The humble heart receives God's blessing

It was on the message mount that Jesus began to share these principles. I don't know if you remember, but in summary, I was telling you that the sermon on the mount is like Jesus' thesis concerning how a disciple should live, what distinguishes the life of a son, a daughter of God , of those who have decided to align ourselves with the principles of the Kingdom of God. And look, I know that I preached this message 2 Sundays ago, and since then I have been following it chewing on it in my mind, and I have found many other things and I want to share them with you.

I'm not going to finish today, of course, look what time it is, in 5 minutes I'm going to give you the first part. But look, this message, these three chapters can be divided into three parts, there is the part that has to do with aspects of attitude, the attitude of the heart, an attitude is how we believe that we live, how that is manifested through our way of proceeding, and the second part has to do with the motivations behind those attitudes. So if I start this analysis of the sermon on the mount in the 5th chapter of Matthew, one of the first principles that Jesus begins to communicate is that the humble heart will receive blessing from God. I don't know how many of us can identify with this, but the idea of a humble heart, of a person who knows and understands what it means to humble oneself, of recognizing that I am not the last Coca Cola in the desert, if not that I need the grace and blessing of God in my life.

Look how Jesus says, verse 23, Jesus begins by saying: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." If you remember, poor in spirit are those who think that in their hearts they do not have everything. They may have all the material possessions around them, but their spirit is poor, imagine that, financially poor, what does the life of a financially poor look like? All finicky, depressed, who doesn't have a sheet to buy a gallon of milk. If that person looks like this on the outside, imagine what spiritual poverty means, that he has nothing inside and you are drying up like a raisin more and more, and you need God's blessing to truly infuse you with a sense of life. , a sense of purpose, a sense of vision towards the future.

The humble heart receives God's blessing. Look how all this is defined, blessed are the poor in spirit, those who cry, and I am not referring to those who are madeleines or madeleines who cry for anything, they only suffer from convincing situations in life, or rather forceful. Blessed are the merciful, blessed are the pure in heart, you know I stopped there, how many remember Psalm 24, verse 4? He says, who will go up to the Sanctuary, who will be able to?, the clean of hands and pure of heart. Because it says here blessed are the meek and pure in heart because they will see God, so before continuing it is confirming what the Psalmist says in chapter 24 of the Psalms, who will be able to climb the mountain of the Lord, who will enter the place of his sanctuary? If he is talking about going up and going in, it is because in some way or another he is going to meet him and see him.

Clean hands and pure heart. "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God." Until that verse, all he is talking about is a humble-hearted person, a person who understands what it means to bow down to someone greater than him or her, because from that being comes a life much more abundant than what this world can offer. , and with those criteria, with those elements mixed there, look at what it says, the story becomes even more interesting, if you identify with that panorama of a humble-hearted person, look what you are going to get, because you fill those requirements of a humble person of heart, because you suffer persecution for the sake of justice, oh but why would you tell me to suffer persecution, I do not want to be persecuted, I want to live a calm, peaceful life, I do not like to have problems with anyone, but look, if you are aligning yourself with the principles of the Word of God, in some way or another, you are going to have a confrontation, from somewhere the confrontation will come, whether from within or from without, the confrontation will come , po r some corner will arrive.

But if it comes, blessed are you, it sounds ironic, I know, there are times when our human mind cannot reason, calculate this, but in the mind of God it makes a lot of sense. If you are experiencing persecution for the sake of justice, those principles of the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of God is in you, blessed are you if for the sake of the Kingdom of God they persecute you and revile you saying any evil, but they say it speaking lies, because you are living in the truth, there is no law that can be subdued against the truth of God, so that is one of the first principles, the humble heart will receive God's blessing, but within that humility you have to persist before the offenses and opposition of the world in which we live.

Faced with such opposition, my brothers, we must make a difference. You have to be the salt and light of the world. Verses from 13 to 16, he is speaking that we are salt of the earth, the light of the world, the Lord calls us to reflect his grace, his love, in everything we do, our way of living, our way of speaking. I am now reading a book by Pastor Edwin Villafane that he congregates with us on Sundays, and it is a book that is talking about how important it is today, that the Church congregates, that one can exercise a ministry where one sees the marks of the cross, which incarnates the person of Jesus, in other words it is saying that if we want to have an effective ministry we cannot let ourselves be carried away only by the words that we can preach or teach, but that our actions are what should preach and teach that that power of God, that light of God is living in us.

