We're looking today at the Beatitudes for the second week, and this is part of the sermon on the mount that Jesus was preaching in Matthew five, six, seven, and in the next chapter, Matthew, chapter eight. Jesus kind of goes on about his ministry, but Jesus ministry involved a lot of different things. It wasn't just preaching and it wasn't just teaching, and it wasn't just healing. There was a lot of things that he did. A lot of it was kind of that personal, one on one touch.

And sometimes it was going off into the wilderness by himself to pray, to commune with his father in heaven. And so Jesus's ministry involved a lot of different things. But here he has this, what we might call his big sermon, a big, long message that is recorded over these few chapters. But for our purposes, we've kind of honed it down to just the Beatitudes. And in all honesty, we could probably take a week to explore each one of these.

But we've been combining a few at a time. I've been looking at this as a ladder, and this ladder is like the first rung or the first step is the first beatitude. And at the top of this ladder, what we get to see as we are climbing higher and higher is a glimpse into this community that Jesus is creating called the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God. And the reason I think of this as a ladder that peers into that is because Jesus is teaching them about the kingdom. The very first beatitude and the last one both say that the kingdom of heaven belongs to them.

And so if that's the case, I think what Jesus is saying is when you take the first step on this ladder, that's the first thing to do to get into that kingdom. Now, I'm not just talking about what salvation is, that time or that moment where you turn your life over to God, where you give your life over to him. I'm actually talking about this kind of community that Jesus is building or referencing. And I've heard people say before that they say, well, Jesus, he came to start a new religion. And I don't buy into that.

It wasn't to start a new religion. What Jesus was doing was actually the fulfillment of the law of Moses and of the teachings of the prophets. But if there was anything that Jesus was doing that could be even considered starting a new thing in that way, it's what he talks about initiating this idea of the kingdom of heaven. And the kingdom of heaven is not just a community. It's not just a way of life.

The kingdom of heaven is the reign and rule of God on this earth. It's bringing the presence of God here. Now, before this, for instance, if you wanted to know where the presence of God was, you would go to a place. In the early years of the Israelites, it was the tabernacle in the wilderness. And then after that, when King Solomon built a temple, it was in the temple and in this inner, inner court called the holy of Holies.

Now, you couldn't go there. You weren't allowed to go in there unless you were the high priest and had gone through this big cleansing ritual. And you could go in there. It was once a year that you would go in there and perform some ritual worship, acts that needed to happen. And when you would do that, you were still in danger of somehow, like, messing it up, and God might strike you dead in there.

Now, I don't know that that ever actually happened, but they would tie a cowbell on the side of the priest and hook a rope to his ankles to pull him out in case the bell stopped moving, you know, like, which means he fell over and died because God struck him down. So that's like, that's the fear of the Lord, by the way. That's like, you better live right? Or they might be dragging you out by a rope, you know? So anyway, this idea that the priest would go into the holy of holies, the idea was that place was where the presence of God, where there's, like, a connection from heaven, where God's throne was understood to be, and earth where humans lived.

And that place was like the connection place. I don't want to call it a portal, but you kind of get the idea, like, this is where God meets us. The ark of the covenant was in there with the cherubim with their outstretched wings, and that was the place that was considered the throne of God here on earth, the mercy seat, if you will. And so Jesus is saying that with this kingdom of heaven, it's no longer located to that one place. The kingdom is now in our midst.

This will be where God's dwelling place is. And yet we don't fully see that lived out yet. See, we won't fully see the presence of God or the kingdom and reign and rule of God fully 100% enacted until Jesus returns. Jesus ascended into heaven. He promises to return again once he returns, he brings the full kingdom there.

Now, that kingdom started coming with the ministry of Jesus, especially during his death and resurrection and ascension into heaven was when his kingdom really was in place. But he talked as if it was arriving with his ministry, and that it would still be arriving until the day that he returns, when it is fully arrived. So until then, we have a longing for more of God. Hence, the first ladder rung is blessed are the poor in spirit. In other words, when you realize that you are so empty in and of yourself that you can't possibly get there without the spirit of God filling you, that's the first place.

