Jocelyn Cervantes: Welcome to the Sandals Church Podcast. My name is Jocelyn and I am part of the team here at Sandals Church. We are so happy to have you join us today as we listen to this message with Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown, teaching from our gospel of Matthew series. If you enjoyed our content, consider leaving us a rating to help this podcast reach more people. But for now, let's get into the message.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown: Have you ever watched something, seen something, or experienced something that changed your life forever? I remember in the nineteen nineties, I went to see Saving Private Ryan. It's considered one of the best movies of all time. I've seen it once. One time, and I could barely get through it.
I remember crying in the opening scene watching young men crying out to their moms as they were dying on the beaches of Normandy. And I literally said this out loud. God, thank you that that's not my life, and thank you for these young men who died so I could have freedom to complain in America. Amen? There's another moment in my life where I was on the bus to a baseball game going to see the Angels, not the Dodgers, but, hey, it's close.
Right? And we were on our way, and my friend Warren, my best friend at the time, said, hey, there's a smoking hot blonde in the back of the bus. Would you go talk to her for me? And I've been talking to her for thirty years. Come on.
Never send a wingman, guys. You gotta go yourself. But there's these moments where maybe it's a conversation, maybe it's a movie, maybe it's a poem, maybe it's a painting, maybe it's a sermon that changes your life forever. And what I'm gonna share with you today is probably the most important sermon ever preached. It's a sermon on how to live a blessed life.
It's the most important sermon ever preached. And I don't mean my sermon, Tammy asked me this week. She said, how's it going? I said, not as good as Jesus. Because it's the greatest sermon that's ever been preached.
Literally, Central Church has 14 campuses. I want you to think about that. There there's not enough room at all of our campuses, in all of the classrooms, in all of the hallways to store the books that have been written on this one sermon. It's called the blessed life. Now Jesus probably spoke Aramaic.
Nobody knows for sure, but that's the assumption. The sermons are written in Greek. It's translated into Latin where we get the word beatitudes, which comes from the word beautiful. You can hear it in there, beatis. And so this idea of of what is a beautiful life, and I want you to think about this today.
How many of your friends, your family, people that you work with, people that you know are not living a beautiful life? They're missing out on something that God wants to give to every single person. That's a beautiful life. And that's why this message is so important. It's so powerful, and it's so essential today.
Some of you need to hear this message, but some of you have a family member, you have a friend, somebody that you love, They're depressed. They're downtrodden. They're sad. They're overwhelmed. They're ready to give up.
They need this sermon. And this is the sermon that Jesus has for us. So if you have your Bibles, I want you to open them. And, somebody at our church actually gave this to me. This is actually just the book of Matthew.
Isn't that cool? And so you can get this on Amazon. You can get every single book of the Bible. And what I love about it is it's a Bible and a journal. And I'm a doodler, so I love to doodle, and so it has the text on the left and and and space for me to write on the right.
And so I just wanna read this, and then I wanna pray and ask God to help us understand this. Because here's the thing, if we get this right, we get life right. But if we get this wrong, we're missing out on the beautiful life. So let's take a look at Matthew chapter five verses one through 12. If you don't have your Bibles, it'll be on the screen next to me.
Matthew chapter five verse one. Seeing the crowds, He went up to the mountain. And when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth, and he taught them, saying, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. And think of all your friends who aren't satisfied. Think about the famous rock and roll song that changed the world, I can't get no satisfaction. Jesus is saying, hey.
There's something here for you. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you, I should have read this before I became a pastor, when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil on Facebook against you, Facebook is not in there, falsely on my account. Rejoice, I'm working on this one, and be glad for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Let's pray. Heavenly father, none of us today are living the life that you've called us to live. Teach us today, Lord, to live this beautiful life, this wonderful life.
No matter what we're facing, no matter what we're going through, God, I just pray that you would transform us today as Christians and help us to become the disciples you've called us to be. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. So let's talk about how to live the blessed life. Now let's talk about that word blessed.
K. How many of you wanna be blessed? Raise your hands. Okay. If your hands aren't up, you need therapy.
You wanna be blessed. Now this word is a difficult word for us to translate. Some of your Bibles, you will read happier, happier, happier. And to be fair, you can translate the word that Jesus uses here directly into English as happy. The Greek word is.
K? And you can translate it into that. So why is it blessed? So the word blessed in Hebrew is baruk. So it's not baruk, and it's not you know, so it's not happy, it's not blessed, and so so why do we have this difficult word?