And here my brothers, this Sermon on the Mount makes a lot of sense to me, because what Jesus is teaching is a lifestyle, it is a character, which contrasts with what the world is not and is demanding a lifestyle of us. which is much higher than what the world asks of us, and there is a difficulty there, I would dare to say that there is the first persecution that comes from within, wow, how am I going to align my life to these principles that Jesus is asking me to live in their light, but that is where the dynamics of being able to be light in the midst of darkness are, in order to be light it is necessary to live justly, in the light of Jesus, fulfilling his commandments in we. Justice, my brothers, is a very difficult term to deal with today, it is a term that has been manipulated in many ways, everyone wants to plow justice for their side, everyone wants to plow justice for their rights.

Years ago, Africans who were suffering from slavery were demanding justice, and they pulled justice their way, and manipulated that direction. When the Puritans were coming out of Europe who were looking for their freedom of religious expression, they used that term of justice and they pulled it, they used it in their own way, they let themselves go and today without a doubt, people pull justice for their own side, the migrant people are seeking justice for their own side, the homosexual community is seeking justice for their own side, the vagrants on the street are seeking justice for their own side, the rich in the companies of the CEOs, of the Big Fives , they pull justice by their side, the democrats pull it by their side, the republicans pull it by their side, the independents pull it by their side, different denominations pull and pull justice by their side, justice is so manipulated, that I imagine that you are going to ask me, ok Pastor, how do we define justice then?

Well (laughs), justice my brothers is to follow the principles of God. That is justice. If you want to live justly, may your justice come from a system that is much stronger than the system of this world, may your justice be founded on a government system that means the Kingdom of God, much more solid and stronger than the systems In this world in which we live, that justice requires an attitude of a person who is fair. A just person is one whose thoughts, emotions and actions are in accordance with the will of God, let me repeat it, a just person is one whose thoughts, emotions and actions are in accordance, in other words aligned, with the will of God. In other words, if I want to be fair, I'm not going to be fair to you before my own interests, I'm going to be fair in light of God's interests. If I do my justice in the light of God's interests, then I am going to act fairly with you, I am not going to be measuring you based on my own terms, but rather I am going to be measuring you based on God's terms and the principles of his Kingdom, that is where a justice that goes above this world operates.

And with all that I said that I have not been able to define everything or cover everything, I fall short, time is running out. Let me summarize with this point, verses 21 to 26, one of the aspects, those attitudes that Jesus wants us to project as sons, daughters of God, which in the light of the Kingdom is knowing how to control anger, knowing how to control that emotion that is an emotion of God, in God there is also anger but He has it much more controlled than we do, but because of our human weakness sometimes it goes to extravagant limits, so he is talking in those verses 21 to 26 about how to handle anger, saying "you shall not kill, and whoever kills will be guilty of judgment", Jesus then is giving us a new law saying anyone who gets angry against his brother is already guilty of judgment.

It is no longer that anyone who cuts off someone's head is guilty of a trial, he is saying, no, if you get angry against your brother, against your sister, you are already asking for it. Jesus raises the bar, well let's apply the Bible, what does Paul say in Ephesians 4? "be angry but do not sin". These things that Jesus says must be analyzed within the complete context that stretches throughout the Bible, anger is an emotion that is in us, and we must control it, yes, one gets angry, one will leave, but there is no that letting anger control your being above all so that what you are going to commit against the person is something sinful, is something sinful, sinful in the sense that it will distance you from that person and therefore it will distance you of God. Do you understand what I say?

