A New Attitude All Saints Day NOVEMBER 1, 2015 Redeemer Lutheran Church Pastor Keith Johnson Matt. 5:6-8 "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. We live in a world of instant gratification. One of my favorite rock groups has always been queen. Years ago Freddy Mercury sang, I want it all. I want it all. I want it all. And I want IT NOW. We want it our way right away. Is your internet too slow? Mine is. Does it take too long to gas up your car? Pay at the pump! Is snail-mail really that slow? Send email. Is your fast food not fast enough? Order ahead. We eat in our cars. We talk on the phone in our cars. We microwave our meals. We have overnight delivery of our packages! The one thing we don t have is patience. No patience and no desire to look forward to things to come. But on All Saints Day, this is precisely what we confess as Christians: there is an eternal city. There is a paradise of God. There is an eternity of rest. There is a being with the Lord. But we don t have it yet. Now we walk by faith, not by sight. Now we confess the eternal joys of the life to come while yet struggling in this sin filled world of death. One great struggle we face as Christians in this life is that we think we should have all of this peace and rest right now. No waiting. When we are Christians, God should bless and reward us with a lack of problems. Christians shouldn t get sick. Christians shouldn t have trouble paying their bills. Christians shouldn t have problems with their marriages. Christians shouldn t have difficulties raising their children. All of the peace and joy and bliss of heaven ought to be ours right now. This minute. Immediately. Instantly. Pronto.
When these things do happen- the sicknesses, the family issues, the financial cares, the jo problems- we can find ourselves far from God. We become unloving toward our neighbors and full of unbelief, despair and other great shame and vice. We wonder what s wrong. We don t feel much like saints do we? Why? Because we have let go of Christ s word. In our unbelief we have not heard what our Lord has said to us about being saints. Christ s word describes our life of sainthood. His word tells what "real life" is like as a Christian. How does your life express the reality that the kingdom of God resides in you? How can God show through? Since we re celebrating All Saints Day, let s be very clear first of all about "saints." A saint is a holy person. They are those who are in Christ through Holy Baptism. They are fed by the Holy Supper and have the Holy Word preached to them. By the Holy Spirit through the Holy Ministry: those are the saints. You are saints. When we celebrate All Saints Day, we are recognizing that all of us are saints in God s sight through Christ. It is not how we live that makes us saints, but how Christ lived for us, died for us and rose for us. Your Baptism into Christ makes you a saint. You re eating and drinking the body and blood of Christ makes you a saint. Your being absolved of your sins makes you a saint. All of this is true. But it is also true that saints, are poor, mourning, harassed, hungering, and struggling saints. In this life, the path of sainthood--that is, of being a Christian--is one of hardship and sorrow. It does not bring with it the "instant gratification" our world tries to buy and sell. Let me explain what I mean by talking about three of these Beatitudes. Our text for today tells us of 3 new attitudes which should be our attitudes. NEW ATTITUDE NUMBER ONE IS: an attitude that is upward. It is a change in desires. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. This is an insatiable desire for God and the things of God. It s not the kind of thirst you have after mowing the lawn on a hot day. It s the kind of thirst you would have after days in the desert without even a drop of water. It s not the kind of hunger you have when you ve missed lunch. It s more like when you ve gone several days without eating! You are not hungry- you
are starving. You are not thirsty- you are completely dehydrated. John Piper in his book, HUNGER FOR GOD, writes, If we don t feel strong desires for God, it is not because we have drunk deeply and are satisfied. It is because we have nibbled so long at the table of the world. Our soul is stuffed with small things and there is no room for the great. How hungry are you for the things of God? If you ask a child if they are hungry they might answer you by saying something like I AM HUNGRY ALL OVER. Are you hungry all over? Jesus says, blessed are those who have that kind of hunger and thirst for God! Do you have that kind of desire to know God? Do you pray the Holy Spirit to so fill you with Jesus that there is no room for you to take anything else inside you? We all drift away at times, but there s something that pulls us back when we have this hunger & thirst. Raise your hand if you d trade me your house for a glass of water. I guarantee you there exists a set of circumstances where you would. Crawling on your face in the Sahara with tongue swollen and lips chapped. With a mouth full of sand, on death s doorstep, you d give your house and everything in it. Jesus says, blessed are they that are desiring righteousness in that way. Psalm 42:1 reads, As a deer pants for flowing streams, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. It s not just a passing thought. This is a hunger that motivates you to action. It demands to be fed. Each morsel makes you want another! The person who really wants something doesn t just sit around waiting for it to come to them. They are motivated to make it happen! Do you have that kind of hunger for God? Do you need a new attitude that is upward! It doesn t just happen. There ARE some things you can do to help you to develop that longing for the Lord a passion for the Christ! You ve heard the old saying, you can lead a horse to water, but you can t make him drink. That s true, but you can put some salt in its oats! So, how can you put some salt in your oats? It may be that you re sick, and need to get better. When you have the flu, the last thing you want to do is eat or drink! You want to get better first. In the same way sin is harmful to our spiritual digestive tract. It also affects our taste
buds. Sin will dull your spiritual appetite. Let s face it, if you feed the flesh then, for the moment, you feel full. But your spirit will starve! For many Christians, the devil s weapon of choice isn t out and out sin, but rather, just stuff. Now I m talking about things that aren t sinful in & of themselves, but you just get so involved in them that you don t make God the priority He deserves to be! For instance, hobbies can be nice, but they need to stay in the right balance. If they end up taking the place of God, or come before Him, they can become sinful. It may just be stuff but Satan s goal is the same. To kill our taste buds! Deal with the sin, throw away some stuff & watch what happens. Remember the promise is this: they shall be satisfied. They that hunger and thirst for righteousness shall be satisfied. That means that you can have as much as you want! You can keep feasting! You can be as close to God as you want to be! God can be as real and personal as you want Him to be. Do you remember the song? And He walks with me and He talks with me. And He tells me I am His own. And the joy we share as we tarry there, None other has ever known. That s true. James 4:8 tells us, Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. So, we need a new attitude that is upward. We need a change in our desires. NEW ATTITUDE NUMBER 2 IS OUTWARD. It is a change in disposition. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Mercy is the way you treat someone who has done you wrong. Mercy is what you exercise when you suddenly find yourself in a position where you have them in your power. It s the attitude Stephen had when being stoned to death. Acts 7:60 reads, And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them. And when he had said this, he fell asleep. Those were his dying words. It was his dying declaration. It was the last thought on his mind. It was what he wanted to convey when he had time to convey only one last thing.
