Synonyms: Levi, disciple, evangelist, tax collector, the 12, the twelve, apostle, sermon on the mount, jewish audience, beatitudes, lord's prayer, great commission, parables, olivet discourse, mount of olives, olivet, synoptic
Showing 126 to 150 of 339 results
126. When We Mourn
Matthew 5:1-12
Sermon
Jerry L. Schmalemberger
... for now. They were not some future bliss prophesied. William Barclay, in his Daily Study Bible says, "They are congratulations on what is." So let’s say it here - that the bliss promised Christians is not only in the future, but is what we can have now. These beatitudes say - "what a joy it is being a Christian now!" "Oh, the sheer joy of following Christ now!" So you see, we have joy now as we follow Jesus, and are spiritually poor, and mourn, and are meek, and do what God requires, and are merciful to ...
Drama
Dave Marsh
... puts his finger down on a page) Adam: Is that how you’re supposed to read it. Dad: Of course. If God wants me to read the Bible, then I figure he’ll point me to the fun spots. Adam: Well, what did you find? Dad: Um, something called the Beatitudes. Adam: Oh, I’ve heard of those. Dad: Yep, the sermon on the mountain. It’s where Jesus or God or someone tells us about how blessed we are or something. Adam: (takes the bible) Yeah, you’re right. Do you know what all these mean? Dad: Of course I ...
Sermon
King Duncan
... at the bank and begin demanding their money. And the bank nearly collapses. The implication is that literal adherence to Jesus' teachings results either in comedy or tragedy, depending on your sense of irony. (2) When author Philip Yancey was teaching a class on the Beatitudes, he decided to incorporate into the lesson a video clip of Cecil B. DeMille's movie King of Kings. As Yancey fast-forwarded through much of the movie, he watched another television nearby set on CNN. This happened to be at the end of ...
129. The Bold And Beautiful
1 Corinthians 1:18--2:5
Sermon
King Duncan
... wants to upset the apple cart--particularly when they might be ostracized socially. That takes a level of commitment unknown to most people. It's much easier to be among the silent majority than the persecuted minority. And that is what Jesus is saying to us in the Beatitudes. The only way to overcome the fear of what your neighbors may think of you is to stand meekly in front of God and question what God thinks of you. The only way to overcome being a spineless wonder is to have God give you a new spine ...
Sermon
Maxie Dunnam
... God’s grace, it’s more than that. So change your minds, get a new heart, break the negative cycle. The kingdom of heaven is here and you are privileged to live in it. And that’s sounded the theme for Jesus’ ministry. Look at the Beatitudes from today’s scripture lesson. You can’t hear these invitations to happiness with any degree of seriousness without having your mind stand at attention, turn around in its tracks and say to you, wait a minute, there’s something new here. There’s something ...
131. Songs of the Season
Luke 1:46-56, Luke 1:39-45
Sermon
J. Ellsworth Kalas
... like herself -- with fair warning to those who walk with pride and arrogance. Someone has said that this song contains "the first rough draft of Christianity." That may be an overstatement; but surely the mood of this song is reflected in the beatitudes, especially as those beatitudes appear in Luke's Gospel. Mary pictures God on the march against entrenched power and wealth. If, for a moment, we could hear these words as if we had never heard them before -- indeed, as if they were coming from someone other ...
132. Go to Heaven?
Matthew 25:31-46
Sermon
Stephen M. Crotts
... text, Jesus makes it clear that the best way one can love God is to love the people he makes. "Inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me." Look at the second half of the Beatitudes. Matthew 5:7-12 shifts from our faith attitude toward God to our faithful behavior toward people: "Blessed are the merciful ... blessed are the pure in heart ... blessed are the peacemakers ... blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake...." Be clear about it, if ...
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
... first generation of the church. It is crucial that those who will pump the blood supply of this new faith community properly represent and proclaim the genuine heart of Jesus' mission and message. From the beginning words of the Sermon on the Plain, the Beatitudes in today's text, we need take to heart one simple truth – God's kingdom, God's love and mercy, extends towards those society has decreed outcast, inadmissible, unloved, unwanted. The Kingdom of God is open to all. There are no unsought ones in ...
