THE CULTURAL MANDATE: God Used Christians to Make the World a Better Place. Matthew 5:14-16.

Today my Bible reading included a king who punished his enemies by “ripping open all the pregnant women,” and another who captured 10,000 men, then drove them off a cliff to be “dashed to pieces.” Other Bible stories speak of cannibalism, being thrown to lions, burned in a furnace, eating newborn children and fighting over the afterbirth, tossing an evil queen out a window to her death, collecting enemies’ heads as trophies, burning one’s children as a sacrifice, gangs of men threatening to rape other men, the gang rape of a woman and the mutilation of her body, 12 pieces of which were mailed to cities all over Israel, torture and death on a cross.

World history includes more: bestiality, pedophilia cults, gladiatorial contests to the death—for entertainment, public nudity and orgies, organizations like NAMBLA, the “North American Man-Boy Love Association,” whose members travel to Bangkok every year to buy time with little boys, and more.

We live in a fallen world.

Adam and Eve broke God’s paradise. This world is FILLED with evil—not “funny” evil but NIGHTMARE evil.

But the Judeo-Christian ethic changed that. God’s people changed things. Christians became leaders, and many evils were stopped. Christians stopped gladiatorial contests. Christians outlawed crucifixion and torture. Christians passed laws protecting women and children. Christians abolished slavery (eventually). Christians slowed the tide of evils described above.

Today those evils are roaring back (see 2 Timothy 3:1-5). The Devil’s time is short; he is desperate. Don’t be deceived. You must choose a side. Line up with Jesus, and fight the evil that is trying to destroy you and the world around you.

“The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing” John F. Kennedy.

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden… LET YOUR LIGHT SHINE BEFORE OTHERS, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” Matthew 5:14-16.

Ask Jesus how you can make a difference.

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The Beatitudes Are About the Heart. Matthew 5:1-10.

Every culture looks at outward traits.

To be popular as a high school student requires one set of traits. To be popular in medical school requires a different set of traits. To fit in during US Navy SEAL training might require a third set of traits. But in every context, people respect the visible appearance of beauty and strength.

God told Samuel that “God does not see as man sees, for man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” 1 Samuel 16:7.

We like winners and we have no compassion for losers. As Osama Bin Laden said, “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse.”

But God told Samuel to ignore the outward appearance of Jesse’s handsome sons. Nevertheless, he eventually anointed David, the youngest, who was handsome and proved to be an excellent military leader. David satisfied those looking at the outward appearance. But God chose David because he was a man “after God’s own heart” 1 Samuel 13:14.

Jesus opens His first and greatest sermon by talking about HEARTS.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit [not the outwardly victorious]….

Blessed are they that mourn [not the triumphant] ….

Blessed are the meek [as opposed to the raging] ….

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness [as opposed to those who give no thought to right and wrong] ….

Blessed are the merciful [in contrast to the ruthless “winners”] ….

Blessed are the pure in heart [not those selfishly scheming] ….

Blessed are the peacemakers [not the warriors]….

Blessed are those persecuted for doing the right things [in contrast to the persecutors]” Matthew 5:1-10.

Jesus opens His first and greatest sermon by talking about HEARTS—but not just any hearts. These are the hearts of the “losers.” These are the people who are NOT popular in high school or in medical school. These will not fit in among Navy SEAL recruits. They might never taste success.

Our world is ruthless with “losers.” We show them no compassion. So how can anyone succeed in such a world?

We hide our pain. We bury traits the world does not welcome. We hide what is in our hearts. We hide that we are sad or gentle or righteous or merciful or pure or peaceful or persecuted. But Jesus says these are the traits that make you BLESSED in the eyes of God. Do you have any of these traits? Would you rather make peace than fight? Would you rather be gentle and merciful? Jesus has more to say about you:

“You are the SALT OF THE EARTH” v.13.

“You are the LIGHT OF THE WORLD” v.14.

Pay attention to your heart. After all, that is what God is interested in. You are not called to be the “strongest horse.”

You are called to be SALT and LIGHT, to bless the people around you with your compassion, gentleness, peace, and mercy.

God, give us hearts like David’s. Show us how to work hard, how to strive and win, but give us the courage to be meek and humble and tenderhearted. Make us more like you.

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Authority. Luke 5:24.

