John Hagee - The Eight Blessings Of Jesus
Saint Paul said that the Word of God was the unsearchable riches of the kingdom. Today, I'm going to open the Word of God and to show you the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ as he shared the eight blessings from the sermon on the mount that began what is now known as the Kingdom of God. If you truly want to live the great life, you want to know and to live these eight blessings because it will change you forever. All of these from my latest book "The power of the prophetic blessings". Would you please stand for the reading of God's word. Read with me from Matthew 5:3 through 6, as we continue this sermon series "The prophetic blessing". And it will take a couple of sermons to cover the sayings of Jesus. Read with me those words, Matthew 5:3 through 6. Ready: 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 filled. Let's stop right there. Let's pray.
Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the Savior of the world, who came to redeem us. Thank you for your love that gave your son: that we might have everlasting life, and the words that he spoke in these eight prophetic blessings that give us the golden key to life and living in this world and in the world to come. In Jesus' name, we pray. And all of God's children said, praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord. You may be seated. As the audience sits by the Sea of Galilee, Jesus begins to speak with the sea breeze behind him to blow his words clearly into their ears. This is Jesus, the Nazarene. This is Jesus, the carpenter's son. This is Jesus, the Son of God. This is Jesus, the Lamb of God for sinners slain. This is Jesus, who is the lion of the tribe of Judah. This is Jesus, who is the rose of Sharon and the fairest of 10.000. This is Jesus, who is the conqueror of death, hell and the grave. And he opens his mouth to reveal these eight prophetic blessings that constitute the constitution of the Kingdom of God. We'll consider three of those statements today. The first word that Jesus said is "Blessed". "Blessed", say that with me, blessed.
As Jesus opened his mouth, the ruach of God... "The ruach" is the supernatural spirit came forth just as it did in the Garden of Eden when God breathed life into Adam. Now Jesus was breathing spiritual life and birthing the Kingdom of God. Remember that in the garden, God blessed Adam and Eve. When he started a new nation, he blessed Abraham. Whenever he wanted to start over, he blessed Noah. Whenever he wanted to start the Kingdom of God, Jesus pronounced eight blessings that established the Kingdom of God. The point is God wants all of his people to be blessed. You were born to be blessed! God did not send his son to this world to take the joy out of life with a bunch of silly, religious rules. He came to fill you with love, life, peace, confidence, joy, knowing that your life can be a super life filled with the divine breath of God and the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Give him praise in the house of God.
Now let me explain this word "Blessed" because a lot of Bibles call that happy. And it's a very weak, frivolous interpretation of the Greek language. The Greek word "Blessed" that Jesus used was the classical Greek word "Makarios" meaning life's highest ideal. That's how it translates literally in English. It's far more than being just happy. I've taught you very clearly that happiness is an external something that is controlled by external conditions. Therefore, if external conditions change, your happiness goes. This peace, this blessedness, if you will, is the good life on steroids. That's what it is. How many of you get that? These oppressed people were looking for a deliverer from Rome. They wanted a Messiah who would send the Romans to their grave. And they're sitting there listening, and he's saying, blessed are the poor in spirit.
And I can see those Jewish people looking at each other, and saying, this guy is not a Messiah. He's not the guy we're looking for. How many of you have ever had a serious problem, you had a perfect solution but you couldn't get God to sign off on it? Let me see your hand. Be honest. You had it all worked out. You just needed God to do X, Y and Z, and then it would connect. And some of you in this audience and millions of you watching by television, you're in a spot and you're committed to your solution and not God's answers. Start looking for God to show up in your situation and give you an answer that will work. So let's specify that. You want to get married? You can't marry Brad Pitt, he's already gone. You need to marry a believer with a job. How about that? That's a little more realistic. You want a financial solution? Get a job. Go to work.
The secret of success is do what you know how to do. God gave every one of you in this audience a special talent, a special ability. And if you will use that and become the best at that, I don't care what you do: you'll never have a need. You'll always be successful. God gave you an ability to do something nobody else can do. Find it and do it and do it with excellence and do it for God's glory. And do it with enthusiasm and you'll never want for anything in the world. And then there are people that say, well, if I had a perfect situation, I could do what he's doing. He's got a perfect situation. Let me tell you that Adam and Eve had a perfect situation. They had paradise and they fumbled the ball. When I get to heaven, the first thing I'm going to do is kick Adam right in the posterior.
