Righteousness Beatitudes 1-2: Seeing for the first time that I have no righteousness = worthiness = perfection Beatitudes 3-7: Seeking and trying to reflect righteousness Beatitude 8: Suffering because I love righteousness. God demands it. We don t have it. We can t earn it. Jesus offers it to us as a gift!
What God Demands & What Everyone Lacks 1 Poverty of Spirit 2 Mourning over Sin 3 Meekness to realize that before to mourn over all my to stop trusting in God I am poor and have nothing of value. Empty hands before God. many sins and to hate them instead of loving them. myself and trust only in God. What Everyone Already Has 1 False Pride 2 Love of Sin 3 Self-Serving Good works that do not please God and are not good. Slavery/bondage to deep desires. Behavior Revenge, Bitterness, Anger, Hurt Feelings, Jealousy, Grudges, Abuse of power, Depression.
What God Demands & What Everyone Lacks 4 Hunger for 5 Mercy 6 A Pure Heart Righteousness To desire God s righteousness like a To give physical help in times of need, forgive a new heart (a miracle) that can see God clearly because thirsty man in a desert enemies, and warn people it is cleansed of sin and has thirsts for water. about the consequences of sin. only one master: Jesus. Loves Jesus. What Everyone Already Has 4 Hunger for Morality and/or Vice Self-righteousness: hunger to be honored by men. Self-fulfillment: hunger to fulfill all your deepest desires. 5 Cruelty 6 No connection with God Ignores a neighbor s physical needs, holds grudges when wronged, encourages and participates in sin despite the consequences. A heart that is dead to God and has no desire to serve Him as master. Hates Jesus.
What Everyone Needs Most 7 Peace With God the joy and the peace that can only come from being ruled by God. What Everyone Already Has 7 Constant War With God Not being ruled by God.
It is not surprising that Christians are persecuted. Everyone in the world is falsely proud, in slavery to sin, serving themselves, hungry to be honored by men, cruel, dead to God, and at war with God & each other. We are enemies of God. We are not worthy of heaven. Only Jesus worthy! Only Jesus is righteous!
Jesus offers us His righteousness, His perfection, His worthiness. Jesus makes us choose between HIS Righteousness and ours. In these 8 Beatitudes Jesus demands that you: 1 Realize you are poor but Jesus is rich! 2 Mourn over your sin and turn to Jesus as your Savior! 3 Stop trusting in your strengths and trust Jesus instead. 4 Hunger for His righteousness not your own worthiness! 5 Stop hating your enemies and be forgiven by Jesus! 6 Love God s Law with all your heart, soul, and mind! 7 Stop your war with God and joyfully obey Him as Master! 8 Stop living for yourself. Start living for Jesus. Overcome evil with Good just as JESUS did! Know that if you have these qualities, you will be VERY HAPPY! BUT you will also be HATED by those who LACK them!
Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they
All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. 2 Tim 3:12 215 Million Christians (1 in 12) experience high levels of persecution. Every MONTH 255 Christians are killed 104 are abducted 180 Christian women sexually assaulted or forced into marriage 66 churches are attacked 160 Christians are detained without trial and imprisoned
The World has different desires. Love the World or Love Jesus Walk with the World or Walk with Jesus. Praise the World or Praise Jesus
The WORLD persecutes followers of Jesus because we: are not friends with it, do not conform to it s values, and most importantly do not love it! whoever wishes to be a friend Now the world will accept us of the world makes himself an enemy of God. James 4:4. whenever we love it and conform to it s values. But if we don t? If we repeat what Jesus said? If we simply love Jesus?
Persecuted for righteousness sake. Righteousness is telling everyone that God will punish every sin and that the only way to be saved is through faith in Jesus. Righteousness is desiring to live as Jesus wants us to live while realizing that we have no worthiness of our own. The more we love Jesus the more we will be persecuted.
Jesus said: They Hated Me First... Hate is a strong word! If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. John 20:18,20. Why was Jesus persecuted and killed? It was the most evil act of HATE. He made people feel angry and uncomfortable about their sin. Why was it God s plan for Jesus to Die? It was the highest act of LOVE. He was perfect, without sin. He did not deserve any punishment. We did.
HATE LOVE Jesus died in shame and humiliation as punishment for sin to pay a huge debt but not for his sins! Jesus took the Shame, humiliation, punishment that I deserved. Jesus paid the HUGE debt that I owed. He offers to remove your sin and give you His worthiness.
The Power of Love Jesus died for the people who hated Him. His Death opened the gates of Heaven to us. If we believe, our debt is paid, our sins are forgiven, we have no shame. He showed us what Love really is: to be persecuted for the sake of righteousness. And he wants us to imitate that Love.
The death of Jesus was infinitely powerful. But what does my being persecuted today accomplish? MUCH! First, It glorifies God by proving Satan wrong. Job 2:5: stretch out your hand and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face. When we stay joyful in the midst of persecution we show Satan and the world that we love Jesus not for what He may give us today but for who He is. We may fail, but Jesus never will!
Second, it displays our Savior as infinitely valuable. We may fail, but Jesus never will!
Third, it displays the depravity/sinfulness of people to people. It is a strong proof of human depravity that men s curses and Christ s blessings should meet on the same persons Arthur Pink If men curse you for righteousness it only shows their need for a Savior more! The world needs to see it in order to turn to Jesus. We may fail, but Jesus never will!
Fourth, Our persecution will draw some and harden others. One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us! But the other rebuked him, saying, Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.
TWO criminals were crucified with Jesus. One loved Jesus and one did not. Which are you? When you die you will either love the worthiness of Jesus & hate your own or you will love your own righteousness and hate His. We may fail. But Jesus never will! Only Jesus is worthy!