Words of Jesus Podcast - The Fruits of Grace

Episode Date: April 15, 2022

"It's not like you think..." Jesus came to teach his people; to be received by his people. The Scriptures and Jesus reveal a gospel we have not known. The Beatitudes in Matthew are based on 'state of mind', 'condition of soul', 'state of being', i.e., “Who we are.”  Luke states, "woe, woe, woe" indicating a certain expectation of judgment. “It’s not like you think." Grace (unmerited favor) became the Protestants' indulgence. Consider Ecclesiasticus 15:20, “He hath commanded no man to do wickedly, neither hath he given any man licence to sin.”  The wrong definition of grace caused us to miss the fruits of grace, i.e., humility (poor in Spirit), meekness, peacemakers, merciful, comforted, filled, etc.  "Believe in me, that I am the Son of God.” I will give you the [power] to become the sons of God. (John 1:12)***Chapter 19: The Sermon on the Mount - Beatitudes (Part 3)THE FAME of Jesus spread so widely that great numbers came to see him from all over the countryside. Seeing the multitudes, Jesus went up into a mountain. There he sat down; and when his disciples came to him, he taught them, saying: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you."Matthew 5:1-48, 6:1-34, 7:1-29

Think Red Ink Ministries presents The Words of Jesus series. I'm Don Harris and I've been doing what I enjoy to do. Especially now that we're talking about the Sermon on the Mount, which happens to be just jam-packed with good advice and good doctrine and gives us insight into the mind of our God and insight into the mind of the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Now, he started this Sermon on the Mount out

with the blessings or what's known as the Beatitudes. And I was saying last time that uh matthew had a tendency to talk about um more so our state of mind more so um the um the condition of our soul more so than he did in um in the area of works and what we what we do and he's dealing mostly with why we do it blessed are the pure in heart well you can't be pure in heart by doing something you either are or you're not i assume um and uh it's something for us to strive toward. And he says that there are rewards for such states of being. Now

that's a very difficult concept. As much as it is understood among most in conventional Christianity that works has nothing to do with your salvation, which is just totally without foundation. There is no such thing as faith without works. There's no such thing. It doesn't exist.

It's dead faith, the Bible calls it. And so there's no such thing. Works are going to have to be dealt with. So first of all, what we're going to have to do is we're going to have to stand in the face of the people that we respect and love and care about and some of our heroes in the faith. I have preachers in my life that I love dearly and they're entangled with things that just simply aren't so. And it always tickles me when somebody when you have an argument about a particular doctrinal

point they'll say, well I just don't think that it's essential for salvation. Or I don't think it's a, how do they say that? It has something to do with, it's not a point about salvation. Like salvation is the most important thing here. You know, that my sorry hide doesn't get thrown into hell. And that's the most important thing. Well, if you are one who says that, will you please stop saying that? Because you sound to me like a hell dodger.

You don't care about serving your God? You don't care about pleasing your God? It's all about whether or not you sizzle like bacon in hell for eternity or you go to play checkers with Jesus. I don't know. I don't know what you're thinking, but it really does stink when you say stuff like that. And you just really shouldn't. I don't think it's a salvation issue. Well, who cares? You know, Jesus,

you never hear this out of His mouth. You just never hear it. With Him it's always, I do that which pleases the Father. I do that which pleases the Father I always do what pleases the Father and that's what we need to do, isn't it? isn't that what we need to do? one of my favorite, well favorite, that sounds like I just like it for some other reason, let me just say

one of the most respected, at least for me, one of the most respected men in Christendom. I could give you his name and you know who he is. He's all over the place. He's a wonderful linguist and he knows languages and he's articulate and I love to hear him preach. But you know, his doctrine really stinks in this area, and it's tough for me to, you just got to kind of jump over and jump over and jump over until you're tired of jumping, and then you go someplace else.

But I just think that instead of insisting on our way and that kind of thing, I just have to believe that people have our good intentions at heart. Even your mean old uncle that keeps talking about what a Christian you aren't because you don't do what he thinks is right, or your preacher that leans over the pulpit and shakes his bony little finger at you. And that kind of thing, I don't know. Maybe you just need to move away from that kind of thing. And let's get into who we are.

