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The Ladder Of
Success (Part 1)
Matthew 5:1-10
There he stood, right in the middle of the Golden Corral, with Thousand
Island dressing dripping from his hair, over his glasses, down his face,
all over his jacket, pants, & shoes. About 2 gallons of it!
You see the waitress working the salad bar had paused for just a second
while coming through the swinging doors of the kitchen, the best I could
figure it the swinging doors caught her on their way back & knocked her
forward, launching dressing all over this guy.
Now before I tell you what happened next, what would you have done?
Would you have cried, laughed, gone in a rage?
Well, this guy went ballistic! He started shouting & cursing at her.
“You’re so stupid! I can’t believe you could do such a stupid, stupid
thing. This is a brand new suit & it cost me $300.” His wife chimed in,
“Yeah, you’ve ruined my husband’s $300 suit, & it’s the first time he’s
had a chance to wear it.” He screamed, “I want to see the manager!”
Well about that time the manager who had heard the commotion comes out
the same swinging doors, looks at the man with the dressing all over him
and asks, “Is there a problem?”
The guy replies, “Is there a problem? She’s ruined my $300 suit. It’s
brand new, & I want a new suit!” The manager says, “We’ll be glad to get
your suit cleaned. Accidents do happen, & we’re really sorry about
this.”
“No! No!” he said. “I don’t want my suit cleaned. I want a brand new
suit, & I demand a check for $300 right here & now.” The manger
disappears through the swinging doors and comes out a minute later hands
the man a check, and justice is served.
Now while this story is funny, and true stories are the funniest there
is a sad end.
This all happened at 12:30 on a Sunday afternoon. Now, why do you think
that would someone be wearing a brand new suit on Sunday?
Do you suppose he had been to church? Do you suppose that he had just
heard a sermon on “Love your neighbor as yourself,” or “Do unto others
as you would have them do unto you,”
I’m not here to judge this man but to me the tragic part is that God has
called us to be transformed, to be different from the rest of the world.
You may expect the rest of the world to behave crudely, but not
Christians, & especially not after church on Sunday morning.
Nearly 2,000 years ago, Jesus stood on a mountainside near the Sea of
Galilee. Thousands of people have come to listen to Him; He delivers
some of the most challenging statements we’ll ever hear, we call them
the Beatitudes.
As I thought about what I wanted to say to you today as we begin our
relationship together my mind continued coming back to this passage. You
see I want this family to be the type of family God desires. I want us
to be successful together and so today we are going to have an all day
sermon as we climb the rungs of success.
The first step is found in verse 3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
What does this mean? Some people want to teach that it is about material
possessions but, it has very little to do with money. It’s about the
attitude of the heart. Notice what God says about the kind of person he
dwells with:
"God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” James 4:6
The first step to success is that we must see and admit our own sin. You
must be able honestly to say before God and other people:
I was wrong!
Have you recognized and admitted your evil nature before a Holy God? If
you’ve ever really encountered God you can tell because you’re
immediately conscious of personal sin.
In the Old Testament Isaiah experienced the tangible presence of God. He
saw God Almighty, the perfectly sinless Creator of the universe. Isaiah
was scared. He was extremely aware of his own sinfulness. Here’s how he
responded:
“Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips …”
Isaiah 6:5
The ancient Hebrew here literally means, “I’m a dead man.”
That’s what happens when we truly encounter God. We don’t just suddenly
believe and march merrily on our way. We fully comprehend our filthiness
before God.
I’m not talking about sin in the abstract, but sinfulness in the
specific. The poor in spirit won’t be content to confess, “I’ve got a
problem with materialism.” They’ll confess, “I’ve loved my big house, my
new boat, and my shiny truck more than you God, or my kids. I’ve
sacrificed all on the altar of stuff.”
The poor in spirit will admit, “Lord, I’m a coward and I lie to make
other people think well of me.” They won’t leave it at, “Sometimes I
fudge the truth.”
There are no little sins for the poor in spirit. They see all as an
insult to God and His purity. This is the first essential step on the
ladder of spiritual success.
Let me ask you, did you accept Christ thinking you were good enough or
did you come to him because you realized your unworthiness? We are
sinners and we don’t deserve eternal life. Recognition of this fact
opens the door to his grace and forgiveness.
This leads to the second step in the blessed life:
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” Matthew 5:4
This one is often misunderstood and misquoted. The grief being talked
about here is grief over sin. This kind of person not only admits to
being wrong, but they feel sorrow over it. They mourn over it, like
you’d mourn over a lost loved one. Their personal sin rips their guts
out.
“I’m so sorry!”
Notice how James put it:
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you
sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and
mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy
to gloom. Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will
exalt you. James 4:8-10
The comfort this person gets is forgiveness for their sin. Ultimately
they’ll be among the citizens of heaven and God will wipe away every
tear from their eyes.
The story of one of Alabama’s greatest governors George C. Wallace
sounds like something from Paul Harvey’s “the Rest of the Story.” It
comes in two parts.
In 1962, Wallace ran for governor on a platform that was blatantly
racist. He promised to fight integration and he ended his inaugural
address with the statement, “I say segregation now, segregation
tomorrow, segregation forever.” That summer, he refused to allow black
students to register at the University of Alabama until forced to do so
by the threat of military intervention. Through his tenure as governor
and a run for the presidency in 1968, Wallace spouted racial hatred
while blacks were beaten and jailed, black churches were burned, and
black children were murdered.
Then came May 15, 1972 – and the rest of the story. While campaigning in
Laurel, Maryland, Wallace was shot five times, leaving him paralyzed and
in constant pain. Two years later – confined to a wheel chair, divorced
from his second wife, and without the use of his legs – Wallace was a
broken man. He was a man who finally understood the meaning of
suffering. He was a man who had come to realize what suffering he had
caused others.