Perfect situations do not produce a perfect product. Saint Paul wrote most of the New Testament from a prison cell. He didn't have a suite on the Riviera with a choir of voices of 200, singing, Doowa. It was a horrible environment but he produced a wonderful product. Paul and Silas were in the jail after being beaten. The blood was dripping off their backs. Rats were running on the floor. It was not a perfect situation for a Gospel concert but they began to sing because the joy of the God they served was greater than the problem they faced. You need to find that God, because it makes no difference what your situation is. He's greater than the crisis you're facing. He didn't promise you, you wouldn't go through fire. He just promised you when you got in the fire, he would show up!
He didn't promise you, you wouldn't go through the storm. He did promise you when you get there, I'll be there. I'll say, peace be still! And it'll be over! Give the Lord praise in the house of God! This is a sermon in one sentence. If you can't be happy with what you have, why do you think you can be happy with more? Every person on earth has to learn for himself that happiness is not external. That's what Jesus is teaching in these eight statements. Happiness is not external. Happiness does not the depend on what you have. Happiness depends, and I'm talking about the great life. Happiness depends on what you are. Happiness does not depend on the kind of house you live in. It depends on the kind of people that live in your house.
Happiness does not depend on the dress the lady wears. It depends on the lady in the dress. That's what Jesus is saying here. He was teaching that you live life from the inside out not the outside in. America has become a very materialistic country and we live things from the outside in. It's exactly opposite of the eight statements of Jesus. When you really want to know what real joy and real living is all about, learn how to live it from the inside out. Our society says, blessed is the man that makes a million dollars. And it also says, blessed is the woman who marries the man who makes a million dollars. It says, blessed is the go getter, the guy who runs over everybody like a steam roller to get what he wants, who shoves and pushes his way to the top. Jesus puts his hands to his mouth, and says, wrong!
You live life from the inside out. Blessed are the broken in spirit. What does that mean? That does not mean some trembly-lipped, religious doormat, someone who has mastered the art of creative suffering. Think about that. How many of you know people who have been dying from the same disease for 30 years and they're in better health than you are? He's not talking about some thumb-sucking baby, always suffering for Jesus. It does mean happy are the broken in spirit because Isaiah 66:2 says: but on this person, God will look upon, on him who has a broken and a contrite spirit. That was taught by the prophet Isaiah first. Jesus picked it up and he presented it, first, as the top priority in the principle of the Kingdom of God.
Our God uses only broken things. You must be broken before God can use you. It was the broken alabaster box over the head of Jesus that caused Jesus to say: wherever the Gospel is preached for the rest of time, this woman's name is going to be remembered as a memorial. Because until the alabaster box was broken, the rich fragrance could not be smelled. It could not fill the room. When it was broken, it gushed over the beard and the body of the Lord Jesus and it blessed him. What's the point? The point is it was useless until it was broken, and so are you. God will not use you until you are broken. The secret of the good life, the secret of the supernatural life with joy unspeakable, the secret to having a loving relationship with the people that live in your house is to have a broken spirit. The Bible says the broken and the contrite spirit, God will not despise.
The second blessing, blessed are those that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Happy are they that mourn. Say that with me, happy are they that mourn. Jesus is not saying, blessed are the cry babies, who will get what they want. He's not saying, blessed are those who are dedicated to creative suffering, or those who are whining their way to maximum attention. He's saying, blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted. Because one thing that God presents himself as is the God of all comfort. He is the God of all comfort. Some of you in this audience and some of you watching by television across the nation and around the world are going through the darkest days of your life, because your heart has been broken by a great tragedy. I want to tell you based on the authority of the eight principles of the Kingdom of God, we serve the God who is the God of all comfort. And he will heal your broken heart today. Your dreams that have been crushed can be brought back, can be restored and you can start afresh and anew.
Let me tell you the story of a catholic priest named father Damien. He went to be a missionary to the lepers in an island that's just off of Hawaii, molokai. For 13 years, he shared their Gethsemane. For 13 years, he was their teacher, he was their companion, he was their friend, he was their doctor of sorts. At last the dreaded disease laid hold on his body. At first, he was not aware of it. But one morning while preparing breakfast, he spilled boiling water on his foot. You in the natural would say, how painful. No, there was not the slightest pain. The loss of feeling informed him that leprosy had consumed his body and that he himself was slowly dying. Hear me. There is a far greater loss than that of physical sensitivity. And it is the loss of spiritual sensitivity to the presence of God. It is a leprosy of the soul. It is a leprosy of the soul.
