Wrecking Ball (Fourth Sunday After Epiphany 2017).

WRECKING BALL

Text: Matthew 5: 1 -12

Back in the 1800’s, the cleanliness factor involved in surgeries within the practice of medicine was far different than what is practiced today. Multitudes of people were dying shortly after their surgeries. There was one doctor who figured out why so many were dying. He therefore sought to enlighten his contemporaries about his conclusion----the need for adequate pre-surgical sanitation. His peers laughed at him. In fact, he began to lose the respect of his fellow doctors which caused him to lose his sanity. Unfortunately, he never resumed his practice. Following his death, the enlightened doctor proved to be right. As the pre-surgical sanitation practices improved, the death rate following surgeries improved drastically. (A paraphrased story from Bruce Larson’s book,. No Longer Strangers). They say “hindsight is twenty twenty” because we are looking backward with perfect vision through experience and wisdom from what we learned on our journey before we knew what we now know.

Sometimes what we learn is like a “Wrecking ball” that crashes against walls in much the same way that our new insights made the old ones obsolete. What we learn from being on the inside looking out educates us from what we did not know when we were on the outside looking in. The Beatitudes can be like a wrecking ball as to how they can help us to grow where we thought we had arrived.

OUTSIDE

Have you ever seen a place that on the inside that did not match your expectations of what it looked like from the outside? Did it look smaller from the outside than the inside? How many times have you seen a car that looked smaller from the outside than from the inside? How many times have you explored how much people live on the outside? Now, a prying question, “Do you live life on the outside, neglecting your interior life---your heart?

What was one of the major complaints that Jesus had against the Pharisees? 1) Trivia: How many of you said or thought “they lived on the outside spiritually”? Consider Mathew 23:25:  “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence” (ESV). 2) Gotcha question?: Do we live like hypocrites following in the footsteps of the scribes and Pharisees? Doesn’t that seem like a “gotcha question”? If it is indeed a “gotcha question” what would our litmus test be? 3 ) Answer: You might not like the answer! In Matthew 5:20 Jesus put it this way: “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (ESV).

Are the Beatitudes a template for the Christians life? 1) A template: A template usually serves as a model or a guide for something. It seems that the Beatitudes are a lot like a template for the Christian life. 2) Idolatrous rebels: We are so accustomed to seeing how many people live their lives on the outside. They focus on the faults of others while usually neglecting to take an inventory of themselves. They complain about others who do not share their point of view. They are more like the architects of their own little Babylonian empires. 3) Soul searching: The Beatitudes seem lean toward exploring who we are on the inside. Notice where it starts with the words “poor in spirit” and seems to incrementally go from one level to deeper levels of who we are.

INSIDE

Is beauty only skin deep while ugly goes all the way to the bone? 1) Beholders: Most would say that it depends on the eye of the beholder. 2) Soul searching: In the spiritual sense we would have to say that it depends on the ones who do some soul searching to see who they are and who God is calling them to be. 3) Contradiction: Is it possible for one to outwardly display -the skin deep beauty that contradicts the ugly that goes all the way to the bone? ?

Do you believe that what happens on the inside effects what is displayed on the outside? Dr. Tony Evans helps to put it in perspective in an observation that he made. “When a woman is pregnant, over time, its going to show. Early on, it may not be clear to others. There will be things happening on the inside of her---changes hormonally, changes with regard to taste, and changes with regard to various habits. …” [Husbands did your wife ever send you on an errand to go and get something that she was craving when she was pregnant?] “ …if the changes are happening inside, they’re going to show up after awhile outside of her too. Many of God’s so-called children aren’t pregnant with his love, because the changes are not showing.” (Tony Evans. Tony Evans’ Book Of Illustrations. Chicago: Moody Press, 2009, p. 196). The Beatitudes challenge us to change for the better from the inside out!