, or I should say, that the Christian experience is a present reality of grace in our lives, but the future fulfillment is yet to come.

We are to experience the kingdom of grace now, but the future fulfillment is also a reality.

Jesus gives these blessings indicating how we are to become a citizen of God's kingdom.

Our focus this morning is, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Now, this Beatitude is quite unique because Jesus uses an economic term the description of being poor To describe a certain condition that is a state of blessedness.

When I was in high school, I sold books as part of my work study program at the boarding academy I was in.

For 2 years of my high school experience, 20 hours every week, 5 days a week, 4 hours a day, I would knock on doors.

I would go to school in the morning and then pile into a 15-passenger van and we would be dropped off in the middle of nowhere in rural Arkansas.

I remember some of those streets, the canvassing leader would drop me off and say, hey just walk, just walk.

Go up these winding driveways out in the middle of nowhere.

In the summers, I would work 10 weeks in a different location, many times near a large city.

And this particular summer, I was in New Jersey.

And in canvassing terms there's different territories that we call them.

We call them the senior citizen territory.

It's this neighborhood that's a little bit older and it's a retirement community.

Then we have what we call sweet territory and this is territory where there's a lot of children and a new development that has not yet been entrenched.

They have not met a lot of people that are going door to door.

And I would notice something as I would go to the economically poor neighborhoods.

And many times, the majority of the time, the people in the economically poor neighborhoods, they would want whatever it is I was selling.

I would have these books and I would come to the door and they would open the door and say, hey, how you doing?

And many times have me come into their home, they would want to see everything that I had.

I would get excited, especially early on when I was selling books.

I would bring out all of the material, go through my whole impassioned canvassing spiel and say, these are the books and you can get them.

And then I would get to the price and I would see their face drop.

They wanted the books, the problem was, they didn't have the money.

And then my canvassing leader later on in the day would drop me off in another neighborhood that was quite different.

It was many times a gated community that somehow the canvassing leader would get me in, drop me off, and say, have your radio ready because if the police come, call me.

So I would go up and the lawns would be neatly manicured.

They would have a Bentley parked in the driveway.

I walk up to this grand Taj Mahal of a building and the door is solid oak, brass knobs.

I knock on the door and a distinguished gentleman with spectacles would come with his cashmere lined European slippers at the door.

He would come, open the door, very distinguished, and I would say, my name is David.

Blessed Are They that Mourn

Happy Sabbath, this beautiful day in Alaska.

Father in heaven, we thank you for this Sabbath that we can come apart from the cares of this life.

We thank you for who you are, God of love, long-suffering, full of compassion and tender mercy.

It's because of this reality that we come to you this morning in worship, in awe, in wonder as to your character.

We pray that You would bless us now as we pause a few moments to reflect on the kingdom of heaven and the principles found in Your holy Word.

May the Holy Spirit inspire and instruct in Jesus' name.

I invite you to open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 5.

If you have not already, we are continuing in our series of messages from the greatest sermon ever preached, the Sermon on the Mount.

And last week we began the first blessed in the Beatitudes.

Just a review from last Sabbath, there are 9 blessings when Jesus began the Sermon on the Mount, and as you can imagine, in the mind of the first century disciple or the first century Jew, people by this time had an inkling that this may be the long-looked fourth Messiah.

They had a presupposition in regards to the Messiah.

They believed that the Messiah would come and drive out the Romans.

They believed that the Messiah was going to come and be a political deliverer.

And so this is kind of the inaugural address of the Messiah.

And as Jesus began the Sermon on the Mount, very likely in the minds of the people of the first century as they listened to this, they did not understand what Jesus was saying.

I would go on to say that most likely, they were quite puzzled by the words that Jesus was saying here at the Sermon on the Mount, because if he was coming as a deliverer from the Romans, he would have started out by saying something like, blessed are the powerful, blessed are those who have ambition, blessed are the elite.

That would have been real red meat for a congregation of the first-century Jew.

But Jesus begins his sermon by saying, blessed are the poor in spirit.

By this time they're wondering, and then he goes on and says, blessed are those who mourn, blessed are the meek.

So this is a very interesting sermon and as we said last Sabbath The sermon on the mount begins with blessed are the poor in spirit.

This is not talking about economic poverty This is talking about those that realize their spiritual wretchedness their spiritual Bankruptcy And then he goes on and says, blessed are those who mourn.

As we begin our discussion of blessed are those who mourn, just a reflection from thoughts from the Mount of Blessing, this can have 3 different applications.

