Words of Jesus Podcast - The Kingdom of God Manifesto

Episode Date: April 8, 2022

Jesus does not care what we believe, nor will judgment consist of a "belief test." Saying, "I believe in Jesus" does not mean it's so. Jesus asked, "Why do you call me Lord and not do what I say?" Our daily actions reveal what we believe. The life and death (atonement) of Jesus does not remove the fact that we will one day judged for our actions. Jesus expects faith-and-works or works-and-faith from his people. The Sermon on the Mount reveals the expectation of the Kingdom of God for members, including the rewards and consequences of our behavior.***Chapter 19: The Sermon on the Mount - Beatitudes (Part 2)THE FAME of Jesus spread so widely that great numbers came to see him from all over the countryside. And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set and he lifted up his eyes on his disciples that came unto him, he opened his mouth and taught them saying, Blessed are you poor and poor in spirit: for yours is the kingdom of God.Blessed are you that hunger now: for you will be filled. Blessed are they that mourn and weep now: for they will laugh and be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful: for they will obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they will be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you, when men will revile, hate and persecute you, and when they will separate you from their company, and will reproach you, and will say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake. Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers persecute the prophets who were before you. But woe unto you that are rich! For you have received your consolation. Woe unto you that are full, for you will hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now! For you will mourn and weep. Woe unto you, when all men will speak well of you! For so did their fathers to the false prophets. Matthew 5:1-48, 6:1-34, 7:1-29

Think Red Ink Ministries presents The Words of Jesus series with Don C. Harris Hello my friends, I'm Don Harris of Think Red Ink Ministries. My goal is to reinforce Christianity with the wisdom and the words of Jesus, which, incidentally, are recorded in red ink in many Bibles. Do you know what Jesus said? What Jesus did? What Jesus said to do? This series is based on Jesus' life, his friends, his ministry, and his relationship with his Father

as recorded in the four Gospels. We're going to delve into the mysteries that have been hidden, not from us, but for us in the words of Jesus. We've been, we took on the Sermon on the Mount and I read through it for you so that we can hear it fresh. And also as I was explaining that there were many concepts found in other Gospels, different verses that I felt like applied and should be

inserted in there because Matthew tended to, as we know, the Sermon on the Mount is found in Matthew 5, 6, and 7. And Matthew had a tendency for some reason, I don't know, perhaps personality, I don't know. But the sermon that he recorded for us tended to have the balance was more on the reward side of good behavior. But over in Luke, when we find certain concepts dealt with, it was dealt with in a more negative manner. Well the Bible

teaches that when we're generous and when we're good that we're blessed for that and that we should have purity in our hearts and there are certain things that we should be and do that have certain rewards involved in them. But over in Luke we find, for example in Matthew, he that hungers after righteousness, hungers and thirsts after righteousness he will be filled. But over in Luke you find where he

says, woe unto you. It's not blessed are you, it's woe unto you. Woe unto us for what? The very opposite of what in the Gospel of Matthew you'll find to be a blessing if you do the opposite of this. So it's blessed are you that hunger and thirst after righteousness but over in Luke it says woe unto you that are full now for you're going to be hungry.

And so in the interest of balance and also to get a fuller understanding of what our Lord Jesus was trying to tell us, I took those verses and added them to that Sermon on the Mount to try to make it a little more whole and more rounded. Now there are people who take great

exception to that kind of thing, because you're not supposed to tamper with the Bible. I'm not tampering with the Bible, I'm just reading it. What's the difference in saying, turn over to Matthew 5 and now let's turn over to Luke, and what's the difference in doing that? Just, I don't know. People like to complain. Religion is a hobby for them. Let's just face the fact. It's not a lifestyle. It's not a turning over of a new leaf even.

It's a hobby. And they have certain things that they like to major on. So I don't. I just want to know what the Lord wants me to do so I can do it. Kind of simple really. We started yesterday by reading about the Beatitudes. And we find that the Beatitudes are conditions really of a man's spirit, more so than what he actually does. Now, you know, I mean, if you've been listening to this broadcast, I'm really big into works.

I think there's certain things that we need to do. As a matter of fact, he ends the Sermon on the Mount with a very, very famous warning of the man who builds his house on the rock and the one who builds his house on the sand. You should keep this in mind as we study, and not just let this come as a surprise ending, but you should keep this concept in mind of building your house on a rock and building your house on the sand. If I were to ask you your Christianity, is it founded upon a rock or is it founded upon sand? Would you have the presence of mind?