It's a place of humble submission. It's a place of recognizing where we are at and that we can only grow from here by the presence and power of God in our lives. So that's how we have to start on this ladder if we want to get it up into the kingdom. But now, when we look at this, each one of these, it says, blessed are you. And we wonder, like, what does that word mean?

Because we can understand what blessings mean. You can go if you are, you know, on Instagram, you can see somebody showing off their flashy lifestyle and say, hash, blessed or the blessed life, and you think maybe. Maybe you're blessed because you got lucky and got a nice big inheritance. Maybe you're in debt up to your eyeballs and you're not really that blessed at all. Maybe this isn't really, like, what's really going on, and we're just seeing somebody making a picture look like what they want you to think they live as, and you're not really doing that.

Maybe you've worked hard and you've earned it, and that's how you appear to be blessed. But really, what Jesus is talking about isn't like that. He's talking about this kind of. This state of living that we might consider as blessed. There's this greek word.

See, the Bible, the New Testament, was written in Greek. It's been translated into English. And there's this greek word that they used for this word blessed, that's called Makarios. And it's like saying, oh, how fortunate that person is. Oh, how happy that person is.

Oh, how flourishing their life is. They're doing really well. Oh, how blessed they are. That's what this greek word Makarios means. But Jesus, he knew Greek.

He understood it. But his primary language that he spoke would have been Aramaic. And his language that they would have used to study the scriptures was Hebrew. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew. And so the word that we believe Jesus had in mind from the hebrew language, and I'm getting somewhere with all this.

Hang with me here. The hebrew word that we think Jesus had in mind that we have translated as Makarios, are blessed is this word Ashrei. And Asher is. Is used 45 times in the Old Testament. I believe it's 20 of those or 25 of those are in the psalms.

Psalm one. One starts with this word. It starts by saying, oh, how happy you are when you live this way. When the queen of Sheba visits Solomon in one kings, chapter eleven. If you don't know this story, it's really great.

This queen visits Solomon and sees all of his splendor, witnesses his wisdom that he has in ruling the people and in the way he leads his life and worships God. She sees his wealth and just not just how wealthy he is, but just the enterprising kingdom that he has set up. And she sees all that and she's just overwhelmed. I mean, like, I think swooning might be the thing. She's just.

I picture her almost passing out on a couch and they have to take like one of the big elephant ear leaves, you know, and fan her with it. And they're like, it's okay, it's okay. And she says, oh, how Ashrae are your people, how Ashrae are your wives, how ashere are those who live in your kingdom. In other words, they're not just blessed because they have material things around them. They're actually blessed because of the wise leadership and counsel of this man.

They're blessed because she could see the hand of God on every area of the kingdom of Solomon. And so she understood that state of blessing and she was amazed by it. So today, this beatitude life, or this Ashrei kind of life, is one where Jesus is giving us this ladder through the beatitudes and saying, here's how you can live this blessed life, this Ashrae life. Here's how you can live in such a way that people will see and recognize the state of blessing that you are in. In other words, it's not just something that you have earned, but it's, we could say it's the good life.

People are after the good life. We're all after the good life. How we define the good life is different based on what you're looking for. And I believe what Jesus is doing is giving us a roadmap and giving us this ladder to say, if you want to truly live the good life that God has created you to live, here's how you do it. So we don't receive these blessings by the things that we do.

In fact, about the only thing that we have to do to receive these blessings is to recognize where we are at and what God is doing, to desire more of that and to allow God to do it. And so, as we do that, we start to see how we can get a. A look or a vantage point into this kingdom life. The funny thing is, some of these people, in some of these situations, in these beatitudes, we wouldn't look at them and say, ha, that's the good life. That's the blessed life.

That's the way that I really want to live. Especially when we get down to the end where it says, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to them. We really aren't looking forward to that one. If we're pretty honest. That isn't where we say that.

Right there. That life, that's the blessed life. That's what we want. Yay. You guys aren't excited about that one.

I get it. So the thing is, jesus says, you are blessed because there's always that other side of the equation. These people are blessed. And here's why. For instance, last week, we looked at a couple of these.

