Act Justly, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly

And the invitation to be humble is to know truly who you are because you know whose you are. When we are held as a child of God, when we know that Jesus sees us, when we've been overlooked, when we've been misunderstood, when we have not been thought about, when we've not been considered. Jesus sees us and he calls us sons and daughters because of his love for you, not because of what you did or didn't do. And so humility is this thing that grows when we know how held we are by the king of the universe. [00:40:04] (39 seconds)  #HeldByTheKing

Jesus says, no. You don't need the money. You don't need this. You don't need that. You don't need the influence. You don't need the power. You don't need the respect because God is going to give the earth to the meek, the gentle, and the humble. If you look at the end of the book, God's children help him run the new heavens and the new earth that he has created. Isn't that beautiful? And they are given to the people who are firm in knowing who they are because they know whose they are. [00:42:45] (35 seconds)  #MeekInheritEarth

Jesus has this promise that God's favor is upon you. You might be down and out. You might be the one who's bullied. You might be the one who has experienced racial prejudice. You might be the one who has been looked down upon because of a particular thing. You will be filled. God's righteousness and his justice will come through. And there's this interesting invitation where we hold the reality that when we see a broken world that one day God will make all wrong things right, and we get to embody the posture of Jesus and be people who seek righteousness for those around us. [00:49:44] (41 seconds)  #HopeForTheOppressed

Now righteousness is kind of a churchy word. And typically, what righteousness means, what what it kinda means boiled down, is living in a right relationship with God and with others. It is this relationship where, you know, sometimes we just think about our relationship with God, or sometimes we just think about our relationship with others. But from a biblical way of thinking, they go together. So Jesus says, God's favor rests upon those who are hangry, who are hungry, who are thirsty for people operating in right relationship with each other. [00:45:37] (37 seconds)  #HungerForRighteousness

And church, at its best, that is what a church can be. That whatever your background, whatever you look like, whatever the color of your skin, whatever you did before you came in here today, whatever your job is, however you vote, the truest thing about you is that you are loved by Jesus, and we get to be family. We get to treat each other with dignity. Church, we get to be this beautiful gospel outpost where we live this out in our context. [00:52:22] (33 seconds)  #ChurchAsFamily

But what is true is that Jesus says that we are to be people of mercy, people who do not demonize others, but people who want to see restoration of even our worst enemies. That is one of the things that makes the Jesus way so different than anything else. It makes it different than any other kind of social club. It makes it different than any kind of political party you could imagine. The way of Jesus wants enemies to become brothers and sisters. That's crazy. [00:58:01] (33 seconds)  #EnemiesToFamily

And what God decided to do through Jesus is take on the weight of all sin and death, That Jesus decided to step in as the sacrificial lamb to pay for sin and for death. He has shown us mercy because the wrong we have done is no longer the truest thing about us because he has taken it upon himself. We are now clothed in his righteousness. And Jesus here to these people say, blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy. [00:55:06] (34 seconds)  #ClothedInRighteousness

Jesus, we just remember and declare that in you, there is life. In you, there are second and third and fourth and fifth chances, and that in you you are bringing about a resurrection even if we cannot see it, God. So we just pray today that you would change our minds, change our hearts, that we may see your resurrection breaking through into all these different places in our lives. Jesus, we love you, we thank you, and it is in your holy and your precious name we pray. Everybody said, amen. [00:09:33] (29 seconds)  #SecondChancesInChrist