If in my anger I say, look (pip) at that person, that is taking me away from the other person, therefore it is taking me away from God. If I say to my son, to my daughter, your son of, hello, I am taking my son away from me, and therefore if I am taking them away from me, I am moving away as a child of God too, there are those moments where fire burns so to speak, where things get tight, and our shirts want to break like the Hulk, so wild like that, one has to learn to ahhh, control that anger, and tell that person, we'll talk right now, let me go to the patio and yell, and I'll talk to you again, let me count to 10, to 50, to 100, or to 1000, whatever it is, but the matter my brothers I love how Jesus speaks, look at the context.

If you bring your offering to the altar, I am in verse 23 of chapter 5, if you bring your offering to the altar, look at the context in which he is putting it, Jesus brings it to him, he has supernatural wisdom, because He knows how to decipher our schemes , we want to disguise ourselves as oh, here comes the self-righteous, I am going to adore God now, but look how he says, if at that moment that you come to bring your offering to the altar, you remember, not that they reminded you, you remember, and look, we have a good ability to remember when we are indebted to someone or when someone owes me something, I can easily forget when someone does something good but if you do something to me, that stays there, and I can put on a mask but behind that mask is that tucked in there between the eyebrows.

If there you remember that your brother has against you, what does he say?, leave your offering, that is, that sacrifice, as the verse says, that sacrifice of lips that you are offering to the Lord, better keep it to yourself, look for the person with whom you have to talk, settle with him or her, so that then your offering can be genuine before God. Look how interesting, he says agree with your adversary soon, what does Pablo say, get angry but don't sin, don't let the sun go down on you, what Paul is saying you have 12 hours to lose your courage, don't let let the sun set on you, so if you got angry at noon you have 6 hours to get over it, at least if you got angry at night you have 12 hours to fiu, lower those moods and then be able to fix what you have to fix, now if it's 6 in the afternoon you saved yourself here in Massachusetts because at 8 at night the sun is already setting, it's giving you 2 hours, more so that you can deal with your anger.

Make an agreement with your adversary soon (in a Spanglish voice), while you are with him on the road, lest the adversary turn you over to the judge, and the judge to the bailiff, and you be thrown in jail, in other words, don't let it be too late, settle things on time, settle accounts on time, so that if you want your prayer to be genuine, free, fluid and bearable, then it can be so, amen? Well, that is another very clear truth, that your prayers can reach the Father without any obstacle in the way, I will write down that passage for the next one.

(Sighs), the last thing I'm going to tell you, with this I'll close for today, also on the other hand my brothers, part of the principle of the Kingdom of God is knowing how to live with integrity towards people of the opposite gender, especially when it comes to the marital context, And I'm going to start this, my brothers, but I'm going to leave it for later because there's a lot of cloth to cut, because this is an area that affects many people in different ways, no matter what status you may have, it affects everyone, I think that it deserves its due time, its due analysis to know how to proceed with this in today's times, there are many people who have been hurt by this. And I believe that we as a Church are here to help those people, those families to heal, whether it is a person who has already gone through a divorce and is here recovering, or a current marriage that is going through troubled waters, that is one that is just getting started and is getting turbulent off the track, we as a Church are here to help strengthen those families, to help strengthen those individuals who need that internal restoration in their emotions.

And I believe that when we live in the light of God's principles, it is possible, it is possible to promote what our families need today, therefore what our society needs today. So I'm going to leave it here my brothers, I'm going to continue, I'm going to the 27th, so let's pray my brothers, I invite you to continue thinking, analyzing these principles, what's more, if you have questions I'm going to Dare to do this, write a piece of paper, leave it in the box at my door and I'll bring it up in the next message, okay? So I want to hear from you too.

Lord, we thank you for these minutes that we have spent, we are beginning to meditate on these words that Jesus shared years ago, but that still have a great impact on our lives today, we ask that you allow us to continue reflecting on them, and to the same time that we can incorporate these principles, these truths into our life so that we can live more and more in the light of the desires of Your heart for us. Bless now my brothers and sisters as we leave here, that we go to our homes, take us well, with Your protection and we ask that tonight you grant us a deep, restful rest, and that tomorrow if so You allow it, we can get up with new strength and energy to face what tomorrow may bring. Bless us and grant us Your peace, Your Shalom, through Your Son Jesus we pray, amen and amen. Brothers, greet each other, the brothers of the internet will see each other next time in the Lord.