Sermon Transcript:

Well, we finally made it through the book of Galatians. I've been here since September, and we had some other things go on in between and stuff. But so today we're going to actually start a new series called heaven on earth. And so I would just like to ask you this morning if you'll just kind of silence your phones or turn them off, if possible,

All scripture is God breathed, second, Timothy,

316, and 17 for rebuking, testimony, disciplining and all of those things, all of the scriptures. But when you see the red letters in the passages, when they come directly from Jesus Himself, we pay a little bit more closer attention. He became the living Word of God, but the entire series that we're going to do is going to be instructions that come directly from Jesus's mouth, and so I invite you to to just resonate with that. Invite Him into your heart and listen to what he wants to teach you through this series. I don't know exactly how many weeks it'll be, but we'll get through it. When we get through it, amen.

Every sermon is always kind of stands on its own, but it's nice to do say, Hey, this is where we're going to be. So so

this first sermon that I'm going to do today is called Blessed are you. It's going to be Matthew chapter five, verses one through 12. And so before we talk about this heaven on earth sermon series, I want you to know that God sets a standard before us that a lot of times is really hard to attain. So what does the standard mean? It's how we measure things. It's what if we're doing something. We want to know. What is the standard. You know, if you take a test, the standard is 100 is perfection, if you can get everything right. Well, Jesus's standard is holiness and perfection as well. But we know that in our own sinful ways, that we live our lives, that we never going to measure up. And so we want to be able to teach you some things through this to how to adhere to some of these statements and some of these instructions that that Jesus has given us through this sermon series. So we're going to journey through what I call the greatest sermon ever preached, because it came directly from Jesus and just so, you know,

we call it dust Sermon on the Mount. But you'll notice right away in verse one of this, chapter five, Jesus actually sits down to teach. And so this gives us this implication, or this knowledge of knowing that it wasn't just one sermon, it was a series of sermons. And I, as we go through this, you'll understand what I mean, because there just was, we're human beings. It was so much to take in from our Lord and Savior, and I know that we have these words, but I could just imagine him explaining exactly what it meant when he spoke them.

So you might say this morning, Pastor, there's no way I can attain the holiness

we already know that. I know that. I know that my own personal life. But check out this verse, First Peter, First Peter, 116

it says, For it is written, Be holy, because I am holy.

And I every time I read that verse, I go, but how I mean you read that, you go, how in the world am I going to be holy as He is holy?

It's a simple solution. Put Jesus first and foremost in everything that you do, and He'll guide you and lead you through that process, not in perfection, in yourself, but because he's perfect and you become holy by following Him. Amen. Alright, we're going to read Matthew chapter five, verses one through 12. Let's stand as we read the verses together. I'll be reading from the New International Version. It'll be up on the screen, but please read it for yourself, and in your Bible or your telephone or iPad or whatever you use to see God's word. And I say that because I want you to see it for yourself. I know you're gonna see it on the screen, but and you read from your own stuff, you get to you get to understand how God is going to speak to you. It says, Now, when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and he sat down, his disciples came to Him, and He began to teach them, and he said, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. And Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who persecute because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Excuse me, blessed are those who are persecuted and blessed are you?

You insult.

When people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you, because of me, Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven. For in the same way, they persecuted the prophets who were before you, Father, we receive your Word this morning. We thank You God that we have these red letters to see this today for for us, Lord in Jesus name, I pray. Amen. You may have a seat.

Now. I actually have 12 points this morning, so we're going to be here a while.

Don't laugh. It's true. I have nine points. Just kidding.

Some of them are short, but I didn't know how to break this up without I wanted to go through each individual thing that Jesus trying to teach us this morning. My first one is Jesus cared, therefore he taught. Jesus cared therefore he taught. He took every opportunity to teach anytime that he could, and he wanted to teach those that wanted to follow Him. Now, Jesus really cares for us. He sees the crowds at the height of his popularity, and he says, come here. I want to teach you Kingdom Principles, Kingdom truths. You see, we also have an obligation in our lives. For those that want to follow Jesus because of us, if you're a parent here and you have children, you're teaching them at home, I hope. And you're teaching them about what it means to follow Jesus. You have an obligation to teach them Kingdom Principles and kingdom truths so that they, too, can walk, because they're the ones. They're the sheep that we're sending out to the wolves. They go to the public schools. They go to all these different things. They're on social media. Sorry, Tiktok fans, they're on social media.