Would you have the presence of mind? Would you have the familiarity with the scriptures to even know how to answer that question? If I say, is your salvation founded upon a rock? Well, if you're talking to a religious person, they're going to jump straight into that. Oh, yes, hallelujah. Thank you you Jesus. My Christianity is built on nothing less than Jesus and His righteousness.

Well, nice song, but the truth is your salvation is based on your righteousness, my friend, not necessarily His. His righteousness brought about an ability on his part as the Son of God to empower you to do what he did. You to do what he did, to do what he said. Look, if you think, you know, when I stand before God, you know, he's not going to see me.

He's only going to see Jesus. Well, I'm afraid you're going to be severely disappointed, my friend, because he is going to see you. You will give an account of the deeds done in the flesh. Deeds done. Deeds done. What does that have to do with what you believe? Well, there is a connection, but not what we have made over the years. He'll never ask you what you believe.

Frankly, it hardly matters what you believe. What you believe is evidenced by what you do. You can't believe that the sheriff of this county has the power to incarcerate you and has the power to enforce the law and disobey it. You can't really believe that. Can you really believe that? I know, I know. There is also the one little element and that is not getting caught, right?

You're driving down the highway 80 miles an hour, and then the speed limit's 55. Well, you're just banking on not getting caught. It's not because you don't believe that the sheriff has the right to arrest you, impound your car, and throw you in jail. Well, if we believe in Jesus Christ, as many of us say we do I think we have this idea that we believe that he existed that he really was a real person and even that he was who he said he was

but I don't know that you can really say that you believe he is who he says he is and not do what he says well frankly I don't think that's possible he is, who he says he is, and not do what he says. Well, frankly, I don't think that's possible. So he's not going to ask you, do you believe in me? He's going to ask you, did you take care of the widows? How about the orphans? Were you available to the world to give them the bread of life?

Did you have enough bread of life to spare for your neighbor? Did you answer the door at midnight and give your friend the three loaves he asked for? These are the kinds of probings that we're in for in our future. Not what do you believe? Do you believe I'm the son of God? Yes, sir. Do you believe that I'm the king of the universe? Yes, sir. Do you believe that I have all powers that's been given unto me both in heaven and in earth? Yes, sir. Why didn't you do what I said do? Why is it you didn't do what I said do?

Don't tell me you believe this. This isn't a matter of you just believing in Jesus. You can't believe in Jesus as the one who has the right and the power to reign over us and to reward and or punish us for the life that we lived on this earth and not do what he said so i'd have to say that matthew's uh rendition of the sermon on the mount that starts with the uh the blessed is he who or what we understand to be the beatitudes um they are dealing with more in who we are and matters of our, I don't want to say mind, I don't even want to use the word soul, I don't want to use the word spirit, but they're a matter of our practice.

There's something that we, these are characteristics that are developed in us through our works and through the power of God himself. To as many as believed on him, to them gave he the power to become. The power to become. There's grace, my friend. That is grace defined in the scriptures. That he's given us the power to become a child of God. Now if he's given us that power then there's a responsibility naturally

that falls right after that on our behalf to actually do what he said to do. And if you work this right it's not going to be a matter of just a grievous gray cloud that is over us that forces us to do certain things. But that we're going to be the kind of people that do these things naturally. You're generous and you take care of people and you do the right thing for the right reasons and you help.

And you are the Christian that you need to be. You're involving yourself in works. And as you do this, you're going to receive more. Jesus said, I'm going to I'm going to give you some of these things and some of these things, you're going to earn them. And when I give you a little bit, you've proved to be faithful in that little bit. You're going to earn them. And when I give you a little bit, you've proved to be faithful in that little bit, you're going to receive more. Not only are you going to receive more,

but you're going to end up being and feeling a responsibility for what you do have. And if I give you these things and I give you these powers, and in many cases just ideas. When we sit quietly before the Lord many times we'll receive an idea within ourselves of something that needs to be done and we need to act on those things and if we don't we're going to find ourselves responsible for having received the word of God to our spirits and not acted on it.