Because markarios means so much in the ancient Greek world. Check this out. This is gonna blow your minds. Markarios was the word that Greeks used to describe their gods. So Zeus is Makarios.
Aphrodite is Makarios. Listen to me. The gods live the life you want. Isn't it interesting that what Jesus is saying when He's preaching, He's saying you can have a God like life. And so many of us have never thought about this.
And so that's why we don't just say happy, right? Because happy is a fleeting feeling, but margarios is a sustaining joy. It's something that sticks with you no matter whether you're up, you're down, whether you feel like you're in, or you just need to get out. So let's talk about how to live the blessed life. Number one, let's look at this, how to live the blessed life.
Understand your deep need for Jesus. This is one of the most misunderstood things. Now some of you, you've never heard this message in your life. Praise God, I'm glad to hear it. Some of you have been raised in church and you probably haven't heard this right.
You see, so many of us think of this as like a checklist, how to. The first check is you can't do it. That's right. How do you live the blessed life? You can't.
You can't get there. Like everybody goes to heaven. Right? Your dog goes to heaven, cats go to heaven, your crazy aunt Edna went to heaven. Everyone in our culture goes to heaven.
Here's what Jesus wants you to understand. The way to heaven is to understand you can't get there. Matthew five three through four. Blessed are the poor in, what, spirit. Blessed are people who realize their spiritual bankruptcy.
The people that you should be worried about are the ones who know they're going to heaven because of the life they've lived. I hear this all the time. Why are you gonna go to heaven? Because I've lived a good life. They're not poor in spirit.
And if you're not poor in spirit, you're not going to heaven. You see the way up is down. It's completely opposite to what we think. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Listen to this.
For theirs is, they already possess it, the kingdom of heaven. You see, Jesus is just like John the Baptist. You wanna get right with God, repent. He just says it a little differently. Now what I want you to know is in chapter four, Jesus is at the height of his popularity.
Okay? He's Taylor Swift twenty twenty three. And at the end of this message, he's Taylor Swift at the Super Bowl. Yeah. Boo.
Right? She got booed. She's like, what is that? She's never heard that before. So here's what happened.
Everybody loves him when he's healing, when he's feeding, when he's loving. But he starts preaching, people don't like this. Because everybody listening is a Jew, and what do they think? They're already going to heaven because they're children of Abraham. And he says, no, no, no, no, no.
The only people that are blessed, the only people that are godlike are those that know they are poor in spirit. And if you don't know that you're poor in spirit, you are not going to live with God forever. You see the way up is down. And all of a sudden, Taylor Swift ain't so popular. People don't like this.
They're all dressed up and ready for church, and they're presenting themselves as perfect Jews obeying the law of God. And what they hear is the law was never meant to get you to heaven. It was meant to show you you can't. You can't.
Dani Crowley: Thank you so much for joining us today. If this message has served you in any way, I wanna invite you to give today to the work that we are doing here at Sandals Church. You can do that by going to give.sc at any time. But for right now, let's get back into the message with pastor Matt.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown: So what do you do when you're not going to heaven? You get real sad. Listen to what he says. Blessed are those who, what, mourn, for they shall be comforted. Listen.
You can't go to heaven because it's impossible. But here's the good news. With God, all things are possible. Man. I want you to imagine you're sitting in the doctor's office and you just got a test.
And the doctor walks in and he says or she says, I have some very bad news. You have a terminal illness and there is no cure. And you feel that, and you sit in that. But then the doctor says, but I'll die for you. I'll take your disease on me.
I'm healthy. You're sick. I'll take your sickness on me, and you can have my life, listen to this, if you just trust me. That's the gospel. That's the gospel.
See, Buddhists say you gotta check out. Right? You gotta check out. Muslims, right, you gotta just keep working and keep working and keep working and hoping that Allah is merciful. Jesus says, no.
No. No. No. You can never do enough. You can't check out and you can't earn your way there.
You gotta come through me. Come on now. Amen. I mean, let's be honest. Have you ever really tried to be good?
Come on. Is there a husband in this place? I cannot tell you how many fights we have had on date night. Ladies, I'm trying. Like, I'm giving it my best.
We've had dates where we didn't get out of the driveway. And I'm not talking romance. Right? I am talking I am talking we're not speaking. Because here's the thing.
