![]() 29 To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. Let us have an ear to hear, a heart to obey, hands/feet to take action today in the love of Jesus.Ģ7 “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. But I say to you who hear (v.27), Jesus says. Today’s passage picks up the warning of verse 26, that those who desire to be spoken well of by all people, as the false prophets likewise desired, do not know the meaning of love, the reason to love, and the result of love. Is not Jesus our wealth, our appetite, our laughter, and our only praise? Those who live for their own praise will see no higher praise. Those who laugh at sin cannot weep at sin. The full cannot hunger for bread that is life. How terrible and pitied are the ones who put their trust in them! The rich cannot sense their poverty in spirit. Woe to the rich, the full in stomach, those who laugh now, and those who are spoken well of in this world! These may look, taste, feel, and smell like blessings, but they are not from God. We challenged ourselves – For what do we have a beggar’s knees? What have we been snacking on that diminishes our hunger for God? Has our sin brought us to tears? What ways are our ears tickled with the praise from people? Then, Jesus spoke four warnings – the obstacles to learning the blessing in the values of the world (v.24-26). It is in people persecuting you on account of Jesus (v.22-23) – those who live for Jesus to be spoken well of instead of themselves to be spoken well of, for their reward is great in heaven. It is in weeping now (v.21) – those who weep at sin over laugh at sin. It is in being hungry now (v.21) – an undivided appetite for the food of His Word over having a belly filled with the gluttony of the world’s values. It’s not in getting rich, but in being poor (v.20) – desperate to depend on God’s grace over proudly independent on our self-sufficiency. Instead, He shows us another path to blessing that must be learned, another perception of blessing that can only come by faith in Him. What the world exalts, Jesus despises and rejects as blessing. In contrast, Jesus’ blessing is not sourced in this world. They all eventually end with time, age, sickness, and death. ![]() The world has its inherent principles of blessing. It is discovering what it really means to be blessed, what it truly means to be happy, where to find ultimate joy. ![]() What is it? We learned the core of the gospel is the blessing. As a word He spoke over and over again, Jesus highlights the core of His gospel message. Jesus had certainly repeated this sermon on several occasions (such as in Matthew 5-7), but here it was concentrated on His disciples, for he lifted up his eyes on his disciples (v.20) to speak. Last week, we learned about the sermon on the plain.
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