Howdy. Well, I had a chance to spend a few days in Phoenix. I was there Thursday
through Saturday through yesterday and had a chance to learn from some
different speakers. I had a chance to talk on Saturday morning about community
development being used for outreach. It was a great time. Had a really good
time with it. But one of the things about it was that people were learning
different things and sharing ideas with each other. And one of the ideas that
came up was that every congregation has a parallel metaphor that you can see in
movies and TV shows. Or what is it that you can say that whenever you see a show
and it reminds you of the people at your church and one of the people there
said my church is like the island of misfit toys. Do y'all remember that like
okay it was like Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer? I don't know were they still
showing it whenever you were growing up? Was it still a thing? Okay, got it. Do
they do they show Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer when y'all were? Yeah, okay, okay,
good. All right, good. It wasn't just because it was good. Yeah, it was there.
Okay, good. Yeah, CBS I think it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And with it was that
Rudolph, you know, he had this glowing nose, right? And as he was doing that,
it's like Santa was really, really annoyed at him. I'm like man Santa's a
jerk. What in the world? And then with it is that Rudolph, he feels like a misfit.
He doesn't fit. So he's running away and eventually there's like a
bum noble snowman in there somewhere, but he ends up on this island with all
these toys that are all misfits. They don't fit quite right. And there were
a bunch of them that I remember especially. There was the Charlie in the box.
Okay, everything, you know, the same as normal, except his name was Charlie
instead of Jack, you know. Or there was a cowboy riding an ostrich, you know, not
a horse. I mean granted my dad had some ostriches and so at one point. So
apparently a cowboy can ride an ostrich. It's just not recommended. But the train
had square wheels or even the water gun. It had jelly instead of water inside of
it or a bird that would swim, a boat that couldn't stay afloat and a plane
that could not fly. And all of these were on that island of misfit toys. And
this, and as I knew the people at the church that was being described, I
was like, yeah, I can definitely see that. So yeah, absolutely. Sometimes I feel like
the misfit pastor, but I think that's okay. You know, this idea though of the
misfits, that's often what we start with when we look at the beatitudes and we
look at all these blessings, you know, blessed are the poor, the hungry, the sad,
the ones who were hated. And so we like it when we first look at it because
we're saying, you know what, even if you're a misfit, you don't fit. God still
loves you and you're still blessed. And that's what we look at. And we just
kind of stopped there because that's a good feeling. We like knowing that even
the ones who are rejected that they still have a place in God's kingdom. But
you know, there's a lot more to it than that. There's a lot more that we need to
realize. Like for example, why didn't the Charlie in the box just tell everybody
that his name was Jack? You didn't need to tell everybody, well, my name's
Charlie. Just pretend like you're a Jack in the box. Everybody else will believe
it. It's not a big deal. Or the water gun. You know what, just take what's
inside of you out and just put some water in. It shouldn't be that big of a deal.
But the idea that hiding who you are or avoiding what's on the inside is kind of
a big part of what we need to see in our Beatitudes today. But I do want to point
out something. We do have two different Beatitudes in the Gospels. And one of
them is from Luke and the other one is from Matthew. And we can't help but
wondering, is it Luke just repeating the same things that Matthew has said? Well,
in seeing that, there are these two passages that are there and they both
sound similar. But you see, for Luke, it says, blessed are the poor. But for Matthew,
it says, blessed are the poor in spirit. Or for Luke, it says, blessed are those
who hunger and thirst for righteousness. And Luke is saying, blessed are those
who are hungry. See, we don't like the Luke version as much. We like the Matthew
one. I am happy to be poor in spirit because I don't really want to be poor.
