This sermon starts off our look into the fourth beatitude, those that hunger and thirst for righteousness. We tend to look at the subject of righteousness on a micro level, our own individual righteousness. This message pulls the focus back and announces that the coming Kingdom is a kingdom of righteousness. Blessed are those that hunger and thirst for that coming kingdom of righteousness, in that they will be satisfied.

This final message on Meekness uses the final moments of the life of Christ to illustrate His commitment to His own teaching from the Sermon on the Mount regarding meekness. This meek humility that chooses the cross and provides justice and ultimately peace between God and man is to be our way as well. It will require meekness for us to pick up our cross as well.

This is part two of the teachings on the Beatitude meekness. In this message we draw an insight into meekness from the life of King David and the time he spared king Saul in the cave. David had the upper hand and what appeared to be an act of God to kill the man who sought to kill him. Yet, David’s conscience wouldn’t allow it. It was power under control. It was the commitment to let God judge the situation. It was meekness.

I also make a short statement at the end of the message about Israel and the attacks that have been happening. I present a prayer directive from Zechariah 12.

This is the first message on the third Beatitude, meekness. Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth. It seeks to teach us that meekness is expressed in total submission to God. Using the historical context of the Sermon on the Mount when Israel was under Roman occupation, Jesus teaches how Israel will regain their “land/earth”…through inheritance by way of meekness.

In this Easter message we look at one of, if not the main, emphasis of Jesus after His resurrection: the teaching of the Word of God about His life. We see one of the culminations of this in the message Peter preached at Pentecost where he cites several Psalms that Jesus had just explained to him after His resurrection. We need to have a fresh renewal, or baptism if you will, in the scriptures. The Word of God being explained to His disciples was the explicit context for the “did our hearts not burn within us” line so famously expressed in Luke 24. May this resurrection season feature a resurrection of the love of God’s Word in our lives.

One of our Overseers, Jim Jones, shares his personal testimony and presents a call to the Gospel of Jesus Christ exemplified in the virgin birth, sinless life, ministry, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, return and great commission. Encouraging the church to rescue sinners drowning in a sea of being lost.

This last message on the ethic of mourning hones in on the aspect of the reward of “comfort”. Not as a translation, but as a different way of thinking about the second beatitude, think of it like this: Blessed are those that mourn for they will get the Comforter. Capital “C”. Those that become poor in “spirit” move on to mourning by the Spirit, and reap the benefits of life with the Spirit. What is more “comfortable” than that?

Guest speaker Ryan Johnson preaches a needed message about what idolatry looks like in our generation. He draws from the story of Moses and the children of Israel at the foot of the mountain and the golden calf. Have we created a god in our own image and put His name on it?

The Apostle James said: “Be miserable, and mourn, and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into gloom.” Chances are we have sang songs and heard sermons that teach us that God will turn our mourning into laughter or dancing, but when was the last time you heard a sermon or sang a song asking you to mourn, or lament? There is an entire book of the Bible called Lamentations. This is that unheard sermon. God mourns. Do we?

Moving on to the second Beatitude, we embrace the idea of mourning as a means to comfort. This first message address the first thing we must mourn, and be available to mourn when necessary: our own sin. The willingness to mourn is the only way to true comfort. Godly sorrow leads us to true repentance. We explore David’s mourning of his own sin in Psalm 51.