Oh, I got that one in quick, huh?

And they and they get insulted all the time, and so if we're not teaching them kingdom principles like Jesus, they're going to be trying to conjure up their own way of dealing with those things Jesus taught us because we wanted to follow Him. And he says we have that obligation as well as he teaches us in the text. He says that he sat down posture for those professors, those teachers of the law back then, suggesting that the sermon took place over several days. See Matthew 728, through 29 These are the last part of the Sermon on the Mount. It says, When Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were amazed at His teaching, for he was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their own scribes. You see, if I can, if I can, teach you anything this morning, this is it.

As a pastor, I'm going to say things that don't make sense. Thank God we have the word of God that makes sense, right?

And that's what the crowds were amazed. And they were like, Hey, this guy right here, you know, we've listened to the Pharisees and all the scribes and all the rabbis and all the teachers, but this guy, man, he teaches different. He teaches as if he has authority. And they were amazed at that, because

I don't know if they were sure about the other guys they were supposed to be teaching about the coming Messiah, but they missed it. And so I don't want you to miss anything. I may say something that you just go, you know it happens, but focus in on what God wants to teach you from his word. This morning, amen,

as the crowds grew bigger

throughout the time span,

Jesus taught with love and compassion, and I pray this morning that you feel the love and the compassion from God's Word.

Alright, my second point is the poor. Blessed are the This is verse three. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they will see theirs is the kingdom of heaven, and we are blessed in a sense that God cares.

And I want you to I want you to know this. Jesus always had the end in mind. Everything that he taught, he was always reminding us about what was to come. I'm going to return. The kingdom is at hand. Don't worry, I'll take revenge. All of these things he was talking about the end in mind. And so as we walk this earth here, as we try to bring heaven to earth, we too, as we teach those that are following us that you're leading them to Christ, not not us, but we're teaching them about Christ. We want to make sure that they understand that there's an end in sight. Amen, our final destiny is not this place, thank god.

Thank god. This is not it, because we would all be doomed.

You see, we want to just a taste of heaven, so that we would continue to live our lives so we knew what was going to come up. This is what's called eschatology, one of those big theological words that I've learned. I just wanted to, I just wanted you to, guys know that I'm I learned some things.

Eschatology basically means our view of end times.

Our final destination affects the way we read Scripture, the way we live our lives. You see, if all you do is think, well, when I die, then I'm going to go to heaven. Well, how are you going to live in the middle time? How are you going to live in the in between time? How are you going to live in the here and now? If all you ever think is, well, when I die, then I'll go to heaven. Now listen, John said it clearly and all throughout his gospel, the gospel has come, and it's come now, when you accept Christ as your Lord and Savior, eternity begins right then you start living as if you are already in eternity, because you are for the believer. When we die, it's like we just go to sleep and we wake up in the presence of the Lord.

I just got done with a funeral this past this is a third funeral in two weeks. My aunt passed away. The funeral was this past Friday. Guess what? I know where she's at. She accepted Jesus as her lord and savior for her. We saw her body in a casket. She was not present. That was an empty shell. It was a tent. Her soul had already gone on. Her spirit had already gone on to be with Jesus. That's what it means to have eschatology in your life. It's not about when you die. Listen, physically, we're all going to die, young people, one day you're going to get old and you're going to die too, just like the rest of us.

Man, does time go faster? What I'm

going to be 60 next week?

Ouch. That's must be for somebody else, not me, you know.