But I'm okay with being poor in spirit. That's just sort of on the inside. I'm
okay with that feeling. I mean, it happens. But this whole like hunger thing, I'm
okay with hungry and thirsting for righteousness. Just right after I finished
my fried chicken. You know, the thing with these two, though, is that they may not
actually be the same sermon. If you look and you see the two of them, there's a
lot that's actually different about Matthew's sermon from Luke. And the thing
about these sermons is that they could very well be two different times. Notice
one of them is up on a mountain and the other one is out on a plane. Now, some
people might say, well, but if you go up on the mountain, maybe it goes, gets
flat afterwards. And so it's both. It's on a mountain and it's on a plane at the
same time. And it's like, but you know, preachers, they sometimes have different
sermons, but maybe a little piece of it might be the same. I'm sure that over the
course of the last several years, you've heard me preach more than one time
about a cartoon I had watched. I'm sure you've heard me preach more than one time
about Gilmore Girls or Golden Girls or whatever sitcom I was enjoying at the
time. I'm sure that it has come up, but the sermons though, we're making
different points, just using a similar example. But the thing here is that
Jesus also has to make different points because in today's, we don't want to
just talk about the spiritual. We do need to talk about the physical and even
more than that, it is so uncomfortable as we hear woe to those who are rich. What
is he talking about? Why in the world would we condemn in some way the people
who are wealthy? Because clearly they're successful. That's a good thing. Why is
it that you have to make such a big deal out of wealth, Jesus? Or being full. I
just had a really great meal. Are you telling me that I shouldn't have food on
my table, Jesus? What am I missing here? Why is it that you have to include these
woes for things that sound like a good thing? I'm glad that I can laugh. Is it
laughter a good thing? Or even more than that, why is it that if someone says
something good about you, why would that bring a woe, Jesus? But part of this is
also a question of what we're afraid of. Because we are afraid of taking these
beatitudes in Luke at face value. We're afraid of what Jesus may actually be
trying to say. So what I want to do, I want to put the blessings and the woes
next to each other. All right. Want us to see them next to each other so we can
have a better idea of what it is that Jesus is trying to get across. It's the
idea that, bless it or the poor and woe to the rich. Because I want you to think
about this for a moment. Have you known what it is to not always be sure how the
future will turn out? Have you not always known for sure that you'd be able to pay
the mortgage or the rent? Have you ever been at a time where you couldn't pay for
whatever vacation you wanted to take or that you couldn't buy every present that
you thought the family needed? Where there are times where you realize that you
did not have something that you thought you wanted? Because with this is to pause
and realize that wealth, it's something that we almost assume or we assume that
we're meant to have that we deserve. Working hard must automatically mean that
we get everything that we would want. I know it's uncomfortable as we're talking
about this because this is America, right? We're supposed to be the place where
you can walk down the road and get whatever it is you want. I want fried
chicken, I want a cheeseburger, I want a salad, who really wants a salad? But you
should be able to get whatever it is that you're looking for. But when we do, when
do we realize our need for God? At what point are we able to slow down and say,
maybe something isn't what I'm going to get because I got it for myself. But
instead slowing down enough to say, what does God actually want me to have? Or
even to say, maybe God doesn't want me to have it right now. Or even more than
that, doesn't it speak to the fact that maybe we haven't even learned how to
share with the people who are actually in need? We've been making sure we've
satisfied all these things we wanted when we know that a person right next to us
has genuinely needed something. Or even beyond that, thinking about the world
around us, how many things that we can buy for maybe a fraction of the price of
what we know it's worth? Because we know that in some place, somewhere in the
world, people had things taken from them without being justly compensated. Or they
had to work for what was maybe pennies on the dollar. But that's okay because we
can tell ourselves that we're self-sufficient. And we can tell ourselves
that we don't have any part in what happens in the rest of the world. Or even
more than that, whenever we have our own business and we're so glad at the profit
that we've made, but we haven't justified in our minds why we shared that with
everybody else that worked with us. There are so many times or ways in which
having everything that we wanted can sometimes sabotage what God is trying to
speak to us. Or even trying to show us we don't actually need those things to find
joy or peace in God's kingdom. Or even more than that, what it is to be hungry
now rather than to be satisfied. Over this conference, the conference
itself was free. You pay for your hotel and your travel, but the conference
was free. And all these donations were made that they had tons of food everywhere.
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner, get as much as you wanted. You'd be wandering
around. There was coffee everywhere, donuts everywhere, danishes everywhere. You
could go and get a soda from a little ice bin pretty much the entire day.