If you really try to live the good life, if you really try to be a good person, you know what you discover? You're not. You're not. And you know all those people that are running around, I just believe that good people go to heaven and I'm good. You know what that means?
They're not really trying. Because you know who feels like they're the worst parents? The parents who wanna be good. You you you know who who feels like they're the worst husband, the worst wife? The one who just really wants to love their husband, the one that really wants to love their wife.
You see, when you really try, you realize, oh my gosh. The problem is. And there's a young rabbi who hated Christians, hated Christianity, so much so that he killed us, he hunted us, but he had an encounter with Jesus where he was changed. And here's what he says about his pursuit of righteousness in Romans seven twenty one. He said, I've discovered this principle of life.
This is a principle of life. That when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. You don't believe me? Go on a diet, give up sugar. Give up Just just try.
Years ago, I realized I was allergic to bread, I had to go gluten free. I had dreams, like, inappropriate dreams about bread. I literally would, like, tear the bread open and eat the bread. I couldn't come within a hundred feet of a subway, and that's not even real bread. Try, try to eat healthy.
The candy will call you. Try to give up alcohol. Everyone's drinking and having a good time. He said, I've discovered this principle. When I try to do what's right, I inevitably do what's wrong.
The honest person has to admit they're not perfect. He goes on to say, listen to this. Oh, what a miserable person I am. Man. Oh, what a miserable person I am.
Look at this. Listen to what he says. Who? This is the great question. Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?
Thank God the answer is Jesus Christ our Lord. Here's Jesus' first sermon. You can't get there. That's right. You can't live the good life.
You can't live the holy life. And by the way, everybody who dies and goes to heaven, which way is heaven? I mean, you can't even find your local mall anymore. Where is heaven? Up, down, sideways, in, out?
What where is it? You don't know? Jesus knows. He knows the way because He is the way. And you gotta understand this.
The secret to this life, the secret to the god lifelike is admit life is admitting you can't live it. The best fight we ever had as a married couple, in the middle of it, I just shouted, I don't know what I'm doing. I mean, come on, men. Did any of your fathers sit you down? This is how you talk to a woman.
This is how you respond when you feel like it's crazy. Nobody does that. You know? And ladies, you watch movies and read books about a man who always understands. He knows what you're thinking and feeling before you do.
Right? It's confusing. We need somebody you know, we we need we just need to admit we don't know what we're doing. That's the key to spiritual life. God, I don't know what I'm doing.
I don't know what I'm doing. And so many people check out on on Christianity. I had somebody say this to me. Well, I gave up on the church because it's full of hypocrisy. It is, and so are you.
And so are you. You know what cracks me up at my gym? I go to my gym and I walk out of my gym. Everybody's been exercising and they're smoking in the parking lot. I'm like, that's not helping.
You can't out push up a cigarette. We're all hypocrites. The church is full of hypocrites. It's not just the Catholic church, the Baptist church, it's Sandals church. I mean, I started out to start the perfect church.
And then I was like, oh my god. Who's in charge? And the lord was like, you are. That's the problem. Right?
Kate, number two, you wanna live the blessed life. Seek to live a humble life like Jesus. Blessed are, listen to this, the meek. I want you to circle that word in your Bibles in Matthew five five. Blessed are the meek, for they, not you, the meek, shall inherit the earth.
I have heard so many sermons growing up as a kid. Meekness is not weakness. I've literally heard this sermon. Meekness is power under control. Let me translate.
I can kick your butt, but I'm not going to because I'm a Christian. That's not meekness. That's not what it means. This is the Greek word. I know many of you can't read Greek.
That's. K. At least that's how they tell me to say it. Nobody alive that spoke ancient Greek recorded it, so we don't know. Let me give it to you in a Greek lexicon, a Greek dictionary.
So if you looked up that word, what does it mean? First word would be meek. You're like, not helping. Gentle, kind, forgiving. Oh, I love this one, mild.
Mild, Benevolent. This next word is interesting, humane. Wow. What if what Jesus is calling to is actually calling us to real humanity, what we were supposed to be all along? Listen.
You you wanna go up? You gotta learn to come down. You gotta learn to humble yourself. And this is difficult, but Jesus says this is the way of the disciple. Listen to me.
This is the blessed life. So let's take a look. Many of us have not seen this. But in Matthew five one through two, this is where it begins. Seeing the crowds So remember, he's Taylor Swift in Matthew chapter four.