But I'm just thinking, Man, my dad's going to be 84 in February. It's like, Where does the time go? Listen, we only have a short amount of time to get our eschatology, our end time view. We only have a little bit of time to realize what it means to bring heaven to earth so that others can come to Christ, not follow you, but follow him. We only have a short amount of time.

We want the blessings, and we want them here and now, but sometimes the blessings come later.

Some preachers are so popular today because they preach a blessing of today, only not later. They don't ever have the end in mind. They talk about having to being blessed here. Hey, I'm all about that too, as well. But eventually we have to go, what's in the what is the end game? What is what? What's our final destination. That's what we all have to have to be thinking about. And Jesus says, Blessed are the poor in spirit. It's not about being poor or socioeconomically deprived. It's about being hungry and being bankrupt, for Jesus, where we're just spent and our spiritual life is so awful that we're poor in spirit

that you're bankrupt. You look at your checking account and it has a red minus something you know, you guys don't ever have those right?

And you go, man, how did that happen? Because you spent too much.

We spend so much time doing things that don't matter. We forget about the things that do matter, we become bankrupt spiritually. He said, That's all right, I got an answer for you. Blessed are those that are poor in spirit. Eventually you have to come to your senses like the prodigal son.

You see, we can go out and live our lives and spend all that we want, but eventually we gotta come home to Jesus and he's there, going, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Eventually we go, wow, we're all in poor in spirit, amen. Can we agree with that? This morning, we need Jesus more than we ever needed him. You see, everybody's trying to throw all this junk at us like we needed Tiktok. I saw so many people crying.

They say, I live my life by this, and I get my income this. I said, we got to find another way, baby.

You know, I don't create the rules. I just thought it was like, dang. I didn't know people were that addicted to that stuff. I want to be addicted to Jesus. Man, and I know you can use that stuff for him.

I use social media too, but man, I'm not going to die. I'm not going to cry if it goes away. I still got the King of kings in my life. We should be happy about that. You see, we are. We have to acknowledge that we're bankrupt without hope, without Christ, we just have to acknowledge that

Jesus said in Matthew 1923, through 24

truly, I say to you, it's hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And again, I say to you, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

Now I am not saying rich people will not make it to heaven. I didn't say that.

Listen,

what is hard though, is that when you have well, when you're well off financially, you have a false sense of security here on Earth.

If I know that we need money to pay the rent, I know that we need money for gas and food. Yes, it's expensive to live, but that's not where our security comes from

and and it's so it's so many people just feel like, if I could just get this much money, if I could have just have this much in my 401 k, if I could just have to, if I can what

you think that's going to give you security? It's only in Christ that you find that security. And so Jesus was just trying to say, don't get a false sense security here on Earth,

because heaven is our final destination.

We're poor when it comes to the spiritual life. We need Jesus to get us out of bankruptcy.

Blessed are the poor, and for theirs is the kingdom of heaven just a future tense but not just a here and now, but a future thing. We're eternally set free from the moment we ask Jesus into our life. We're no longer slaves to fear. Man. Are you tired of being afraid. Fear does not control the believer. Timothy was getting admonition from Paul as a future pastor, and he said, You have not been given a spirit of fear, but a spirit of timidity and power to actually walk this earth. C, S, Lewis said in his book The problem of pain,

we are afraid that heaven is a bribe, and that if we make it our goal, we shall no longer be disinterested. It is not so. Heaven offers nothing that a mercenary soul can desire. It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God for only the pure in heart want to

do you want to go to heaven? Do you want to live for Jesus? Listen, you're not going to do it. How to live in it with a spirit of fear. You have to live it with a spirit of power. Know where you're going walk this earth in victory. You know, and make people go, man, what's wrong with you? That dude is weird. That chick is out there. Man, good. We don't belong here anyway. We're just passing through.

Have you acknowledged your need for Jesus? Yet your life in this world is only temporary. Fix your eyes on the one who could claim you out of darkness and a spiritual bankruptcy.