And teenagers were walking around tossing out ice cream sandwiches the whole
day. It was ridiculous. And they had these little kebab skewers. And you could go up
to the donut holes and you just skewer yourself four little donut holes. And
you're walking along for place to place, eating your donut holes on your kebab.
And I went ahead and got a kebab full of donut holes. And then later on, got
another kebab of donut holes. And then realized I was about to go and stab
another kebab and then realized, wait a minute. Because number one, sometimes
we've actually been triggered into doing things without realizing that if you
see something that you can eat, that you don't normally get to have, you
automatically want to eat it even if you're not hungry. Or sometimes if there's
something you've never tried before and you're like, wait a minute, I have to try
this, even if it's something that you may not necessarily want. But even more
than that, I had a thought in my head that said, if I eat too many donuts this
week and I come back to church on Sunday, I might not want any Barbara's donuts.
And I am not going to offend Barbara Marchand and not eat her donuts. That's
the thing with it though, is our body is supposed to have times of full and times
of hunger. There are supposed to be times of the day where we aren't completely
full. There are times where our body is supposed to rest from not processing
food all the time, but also when we spend all of our time eating, then we become
lazy, tired, sluggish. But also even the point where our body is just spending the
whole time saying, what else can I have? And then we aren't even enjoying the
things that we're eating at all. Because whenever you haven't been full all the
time, aren't you more likely to appreciate what you can have? And more than
that, your body is actually able to tell you what it needs when it's not always
full, instead of just stuffing it with whatever you have in front of it. But the
same thing with what God is giving us to satisfy is that when we pause enough to
realize that not everything in this world will satisfy us, that we can turn to God
and realize that there is something that he can give us that no one else can. But
then the part of, blessed are those who weep now, and then woe to those who laugh.
Now, I am pretty sure it is okay to laugh in general. You have to. I'm the one
making the bad jokes. But when we realize that there are some who are always
avoiding the pain that is happening around them, what it may be where you have
a friend that is next to you who's going through a hard time. Are you able to
empathize and to feel the hurt along with them? Are you so afraid of feeling what
they're feeling that you will mask it with every video that you can find in
your Instagram or every single YouTube profile that you can come up with or make
sure that there is something that distracts you long enough for you not to
face what's even happening in your own life? How many times that we see
relationship struggle because when people are going through the hard times,
they're not willing to go through it together. Blessed are those who weep
because they're willing to walk alongside the people who need their love the most.
But even beyond that, blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you,
and revalue you and spurn your name as evil on account of the Son of Man and
woe to those when people speak well of you. The world around us, the world around
us is not always looking for what is good and true. There are many times where
even the majority will come up with ideas or will push for things that are
hurtful and wrong. There are times whenever we will see that the crowd wants
the things that hurt and belittle and destroy. I've known the times whenever
just even not even disagreeing outright with somebody, even just saying, I think
we could be nicer about this. I think we could be kind of maybe we just slow down.