Now, this is what Matthew is talking about here, is who we are. Are you poor in spirit? Are you humble? Are you pure in heart? Do you hunger and thirst after righteousness? Am I describing you? Well if I am there's many rewards waiting for you. Well when we find that when Luke talked about very similar things, you hear him not using the word blessed is he, but he uses the words woe unto. Wow, man,

we've just gone from one end of the spectrum to the other, haven't we? He's saying that, and you notice that as I was reading the Sermon on the Mount several shows past that we were talking about or Jesus was talking about certain things and when he'd say that those who hunger and thirst after righteousness and then you would hear Luke's account of but woe unto you that are full,

because you're going to hunger. Look, it's hunger then or hunger now, is what he's trying to say. I think that the overwhelming message of the Sermon on the Mount is, and you're going to find this a lot, if you read the words of Jesus and you start studying what he had to say and how he taught us, the questions he asked us,

the way he answered questions everything he said was, it's not like you think it is. Now, doesn't that kind of make the hair stand up a little bit on the back of your neck? Doesn't that make you wonder, what did you say? It's not like you think it is. Really? You mean heaven is not, you know, the celestial shore that we've all heard that it was with rolling hills and pastures and little creeks with fish jumping in them and cows with great big eyes. Walking around mooing.

I don't know. I don't know. What is your idea of heaven? You know, I always say that some people, people that know me and we have conversation, we might, you know, I might be asked, you know, you were talking with so-and-so or you had an interview with so-and-so. You know, how do they feel about heaven i said it's tom and jerry and they know what i mean do you know what i mean when i say it's tom and jerry uh you know the old tom and jerry cartoons right the cat would pounce on the mouse and and kill him and what happened to him well a little cloud

appeared around his feet a little halo came over his head He got a harp in his hand and he's floating away. Bling, bling, bling. Right? There's some people that feel like that that's what heaven is. Is to, you know, go off and be with Jesus and I guess float around and play a harp. I don't know. There's harps mentioned in Revelation. I was just uh singing the song the other day and about a mansion over a hilltop uh one of my you know it's one of the ones from back in the day and and it's it's fun to sing right and i found myself singing, you know, that I don't necessarily want

a cabin like I have here on the earth. And how I'm so poor and so miserable and so lonely. I don't want a cabin. When I get there, I want a mansion. I want a gold one that's silver lined. I want a harp. And I want a crown this is all in this song you know this song and i'm thinking wow man it was there is are there really people out there that believe this stuff oh yeah there are mostly it's people that have never thought about it do you know what the people that i notice that think about what it's like to go to heaven when they die? Do you know what's been my experience anyway

when people say, when they talk about heaven is they say, I don't know that they might say it in whispers, they might look to both sides before they say it. Or they might not say it, they just imply it and hope you know, they might say it in whispers. They might look to both sides before they say it. Or they might not say it. They just imply it and hope you understand what they mean. But they actually are, you know, you infer from what they say. They don't want to go. And, well, why not?

Well, what are we going to do? Really? Really? I have a hard time occupying the 80 years that I live on this earth. What are we going to do for eternity? We're going to float around and sing, holy, holy, holy? I don't know how to play a harp. And frankly, I'm a little afraid of heights,

especially when I'm standing on a cloud. And what's with the robes? Everybody's got to wear robes when we get there. And people start talking honestly about heaven. They realize they don't know anything about it. You know why? It's all made up. That's why. Somebody just made this up. That when you die you're going to heaven when you die. You can't find not one stitch of scripture

not one word where you were ever promised that you're going to heaven when you die. You can't find not one stitch of scripture, not one word where you were ever promised that you're going to heaven when you die. It's not in there. As a matter of fact, all the instructions about, and the doctrinal instruction about what happens when you die was in 2 Esdras 7 that was removed from your Bible about 150 years ago. That's right. And so that's gone now so now it's uh we we base all this on where i am there you may be also well you know where is he

when the resurrection takes place he's standing here on this earth you wonder what you're gonna do now are you wondering what you're going to do? You know, most of the time when people get a hold of the idea that we're not going anywhere, he's coming here. We're not going to heaven. Heaven's coming to us. Our king is coming. The new Jerusalem's coming.

He's going to rule and reign from, you know, his palace there at Jerusalem. I mean, this is going to be wonderful. We're going to live right here on this terra firma forever. Well, you know what? I can find something to do. And it's just a lovely thing for me. You know what's been destroyed? You know what's different in living now and then? Two things have been destroyed. One of them is the power of Satan over me. And number two, death.