Number three, the mourners, the mourners. Verse four, blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. You see, when we sin as Christians, we should have a time of mourning. We should have a time where we feel guilty, we feel sorry, we feel terrible for the things that we've done, and we have this process of mourning as if somebody died, they did. The old person has died. Second, Corinthians, 517, and the new person supposed to be living inside of you. We say that all the time. It's in our scripture, weeping is a natural act for God's people to be having a broken spirit that we weep and we mourn because of personal sin, but also corporate sin. As a body of believers, we start believing stuff that's not biblical. And as a body, we create our own sin. We should be in a mournful state. It should never be all right with our spirit to overlook sin

when we see sin happening, we should never go out that's just them. No, it should affect us. It should say that's not right. You see, Jesus blessed those who mourn. He said, I would comfort them. I will give them strength. It's perfectly fine to go ahead and have a conviction party over your sins, even this morning, you know you may be far from God. You may say, Pastor, I used to be close to him, me and him, we were walking, but you may be far from God this morning, you can reconnect with him and say, I want Jesus back in my life. Well, he never left. Guess who left

you? Right? We're the ones that step out of our faith in in Christ, our Lord and Savior, will be there to give us our forgiveness back. He say you can come back anytime. When was the last time you mourn spiritually? When was the last time you were tired of all the sin going on in your life? Number four, the meek. Blessed are the meek, and they for they will inherit the earth, and Jesus is calling His Church to a state of meekness and humbleness when we acknowledge our spiritual bankruptcy before him, and then we mourn we can be humiliated. He humble responders and meek responders. That's what Jesus is talking about. And we understand more of Jesus as we're humble before him, when we open up our heart and say, God, speak to me, pour out, we can't do it when our hearts are callous and full of sin, he won't be able to penetrate that.

He says, we blessed are those that that are meek, and they will inherit the earth. And what does that mean if this is not our place and we're only here temporarily, it's humble and meek that will.

SEE the kingdom reign here on Earth. Is what that really means. This is brought on by our inheritance of the promised land. The remember the end in sight. Psalm 37 nine, says this, For the evildoers will be cut off, but those who wait for the Lord, they will inherit the land. Psalm 3711 but the humble will inherit the land, and I will delight myself, and they will delight themselves in abundant prosperity. Psalm 3429 or 3729 excuse me,

the righteousness will inherit the land and dwell in it forever. See a meek spirit leaves the vengefulness up to God. You ever just want to get even and get back at somebody for doing something they did to you?

Come on, you can tell me.

I mean, we're not live on video or nothing, right?

Listen, I get it. We want to be revengeful. We want to we want to make them pay. How dare them do that to us? Right?

You don't have to worry about that. You don't have to get even. You don't have to keep score, because people are going to get what they deserve. Everybody will stand before a holy God. Remember, be holy, because I'm holy. You're going to stand before a holy God and give an account for the life that you've lived.

How's that going?

What's that day going to look like for you?

Man, I dread that day

I know my own self

to stand before a holy God and

to have my soul bared before him.

Listen, it affects us all.

That day is coming for all, even for the believer, we're going to stand before the Bema, the Greek word for the judgment seat of Christ, not because we're going, not going to heaven, but we're going to give an account for what we did with Jesus in our life.

That's what he's talking about. You blessed are the meek that will you will inherit the land. You'll be able to spread the Gospel. You'll be able to speak Jesus's name freely.

You don't have to worry about getting even Romans 1219, says, Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written this, this God said it is mine to avenge. I will repay. Says the Lord, don't take his job. He's got it handled Okay, and he's going to be better at it than you are.

Are you allowing God, the God of this planet, to establish his meekness in you. If you aren't, allow him to change your life, allow him to change your heart. Don't be afraid. We don't need any machismo going on during this time. It's time to drop that mode and get on with board with Jesus amen.

Number five, the hungry and the thirsty. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Thank god

he's going to fill us. You see, we need to have an appetite for the kingdom of God. We have to, almost as if, like, you know, you guys get up and make coffee in the morning, right? First thing? Man, my eyes ain't even open. Thank God for carricks, man. You put that thing in there. You don't have to measure it, you know. You gotta just decide how you want, how strong you want it, 810, or 12, you know, I like eight, and then I put sugar and creamer in it makes it less strong, you know.