When I began practicing law, the word Authority took on new meaning. I remember stepping out of a mediation to call the boss. I passed along a settlement offer from opposing counsel and his answer was, “I can’t agree to that. I don’t have authority.”

What he meant was that his defendant-client had not given him permission to spend that much. Young lawyers catch on quickly: it all comes down to authority. Your client may agree to pay up to $50,000 (for example) to settle the case, (giving you $50,000 in authority). If you can’t convince the attorney for the other side that his client should accept $50,000, you will not be able to settle until you get more authority.

Lawyers never forget: some decisions belong not to you, but the client.

Questions of authority come up every day.

When a parent tries to control decisions of married children, they may be crossing a line of authority. Businesses face many questions of authority: owners, investors, and limited partners may possess some limited authority, general partners possess authority in many areas, etc.

Hospitals are a good example.

Only doctors can prescribe drugs.

Nurses have no authority to change drug or dosage, though they do have authority to raise questions when they believe a doctor has made a mistake. 

Treatment decisions are always left to the authority of the treating physician.

You might be the owner of a hospital, but you have no authority over the treatment of an individual patient.

A particularly difficult question of authority comes up when a married person with living parents becomes incapacitated. If a college student were to get married to a man she just met in Las Vegas and suffer a brain injury while on her honeymoon, her two parents that have invested twenty years into her life would NOT have the authority to consent to medical treatment on her behalf if her husband were against the treatment. Even though the parents have never met their son-in-law, and even though he has only known their daughter for two weeks, the law gives the husband the legal authority to consent to medical treatment—not the parents. That is what is meant by authority.

Jesus crossed a line with the Pharisees. He saw a paralyzed man and instead of healing him, said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven” Luke 5:20. 

Jesus exercised AUTHORITY—and it was an authority that belongs only to God. The Pharisees were outraged, thinking ‘Who can forgive sins but God alone?’

“But perceiving their thoughts, Jesus replied, ‘Why are you thinking this way? Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—Jesus spoke to the paralyzed man—“Arise, take up your pallet, and go home” Luke 5:22-24.

Jesus had AUTHORITY. And He exercised it publicly, knowing it would upset the Pharisees. But what does it mean?

The Pharisees were correct: only God can forgive sins.

When Jesus claimed to possess “the authority to forgive sins,” Jesus was, in effect, saying “I and the Father are One” as He would say later in John 10:30. Jesus possessed not only the power of God and the words of God—He possessed the AUTHORITY of God.

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POPULARITY. Luke 6:26.

Is it good to be popular or bad to be popular?

Well, it’s complicated. God can use your appeal—if people like you, they will be interested in what you have to say about Him. But popularity is not the goal.

“Woe to you when all people speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets the same way” Luke 6:26.

Jesus says it is terrible if EVERYONE speaks well of you, because that may indicate you are a false prophet. Or a false person, anyway. Consider how Eugene Peterson paraphrases this passage in the MESSAGE:

“There’s trouble ahead when you live only for the approval of others, saying what flatters them, doing what indulges them. Popularity contests are not TRUTH contests—look how many scoundrel preachers were approved by your ancestors! YOUR TASK IS TO BE TRUE, NOT POPULAR.”

The Phillips Translation puts it this way:

“What sorrows await those of you who are always honored and lauded by others, for that’s how your forefathers treated every false prophet.”

Notice that the most popular people were the FALSE people. Why is that? Could no one see that they were false? No—I think people can see the falsity, but are afraid to call it out. Or if not afraid, they just don’t see much point in it. But negative people, lost people will always criticize one who speaks truth—because truth makes them so angry they can’t control themselves.

And that’s Jesus’s point:

If no one is ever angry at you, then perhaps you are not speaking truth.

Conversely, if you have enemies, perhaps you are a truth-teller.

Either way, remember: Woe to you when all people speak well of you.

Expect criticism. It is a normal part of life if you are going to walk in the truth.

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SONS OF GOD. Matthew 5:9,45; Luke 6:35.

Jesus calls us sons of God. That’s an incredible title, coming from THE Son of God. But He gives us tasks: if you obey His words, you will be sons of God. Do you see how amazing that is? You won’t be just ordinary. You will be sons of God. Think of what comes with sonship—an inheritance. If you are sons of God, you are heirs to God’s kingdom. But can you do the things Jesus calls sons to do?

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the SONS OF GOD” Matthew 5:9.