We looked at the blessed are the poor in spirit, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to them. Being poor in spirit isn't a blessing in and of itself. It's a blessing, because when you recognize that God fills you with his spirit, and the kingdom of heaven belongs to you. So don't think you've got to get all the way up the ladder before you can see into the kingdom, saying, you're already there. But the farther you climb, the more you go through this beatitudes life, the more you get to understand what this kingdom of heaven really is.

The next beatitude that we looked at last week was, blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Mourning can be over the death of a loved one. It can be over the loss of something in your life that you have held onto and loved. But I believe what it really is is mourning over the sinful state of yourself and of the world. You see, when we realize just how poor in spirit we are, we look at the world around us and we say, the whole world is spiritually poor.

And that can lead us to a state of sorrow over that, of mourning over that. It can lead us to a place where we say, I don't understand how we can even possibly go on living life any further without the presence of God. Amen. I think if you turn on any kind of news, even if your news comes from looking at memes on Facebook, I think you might be able to look at that and say, oh, my goodness, we really need God. I mean, you can hear comedians and you don't even have to watch the news.

If you listen to comedians putting their little videos out online, you can hear what's going on in the world and say, wow, we're in a real pickle, aren't we? We're in a mess, and we need the presence of God and so we can mourn over that. Mourning doesn't just mean weeping and crying. It might be just lamenting it. The psalms are full of psalms of lament that are crying out about what is going on in the world.

There's even a whole book of laments called lamentations. I'd never hear anybody say, I'm really excited to read lamentations. I really want that kind of sad, depressing stuff. And I'm going to read ecclesiastes after it. And then job, like, nobody says that, you know, you got to be.

And I don't suggest doing that. If you're depressed, like, don't really go read job or ecclesiastes. It'll just, it'll be a bad spiral downward. But it's good for us to look at that and read that sometimes and say, wow, you know, I'm not alone in these times when life just doesn't feel right. And the way that we, we need to learn a way as christians to mourn the conditions of our life and of this world in a way that relies on God and trusts him to bring us up out of that.

Because what does Jesus say? Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. In other words, when you engage in the process of mourning, you also give God the opportunity to bring you out of that and to comfort you. So I'm going to read just the next three of these straight from the scripture in Matthew five, starting in verse five, the three that we're looking at today. 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. Now, when we look at the first one, meekness, it's not a word that we probably use too often in the english language, like, I don't know, the last time I've used it that I wasn't talking about it from here in the scripture or at a time when Jesus was going into Jerusalem during what we call the triumphal entry on Palm Sunday. And they quoted from, I believe it's Zechariah. It's like chapter nine or eleven.

I forget which chapter? But they quoted from Zechariah where it says, behold, your king comes to you riding on a donkey. He is humble and lowly and meek. And so the gospels quote that about Jesus riding in and saying he was in a state of meekness when he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. In other words, not on a war horse, not with an army.

It was on a donkey, and it was calm, and there was palm branches waved at him and cloaks on the road. That is one of the times that we see the meek nature of Jesus. Jesus himself says that he is meek. In Matthew 1129, he says this of himself, that his nature is a nature of meekness. And so when we look at this word and we think, well, what does it mean to be meek?

What is a dictionary definition of that? How does that line up with what, say, the greek word behind it means? And how can we see an example of that? And how do we live that out? Unfortunately, meek people rarely make the news, right?

Like this. Like an old sign that I saw that said, well behaved women rarely make headlines or something like that. You know, it's like, oh, that's a good point. You know, like. But seriously, like, meek people aren't usually the ones that society is really chasing after and saying, we need to be like that guy.

You know, we need to live like she lives. Most people aren't glorifying that lifestyle. It's not flashy, it's not exciting. It doesn't make for a good following on social media. You know, it's just not really what's.

What's getting in front of the headlines. And yet Jesus lived this meek lifestyle. So the idea behind meek or a definition of it is somebody who is tame, gentle, and mild and kind and humbly patient. Tame, mild, gentle, humbly patient. Now, we can see this in the life of Jesus.