The first 1, all of us at some point in our lives go through trials.

Sometimes we go through something that shakes us to the very core of who we are.

And I hang on to this promise because it says, blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

It says shall be comforted, meaning that no matter what you may be going through in life, Jesus promises to be with you through the storm.

Also, this is also a reference in the future tense that there is going to come an ultimate day when we will be delivered, will be ultimately comforted in the future when Jesus comes again the second time.

The second application of mourning is a mourning of sympathy when our hearts are broken by the things that break the heart of God.

When we see someone that is suffering, going through loss, and we experience emotional mourning because of sympathy and empathy for what they're going through.

Today I'd like to highlight what I believe is the first application of what Jesus meant when He said, blessed are those who mourn.

And I want to read this quote from Thoughts from the Mount of Blessing, page 10.

The mourning here brought to view is a true heart sorrow for sin.

The mourning brought here to view is a true heart sorrow for sin.

Jesus did not say an intellectual knowledge.

This is a word, mourn, or the word mourn indicates an emotional response to a spiritual condition.

I think that all of us at some point in our lives have been given an apology that we just had a hard time accepting.

Am I the only 1 that's gone through that?

The intonation gives it away, or there's something about the expression when someone says that they're sorry and their facial expression or the sly smile or the micro expression just gives us an indication that this Apology is not an emotional 1 it is half-hearted and It really leaves us in a state of unsettledness And I would say that there's many times that we've been apologized to or we've given an apology and it has been a heartfelt 1 when you could see that this really comes from an emotional response, a connection.

What Jesus is describing here is that there must be a genuine emotional remorse for what our sins have done.

The first beatitude is an intellectual epiphany of our spiritual condition.

The next 1 is a genuine emotional remorse for what our sins have done in hurting somebody else.

When I accepted Jesus as my Savior and Lord, I praised God for the nature of the gospel because I came to Him and there were no preconditions.

I knelt down after a canvassing program in the hills of Pennsylvania, and it was a beautiful moment.

Said, David, you wanna accept Jesus as your Savior?

I knelt down, I prayed the sinner's prayer, and my name was written in the Lamb's Book of Life." Justified, saved, according to the gospel.

There's a process, a growing in grace that takes place.

I remember I was having my morning devotions, and as I was praying and spending time in Scripture, the Holy Spirit – it's amazing how this happens – the Holy Spirit started to bring back to my mind instances where I had hurt people.

I had accepted Jesus and the Lord began to bring back to my mind individuals that I had hurt, words that I had spoken.

And prior to this experience, that situation had not even bothered me before.

But suddenly there was a sensitivity that came over me, an awareness, and I want to tell you that I genuinely felt an emotional remorse for the things that I had done.

It was not just an intellectual ascent, but it was an Emotional response with the recognition that I had hurt certain people Along the way and that emotional response became so Overwhelming that I started to write letters To these individuals it was just I Came to that point.

I wrote these letters to people that I had not seen for years and I would apologize and ask for their forgiveness If I were was able to visit with them in person I would seek out these individuals and say you know I am so sorry for hurting you Please forgive me Now I want to tell you that this emotional response was not fear driven It was not because I feared the judgment of God.

It came from within a recognition of the magnitude and the hurt of my sins and what it had done to Jesus and what it had done to other people.

In the gospel, there is not only an intellectual rewiring that takes place, but there is an emotional reformatting.

I believe that we have become calloused to sin.

My parents, being good Asian Parents they guided me and Coached me or I should say strongly encouraged me to take up a musical instrument And mine was the cello.

I quit, so don't get any bright ideas, all right?

And they would offer me donuts and all types of snacks to practice the cello.

And I remember when I began, my fingers were so tender, being a young youth, 8, 9 years of age, and I'd get a half-size or quarter-size cello, I forgot what it was, and I would play it, and after a few minutes, I would look at my fingers, and they were almost bleeding.

They were indented and purple, and it just became very difficult, painful to play and practice the cello.

But my teacher told me keep on doing it and so I kept on doing it and over time, I started to develop a callus.

And it came to the place after months, and I would say years, of continually doing the same thing that it did not bother me anymore.

We have become, just from being exposed to sin so much, we have become jaded to the true nature of sin.

That there isn't even an emotional response.

You know, certain things should bother us emotionally.