134. Give me a C...
1 Corinthians 1:18-31
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
... condones - "boasting in the Lord" - requires a new kind of cheering from the church. Today's gospel reading gives us a hint about the strange new kinds of cheers the church should be shouting. We call Jesus' words in Matthew 5:1-12 the "beatitudes" or "blessings" because of their grammatical construction. But what if we thought of Jesus' blessings as actually the cheers of the new kingdom? "Hooray for the poor in spirit...." "Rah, rah, rah, let's be the meek...." "No-fear persecution, no-fear persecution ...
Sermon
Mike Ripski
... t receive what you don’t believe you need. If you think you’re perfect, you’ll judge others for not being perfect too. If you don’t need mercy, why should they? VI. Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” This beatitude is about the state of our heart and its relationship with our eyesight. In Jesus’ day “heart” referred to the sum or a person’s interior life – mind and will. Jesus was saying that the purer our heart is the better our vision will be. If our ...
136. Misled By Beauty
1 Samuel 15:34-35, 16:1-13
Sermon
Stan Purdum
... in a clean outside. That is a way of saying that they would then reflect God's beauty. In fact, Christianity does use a form of the word beauty in much the same way. The root word for beauty is the also the root for the word "beatitude." The beatitudes are the statements of Jesus that begin "Blessed are those ..." and go on to talk about states of spirituality, such as "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness...." So we can see that in God's eyes there is true beauty in the spiritual ...
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
... say: I’m not a control freak. I’m not a control junkie. Okay. Let’s see. Let’s put it to the test. How do you know if you are a control freak? Here are seven signs, seven tip-offs, or you might even call them the “Seven Beatitudes” of a control junkie: 1. You are “large and in charge.” Always and at all times give the impression you are in control. Never evidence any feelings of inadequacy. 2. Be always right; try to look better and more right than others. Work harder than anyone else around ...
Sermon
J. Howard Olds
... down.” The writer of Ecclesiastes said it well, “For everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven. There is a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.” III. Comfort Comes Matthew states the Beatitude this way, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” That’s a great word – comfort. It means to fortify, to strengthen, to support. The house we own is built on a hillside. It has a deck that is held up by long posts. A member ...
139. Chosen by God
Ephesians 1:1-14
Sermon
Maxie Dunnam
... of Jesus than to realize that everything for which the Christian is to stand turns upside down most of the values and the commitments and the standards by which we normally order our lives. Hear some beatitudes in modern English as Phillips translates them: 1) How happy are the humble minded, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs! What does this say about the arrogance of so many of us? 2) How happy are those who know what sorrow means, for they will be given courage and ...
Sermon
James W. Moore
... , we have a choice… we can build up or we can tear down… and the happy people in life are those who realize that we have that choice … and then with the help of God consciously choose to build up! This, of course, is what the seventh beatitude is about. When Jesus said: “Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God… What he meant was: “How happy and fulfilled are the peacemakers for they are doing a God-like work!” There is nothing in the world more God-like than peace ...
Sermon
Charles L. Aaron
... he speaks with the crowds in mind. Then, maybe he changes focus and directs his words to the disciples. When he blesses those who are persecuted for following him, surely he has the disciples in mind. One might say that Jesus changes focus about halfway through the beatitudes. Certainly, by the time he begins verse 13, he speaks directly to the disciples. "You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world." He directs those words to the disciples, not to the crowds. The crowds at the foot of the ...
142. Luke 16:19-31
Luke 16:19-31
Sweet
Leonard Sweet
... on the other hand, likely belonged to one of the elite “burial societies,” guaranteeing him a proper, indeed elaborate, burial site and service. Nevertheless in death there appears to be the “great reversal” that had been proclaimed by Jesus in the Beatitudes found in Luke 6:20-24. The poor Lazarus is now “carried away by the angels to be with Abraham.” The rich man finds himself in “Hades,” being “tormented.” It is unclear whether this depiction is a “heaven” vs. “hell” scenario ...