Can you apologize? Can you humble yourself and make things right? And can you humble yourself and apologize to an enemy? Jesus will ask that of you one day. He cares about the way you treat even your enemies.

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be SONS OF YOUR FATHER IN HEAVEN” Matthew 5:45.

Do you love your enemies? Do you sincerely ask God to bless your enemies, to meet their needs, and call them to salvation? Do you care deeply about them? Do you want them to go to Heaven? Tell God you are willing to love your enemies. Ask for His help. But there is more.

“Love your enemies, do what is good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Then your reward will be great and you will be SONS OF THE MOST HIGH” Luke 6:35.

Can you love your enemies enough to loan them money, knowing they may never return it? Then you will be a son of the Most High God. And sonship means heirship. You will be a fellow-heir to a kingdom of infinite riches, wealth, and beauty. If you can release your tight grip on riches in this world—even if it means giving to your enemies—God will make you an heir to an eternal kingdom in the next.

Ask God to fill you with a genuine love for your enemies, and a passion to pray for them and give to them.

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DEDICATION. Luke 6:12.

Jesus was dedicated. But people say, “well, that kind of dedication is fine for Jesus, but not for me”? What if I told you to fast for forty days? I’m pretty sure you would argue His forty-day fast does not apply to you—because He IS Jesus, after all.

And I might even agree. Jesus was God. His earthly life was different than ours. But He was also a man. An extremely dedicated man.

Talk about setting a P.R.—He was always outdoing Himself. He did not merely fast for forty days at the beginning of His ministry. He also spent an incredible amount of time in prayer throughout His work.

“During those days, He went out to the mountain to pray and spend all night in prayer to God” Luke 6:12.

All night long in prayer? Why? Was he dying? No, or at least, not yet. But the world was dying in sin and He was gravely serious about the battle He was fighting. And He did not go home and sleep all day the next day. He prayed through the night, then continued healing people, reaching people, and preaching.

THAT is dedication. THAT is TRUE GRIT.

And dedication—especially PREPARATION—THAT is where battles are won and lost. The toughest battles we face are often battles with our own will. Are you going to pray or not? Are you going to pick up your Bible, or keep scrolling through your phone? Are you going to put an oar in the water and paddle for the shore, or will you bob along like a styrofoam cup, floating wherever life’s current takes you?

Jesus got His power from the Father. Forty days of fasting prepared Him for three years of supernatural battles. Entire nights spent in prayer gave Him strength to cast demons from dozens, heal hundreds, and walk from one end of Israel to the other preaching the Good News.

“Every battle is won before it is fought.” –THE ART OF WAR. Sun Tzu.

Spiritual preparation is everything. What are you doing to PREPARE for battle?

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Be Doers of the Word, Not Hearers Only: the Bible is Your Owner’s Manual. Luke 6:46-49

We all hear the Word. But do we obey it, or just nod and say, “Oh, that’s a nice thought, very inspirational.”

Poetry, speeches, even songs can inspire and delight. But God’s Word demands more—actual obedience. We are supposed to change, not just get goose bumps or tears over a moving bit of language.

He expects us to OBEY.

Do you obey? Does the idea even occur to you? The Word should pierce your heart, or step on your toes sometimes. Sometimes it should make you uncomfortable. Does it? Do you respect and revere God’s Word that much?

Obedience is the key to life.

God’s Word is the owners’ manual for life on earth. If you follow the instructions, you will succeed. If you think it’s all just touching poetry, you will fail.

Here’s an acronym for the Bible:

B.        Basic

I.          Instructions

B.        Before

L.         Leaving

E.        Earth.

The Bible is your Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.

Are you following the instructions? Ask God to help you, to show where you are not following, to show you what to do.

Jesus said if you obey, if you build your life on His Word, your life will be solid. If not, it will all be washed away. Your mother and I have done our best to build our home on His Word. Consider Luke 6:46-49.

Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? Everyone who comes to Me and hears My words and acts on them, I will show you whom he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation on the rock; and when a flood occurred, the torrent burst against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who has heard and has not acted accordingly, is like a man who built a house on the sand without any foundation; and the torrent burst against it and immediately it collapsed, and the ruin of that house was great.

The floods WILL come. Build your house, your LIFE on the Rock of His Word. Don’t simply be inspired. Obey.

