More Beatitudes

Pastor Byron E. Martin

American Rescue Workers Community Church in Capitol Heights, MD 20743

Beatitudes: (blessedness), a word not found in the English Bible, but meaning either 1) The joys of heaven, or 2) a declaration of blessedness. The Gospels contain isolated beatitudes by Christ (Matthew 11:6, 13:16, John 20:29) but the word is most commonly used of those in Matthew 5: 3-11 and Luke 6: 20-22, which set forth the qualities that should characterize His disciples.

Last week I preached from Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount. We touched on two of his preaching points;

1. Do good to please God. Don’t do your good deeds in front of men for you already have your reward. But do them in secret and God will reward you.

2. Love your enemies, even to go the second mile. No longer will we seek vengeance -a tooth for a tooth.

Today we are looking into two more of Jesus’ words.

1. Do not worry.

2. Know us by our fruits.

Do Not Worry

The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith, and the beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety. George Muller Massena, one of Napoleon's generals, suddenly appeared with 18,000 soldiers before an Austrian town which had no means of defending itself. The town council met, certain that capitulation was the only answer.

The old dean of the church reminded the council that it was Easter, and begged them to hold services as usual and to leave the trouble in God's hands. They followed his advice.

The dean went to the church and rang the bells to announce the service. The French soldiers heard the church bells ring and concluded that the Austrian army had come to rescue the town. They broke camp, and before the bells had ceased ringing, vanished.

What did Jesus say about worry?

Matthew 6: 25-34 (read)

27; Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? One cubit is about 18”, by the way. If worrying could make you taller… you all know I would worry from morning to night and even in my sleep.

31-32; Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘what shall we eat? Or what shall we Drink or What shall we wear? For all these things the Gentiles seek. …. Jesus isn’t saying we shouldn’t provide these things that we need but that we shouldn’t worry about these things. If we do our part, God will take care of our needs.

Do you know what I couldn’t provide for my family for the first 2 years? A television. I kid you not. Couldn’t afford it. Never gave it much thought. We were happy without it. And even without asking, a friend, Tom Gullotta, found out we didn’t have one and worked on a loaded TV system (it was huge) and gave it to us -free. God blessed us even when we didn’t ask.

32b; For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. When we were young, toddlers, we had a parent or two parents that took care of our very basic needs. Milk. Food. Clothes. Sleep. Diaper change.

I don’t know about you but when I couldn’t do for myself, there was always somebody there who did for me. God is like that. He allows us to take care of those things that we can but is there to see that we never go without. Usually, the blessing comes from the leading of the Holy Spirit to someone to reach out to you. God uses his people to help his people. Sometimes he even uses someone who is not his people to help his people.

There was a story of an older woman who loved the Lord and always prayed to Him when she was in need. She had an angry neighbor who was an atheist and hated her because she was always praising God and he hated Christians.

One day, her window was open and he heard her praying. He quietly walked to the window to hear what she was praying. She told God that she had no money and had no more groceries. She said she was laying it in God’s hands and wasn’t going to worry about it because she knew God would bring her groceries.

The neighbor smiled as he thought of a way he could finally prove to her there was no God.

That very same day the Athiest took eight bags of groceries, loaded them onto the old lady’s porch, knocked on the door and quickly hid around the corner of the house.

When she came to the door she saw the groceries and right there bowed her head and gave God thanks for bringing her the groceries that she so desperately needed.

Right then the neighbor came around the corner and said;