LORD, DO NOT HOLD THIS SIN AGAINST THEM It s the attitude Jesus had on the cross. Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. This is one of the truest tests of our Christian character. This is one of the ways that people see how we are different in Christ. It is one of the things that sets us apart from the world. Corrie ten Boom spent years in a Nazi prison camp. Many times guards would come in and beat her and her sister. She said one man s face stood out in her mind. Years later she was speaking in a church when in walked that man. She would know him anywhere. Terror gripped her soul. Along with the terror came a flood of hateful emotions. After the service he approached her. He said, I ve been saved, and I want to ask you to forgive me for what I ve done. She later wrote: right then I had to learn that forgiveness is a choice. Don t ever say, I can t forgive that person. They don t deserve it. You can do anything you choose to do, with God s help. Be honest and say the truth, I won t forgive. You can decide to be bitter if you choose, in hopes that somehow you ll get even. But in the end, you ll see, you re only punishing yourself! To turn away and have an unmerciful spirit outwardly to others, is to thumb your nose on the merciful forgiveness of God you richly enjoy! So far we see a new attitude upward, new desires and a hunger and thirst for God. We ve also seen a new attitude outward, with a new disposition to others. NEW ATTITUDE NUMBER 3 IS AN ATTITUDE THAT IS INWARD. It is a new devotion. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Biblically, what is the heart? It s the center of a person s being. It s the essence of who you are. It s also the seat of all troubles. Matt. 5:19 reads, Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, and blasphemies.
One of the biggest lies these days is the thinking that people find themselves in trouble solely because of the environment around them. It s never their fault. There is never any personal responsibility. It s all environmental. It s because I m the wrong color. It s because I live in a poor neighborhood. It s the bad influences in my life. It s the drug culture. It s the disparity in income. May I remind you that when Adam and Eve sinned they were in a perfect environment? Then there s the thinking that education will solve any problem. You can take a thief and educate his head without changing his heart. Now you ve just got a smarter thief. Now instead of putting on a mask and robbing a liquor store they can get a white collar job and embezzle from the company they work for! Pure in heart means sincere. It s living without hypocrisy. It s hiding nothing. No doubt these initial words were for the Pharisees. They were only concerned with outward appearance. But Jesus said they were like whitewashed tombs. They looked good on the outside but inside were dead men s bones! They were like a pot that s clean on the outside but filthy inside. We could think of it as an elegant restaurant. It s pristine and spotless in the dining room, but the health dept. comes in. It shuts them down because of what they see in the kitchen! Purity of heart is the main thrust of true Christianity. The Psalmist writes, "Surely you desire truth in your inner parts..." The pure in heart are those whose minds, motives, loves and principles have been cleansed by faith in Christ and through the washing of rebirth. They seek to not only have their external actions corrected, but they desire to be holy in heart. They know that although people look on the outward appearance, God looks into a person's heart. Anyone who is single-mindedly pursuing the kingdom of God and His righteousness in God's way will be inwardly pure. Inward sham, deceit, and moral sin cannot coexist with heartfelt devotion to Christ. This Beatitude destroys hypocrisy. The pure in heart will see God. The greatest happiness to a Christian is the fact that someday they will see Christ face to face. They will see Him in all the beauty of His holiness. None but the pure in heart will be able to look upon the face of God. What pleasure could an unrepentant soul have in the vision of a holy
God? God cannot behold iniquity, nor can the impure stand to look upon God's purity. The unclean will never enter into God's dwelling place. Notice the promise: They shall see God. We know this is true as a future event, but it also applies to us now. Jesus said to remove the 2 X 4 from our own eye and then we ll be able to see clearly! Then we can sense His presence like never before. Then we can see Him in more reality than we ever could thru the muddy waters that result from an impure heart. Only the blood of Christ can cleanse you from sin. Receiving Jesus Christ as personal Savior and Lord will put you under His blood. Your sins will be covered, forgotten & cleansed. It will cause you to become a new creature in Christ. This will turn you from sin & self-centeredness to God. It will turn you to Christ-centeredness. This is the blessedness of becoming pure in heart. Those who cry out to God as king David did in Psalm 51:10, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me," they will see God. Call upon Christ today and He will forgive you. He will give you a fresh clean start before God. He will purify your heart so that the sins that desire to consume and destroy you will no longer have dominion in your life. Purity of heart and victory over sin are found only in Jesus Christ! "He who has a pure heart will never cease to pray, and he who will be constant in prayer shall know what it is to have a pure heart." Once your heart has been made right you will be able to see God everywhere. To an impure heart, God cannot be seen anywhere; but to a pure heart God is to be seen everywhere. THAT S WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A SAINT. May the peace of God that passes all human understanding keep you in a saving faith in Jesus.