It's the last enemy to be destroyed. And when death is gone, when death doesn't loom over your head, you know, that cloud starts coming over about 40 years old is when you start feeling that cloud and it gets darker and darker and darker as time goes by. But pretty soon that'll be lifted. And we're going to be able to live on this earth in His kingdom with Him as King, Satan bound for a thousand years. That's exciting to think about.

I don't know about you you but I just love the idea well what that particular time entails is a time of reward the Bible says that we're going to give an account of the deeds that are done in the flesh there's going to be a time when the Lord is going to look at you and say you know I gave you X number of talents now I realize that going to be a time when the Lord is going to look at you and say, you know, I gave you X number of talents. Now I realize that the idea of the Greek actually being denarii, this is an amount of money. Nowadays we

talk about talents as things like ability to sing or play the piano or whatever, paint or these kind of things. Artistic things as being artistic talent. But, you know, in this he's saying, I gave you so much to invest in life. How did it turn out for you? How did it turn out? This guy got one talent. This guy over here got 10 talents. Well, you know, the Lord decided that. I didn't decide that. You know, and the government sees that and says why? He needs to give half of his to him. But no, no, that's not so. We've

all been brought into the earth with a certain amount of talent. How'd you do? Well, as those things are evaluated, you're going to find that not only are the people who wasted their talent are in serious trouble, but you're going to find that people, even people who were overly cautious with whatever they had, they never advanced, they never went behind, but they never advanced. Do you know the Bible says take that talent away from him and give it to him that has ten. I like achievers. I like people who actually achieve something in the world.

You know, this guy, he's just riding on welfare over there. That's not the kind of people that are rewarded in this kingdom. And so we find that this millennial reign that we're going into, the dead are going to be resurrected into and the ones who are alive are going to be changed into this kingdom of God is a time of reward. Now it's understood that there are certain things that are

rewarded. And we listed these things about people who have a humble, a poor spirit. People who live in a state of righteousness. People who have a pure heart. All these things are rewarded in a certain way that he makes very clear. But there are also, as Luke shows us, there are also people that the sentence is not going to start with blessed are ye when, or blessed are

you, but the sentence is going to start in this way, woe unto you who are this way. Woe unto you who do these things, who say these things and act this certain way. Woe unto you who do these things, who say these things and act this certain way. Woe unto you. Do you know what woe is? This is an expectation of judgment. You know the scripture that says that we are he that's done despite to the spirit

of grace, you know, how much sorrow or punishment you sow, well, shall he be thought worthy, who's done despite to the spirit of grace. There's nothing left for this man. If a man sins willfully, there remaineth nothing, there's nothing for him but a fearful expectation of judgment. It a fearful the bible says uh the king james anyway says a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation this looking for that he says

this these words looking for this this expectation of judgment, this is that feeling of, or it's all encased in the word woe. It's the looking for judgment. It's looking for something that is hugely unpleasant. Hugely unpleasant. In Revelation, you find the angels flying around saying, woe into the inhabitants of the earth why because the the king's coming and he's going to he's gonna he's gonna wipe out the power that has empowered these people all of their life. And it's going to be bad. Woe is something that is, man, it's just something to be shunned,

to run from, to be afraid of. And blessed is exactly the opposite. Exactly the opposite. And so I felt it necessary to include those words of Luke within the Beatitudes. I hope you enjoyed that reading. I'll try to make that available if you didn't hear it or if you'd like to hear it again. I'll try to make that available to you by you simply going to thinkradink.com and finding that and

clicking on it. You can watch it again or listen to it again. But the Sermon on the Mount is clearly started out by saying there are certain characteristics that we should have. And unfortunately we find ourselves looking at these characteristics and saying, for example, let's start at the beginning, blessed are the poor in spirit. I'm not poor in spirit.

I don't have to be poor in spirit. How can I be poor in spirit? Well, there's no instructions here as to how to be poor in spirit. So what do I do? You see, this is where the faith and works argument always rears its head um all of these characteristics that we're reading here that are not within our power these are contained in the power to become. All right, let's just look at that scripture in 1 John. It says that he came unto his own, his own received him not,

but as many as received him, to them gave he the power to become a child of God. Now that's interesting because although that's kind of a blanket statement and kind of nebulous, you know, you just, you can't really put your finger on that. You can't really say, so what is that? Well, if you want to know what is contained in grace, many people think that grace is simply forgiveness. It's just God loves you. He's merciful. He's going to forgive and he's going to forget and he's going to whatever. And that's what grace means. You're allowed to sin. You're allowed to do things wrong. Well, not really allowed, but you're forgiven for it so instantly and so easily that it might even seem like a good idea on your part to go ahead and sin because

well, you can get forgiveness for it. Like the guy says about his wife, it's just as easy to get forgiveness as it is permission. Well, if you remember the book I told you that they took out of your Bible? Another one they took out was Sirach. And within Sirach you'll find it says, God's not given any man permission to sin. Nobody's got permission.