Listen, we have to have an appetite like that for God, where the first thing that we wake up, we're thinking about, how am I going to get on and get my Jesus on today? How am I going to let him live my life, live his life through me. As much as we have cravings for other things, we should desire to be like him. It should be the thing that we want. The only way to hunger and thirst and be satisfied is when the kingdom is consummated. In your life, it comes to fruition. Until then, we get to strive and fight and push our way towards the cravings for Jesus. In the same psalm 37 that we've been talking about, verses three through six, says, Trust to the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness, delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord, trust also unto Him, and He will do it. He will bring forth Your righteousness as the light and your judgment as the noonday. What desires are you running after this morning? What's fulfilling your life? Righteousness, kingdom, principles or your own way.

Number six, the Merciful. Blessed are the merciful,

for they will be shown mercy.

I will admit

before this congregation, I'm not good at Mercy. I always go, hey, they get what they deserve.

Right?

They made their own bed, let them lie in it. Now, you heard that statement? I love that statement.

I have laid in that bed too,

and it you know what? You know? What's good about that statement is like, Listen, man, when you do things, God is going to let you reap the consequences of your sin. And so we do get to lie in our own bed that we make sometimes, and it's not fun.

Blessed are the merciful. The gift of mercy is to be practiced because it's not easy to do challenging, isn't it? What does it mean to be merciful? Here it is in a nutshell, to have a spirit of forgiveness for the guilty and the compassion for the suffering and needy. Let me repeat that.

It's having a spirit of forgiveness for the guilty and a compassion for the suffering and needy.

Where would you be without mercy today?

Think about it.

Think about Jesus hanging on the cross, accepting those nails, bleeding his own blood for you,

his mom crying out for mercy. That's a picture of mercy.

Where would you be without that picture?

You see, Mercy is a Christian characteristic trait that is part of who we are

all the time, and not just for particular situations. You see, the reward of being merciful is that when your time comes, you'll be shown mercy.

You see, we want mercy when it's our time, but we're reluctant to give mercy when it's somebody else's time because they said something that you didn't like or they did something that you didn't like. Well, how many times have you said and did something that Jesus didn't like and he still showed you mercy? Amen,

it's hard.

In July of 2021

our organization opened up a place called the El Paso migrant center.

And I got called names. I got asked, Why are you doing this? I got told, you're just adding to the problem.

But this was my answer. Every time somebody said, Why would you do that? How can you do that? You're just causing more turmoil in the migrant situation. I said, Listen, I didn't create it.

It wasn't my fault.

It wasn't anybody's fault. It just happened. I understand that there are ways of doing things, but listen, the people were here, and God has called us to be merciful and to minister to whoever he puts in front of us. You see, we used to say they're in our back door. Well, listen, they're bringing the doorbell of our front door now. And so we decided to go forth with what I called a Christian, a Christ center to pray, to preach the gospel to those that were already here.

And this is what we did.

We would accept them in they had their paperwork from the border patrol,

and we preached the gospel.

We also give them clothing and food and shelter. I get it. But that was not why we were there. It was not we were we did the humanitarian thing. But I want to tell you 4500

plus souls came to Christ since July of 21 through December 31 of 2024, through the El Paso Margaret center.

And I say, What would our church look like if 4500

souls got saved every three and a half years, rotating through our church, we would have to have multiple services here. Why aren't we doing that? Why is it not happening? Because they're poor, they're meek, they're humble, they're down and out. All they had was Jesus. When will we ever get to that state where we say, I don't need all this stuff, but I need him more than anything.