For instance, Jesus was very patient with, let's say, ignorant people that came up to him. I don't mean ignorant people that were challenging him. I mean, people who had an ignorance but wanted to learn more. They, you know, they said, jesus, I don't understand this, and I'd like to understand it better. His disciples did this constantly.

He's like, seriously, you guys, like, you've been with me so long and you still don't get it. I don't know if he was exasperated with them, just shocked, or if he was actually trying to drive a point home that says, think for yourselves a couple times, you know? But he says to them, like, he still would teach them. He would have the patience to teach them. He was patient with people who came and tried his patience.

He was patient with people even when they were being hypocrites, although there were times where he spoke out quite forcefully against that. But we see this in his relationship with women that would come and talk to him. You know, it wasn't not only typical, it wasn't acceptable for a woman to speak to a man in their culture, unless you were, like, married to her or maybe like a close, close relative, a mother or a sister or something. And yet Jesus had encounters, especially one that I love in John, chapter four, where he talks with this samaritan woman at the well outside of her village, and he speaks with her, and he's kind and patient and humble and loving towards her, and yet he pierces right through to the core of who she is so much that she goes into town and says, you got to come see this guy that said everything that I've ever done. In other words, he knows everything about me that is this kind of meekness that Jesus lived.

When they wanted to bring children to come see him and to have him bless them, the disciples said, oh, no, he doesn't have time for kids. He said, oh, of course, let the little children come to me. And, you know, there's some kids where they, you know, you'll maybe not your own children, but like, someone else's kids or maybe your grandkids when they're young, they'll come and they'll sit on your lap for just a minute or two, and then they're off and running. I picture these kids didn't sit with Jesus too long, but however much time they wanted, he gave to them, and then they were on their way. He had meekness in the way that he carried himself, that he wasn't too important or too busy to spend time with these other folks.

He was gentle and humble with them. We see that in the way that he treated people that were ill or had diseases or leprosy, even leprosy was a big one during that time where you were literally cast out from this community because of the nature of your communicable disease, that you couldn't be around anyone. And so they were pushed out. We saw our government trying to force this on us during COVID where they said, if you have this disease, you can't even be with your own family in your house. You have to be secluded for two weeks in a bedroom away from everyone that happened in our house.

And we said, no, there's no way that you're keeping us separated if one of us is sick, we'll all get sick. It's just that simple. And so when we had to quarantine one time during that, we just. We were in the, you know, in this whole house together. It was how it was.

I've even laughed several times. It's like we've got this house and there's multiple rooms, and Amy or I can go sit down in any one space, you know, maybe wanting a little quiet time or something. And then it seems like before long, the other one of us will be in there, like, a few feet away, sitting on a piece of furniture, trying to, you know, talk to you. And then our daughter is in there, and it's like we've got all this square footage and the back patio and everything, and we're sitting here in about a ten square foot section of the house. I'm like, I think we could do it, the 200 foot house, and we'd be just fine because we only share about that much space at any given time anyway.

It seems like I don't want to do that, by the way. I'm just saying I think we could make it work. So. So anyway, there we are. And you know, jesus, you know, he ignored their quarantines.

He didn't pay attention to that. He just said, you know what? I'm not only gonna go too far into the quarantine zone where lepers are, I'm actually gonna touch them and lay my hand on them and bring healing to them. But it didn't just heal their physical, fleshly condition. Cause it was a condition that would eat your flesh.

He didn't just do that. He healed their condition in their heart. Because what being cast out does, what being secluded does, what being quarantined and set off from everyone does, is it destroys you. It destroys your health, it destroys your wholeness. And so Jesus began restoring that when he would lay his hand on them.

Jesus exhibited meekness in how he lived towards these folks. But Meekness does not equal being weak, being powerless, being a pushover or a doormat. Meekness is not weakness. Meekness is strength. Meekness is power that is reserved for use at the proper time.

It's the proper balance between force and reserve. Now, I'm not just saying, especially men, although I think women deal with anger a lot in their own ways. But men, we tend to be the ones that get really loud when we're angry. We tend to get kind of forceful when we're angry. And it's not just kind of like choking it all back in reigning it all in, just gritting your teeth and muscling through it.

