You have heard if said... (The Beatitudes) Matthew 5

We hear phrases all of the time like “The cup is half full…” or is it “the cup is half empty?”  “If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”  “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”  These phases all revolve around how we see things.  Do we try to find the best out of a bad situation or do we focus on the negative despite the good that surrounds us? 

This last week I was working out on a Saturday morning, the Saturday where it was 95 degrees and with 45% humidity and I thought I was going to die, not because of the heat, but because of the humidity.  The funny thing is growing up in Indiana we often had days where the humidity would be 85-90%, the kind of humidity where you need to take a shower from your shower because it is so humid that you sweat simply getting out of the shower.  However, having lived in Southern California and now Arizona for the last 14 years, low humidity is something I take for granted.

I leave in just three days to lead 21 senior high students on an international mission trip to Belize.  As we prepare for our trip I have been telling our team that it is going to be hot and humid there, like nothing we experience in Arizona.  With temperatures during the day in the mid 90’s and the humidity around 90-100%, it will be a new kind of hot for many of our students.  In my mind, I am prepared for the weather in Belize and I can justify it because it is Belize, but if that same humidity hit Arizona I would probably “die.”  On the other side of things when it drops to 50 degrees here people talk about “freezing to death.”  (note: 32 degrees is freezing.)

In Jesus’ day people had a way of living, rules found in the Old Testament that if you followed them meant that you were “good.”  So you could do things, but hate doing it, or do them, simply because you had to do them and that would make you “good.”  When Jesus starts his public ministry he starts off by giving what is known as the Sermon on the Mount.  His very first sermon He challenges people to change the reality in which they know. 

He says over and over, “You have heard it was said…”  “Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.” But then he adds “But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastely, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” You have heard it said… You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.   But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God…”  “You have heard it said…‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.  But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

When Jesus came to earth, he became a game changer.  Instead of a distant God who only reacted to our behavior, we saw a God who loved us so much that He would come to earth and later die so that we might live. People often look at Christianity as a religion of rules to follow, things to do, but if that is how you see it, you are missing the point.  The rules that are given in the Bible don’t determine whether or not we get to heaven, the rules are given to us so that we might fully experience God’s love here on earth. 

We know that we are not perfect.  God knows we are not perfect, that is why He sent Jesus to die for our sins.  God’s wants us to be people of joy and grace and love, not people of fear, hatred and anger.  Jesus came so that we might see God as a loving God, not as a God who is out to get us when we do something wrong.  The Bible is not a book of do and don’ts.  It is a guide to how we can live life and live it to its fullest knowing that when we mess up, God’s grace will stretch beyond our sin.

To do that we have to be willing to change how we see each other with the same grace, joy and love that God see us.

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Psalm 95:12-15

12 The righteous flourish like the palm tree,
and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
13 They are planted in the house of the Lord;
they flourish in the courts of our God.
14 In old age they still produce fruit;
they are always green and full of sap,
15 showing that the Lord is upright;
he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.

Today marks the beginning of day three of our mission trip to Yarnell to help with the fire recovery. Our theme this year is Serve, Sweat, Grow. After two days we have had no problem serving and sweating, and today I asked the students a little bit about how they are growing. 

They have talked about meeting people who had lost everything in the fires. They mentioned stories about how they had heard that before the fires there wasn’t much sense of community or community pride in Yarnell - but now there is. They talked about some people who weren’t so nice to work for, but how they did it anyway because that is what they were asked to do. 

The thing that struck me the most was that many of them talked about our visit to the Shrine of St. Joseph on Tuesday. Before the fires, the Shrine of St. Joseph was the one thing that Yarnell was known for. Much of the area in the shrine had been destroyed, however the 14 stages of the cross that are depicted there remained; showing signs of fire damage, yet still remaining. 

We headed up the shrine going through all 14 stages. We started with the Last Supper, then quickly moved to Jesus praying in the garden, his arrest, trial, carrying his cross etc. The story of the cross was nothing new to anyone in our group. We all have heard the story and we all know how it ends. As we were going up one of our leaders noticed a sign on the station where the Roman soldiers cast lots for Jesus’ clothes. It said, “Jesus did not have a lot, but what he did have was taken away from him. So no matter what you are dealing with, whether you have lost your job or your home, Jesus knows how you feel, as he, too, lost everything.” 

Our leader made the comment that the plaque wasn’t new, it had been there for years. She could imagine the impact of those words, written years earlier, on the people of Yarnell who would come there seeking to find answers to why they lost everything. Instead they would find Jesus. She then went on to say how it really puts life into perspective.

As we exited the 14 stations we come to a tomb with Jesus laying in it. One of our students went in to the tomb to look at a statue of Jesus laying in the tomb. He said when he was in there it hit him how big that moment was in the history of man. God coming to earth and dying for our sins really hit him and he couldn’t really explain what he felt, but he felt something. 

The reason we serve and sweat on missions trips isn’t just to do work, but to GROW in our understanding of who God is. For many of our students, the Bible has always been a book about Jesus, but they are starting to see it for what it is - a love story. The cross isn’t about punishment or judgment but about love  and God’s love for us. 

Being my first mission trip with the youth of Pinnacle, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. What I am finding is a group of teens who love to serve, and want nothing more than to grow in their experience and knowledge of God. I can only hope that the words of the Psalmist run true for our students; that they will flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. That they will remain planted in the house of the Lord and continue to flourish in the courts of our God - and when they get older they will draw on these experiences, these moments they have with God, and not walk away, but still produce fruit.

In reality, this isn’t just a hope for our youth, but for all those who have experienced God. No matter where we are in life, we must continue to grow in Christ so that we might produce fruit, so that others might also experience the love God has for us. Amen.