December 31 2024 was a sad day for me. We closed the doors to the El Paso migrant center because the crossings are not what they used to be. Nine other non governmental organizations have closed their doors

just recently this year, but

we showed mercy to those that had a need. I didn't create the system, but we were going to tell them about Jesus because they were here. I stand on that principle. Could you imagine you going somewhere else, to some other foreign country, and somebody didn't like it that you were there, but somebody reached out to you and shared the gospel with you. All the other things that happened could have been bad things. They didn't want you there. They kicked you out, whatever. But man, that was my thought. Wherever they were going, whether back to their home country, back to their families, or whatever, they were going to take Jesus with them. We're.

We were a mission, sending agency. That's the way I looked at it.

And I found how to have mercy.

Oh, I didn't like it.

I've never been called so many names in my life as a pastor for doing that, but I would do it again in a heartbeat,

because people need Jesus more than they need freedom, because only true freedom comes in Christ.

Number seven, the pure. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Purity is having a moral compass and a bent towards God, creating a freedom from deceit. It's one of those words that it's not just taught in our church, but we know the difference between right and wrong. I don't care who you are, if you're not, if you're hitting sitting here, and you're not a believer in Christ, and you live your life for you. You know what's right and wrong? Because it's morality, it's it's in it's indwelled in us. You see, we we have this as believers, we've been towards Jesus, but we still kind of sometimes bend the other way. We know what's right and wrong, shame, deceit, filth and immorality will never have a place in the Kingdom of God, never.

That's not the center of our will, and it never should be Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. See First John three, one through three says this,

great, what great love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God, and that is where we are, and that is what we are. Excuse me, the reason that the world does not know us is that it did not know him, dear friends. Now we are children of God, and what we will have, what we will be, has not been yet made known, but we will know that when Christ appears, we shall be like Him. We shall see Him as He is. And

all who have this hope in Him purifies themselves, just as He is pure. Is your heart pure this morning?

Most of us would have to answer no to that, I answer no. I have impure thoughts. I think things I want bad things to happen to people that cut me off on the freeway.

I'm just saying. I'm just being honest. You know, I don't practice International Sign Language. Don't worry,

most of us would have to say I don't have a pure heart. The only

way you're going to have that is if you have Christ in there, and then he's continually massaging that heart so that you can become pure, because you see, when God sees us, he doesn't see us anymore. He sees Jesus standing in front of us, and he sees and he says, that's mine. He's mine. She's mine. And that's how we have a pure heart, not because we're pure, but because he is

number eight, the peacemakers.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Peacemaking is not about being peaceful. When Jesus talks about those of us who are peacemakers, we're extending the kingdom of God to those in need of the Prince of Peace. That's what that word means. See, you can say, well, I just want peace in my family. And we have, we all have those in our family, right? You have the mom or the grandma or some, somebody in the family wants to keep the peace, right? And the way they do that is they just sweep everything under the rug, and we don't ever really talk about it. At least there's peace, right? And you want to go really, just pick that scab and see if it doesn't bleed.

Being a peacemaker is extending the kingdom of God so that the Prince of Peace comes into that life or that family. You see, if you want to be a true peacemaker in your family, tell him about Jesus, because he's the only peace that they're ever going to see. You see, Jesus gives us his own example of how to be a peacemaker. Ephesians, two, one through 1711, through 17. Excuse me, he says, Therefore, remember that formerly you were you who were Gentiles by birth and called uncircumcised by those who call themselves the circumcision, which is done in the body and not by human hands. Remember that at the time you were separate from Christ, excluded from the citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenant of the promise without hope and without God in the world.

But now in Christ, Jesus, You, who were once far away, have been brought near by the blood of Christ, for he himself is our peace

who made us the two groups? One who made the two groups? One has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside, in his flesh, the law with its commands and regulations.

His purpose was to create himself, one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and anyone in one body reconciled to both of them and God through the cross by which he put to death. Through their hostility, he put their hostility to death, he came and preached peace to those who were far away and peace to those who were near. Peace making is how we show peace.

People that we are the children of God. That's what it means to be a peacemaker. We want everybody to come to a saving knowledge of Christ. We want peace available to everybody by spreading the gospel. That's why we did the migrant center. I was like, this is an opportunity for us to tell them about the truth.