That's not meekness. That's actually just not being capable of understanding where you're at and able to keep it in check. What meekness is, is understanding that the way God has created you to be. See, sin is what causes the anger in us. Lack of control in our lives or in an area of our lives is what causes the anger in us.

And men like to be in control. Men like to be able to manage the outcome of everything. And so we get angry when that doesn't happen. That isn't how God created us to be. You see, sometimes we need to give over that control to God and just allow him to run things in our lives.

And so what we're supposed to do in being meek is to understand that God created us to be loving and gentle and humble. And that doesn't mean we don't ever take charge of a situation. That doesn't mean that we never use the power or force that men have when it's necessary, but that the times that that happens is to lovingly prefer one another. Jordan Peterson is a popular, or at least I think popular. And then every time I bring him up, people are like, I don't know that guy.

So he's popular in a lot of circles. But Jordan Peterson is a psychologist and author, and he kind of hit the news a few years ago when he protested a bill that was being put forth in the canadian, like their government, you know, I don't know what they call it. Senate. I don't know. But he.

Parliament, yeah, something like that. And so he protested this, and that kind of drove him to the forefront of just prominence, of being visible. But he talks about this. He talks about weakness. Isn't weakness with a w.

Weakness is not an enviable trait. He says, a man who is weak isn't. That's not a, that's not a moral virtue. You're just incapable of doing anything. He says what needs to take place is someone that is capable of danger, but knows how to keep it in check or reserved for the right time.

And so I see this life of Jesus. He was meek, but not weak, because there were times where it was required to stand up for someone like John chapter eight, where they bring a woman before him who's been caught committing a sinful act. And they say, well, the law says we need to stone her. What do you say? And he basically said, well, and they had to push him to give an answer.

He ignored him for a while. And finally they pushed him. He said, listen, if you haven't sinned, you can cast the stone. Otherwise, bye bye. He didn't say it quite like that, but that's basically the message.

And so they all leave because they know they're guilty. And he says, does anyone condemn you? He says, well, then I don't condemn you either, but do leave your life of sin. You know, just kind of check that at the door. Leave it behind.

Go about your business. That was the kind of meekness that Jesus had, but that wasn't weak. It took a lot of guts, a lot of nerve to stand up to these religious leaders that had the law behind them, technically, but they missed the law of love, grace, and mercy. And Jesus understood that better than they seemed to. Got to watch those legalists, don't you?

So Jesus, he really shows us the powerful side of meekness when he goes into the temple, especially in John, chapter two is verses 13 through 22. He goes into the temple and he sees these people taking advantage of travelers who have come to worship God. And they're, I won't get into the whole story of what was going on there, but they were, they were exchanging money that would be acceptable to currency to spend there. They were selling them sacrificial offering animals, and they were just charging these outrageous prices on the, on, on the sale and on the money changing fee and all that stuff. And Jesus says, no, that doesn't belong here.

That, that. This is my father's house, and it's a house of prayer for the nations. This is supposed to be where you come to meet God, to connect with God, and you're not doing that here. So he brought in a whip that he made. Like, this isn't just Jesus flying off the handle.

This isn't just Jesus acting out of nature or out of character. This is still the meekness of Jesus, but he won't put up with it, and there's a good reason not to. So he braids a whip. I say, if you're ever gonna beat someone, you need to take the time to fashion a weapon. You know what I'm saying?

By the time you're done with it, if you're like, ah, you know what? This is just gonna go up on the hook. You know? Like, I'm not gonna use this. You know, you might do that with an email or a text message.

You're like, I'm gonna tell them. You know? And then you're like, hi, you know what? I'm not gonna send that after all, you know, like, I had that this week. So, I mean, like, I'm just like, you know what?

That one's not getting sent. And that is the right call to make sometimes. It's just like, hey, who? Meekness doesn't have to defend yourself or stand up for yourself all the time. And so Jesus, he brings that whip in, he turns over the tables of the money changers, scatters their money, takes the animals that they brought in, and he cracks the whip on the animals.