Maybe we just try to find a better way to do it. When even the Christians are
sometimes so angry that someone disagreed. We are not meant to always say what
people want to hear. And whenever we are always being told that what we have to
say is great, doesn't that mean that maybe we should be concerned? There was a
pastor that was speaking. I've known him for a number of years and he was speaking
at the conference and when we were there he was sharing that at the beginning of
his ministry everything was going really really well. He said all of my sermons,
people were saying they were the best things ever and he was saying every
single thing ministry we tried to start it turned into gold. There was nothing we
couldn't start and he said anytime I asked for money that we could always find
it and people were always willing to give and at that moment I'm like I really
hate you. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. He's a great guy. But to be able to look into
say in his life people were just telling him the thing that he wanted to hear
because I'm sorry but if you listen to any public speaker at any point in time
not every single thing that they're going to say is perfect but even more than
that is every ministry it's not going to turn to gold because of one person. It's
going to succeed because of all the people that are part of it and so what
it was really revealing is where his heart was at and that that was the time
when he felt the most empty and that's the thing with what we're seeing that
Jesus is trying to get across to us is that without him without Jesus without
coming back to him by satisfying ourselves with what we think we want all
around us it's never going to allow us to draw closer to the one that we truly
need and being willing to say and ask what does Jesus want for us because if
we're not willing to stop long enough to say what does Jesus want for us then all
we're going to do is to continue to fill the void inside of ourselves with what
we think we're supposed to have but if we say what does Jesus want for us then
we might say love and mercy for our enemies if we have everything that we
want and our enemies are jealous or hurt or desperate then how will we ever
empathize and think that they deserve anything but condemnation and punishment
if we do not understand that we were shown love and mercy if we did not take
the time to separate from everything we could be given and to say God what do you
want for me and God says I want for you to know that these are blessings to you
because I've loved you if we don't do that then how will we know that God wants
blessings for the ones that revile us and that let's be honest we kind of
revile ourselves or how would we get to a point of knowing forgiveness how many
places how many times is it that we think about those who are oh everything
goes well for them seems like oh I can't believe that that person everything has
gone swimmingly and we remember how they hurt us we remember how they were
offensive we know what it was that they did and then to realize that that doesn't
mean that they're actually doing well because deep down inside only God knows
what is happening in their heart and so to realize that we ourselves need that
forgiveness is the only way that we can truly find a way to forgive the others
around us or maybe even to ask about the good fruit instead of the bad whenever
we see a tree that is continuing to blossom into bloom or certain bushes or
certain plants not all of them but many of them what we end up seeing is that
there are times when we have to cut back we have to trim back the branches
because if they keep growing without anything slowing them down then not
only one they're too big to be fed and watered by the nutrients that they have
but the fruits that are on them will never be able to grow and mature they'll
never truly ripen to be able to see that sometimes they have to be trimmed back
in order that what comes out of them is worth it or even more than that if the
fruit stays on too long and doesn't fall off at the right time will they end up
being gorged and rotted before they have the opportunity to be consumed because
that's a thing for us too is that there are times where God has to allow us to
be humbled it's not because he doesn't love us it's not because he's saying oh
I don't want you to have good things so he's saying if you got what you wanted
exactly when you wanted it might actually hurt you because God wants more
than anything for us to grow in spirit and in truth and the only way we can do
that is when we're willing to come to Jesus and if we've never known what it
is to be in need then how would we ever know that we need a Savior when we have
what we want all the time without question then would we ever truly want
Jesus because who is Jesus for us this is who Jesus is for us Jesus has been
poor he's been hungry he has been sad and he has been hated did Jesus as the son
of God the Word of God who existed since the beginning of all creation went
before he became a human being was he ever poor was he ever hungry did he have
to endure sadness did he have to let people hate him and hurt him but the
only way that he could love us was to come and be subjected to it all the
only way to truly fulfill the love that he had for us was to walk alongside us
but are we so afraid of these things that we're afraid of where they might
take us are we afraid to meet the people who are truly in need because maybe
maybe we may not get a chance to live out everything we want maybe we go
to a shelter where people are having to eat beans and rice and we're saying oof
if only could just add a little salsa to that that'd be perfect but to realize
that this is their life and that maybe by spending some time with them you get
to know them and understand them and maybe they could actually trust you
when you're sharing with them the grace of God or even more than that is to be
able to say that hey instead of making sure that I was able to upgrade my flight
is instead I know that that extra money could be used by the person who can't
even get the stove lit or to know that at the times whenever we have to say what
needs to be said we're willing to because even if they're not willing to
listen we just hope and pray that the Spirit will eventually convict and
change them are we so afraid of where poor hungry sad and hated places may take
us but then we realize that that's where Jesus is and that by realigning our
view of what we pursue to seek after Jesus if we're willing to let go of
what we think we want then maybe we have room for what Jesus has to give so today
I ask you what are the things that keep satisfying you to the point that it lets
you block out what Jesus is trying to bring you what is it that keeps filling
in the gaps that you feel before you get a chance to fill them with Jesus
because my hope and prayer for you today is that you would not be afraid not just
of being a misfit but of the times when you may feel poor and hungry and sad and
hated because at those times may very well be when Jesus can be seen the most
clearly to you and through you thanks be to God