And in those cases, those kinds of people, those people who live in just that way, they have no business whatsoever saying that they have faith in Jesus Christ. Because they don't. And if that is the case, friend, it might turn out that you discover that you really don't have faith in him either. Not to stay on this divergent track too long, but do you know one of Jesus' concerns

about his ministry, the effectiveness of his ministry, the willingness or unwillingness on the part of mankind to follow him? He asked a question one time that was kind of a soliloquy. It was a kind of a rhetorical question that he asked out into the ether that he really wasn't asking to get an answer. He was just, I think he was lamenting and said, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth? And, you know, my first reaction to that is,

what? Find faith on the earth? Of course you're going to find faith on the earth. Haven't you walked around the United States? There's a church on every corner. Of course there's faith on the earth. We celebrate your birthday every year. I know you didn't tell us to do it, but we do it. And we celebrate your resurrection every year with Easter, with Ishtar, the Ashtaroth, the goddess of the

Zidonians. And I know you didn't tell us to honor the day that you rose from the dead but we do it anyway you see what i'm saying is is that we can get very very involved in being religious and even being so-called christian and you still have our lord jesus christ wondering when i come back am i going to find any faith on the earth? Well, either he's totally misinformed about what faith is, or you are. Let's see. How long do we need to

think about this? I don't know that we need to think about it very long at all. We need to find out what faith really is. I have a book on faith out there in the ether somewhere. Word First is the name of the book. And it talks about the ingredients of true faith in God. How this comes about. And any one of these three ingredients lacking in this particular operation that we're calling faith

is actually, it's hope. It's not faith at all. But what we call faith, any one of these three ingredients that is lacking destroy it as true, God-given, and inspired faith in the heart of a person. And you have to have all three. If you don't have all three, you're not dealing in faith. As I said, you're dealing in hope. Well, we all have hope. I mean, hope that we do. I have hope that I'm going to be a better person when I'm 64 as when I'm 63. It'd be nice to think that, you know, I'm going to be a better person in the next five years than I was in the previous five. It's a wonderful hope.

But if faith isn't involved in that, there's really no point in thinking that it's going to happen outside of my own efforts. And these are the kind of works that are to be avoided. We need to have works that are coupled with faith. Because faith without works is dead? Well, I got news for you. Works without faith is dead as well. So, anyhow, we have Matthew telling us these beatitudes and saying that

should you have these particular characteristics in your life, they are coupled with rewards in your future. Let's see if we can gather them very quickly. Poor in spirit. That's not something that you do. Blessed are they that mourn. Now, I know that you could say that, you know, this is a verb, this is something that you do, but this is not blessed are they that cry. These are people who actually feel for the injustices that are in the world, for the injustices done to others, not necessarily people who mourn for their own condition. And blessed are the meek. Meek is not

something that you do. This is something that you are. Blessed are they which hunger and thirst after righteousness. This isn't really something that you do. This is a state, this is a condition that you find yourself in that you're hungering and thirsting after righteousness. One of the reasons why I love to talk to Christian television audiences, not because of all the criticizing emails that I receive from the church or from the incredible barriers that are put up between this ministry and Christian broadcasters.

By the way, if you're listening to this over your Christian television station or radio station, you ought to drop a line or something to the program manager or to the president of that station because they either don't know what's being said here or they're very very gutsy and they are interested in truth and they don't feel like everything that they believe is being threatened by some so-called self-proclaimed Bible teacher.

Well, I've got all kinds of adjectives attached to me, some of which you just wouldn't want to hear at all. And he talks about the merciful. This is not, although this leads to action on our part, to be merciful is not an action within itself. The merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers. Again, there can be action involved in this,

but there are some people that have a propensity for bringing about peace in a conflict situation. And there are some people that take peaceful situations and turn them into conflict. Well we see here that a peacemaker is actually an attribute and a characteristic of a Christian and in this particular case it says that peacemaking is something that shows you to be, listen to this now, it shows you to be a child of God, the peacemaker. Now, a lot of times, people, they have trouble with peacemaking

because sometimes peacemaking requires a little violence here and a little violence there, perhaps an elevated voice here or an elevated conversation there. Peace that is negotiated and worked out between people, it's not always just little bluebirds flying around and beautiful harp music in the background. Sometimes it requires things that don't look so peaceful. But there is an attitude of peacemaking and that is, this is the goal of what I'm doing. This may not be exactly