So grace is the new indulgence. It's the Protestant indulgence. We're allowed, as long as you believe it, you're just simply and effectively allowed to sin. But that's not what our scriptures teach. So if that's not grace, then what is grace? How are we going to define it? Well, the overarching idea of grace is the power to become a child of God.

Well, what's contained in that power right here the beatitudes tell us these the the gifts that are given through grace to us everybody knows about the nine gifts of the spirit and you know they can quote them and they can and they talk about all these wonderful fruit of the spirit. Right. We all know those things. But that I know of, I don't know anybody that understands the fruit, the aspects, the characteristics, the gifts to be found within grace. Frankly, I can't help but believe it's because they don't know it. They've already defined grace

as unmerited favor they're all done with that i had one guy call my radio show and he says why are we even talking about this they decided all this is the council of trent they decided all this at the 19 council so many years ago why are we even talking about this see it never even occurred to them to, that they could have been absolutely wrong. It could have been that they were just wrong about it. Is that too hard to believe? They're just men. And if they've decided that, you know,

that Jesus is in essence, you know, one with God and, you know, that there's a trinity or whatever. Okay, that's fine. Go ahead and decide that if that's what you want to decide. But as far as I'm concerned, I'm going to let the Spirit of God teach me. Jesus says you have one teacher. And he was talking about himself, not the Nicene Council. Nevertheless, you have people who define words and then try to build a denomination around those words and it turns into a mess.

When if we let our scriptures teach us, the Bible says, for example, to them gave he power to become the children of God. Well, down here it says, blessed are the peacemakers, they shall be called the children of God. The children of God here is in a synoptic position with all of the Beatitudes as the reward. You know, blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are they which hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Now, if that's so, if that's the way it actually is, then what we find is that these characteristics that Matthew's bringing out here in the Beatitudes are, and very well could be, the aspects of the characteristics that are given to us by, not by right, what am I trying to say? They're given to us as a gift from God. Did you notice that faith wasn't mentioned anywhere in here?

Although faith is a gift, I mean, yeah, but it's not mentioned at all. Isn't that amazing? How can that be that important and it not be mentioned here? You know, these are just things that we need to stop and think about. You need to go before the Lord and say, why isn't faith mentioned? What's that all about? Do I even understand what faith is?

I bet you don't. I was amazed i didn't i was a very very smart guy until i found out how stupid i was um so here we have him talking about these these uh these characteristics that pour in spirit this is going to be given to you this the humility is something that is, I don't know how you can even develop it. You can be sorry for your horrible life. You can feel that you're a nobody and a nothing compared to the rich and the powerful and find yourself ashamed in front of them. But that's not humility.

Humility is a gift from god these are gifts these are things that he has given us the ability to mourn to see the the the hurts and the pains of other people many people can't see them at all how about meekness there's people they don't even know what meekness is they think that's humility meekness is not humility meekness is to have an advantage over someone and not take it. To have an advantage. To be able to win the lawsuit but not file it. Well, who's got that in them? Who has that in them? Other than a lazy person or somebody who doesn't care. No, this is somebody who loves their fellow man,

who treats him like they want to be treated. People who hunger and thirst after righteousness. Man, that hunger and thirst, who would replace that? Who would want to replace that with anything? Jesus said that if you eat this bread, you'll never hunger again. If you drink this water, you'll never thirst again. Well, that's a wonderful idea, but if you don't hunger and you don't thirst, you're not even looking for it. So here we see that there is a huge collaboration between us and the Father. These kind of things are given to us by that grace.

Why is he giving us this grace? Why is he doing this for us? Why? Why? Why? I don't understand. Why? Why do I deserve this? To as many as received him. To as many as received him. Received him as what? Received him as what? The Son of God? The Messiah? The Anointed One? The King of the Earth? Your teacher? If you know who he is,

you're going to obey him. Why call me Lord and not do the things that I say? Time's gone again. Until next time, bye-bye. ThinkRedInc.com. That's ThinkRedInc.com. Join us again for the next episode in the Words of Jesus series. you