Everybody loves him. Matthew chapter five. Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain. And when he sat down, his disciples came to him, and he opened his mouth and taught them. Some of you, if you've been in church your whole life, and you don't realize what just happened.
Jesus is giving the people of God the new law. Moses went up on the mountain Yeah. Come on. And he encountered God. He saw God face to face.
It was terrifying. And God wrote his law on stone tablets, and Moses brought the law down to the people. Listen to me. God is no longer going through a person, but he's coming to you himself. This is God on the mountain.
This is the one who gave Moses the law. And here's the thing, Moses was not wrong, but the people of God had lost the spirit of Moses in the word of God. And we've all experienced this, right? We all know that you need laws, otherwise everybody goes insane. But have you ever felt like in our culture, we've lost the spirit of the law?
And what happens intrinsically, you know this isn't right. This isn't the purpose of the law. And that's what happened to the Jewish people. They had the law of God, but they lost the spirit of the law of God. And that's what Jesus is going to begin to teach.
He's not disagreeing with Moses. He's reinterpreting their understanding of Moses. Here's what he says. The meek shall inherit the earth. You know what that means?
The longer I know Jesus, the more humble I must become. How am I doing? Not good. Don't judge me. I went to a megachurch gathering and, god bless you, most of you don't know what that is, but megachurches are these extraordinarily large churches that have just really historically come up in the last thirty to forty years.
They didn't used to exist. They were never this big before, but now they are. Sandals is a megachurch. K? That's just how they define us.
I don't walk around like, I'm mega, are you? That's not what I say. But there are these extremely large churches. It's a phenomenon. It's something God is doing.
Some people hate it. Some people love it. Look, I think it takes all kinds of churches, all sizes of churches to reach people. K? But I was at this megachurch gathering, and you wanna talk about a group of not humble people.
Let me tell you what they look like. They look like a bunch of middle aged guys trying to dress super cool and look young. And if you need some, an idea of what that looks like, this is this is I literally was gonna wear a chain today, but everyone wears chains and I was like, I'm not gonna do it. You know, I know I'm not Fredo. I'm not that cool.
You know? But then there's this guy Hal. And let me give you a word picture for Hal. Hal's wife shops for him at Costco. Nothing wrong with Costco, but I'm not wearing one thing from Costco.
He's got jeans, white shoes that look about two sizes too big, and a shirt you could wear for almost any occasion. His name is Hal. He's the most humble man I've ever met. Here's the bizarre thing. All the megachurch pastors were there to hear what he had to say.
You know what happened in Hal's life? He was a famous writer interviewing mother Teresa. And in the middle of his interview, mother Teresa said, Hal, what are you doing to make the world a better place? And you know what he said? Nothing.
He realized he was what? Poor in spirit, and his life changed. And now he has one of the largest nonprofit organizations to feed the poor, to help women in poverty, and to take care of children who are orphans. Hal's organization feeds a million kids a day. Amen?
And so we're all there because they're gonna make a movie on him. Hollywood's gonna make a movie about how. How one man can change the world. He doesn't want it. He's not interested.
I met the director. The director came with me and he says, Has anybody ever told you you look like Kevin Bacon? I kid you not. And then he said this, A darker, more sinister version of Kevin Bacon. And I said, you need to work on your compliments.
Kid you not. But it was just interesting, you have all these pastors, right, we represent God, And the only one who looked anything like what Jesus was saying was Hal. That was it. And I told my wife this, you know, after we got to sit down and talk with him and his wife and hear their story. And you'll be hearing more about them because Sandals, we we give lot hundreds of thousands of dollars to this organization.
But I told my wife, I said, isn't it amazing that we get to meet someone like Mother Teresa in our age? That's great, but here's what's sad. Why aren't we all like Mother Teresa? You, me? Why do we all look like megachurch pastors?
What's wrong with us? Listen. Jesus wants you to be prouus, meek. Listen. The meek shall inherit the earth, not the proud, not the violent, not the protesters, not those who march for justice, those who are meek.
And he's inviting you and I into this. Listen to this in Matthew eleven twenty eight and twenty nine. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle.
You wanna know what word that is? Prouus. Prouus. He says I am gentle and lowly in heart. Listen to this.
You wanna know why church isn't working? You're not following your Jesus. You know what? That's why it doesn't work. So many people give up on God and then they never actually tried Him.
They gave up on a version of God. Let me tell you this, if you have the real God, He's going to challenge you challenge you. And if your God never challenges you, it's a made up God you created. For I am gentle, prouds, and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Jesus is saying there is a way to the beautiful life.
