Embracing the Upside-Down Kingdom of God

So when you think of people who are blessed in our world, you probably think of the rich, successful, attractive, healthy people. If you were to do a social media search of hashtag blessed, it probably wouldn't be pictures of poor people, funerals. Those struggling, right? It's probably going to be attractive people, people having a good time. Maybe it's influencers who are trying to convince you how well they're doing or just trying to get followers. [00:25:35]

And Jesus is going to give us a different list of how to be happy and who we should consider to be blessed. Pastor Rich Viota says this about Jesus' teachings on the Beatitudes. He says, Jesus doesn't primarily describe emotions or feelings. Instead, he describes a subversive and surprising way of life, an upside-down existence that upsets our understanding of who's on top and who's on bottom. [00:30:08]

The poor in spirit are those who realize their own helplessness to handle all of life's problems, so they put their faith in God. To help them get through. A lot of people who really understand this well are those who are in recovery from addiction. People who have hit their rock bottom, hit their low, and they've realized, I can't do this on my own anymore. I need help. I'm powerless over my addiction, and I need help to get sober. [00:31:10]

And those who mourn, it also refers to those whose hearts break for all the people in the world who are suffering, right? Those who are, there's a lot of wrong in our world, a lot of things that could be better, right? And we don't just sit around and, like, oh, I hope, you know, one day God's going to make it all right. That's true. But our hearts also break, and we're also the solution to that problem, right? [00:34:22]

So hunger and thirst for righteousness is those who hunger to know God, like someone who is starving and thirsty desires food and water. As Americans, we don't really understand what it's like to be hungry or thirsty like this, right? Today alone, Americans are gonna eat over 1.25 billion wings and drink over 325 million gallons of beer, which is gross. But Jesus' crowd would understand well what it means to be hungry and thirsty, right? [00:39:28]

Oftentimes you don't appreciate the joy of mercy until you really need it yourself. I remember one time in my early 20s, I was driving on the freeway, probably 99, kind of coasting, not really paying attention. And see those lights behind me. Yeah. And the officer pulls me over and, you know, he's like, do you know how fast you were going? Right? Or favorite question to be asked. [00:41:55]

I think when we understand how much God has shown us mercy as sinners, as people who get it wrong most of the time, we're willing to take more risks to give it to others, to show mercy to the people in our lives, because we understand the beauty and joy that comes with a debt being forgiven. [00:44:26]

So when you read peacemakers, this isn't conflict avoiders, right? Sometimes being a peacemaker means confronting the wrong in our world, the wrong in your life. I'm an Enneagram nine, which is known as a peacemaker. This is a personality test. So oftentimes for me, this could mean like any kind of conflict is bad. Run away from it, right? Just don't talk about it. But that's not what Jesus is talking about here. [00:47:32]

So the persecuted, Jesus is talking, are those who are going to be treated badly or already are because they're living the way Jesus has called them to. Jesus turns it from blessed are those to blessed are you. Blessed are you when people hate you, when people insult you. He's not a very good salesman, right? If it was like a pyramid scheme, this would not be the way to convince people to follow you. [00:49:35]

The blessed are those who suffer. If you're suffering you're blessed. It's not people who have a perfect life who have minimized all their inconveniences they have all the comforts of life. They have no trouble, no hardship. It's those who experience these hardships of life who are truly blessed. This isn't to say you just go through hard times for the sake of going through hard times, right? [00:52:59]

And I think religious people still have a hard time with Jesus, right? Our country is full of people who claim to be Christians, but don't do the very things Jesus commanded us to do. At our eco-church conference a couple weeks ago, I was in a church and I was in a church and I was in a church and I was in a church and I was one of the speakers shared stat. It was a percentage of Americans who actually attend a church on Sunday mornings. [00:54:55]

So it's not about mimicking this way of living so that God will bless us. It's living this way out of your real, authentic love for God and others. And seeing this is actually the way to find happiness. This is actually the best way to live, is if we were to follow these Beatitudes. But we must be willing to let God transform us by his kingdom. We have to let his kingdom come. [00:57:34]