While being drive home one evening, he passed the open doors of Dexter
Avenue Baptist Church, a black congregation. Overcome with remorse,
Wallace stopped the car, was helped into his wheelchair, and wheeled up
the aisle to the stunned surprise of the assembly. There, Wallace
tearfully confessed he had been wrong, apologized for the suffering he
had caused, and asked the blacks of Alabama to forgive him.
It was an expression of remorse he was to repeat on numerous occasions
in the following years – publicly, and privately. During two more terms
as governor he built bridges to the black community, developed
relationships with prominent black leaders, and worked to undo some of
the damage his own racist rhetoric had caused.
Not all blacks forgave Wallace. The damage he did and the pain he caused
was great. But the story of George Wallace is not about forgiveness, but
about penance. Here is a man who was tragically flawed and terribly
wrong. It took five bullets and awful suffering to bring him to his
knees. But once broken, he had the courage to face his hatred and
prejudice, repent, confess, and then spend the remainder of his life
attempting to atone and make restitution.
The next step is found in verse 5.
“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” Matthew 5:5
This step says, “I will submit to God.”
Do not make the mistake of associating meek with wimp. Jesus called
himself meek, but there was nothing cringing or cowardly about him. He
flew in the face of the religious establishment. He made a whip and
cleared the temple.
The word translated meek was used by the Greeks to describe horses that
were broken. There are few animals more proud, more powerful than
horses. In their wild state, horses are beautiful and independent – but
useless to humans. They can’t be ridden. They won’t haul a cart or plow.
Oh, they have strength. But they lack the will. Horses have an agenda of
their own that doesn’t include wearing a saddle or hauling a wagon.
That’s man’s business. Horses would rather munch grass and roam free.
But take a horse and tame it, ride it until it submits, train it – and
that horse becomes meek. It goes wherever you tell it to go. It does
what you want it to do. Your agenda becomes its agenda. It lends its
strength to helping you accomplish your work.
The horse doesn’t lose its strength by being domesticated. It doesn’t
suddenly become weak and timid. A good horse has spirit even though it
wears a saddle. All that has changed is that the horse and its strength
is brought under control. It no longer demands to do what it wants.
The Greeks would say that horse is meek. The Christian might remark,
“That horse has learned to say, ‘Not my will but yours be done.’”
The meek are blessed because they are content to do whatever God wants
them to do. They willingly submit their lives to his control. God’s
agenda becomes their agenda. Why? They know their sinfulness and God’s
gracious goodness toward them. They understand where following their
will and not God’s leads.
The Last characteristic this morning is the passion we’re after. Jesus
said:
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they
will be filled.” Matthew 5:6
Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness have a mindset that says,
“I want to do what’s right.”
The successful person has recognized and admitted their sinfulness
before a holy and righteous God. Their perception of personal sin led to
a deep grief and remorse over it all. They threw their worthless hides
on God’s mercy and submitted to his rule over their lives, realizing
that self-will leads to brokenness and death. Now they have every reason
for passion. A hunger and thirst to follow God consumes their soul.
Let me ask you: Is Jesus Christ the consuming passion of your life? Or
is it something or someone else?
There’s a brand of faith that makes us subject to the commands of God,
but permits little joy and fervor in obeying them.
There’s a kind of discipleship that breeds enough commitment to get us
to church on Sunday, but fails to light a consuming fire within us
through the week.
There’s a form of religion that sparks in us a appearance of holiness –
but, too often, it’s a appearance devoid of life-changing power. It’s
faith by numbers, discipleship by the book …
That faith will generate only enough heat to make us do our duty. We’ll
provide for it, take care of it, even defend it. But we don’t love it.
It’s not the passion of our lives.
If you have little or no appetite for the things of God, let me suggest
that either you’ve missed one of the steps on the path of the passionate
or you’re filling up on something else.
We live in a culture that feels great passion about tiny things. Our
tastes are common and vulgar. We hunger for junk food of the body, mind
and soul.
We understand how to be passionate about entertainment. We run cable to
our homes, buy a big screen TV, install surround sound, sign up for
pay-per-view, and spend countless hours in front of the tube –to watch
athletes perform. We’ll drive for many miles to a multimillion dollar
stadium, pay ridiculous parking and ticket prices, and to add insult to
injury pay five dollars for a hot dog that should cost fifty cents –
just for the pleasure of seeing some overdeveloped millionaire hit a
ball or make a tackle.
And we understand what it means to be hungry for approval. We spend
billions annually on creams, ointments, perfumes, make-up, and lotions
to make ourselves more attractive and alluring. We diet and exercise and
endure plastic surgery to keep our bodies trim and lean. We’re obsessed
with skin and careless about souls.
We know what it means to be passionate. It’s just that our passions
revolve around tiny and unworthy things. We give the best of ourselves
to matters that, ultimately, don’t matter.
Jesus promises that if we make him and his cause the passion of our
lives we’ll find satisfaction for our souls. That’s because those who
hunger and thirst after righteousness find God himself.
If you’ve made some kind of commitment to Christ, but find that you lack
passion, retrace your steps. Maybe you missed a step somewhere along the
way. Perhaps you never even entered the door of God’s kingdom. Or it
could just be that your life has been crowded out by too many other
things to be fully yielded to God.
I must admit, I dream of being considered a passionate person. I dream
of working with a family full of enthusiastic Christ-followers. I’m sure
that inside, deep though it may be, there’s an urge within you to be set
ablaze for God. Jesus Christ longs for a people who are passionately in
love with him. A people who will live and die for him. A people who
would storm the gates of hell at his command. A people whose greatest
desire is to see the kingdom of heaven break out on earth. It could
happen, but it’s going to take passion.
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