So what do I gotta do? Put God first like Jesus. Listen to what Jesus says. He's standing on the mountain, He is Moses, He's teaching the people of God. You wanna know what God wants?
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, and they will be satisfied. Listen to me. If you're a parent, you wanna mess your kids up, have them pursue something they may not get. So many parents say, well, I want my kid to be a professional athlete. Okay.
Have you looked at their mom and dad? I told my son, I said, look, look, Ron James. He did. I said, that's not your dad. This is your dad.
So we're gonna go to school. That's our only shot. But so many parents today, you are not preparing your kids for reality. And here's the reality, nothing in life satisfies. Nothing.
That's right. Except Jesus. Amen. Yep. You know, think about it, man.
So many of us were in love with anything and everything about Jesus. Some of you are in love with beauty. It always cracks me up on Instagram. There's women in our church posing for God, you know, with their Bible, they're like. I'm like, I don't know why this is in the picture.
Can I ladies, you're all gonna get ugly? If you live long enough, it'll happen. Nobody sees a 95 year old woman and is like, wow. Still got it. Age is just a number.
Listen. Listen. I lost my last grandparent this week. K? And I and I and I hear you I'm not sad at all.
I told my wife. I said it's weird. This is the first time in my life I lost someone and I'm happy. I'm happy for her. She was a beautiful woman at one time, but age caught up.
Age caught up. You know what I told my wife? Because my grandfather's a Christian. I said, I wonder what that conversation was like. Some of us live for power.
It's just as fleeting as beauty. Some of us live for money. It's just as fleeting as money. Here's the thing. Nothing but God satisfies, and if you pursue anything about God, you'll be miserable.
Because false gods always promise everything, but they've lied about everything. And can I just say, we live in a self centered culture, we do? It's about me. It's about me. One time I was talking with one of my kids and they had just gone to counseling, and I encourage counseling.
And my kids were like, did you talk to your parents about your feelings? I said it was the eighties. Like, we didn't talk about our injuries. I hid my injuries. I I walked around with a broken arm for two days in the eighties, and I didn't tell my parents because I was afraid they would take away the skateboard ramp.
I was just walking around, I'm fine. You know? Two days, I had a broken arm. We didn't talk about our feelings. I high I hid real injuries.
It was the eighties. We drank out of hoses. That's why we're just a little different. But here's the thing. Jesus is inviting you to a God centered life.
That's what this sermon is about. In John five nineteen, so Jesus explained. Listen to this. He says, so I tell you the truth. The son of man can do nothing by himself.
Isn't that interesting? The son of God. He can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the father doing. Whatever the father does, what?
The son does. Here's what Jesus is saying. God's first. That's right. God's first.
And that's why the religious people of the day said we gotta kill this guy. He's getting in the way of our church attendance. Next, you wanna live the blessed life? You've got to become a merciful person like Jesus. And if you're gonna make it at Sandals Church, if you're gonna last here, you've got to practice mercy because people are hard.
Yes. Not you, but other ones. Matthew five seven and eight. Blessed. Right?
Beautiful. Remember? This is the godlike life. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Jesus is saying something has to change inside of you. And this is what salvation is. This is what it means to be born again. This is what it means to be a Christian. It's not that I agree or think that Jesus might be, is God.
The devil believes that. Here's what it means. It means that I believe I'm a sinner. I'm spiritually bankrupt. There's nothing I can do to save myself no matter how hard I try.
I am not worth heaven. I need mercy. And here's the thing. Here's how you know when you've truly become born again and you've truly received grace, it's when you realize you need to give it to someone else who also doesn't deserve it. I know.
Go to another church. Right? It's just like, oh, no. No. No.
No. Let's go back to the topical sermons. I don't wanna go verse by verse anymore. Do you see why Jesus' crowd is shrinking? We don't want mercy.
We want justice. We want justice. Have you noticed in our culture, the people that march for justice are often the most angry, hateful, spiteful people? You wanna know what that is? Because when you lose mercy, you've lost everything.
You've lost everything. This is what Jesus's half brother, Jude, says. May God give you more and more, what's the word, mercy. What did Jesus say on the cross as they crucified him? Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.
There's probably some idiot that said, I know what I'm doing. Colossians three thirteen. Make an allowance for each other's faults. Look. If you're new to Sandals Church, you're like, I've had people say this.