what it looks like I'm doing right now. Sometimes I call preachers to task for some of the silly and ridiculous and downright heretical things that they teach. And I'm not necessarily nice to them. And if you were to just click on the TV in the middle of one of those interviews or listening to Think Red Inc. TV or TRI radio, and you're hearing me interviewing or talking with somebody, it doesn't sound very peaceful. But a peacemaker is somebody who's trying to bring about true peace and it's their goal to do so. Not necessarily the work in between. It's much like the difference in

building a house and living in a house. Our ultimate goal, I know there's a lot of hammering and nailing going on. Maybe a lot of sawing and a lot of noise and a lot of smoke and sawdust and all the stuff that goes along with it. And it may not be very peaceful but you're building a bedroom to sleep in. And at that particular point it needs to be comfortable and out of the weather. And so all these things are necessary.

So don't get the idea that a peacemaker is somebody who lives in that utopian land where no one is offended because people are offended. And blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake. This is a person who has their characteristic is righteousness. We're going to talk about these things individually, but you realize that righteousness

also is not necessarily this sinlessness that some people attach to the word righteous. I could ask you, are you righteous? And you can know immediately what you think about that word when you evaluate yourself as being a righteous person. If you naturally default to or quickly default to all your sins and shortcomings, it's because you have a mental attachment between righteousness and sin, unrighteousness and sin, righteousness

and sinless living. And I'm going to try to dispossess you of that idea and teach you exactly what righteousness is about as we continue. It talks about revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. And these are the kinds of things that happen to people who not necessarily practice what they consider to be righteousness. There are some people that are persecuted because they look like Amish people.

Or they look like Jehovah's Witnesses. Or they look like this or look like that or whatever. And they're persecuted because of what they look like. And this is a different kind of hatred. It's a different kind of bigotry. But there are some people who have a rightness about them that you know people like this. You know people like this.

You know people that you can't go to and describe your plan that you have to cheat the IRS this year because you know that person is not going to tolerate this kind of talk. You know, you have people in your life you can't talk about some of the ideas that have crossed through your head at work when you're around other men or other women or whatever else. There's many things that you're ashamed of in front of one person that you're not ashamed of in front of another person. Why is that?

Is it because this person has appeared to you as some holier-than-thou person, or is it because that person actually has, they exude, they have within them righteousness? There are certain things that are right, and there are certain things that are wrong. You know, right is right and wrong is wrong, black is black and white is white. We know the difference between wrong and right, right and wrong. We use these little cliches or colloquialism to show the so-called difference between right and wrong.

And you know, you've met people that don't know the difference between right and wrong. They're outcome-based, like if this will get me what I want, then it must be the right thing to do. But there are some people that say, I know this is going to cost me. I know this is going to set me back perhaps a couple of years in my goals of life. It's going to inconvenience me, but it's the right thing to do. Well, this is a person who has become this righteous person. It's within them to do the right thing. And you will be persecuted for that in the world that we live in. You will only have fellowship.

You will only have comfort and friendship and conversation with people who are indeed righteous people. And you will have extreme difficulty getting along with people who aren't. Well, so what we see here is that Matthew has kind of gone the positive route and explaining that if you are, if you have these characteristics, there are good things that await you in your future. God's not going to forget your righteousness, the Bible says. He's going to reward us according to our righteousness. And this is all pretty much take heart.

Just keep the course, stay the course, and let's do this thing and let's do it right because there is a reward for us on the other side. I love Matthew's message but we're going to show you how we can couple this with Luke's message showing the reciprocal of these kinds of characters. Well it looks like our time is gone again but I would love to I'd love to know that you're going to be here the next time we start. Hey, can I

hear from you? Don at ThinkRedInc.com. As simple as that to write to me. If you'd like to use the paper mail, if you'd like to use our P.O. Box, you can simply write us at ThinkRedInc. Ministries, P.O. Box 718, Pytown, New Mexico 87827 As we continue in what we're talking about here you're going to

start experiencing very very soon the idea of thinking red ink. You're going to answer situations with his words and you're going to address situations with his deeds and Christ is growing up in us. This is very, very exciting.

We'll see you next time. Bye-bye. you've been listening to don c harris of think red ink ministries ThinkRedInc.com. That's ThinkRedInc.com. Join us again for the next episode in the Words of Jesus series. you