The Jewish people were looking for a Savior who would bring to them a new beginning. But when you get to a place where you can sin and your conscience no longer hurts you, you're dying. Saint Paul said: your conscience is seared with a hot iron. There is no feeling. There is no remorse. There is no pain. You're in danger of losing your soul. It doesn't happen instantly. But year after year, you get accustom to breaking the law of God. And then when you break it long enough, you no longer feel his presence or his absence, because you have leprosy of the soul. You have lost your sensitivity to right and wrong. Mourning is natural. But I have something to say about mourning. It ends. It is limited. There's a time to disregard the rags of mourning and put on the garments of joy. Weeping may endure for the night but joy cometh in the morning! Joy cometh in the morning! Shout for joy, church! The Son of God is walking down the aisle to bring you joy unspeakable and full of glory!
Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. Doesn't that sound absurd in our generation? In our hard-ball society, meekness is not an asset: it's a liability. Haven't you heard that slogan, "Good guys finish last". How many of you've ever heard that? That's a sports slogan. The only way to inherit the earth in our generation is to get as mean as a junk yard dog, get aggressive and run over everything that's in front of you. In America, we frame slogans that inspire us. What slogans do you see framed in America? I have seen these slogans. "If something you love left, track it down and beat it to death". Remember that Jesus is speaking to the Jewish people who want him to bring an end to the Roman brutality. The crowd who gathered to hear Jesus at the Sea of Galilee wanted a bold, powerful, aggressive warrior who knew the art of warfare and the ability to solve their problem now!
How many of you've ever felt like that? I prayed last night, the sun is up today and God hadn't gotten here with an answer yet. Where are you God? God always shows up in time. It may not be on your schedule but it's on his. Three and a half years later when these Jewish people saw Jesus hanging on a cross, they said, crucify him. He's no Messiah. Those things he says are very unpractical, totally not applicable to our society. He's a fraud. Kill him. And Rome did. Blessed are the meek. Let me say this, and write it down, meekness is not weakness. Say that with me, meekness is not weakness. Meekness is the opposite of violence. It does not mean weakness. Martin Luther king was meek but he was not weak. He went to jail for what he believed. He went to Washington, D.C. To speak out for his beliefs. He said, "I have a dream". And the world has not forgotten it since. He changed America through a meek, aggressive presentation of the fact that I am a human being and I expect you to treat me like one. And God bless him: the message got across.
Meekness is not weakness. Meekness speaks the truth in love fearlessly. Consider the meekness of Jesus. Jesus said in Matthew 11:29: learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart. That very sentence turns people off. Look at him as he invades the temple with a whip. His eyes are blazing with righteous rage. He said: my house shall be called a house of prayer. But you have made it a den of thieves. And he turned the tables over and he drove the goats and the sheep out. And he turned the pigeons loose and he drove those pharisees out with that whip, slashing them as they went. He looked like he had lost his mind. Heaven looked down and said, that's a meek man and he has a firm conviction. And he's getting something done. Look at him now on the cross with the spittle on his face. Look at Calvary, as he's willing to lay down and let the men he created drive nails through his hands and feet and kill him. He could have called 10.000 angels and decimated the earth, annihilated the earth. Decimated means only one in ten get killed. Annihilated means everybody. He could have destroyed the planet with one sentence. But he died for you and you and you and me: that we could have everlasting life.
Jesus was meek but he was not weak. Meekness means power under control. Say that with me, meekness means power under control. The Bible says: the man who rules his spirit is mightier than the man who conquers a city. There are a lot of people who did great things but destroyed themselves because they couldn't control themselves. Samson conquered the Philistines but he couldn't control himself. Alexander the Great conquered the world. He died at the age of 33 with syphilis because he couldn't control himself. Can you control yourself? Are you controlled by anger, by rage, by a junk yard dog personality? Let me tell you: God cannot use you. You are useless in the Kingdom of God and you're never going to know real happiness until you live by these eight blessings.
I've got good news for all of you who are in the Kingdom of God, who are living controlled lives, having been broken in the hand of the master and have become more like him than yourself: Jesus is coming. And when he comes, he is going to set up his kingdom in the City of Jerusalem. And we are going to rule the world for a thousand years. The lion is going to lay down with the lamb. Men will beat their swords into plow sheers and study war no more. Jesus Christ will be the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Presidents, queens, kings, prime ministers will go to Jerusalem and bow before him. And who's going to be ruling on the earth? You are, you are, you are, you are, you are! Give the Lord praise in the house!