I can't believe we get to come here every week. I'm like, you're new. You're new. Let's be honest. Some of you are sitting, you're watching me on screen, you're like, okay, I've heard this before.
I've heard these jokes before. Hurry up, you know, gotta get to the restaurant. Listen, this is varsity level Christianity. You gotta forgive anyone who offends you,
Dani Crowley: including me.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown: Including me. I was preaching a couple weeks ago, and literally somebody said that's the best sermon I've heard in my life. You changed my life. Thank you so much. Turned around.
That's the worst sermon I've ever heard in my life. I can't believe that you're responsible for people. I was like, wow. Here's the thing. If you wanna make it at Sandals Church, we have to have grace for each other, including the sermons, the points, the things I say that you don't like.
Grace is only grace when you don't agree. You know? Forgiveness is only forgiveness when you feel offended or hurt or wounded. And I know you don't like some of the things that I say, and I I don't like them either. You know?
Sometimes, you know, our creative team, they'll put stuff on Twitter and you know what the worst thing is is when you come up on your own feed? That's the worst. And I'm just like, oh my gosh. And I'll be saying something that they thought was cool and I'm like, that was so dumb. Why did I say that?
And why are they putting that on the Internet? Remember, the Lord forgave you. So what? You must forgive others. That's what it means to be a disciple.
A disciple is not just a person who believes in forgiveness. A disciple is a person who grants forgiveness. And can I just tell you this? I follow this doctor on TikTok, and I don't know if he's right or not, but he swears the leading cause of cancer in America today is unforgiveness. Now, I don't know if unforgiveness will kill you physically, but I know this, it will kill your relationship with Jesus spiritually.
And Jesus says this. We're gonna get into this in Matthew. You cannot be forgiven and receive grace and have mercy and then hold everyone else to an a standard that God does not hold you to. You can't do it. Here's what Jesus is saying.
You're not a follower. You're not a disciple. Next, you wanna live the beautiful life? Work hard for peace like Jesus. Now if you don't believe that peace is difficult, single people get married.
Let me pick your spouse. I'll pick anyone. I promise you will find a difference with that person rather quickly. Okay? And some of you are married, and I didn't pick your spouse.
You did. You picked, and you're still like, oh, I don't know this person. Listen to Jesus, Matthew five nine. Blessed are the warmongers. Blessed are the protesters.
Blessed are those who speak up for themselves. No. Blessed are the peacemakers. Why did Jesus Christ come to make peace with you and God? And you're like, well, that's difficult and that's painful.
Yeah. Ask Jesus. Ask Jesus. I don't think the nails felt good. I don't think it did.
Listen to this. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. You wanna know why your family and friends don't come to church? Maybe they don't see your peacemaking abilities yet. We live in a culture of outrage and offense.
Years ago, I went to Vietnam, and I was on a boat. Small boat with a rather large Frenchman. He was a big dude. He would jump off the boat, and he would yell, French atomic bomb, and he would jump in the water. My kids thought it was hilarious.
I thought it was weird. But as we were on the boat, we were sailing above the communist Vietnamese flag. He said, what do you think about that? And I said, what do you mean? He said, well, America fought this war and lost.
They won, and now you're sailing under that banner. And here's what I said. It's not my war. Now it was my parents' war. It's not my war.
So many of us are offended because we're fighting something that's not our war. It's not our war. And you're all riled up. And let me say this. So many of you and we've lost so many good people.
And I don't mean this in offensive way at all. We've lost so many good people in our church who just feel like I'm not political enough. And what they mean is I don't espouse the views that they believe enough from the pulpit. And here's the thing. The very reason Jesus Christ was rejected is the Jews wanted a political messiah who defeated Rome, and he said, that's not me.
And listen to me. They didn't leave the church. They killed the Christ. They killed the Christ. First Peter three eleven.
Turn away from evil and what? Do good. Well, I'm gonna pray about it. Okay. Look at this.
Search for peace and work to what? Maintain it. The hardest thing about church life is maintaining peace. And you know why that is? We don't all agree.
I don't know if you've noticed. We don't all agree. Listen, parents, you wanna ruin your Sunday afternoon? Ask your kids where they all wanna go eat. And you're gonna have one kid that's happy and everybody else that's miserable and they feel persecuted.
It's hard to establish peace. As a disciple, I must work for peace, listen to me, with myself. So much of our issues on others, we're literally not dealing with our own feelings and we're projecting it on everybody else. Man, the first person some of you need to learn to forgive is yourself. Yourself.