143. Having Lost All, All Is Found
Matthew 5:1-12
Illustration
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Having reached the end of the Beatitudes, we naturally ask if there is any place on this earth for the community which they describe. Clearly, there is one place, and only one, and that is where the Poorest, Meekest, and most sorely Tried of all men is to be found—on the cross at Golgotha. The community which is the subject of the Beatitudes is the community of the crucified. With Him it has lost all, and with him it has found all.
144. God’s Kind of Happiness
Matthew 5:1-12
Illustration
John Thomas Randolph
... of our Lord, represents a radical reversal of almost everything we have ever been taught about the meaning of happiness! Look at the Beatitudes again and contrast them with what we have been taught. "Happy are those who know they are spiritually poor." We have always been taught to define happiness in terms of wealth. "Happy are those who mourn." We have been taught that happiness means never experiencing anything that causes us grief. " ...
145. Troubling Humbling Questions
Matthew 5:1-12
Illustration
Rabbi Harold Kushner
... like that when we are brought up short, and we are left thinking disturbing questions like, "Shouldn't a man's life be more than that?" I think we get that kind of feeling when we contrast the reality of our lives against character portrayed in the Beatitudes. Sometimes we want to pass by them quickly on our way to the rest of the Sermon on the Mount. We assume that Jesus was simply a Nazarene stumbling along the dusty roads of Palestine mumbling so many platitudes. But there is that haunting feeling in our ...
146. Jesus Light
Matthew 5:13-16
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
... into its most basic components (measured nanometers)? Or are we responding to the expression of that light as we experience it in the world (colors)? In Matthew’s account of the “Sermon on the Mount,” immediately after Jesus lays out his “blessed be” Beatitudes, he lifts up two metaphors of how disciples of the kingdom will be known to this world. They will be the “salt of the earth,” they will be the “light of the world,” a light that will “shine before others.” Salt sharpens flavors ...
Sermon
R. Robert Cueni
... will reveal the identity of the saints you have encountered. Let us remember and give thanks for these saints today. The lectionary gospel reading for today comes from Luke 6:20-31. The opening verses are Luke's version of the Beatitudes. They differ a bit from Matthew's Beatitudes. Portions of this pericope reads, "Blessed are you who are poor… Blessed are you who are hungry now… Blessed are you who weep… Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on ...
Teach the Text
R.T. France
... . Theological Insights The phrase “good news to the poor” neatly summarizes Luke’s characteristic emphasis on Jesus’s concern for the marginalized and oppressed. See above on 1:50–53, and below on 6:20. Isaiah 61:1–3 is also echoed in the opening beatitudes in Matthew 5:3–4. In choosing Isaiah 61:1–2 for his opening manifesto, Jesus places himself firmly on the side of the underdog. The words of the prophecy could be understood either in a sense of sociopolitical liberation or in a sense of ...
Teach the Text
J. Scott Duvall
... are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them.” The exhortation to endure earthly suffering gives way to a promise of a future heavenly reward. The second of seven beatitudes in Revelation spells out what God has in store for his faithful people (1:3; 14:13; 16:15; 19:9; 20:6; 22:7, 14; see the sidebar in 1:1–3). To “die in the Lord” doesn’t necessitate martyrdom, but depicts dying as a faithful ...
150. God’s Judgment of Babylon Calls for Celebration
Revelation 19:1-10, Revelation 18:1-24
Teach the Text
J. Scott Duvall
... by Christ (cf. 22:11; Eph. 2:8–10; Phil. 2:12–13). 19:9  Then the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” And he added, “These are the true words of God.” This fourth beatitude pronounces a blessing on those invited to the Lamb’s messianic banquet (cf. 1:3; 14:13; 16:15; 20:6; 22:7, 14). The image of an eschatological wedding feast celebrates God’s final union with his people in the new creation (see the sidebar). While in 19 ...
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