When we see something, there should be an emotional response Just like when we touch something that is hot and there is a pain reaction telling us that something is wrong Emotionally speaking when we see certain things in the world or when we do something that is wrong.

There should be emotional pain If we don't have that, something is wrong.

So when we come to Jesus, we come jaded, we come desensitized, we come calloused.

But Jesus says, look, I'm going to start building a sensitivity so that you are bothered by the things that you should be bothered by.

And then we start to see and be sensitive to the things that we have done.

I read in a book, finished it last summer, in which they described a group of researchers that had been commissioned by Procter and Gamble, billion dollar company, multi-billions.

And they had come up with a new product that they were going to launch.

No doubt some of you may have it in your house.

It's a chemical compound that actually, according to this book, absorbs odors.

So they were trying to figure out how to market this and test it out, so they paid these researchers to go out into the community and try to figure out how people can develop the habit of using Febreze on a regular basis, thereby making this product sell very well.

And so they came to this house, this lady had 9 cats, and she was not doing a good job of taking care of the litter box.

So as they came up to the door, they noticed that from the outside, they could even smell the odor that was emanating from this house.

Blessed are the Meek

We're continuing in our series today from the Sermon on the Mount, the greatest sermon ever preached.

In the Beatitudes, the first part of the Sermon on the Mount begins with a repetition of blessings.

We began with, blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are they that mourn.

And Bible scholars have analyzed the Beatitudes for the past 2, 000 years, and have come to the conclusion that it's actually a progression, a ladder in the Christian experience.

It gives characteristics of what it's like to begin the Christian experience and grow in grace.

And when you look at the Beatitudes, you'll notice that the first Beatitude, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, and the last Beatitude, blessed are the persecuted, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, the promise is the same for the first rung on the ladder, as well as the last rung on the ladder.

And the beauty of the gospel is it doesn't matter if you've just accepted Christ today, or you've been a Christian for years, the promise of salvation is the same.

For theirs is the kingdom of heaven, and the other beatitudes, they have a present implication.

Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted, indicating that we have present comfort, but the future ultimate fulfillment of that comfort is in the future.

But the first and the last promise, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven is a present reality, meaning that we can all have the assurance of salvation today.

When we looked at the first few Beatitudes, blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those that recognize that we are morally and spiritually bankrupt.

We're in need of God, and it is a blessing to recognize our spiritual poverty.

Blessed are they that mourn, indicating blessed are those that are truly sorrowful for sin.

As we said last week, we come to God and say, Lord, help me willing to be made willing.

Help me to be sorry because I am not sorry at all.

So today we are focusing on blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

I like this commentary from the evangelical preacher and theologian John Stott, and he said meekness is essentially a true view of oneself expressing itself in attitude and conduct with respect to others.

When we see ourselves or who we really are, it translates into how we relate to each other interpersonally.

Now, when we talk about meekness, that's not a word that we use commonly today.

And I like the New American Standard version.

It actually says, blessed are the gentle.

So another word for meekness is gentleness.

And this is a characteristic of Jesus found in Matthew 11, verse 29.

Jesus says, I am meek, or gentle, and lowly in heart.

This is a characteristic that God wants us to have.

And as we accept Christ, there's an immediate change and transformation in how we relate to each other.

Gentleness is manifested not only who we are, but the way that we treat each other.

It's amazing today with the online culture, the internet, it is a blessing and a convenience, but it's also opening up a side of human nature that is very ugly when you look at it.

There's a program in which a part of the segment, you can actually catch it on YouTube, and I saw a few clips, they have celebrities get on there, and they read these social media liners, usually 140 characters or less, of what people are saying about these celebrities.

So these celebrities are actually reading these, and as they get on camera and reading these terrible things that are being said about them from people that never have met them before, and it is just appalling as they are reading these insults that are being said in the social media, things that you would never say to the person face to face.

Somehow The anonymity has allowed people to be very bold and lose any kind of civility in the conversation that is taking place.

And many times this has devastating consequences as well.

There is a phenomenon that is taking place called cyber bullying.

My heart broke when I read about Megan Meyer.

Megan was a young lady, a teenager, and as many teenagers she was struggling with self-worth and self-esteem.

Someone friended her on this particular social media website.

So she accepted the friend request and they started dialogue back and forth.

Later on, this quote friend, his name was Josh, commented on her wall and said, look, I don't want to be your friend anymore.

This affected Megan Meyer so much that she went off into her room.

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Series

The Beatitudes

Blessed Are the Merciful

Transcript

Description

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