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*I took the picture above of five abandoned cars that were washed by flood waters into deep ditches on Clay Road west of Houston, following Hurricane Harvey in August of 2017. I have always assumed the owners got out of the cars while still on the pavement (when they stalled in the rising floodwaters), and the cars were washed into the ditches later as the water rose even higher.

You Have to Make Time. Luke 6:12

Do you pray and worship and sing to the Lord and read and study and memorize scripture only when you have a problem? Does God only hear from you when something goes wrong? If then?

Or do you spend time with Him daily? Do you talk to Him like a friend, sharing your hopes and dreams and hurts, your wins and losses? If you love someone, you will spend time with him, right? Consider the example of Jesus:

Luke 6:12 says, “During those days, He went out to the mountain to pray and spent ALL NIGHT in prayer to God.”

Can you imagine? That’s a long time. I don’t expect any of us to do the same—and you should not feel guilty for doing less—but He is setting an example for us. We may not pray all night long, but we can do a little. We can do something. Five or ten minutes is so much better than nothing.

Pray. Talk to God for a few minutes about spiritual disciplines. Ask Him to help you do a little more, to help you desire it and make time for it. To get organized about feeding yourself spiritually. Ask Him to help you develop good, consistent habits of prayer and praise and Bible study and church attendance.

Jesus made time to be with His Father. How can we do any less?

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DARKNESS REDUX. Luke 5:31-32.

“The people sitting in darkness have seen a great light. To those living in the Shadow of Death, a LIGHT has come” Matthew 4:16.

Our world is filled with darkness. War. Famine. Epidemics. Cancer. Even the Christmas story includes Herod’s “Slaughter of the Innocents,” a massacre so heinous that for centuries Herod was named by anyone looking to convey a sense of outrageous evil. (It took Hitler’s genocidal murder of millions to unseat Herod as the go-to example of pure evil. “Worse than Herod,” has been replaced with “worse than Hitler.”)

There has never been a person whose life was not touched by darkness. The luckiest people will still have to plan their parents’ funerals—and possibly their own.

We live in a world deeply stained by evil. And it hurts so much—every hurt we suffer can be traced back to some aspect of the Fall of Creation, to the Darkness that was unleashed on the world, like Roman “Dogs of War,” unleashed in battle to destroy enemy troops: darkness chases you like a giant, vicious dog.

And God is SOVEREIGN. He uses the darkness to draw us to Him:

“And Jesus answering said unto them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a physician, but the sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance’” Luke 5:31-32.

You see, God uses darkness—illness—to draw our hearts to the GREAT PHYSICIAN. Have you suffered pain? Have you been lost, without direction? Have you faced the blindness of total darkness? Turn to the LIGHT OF THE WORLD. Take your sickness to the Great Physician. Take your fears, self-doubts, and questions to the WONDERFUL COUNSELOR.

Don’t let darkness destroy you. Let it drive you to your KNEES. Take it to Jesus. He loves you!

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FAMILY. Mark 3:21, 31-35.

Sara was baptized at 8. Her drunken father, standing at the back of the sanctuary, shouted, “Hooray for Sara!” as she came up out of the water.

Sara figured baptism was proof of salvation: you believed in Jesus, and proved it by baptism. But she writes that what neither she nor her father understood was that BAPTISM IS A TRANSFER OF ALLEGIANCE.

“When I came up out of the water, soaked and relieved not to have gotten water up my nose, I was a member of a different family, the daughter of a different father.”

After Jesus began His ministry, His relationship with His family changed. After Jesus began to draw huge crowds, His mother and brothers and sisters came to talk to Him, thinking He had lost His mind.

“When His family heard about [the crowds], they set out to restrain Him, saying, ‘He’s out of His mind.’ … Then His mother and His brothers came, and sent word to Him. A crowd was sitting around Him and told Him, ‘Your mother, Your brothers, and Your sisters are outside asking for You.’

“He replied, ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ And looking around He said, ‘These are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother’” Mark 3:21, 31-35.

Why does Jesus deny his family in this moment? Because they are missing the point. They are denying Him through their doubts—and those who obey Him are acting as His true family.

Jesus uses harsh words:

“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” Luke 14:26.

Does Jesus want you to hate your family? No. But He wants you to love Him so deeply that you choose Him over everyone. Jesus speaks with the assumption that no one is closer than family. But if needed, you must give them up to know Him better: no one should come between you and your allegiance to Jesus.

Do you love Him more than EVERYTHING and EVERYONE else?

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