Are you a peacemaker? Are you just peaceful?

I know us old people say we just want peace and

peace and quiet. There you go. You're with me.

Lastly, the persecuted

verses, 10 through 12, very near and dear to my heart. You see, a lot of times we have our own kingdom in our own little group of people that we mingle with.

But there is a kingdom of God all around this globe going on. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for this is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are who, when people insult you, persecute you and falsely call you all kinds of evil against because of being, Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven. For in the same way, they persecuted the prophets who were before you, the persecuted church is a real group of saints being brutally tormented just for trying to be peacemakers, for trying to share the gospel. Jesus says theirs is the kingdom of God. They will see Jesus. They realize that as well. You see when you're being chastised and treated unfairly just because you have Jesus in your life, that's when you know that the Kingdom mindset is going on in your life, when people actually talk bad about you and go, Man, that guy is just a Holy Roller coming up here trying to tell us how good he is, right? We never tell him how good we are. We tell him how good Jesus is. Jesus knows, first hand, what it means when he says those that that you are blessed when they insult you. You see, he knows all the accusations that came his way, just like we have them. You see, Jesus says to rejoice and be glad. Great is your reward. Is what he says. Maybe not here on Earth, but in heaven.

We really don't know this kind of persecution here in the United States. So I'm going to tell you a little bit about what's going on around the world according to the most recent research that they have, approximately 365

million Christians are currently prosecuted today. Around the globe,

there are billions following Christ,

but about a third of them, that's one in every seven believers, are persecuted for Christ's sake.

So if you're not able just to talk about Jesus and your little ring of fire and your little sphere of atmosphere, why not Ain't nobody persecuting you like they're getting persecuted. But we don't know that that day won't come here in the United States. You just never know.

You see there be there will be a day where the end is going to come and destruction is going to happen.

So speak the gospel while you can.

Speak the gospel while it's available. Speak the gospel every time you can. You see that we have a song called, I speak Jesus, and that's what we're supposed to be speaking. We're supposed to be speaking Jesus because people need Jesus today. But I want to ask you this for real. Are you praying for the persecuted church around the globe that you would give that God would give them strength to continue to do what they do, because it's very difficult what they go through?

Jesus says to you, blessed are you church

who seek my kingdom in your lives? We must be heaven on earth in order to for us to be who God has called us to be, amen, we have to be. We have to a people who know about spiritual bankruptcy. We have to be a people who mourn over immorality

in the world and even in the church. How many times have we heard about stuff that's going on in the church? We thought that was a safe place.

Nowhere is safe with evil lurking around the corner.

A people who are gentle and self control, the people who are hungry and thirsty for God, a people who have mercy, a people who have a pure heart, a people who are peacemakers, a praying people for the persecuted church. Let's be the church, and let's bring heaven on earth, people, this is our time. We don't have all day. We don't have all year. We don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, but today, we can be the church. We can bring Heaven down to earth. Let's pray,

Father God, we thank you for this opportunity that we have to speak the truth.

I'm so grateful for Jesus and His instructions that he.

He gave us, Lord, how he taught us,

how he showed us,

how the people were amazed at His teachings. I pray this morning, God, that we're amazed by what you've taught us this morning. So Father, God, I just pray that this morning for those that are here that have never professed or confessed you as their Lord and Savior, where they have come and received Christ, I pray that you would give them the strength Lord,

that You would make them a peacemaker. You would make them a merciful person, that you make them a meek person, a humble person. Father, our God, I just pray for your reality to become their reality, for your salvation to become their salvation, Lord, thank you Jesus for saving us. Thank you Jesus for teaching us

also. Lord. I know there are those here that have been far from you,

but today they get to step in to a nearness to you. So Father. I pray for those that are wondering about this Jesus and this kingdom work. I pray that this morning they would be blessed. Blessed are they that come into Your presence this morning in Jesus name, I pray Amen. Would you stand with me? Amen?