You know why I've had such a hard time with criticism? Because a lot of the things that people say about me are true. Like young Matt Brown was rough. You think this guy's rough. You should have seen 29 year old Matt Brown.
He just let it fly. And you wanna know why I didn't know what I was doing? I didn't know what I was doing. Next, I gotta work for peace with the people I love. I mean, how many of you have a family member or friend that you don't agree with?
You don't agree with? I have family members that don't speak to anymore because of my preaching. They don't even go to my church. I'm like, why are you listening to my sermons? People I love.
How about this? People I don't like. We were on a trip one time with the church and we had a bunch of people. And whenever you get a bunch of church people together, you wanna not be a Christian. Let me just tell you that.
Like like day eight, you're like, you know, I'm out of here. And there was one particular guy and he's he let me just say he was very difficult. And so he came up to me and he said, I'm leaving this trip. I want every I want out of here. He says, everyone at Sandals thinks I'm a jerk.
And I said, I think you're a jerk. This is young Matt Brown. And you know, he left our church because I was wrong. I was wrong. Now was he a jerk?
Yeah. What? Did I act like a Christian? No. I acted like Matt Brown.
And if I could go back, I would fix that. Even though he was a jerk, there were a thousand ways I could have communicated that. I mean, when's the last time you were a jerk and Jesus still loved you? Come on now. Come on.
First Peter five fourteen. So Peter says, greet each other with a kiss of love. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna have all the pastors come forward, and then member by member, you're gonna kiss your pastor today. I'm kidding. Kidding.
K. There are traditions that still do this. I kid you not. This is a true story. It's not a made up story.
My very first sermon I preached. I preached a sermon in a Baptist church, and at the end of the sermon, you would walk by and greet every person. And there was a very attractive young woman whose husband was much older than her, and she came by. She said amazing sermon. She grabbed my cheeks, and she kissed me on the mouth.
And as we stopped kissing, I looked at her husband and I was like, are you gonna kill me? I just I was like, what is going on? So she's just like practicing the Bible. I said, I don't think that was the Bible. Didn't feel didn't feel a lot of Jesus there.
Let's go back to that verse. Greet let's go back to the verse. Greet each other with a kiss of love. I've been wanting to share that story for years. Look at it.
Peace peace be with all of you who are what? In Christ. Can I just tell you how most churches are planted? Most churches are planted in America because Christians don't agree, and one group stays and another group leaves. Now let me just ask you this question.
Why are so many churches closing their doors today? Maybe it's because God does not bless churches that are started with a lack of peace. Amen. K? We've had that here.
We've had people that have gotten upset with me, and they've left. You know what I did? I didn't agree with it. You know what we did? We blessed them.
We blessed them because the unity of the church is more important than my ego. That's right. Just this. That's right. It just is.
Next. If you didn't like this sermon yet, you're gonna hate this. See life's difficulties as a good thing like Jesus. Listen to what he says in Matthew five ten. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is what?
The kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad. You can pray for me. I'm working on this one.
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Man, you wanna live for Jesus, you wanna become this person, people are going to criticize you. And you know what you need to do? Let them.
Right. Let them. Because you know what? It's not about you. It's about them.
But do you know why you can't see persecution for your faith and gossip about your character as a good thing? You're not Jesus. Do you know why it's so hard and exhausting to work for peace? I hear this all the time with couples in our church. I just can't do it anymore.
Do you wanna know why you give up on relationships when people have been awful? You're not Jesus. Do you know why it's so hard to give mercy to someone and forgive someone over and over again? You're not Jesus.
Jocelyn Cervantes: Do you
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown: know why it's so hard to always put God first and do what he says? You're not Jesus. Do you know why you're not more humble? And you care so much about recognition, and you dress like a mega pastor? You need constant attention?
You're not Jesus. Do you know why you can't get to heaven on your own? Even with all your best efforts, you're not Jesus. You and I will never be Jesus, but listen to me, we can know Him. We can learn from Him.
And listen to me, we can be saved by Him. Thank God there's a Jesus. Amen? Yes. Thank God.
Let's pray. Father, in the name of Jesus, help us to live this blessed life. Help us to follow you. Help us to learn from you. Help us to become like you.
We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Morgan Teruel: Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you want more content from this series, we have a YouTube playlist linked in the description. And if you want more information about who we are and what we do, you can go to sandalschurch.com.