Now, the scripture is, I believe, pretty clear, and a lot of people that are commentators will say that he did not whip the people. That that's not what the scripture says. And I say, probably not on the downstroke, but who knows if he caught a couple guys, you know, on the backup, you know, I'm just. I'm saying, like, he aims at the animal, but, like, oops, sorry about that. You know, like, I'm just saying a couple guys might have tasted the end of that whip, I'm not sure.

But he got them out of there. He says, this is not the place for that kind of behavior. There's no place for that kind of behavior. But for sure honor the temple. More than that, Jesus, even though he was meek, we see a picture of him in the book of revelation where his eyes are a flame of fire, his sword or his tongue is a sword coming out of his mouth.

He rides a war horse, his robe is covered in blood, and he has tattoos on his legs. I think that's pretty cool, the picture of Jesus saying, that guy's meek. That's an interesting picture of meekness. And so what does Jesus say about meekness? He says, they are the ones who will inherit the earth, not the forceful people who are going out there and leading the charge in battles and fighting them.

But the people who say, I will stand up for those who are oppressed, those who have not received the kind of godly justice that God has promised them, I will stand up on their behalf. And those are the ones. The people who are meek in that way are the ones who will inherit the earth. Now, remember, the earth Jesus talks about at the end of revelation will be transformed in the new heavens and the new earth, and that is the earth we shall inherit. Amen.

That leads us to the next ladder rung. We're already. I mean, we're just now on the second one. The next rung is hungering and thirsting for righteousness. And Jesus says that when you hunger and thirst for righteousness, that.

Sorry. Yeah. Hungering and thirsting for righteousness. Is the next one. I was getting lost on my own notes here.

When you hunger and thirst for righteousness, you recognize, much like you did when you started out as poor in spirit, you understand your own spiritual need, and you're hungry and thirsting for that to be filled. But it's more than that. You see, it's actually understanding that we need to see the righteousness of God on display in this earth. It's not about you being so good at your religious practices that people would look and say, oh, that's a holy, righteous person. That's not actually what Jesus is talking about.

He's not talking about necessarily a personal righteousness whereby you've been following the laws and the rules and all those things. That's not what he means. He's actually talking about the justice of God. Now, there's a type of justice that's talked about in this world that's kind of called social justice, and that's not what God is talking about, nor am I social justice. A lot of by people who have, they kind of have, like, pity on people, and that's not what we're really looking at, is just somebody that took pity on someone and says, oh, well, somebody needs to do something.

What we're actually looking at here is because God promises to right the wrongs that we have all done. He promises to set right that which sin has stolen and taken. So when we hunger and thirst for righteousness, what we're saying is that God is setting things right, and we're hungry for that. When we say, when we read the scriptures that talks about the return of Jesus and of his kingdom fully being here and how. How everything will be made right at that time, we're hungry for that.

We're thirsty for that. We want to see that day come. So when we say, lord, this world's a mess. Come, Lord, come quickly. Fix it, God.

That's what we're hungry for. And so we work to see those things happening. Now, this is why christians can't just come, join, sit together, hang out, listen to a message, and go home and act like nothing's happened all week. This is why we get active with things in this world where we need to see a sense of God's justice take place. Recently, there was an event that I wanted to attend, but there was another thing that I had to attend that I was helping lead, so I couldn't be in two places at once.

So I asked Ed Horton to attend on my behalf if he could, and he did. And it was an event on just human trafficking that's going on not just in our world or our state, but in our local community. And if you think, well, that's probably not so much a problem here it is, right, Ed? I mean, you can testify to what you have heard there. There's a kind of a teal green or a bright lime green table out in the lobby that has some of the info on there that you can kind of look at.

And perhaps those are things that some of us might say, you know what? I'd like to get involved in that or support that or help out with that in some way. There's things like that, situations like that that need to come to an end. For sure they'll come to an end when God renews all things in the coming of his kingdom at his return. But his kingdom is being ushered into this earth now.

And during that time we worked to see the godly justice and righteousness to happen on this earth. And so that's what Jesus is saying when we hunger and thirst for righteousness. In Micah six eight, we see the prophet boil down what God wants. He says, does God want all these sacrifices and offerings? No, he has shown you what God wants to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.

In James, the New Testament author, he says that true godliness is to care for orphans and widows in their distress. These are the kinds of things we're talking about, whether it's human trafficking, working at volunteering at pregnancy care center or healing hearts cafe, working with homeless people, whatever it might be. These are the kinds of things that usher in the righteousness of God, to bring about God's justice here on this earth. The last ladder rung that we're going to move into today, and look at today briefly, is the one that Jesus says, blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. This is related to having pity and compassion on people.

But it's not having pity on people. Just because you can stand up here and look down at their level and say, man, that's terrible. Nobody should have to live like that. Pretty good. I guess I should probably do something to fix their situation so I don't feel so bad about being up here.

Down here. Have you ever known anybody like that? A lot of times that kind of comes out of a class warfare mindset, a marxist mindset, just kind of just liberal progressive mindset that says, well, if you have more than these have nots, then we need to just kind of narrow in those ranks. The problem is most of the time those people aren't interested in lifting these folks up. They're interested in bringing the median down.

And then we're all struggling. And that's historically how that works. And yet people still try to do that today. But the problem that's missing is there's no heart compassion there. The pity is a kind of sad, judgmental pity, and it's not coming from a place of love and compassion.

In fact, a lot of times these folks show pity with contempt for those that are there. It's devoid of godly compassion. Jesus had somebody that was struggling with this very thing, somebody that said, well, what should I do? And he says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself.

And this guy says, well, who is my neighbor? In other words, how do I identify my neighbor? I mean, I grew up out in the sticks, out in the country. There's trees and cornfields, and some of our neighbors lived a mile and a half away. And we called them our neighbors.

And some of them lived a lot closer than that. Here, my next door neighbor, I literally hear when she pulls up. Cause she really listens to her music really loud in the car. And, like, she had a commercial played. And we could hear the commercial in our house, like, not just at the end of the house, like, at farther end of the house.

I'm like, I know what commercial that is. And she's playing it from inside her car. Like, that's pretty close to your neighbors. You know, like, we know each other fairly well in these ways. So how far away is considered my neighbor?

This is what the guy was asking. Who is my neighbor? Jesus tells him this story that we know as the parable of the good Samaritan. And to boil it all down, what he's saying is, sometimes the person that you least expect or that least looks like you or lives like you, the person that you actually think maybe that you have the right to hold a grudge against or to hold power over. For some reason, that person is your neighbor.

If you come into their realm and they're in need, you're their neighbor. And so Jesus tells this story, and he relates it. At the end, he says to the young man, because there was three guys that passed this. This man that fell into the hands of robbers. He got beaten up and left for dead.

And a couple jewish religious guys go past, and they ignore him, and they keep going on their business. And this samaritan guy shows up, and he takes care of the guy at his own cost and expense and time and he promises to continue paying for the care of the man until he's nursed back to health. And so Jesus says, you tell me who the neighbor was to the man who fell into the hands of robbers. And this young jewish guy says, the one who showed mercy on him. I think that's what Jesus is talking about.

When he says blessed are the merciful. He doesn't just mean mercy in the sense of forgiving someone that owes you a debt of some kind. Although he does mean that. He doesn't just mean mercy like where you let go of a grudge that you have every right to continue having because somebody has wronged you. He's actually talking about being merciful in such a way that you give of yourself to help others out who are in their time of crisis and need, even if that person is not only a complete stranger, but totally unlike you and perhaps supposed to be considered your enemy.

Jesus is saying to show mercy, to be merciful in those situations is, is the same kind of way that God is merciful to us. So when we show mercy to these people, he shows mercy to us. As we climb through this ladder, this lifestyle, then we start to understand that as Jesus is building his kingdom here on earth, that this is the ladder through which we climb up into that kingdom. This is the way that we get there. And when heaven meets earth, we will be fully blessed.

We will be fully living that ashrae lifestyle.