The Beatitudes and Salt and Light
Jeremy MacDonald · Tidal Church Moncton · June 30, 2024 · Kingdom Citizens series
Jeremy MacDonald opens the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 with the Beatitudes and the calling to be salt and light. Jesus' kingdom is for the lowly, and He asks whether He is truly our king, shaping lives that point others to the Father.
More from Jeremy MacDonald · The Kingdom Citizens series
Topics: Identity, Mission & Outreach, Discipleship
Transcript
[0:00] And so for the next 10 weeks, we're going to dive into the Sermon on the Mount. Now, I didn't animate that video. That would be really cool. But that is on YouTube. It's actually the Bible Project, this fascinating YouTube channel you should definitely check out. They've got all sorts of resources around the Scriptures, and in particular around the Sermon on the Mount these days. And we are going through this particular passage, these 2,400 words, this 10 to 15 minutes worth of message that we're gonna unpack as a church for the next 10 weeks. And as we launch into the Sermon on the Mount and wanting to understand what the invitation is and what it's all about, I would love us to start off this morning with just kinda wrestling through a question, a question I wanna pose to you.
[0:52] And it's rhetorical. You don't have to, you know, yell out, but would it be a good thing if Christians ruled the world? Would it be a good thing? Yeah, I could feel the hesitation and the tension, because it kind of brings up, it brings up lots of other questions. For example, the question simply, which Christians, you know what I mean? Like, there are so many Christian movements and churches and people, and you look on the news today, and there's people that claim the name of Christ and you're like, Ooh, I wouldn't want them in charge. And like, I hope that I'm as a, you know, I, whether you're a Christian or not, we're glad you're here and you're exploring faith, you've got questions, you've got doubts, whatever brought you here. I consider myself a Christian.
[1:39] And so in some ways, I would say, yeah, surely I'm trying to live into this faith that Jesus invites me. But I would get nervous on my own idea if I was called to lead something as large as the world. You know, you go back through the centuries and you find all these examples of Christians that have lived out what they would say is the Christian ethic. And you're like, I'm not sure that we see things the same way. What is the Christian ethic? What is the Christian way? If Christians were to rule the world, what would it look like? And which Christians would we want doing just that? It's an important thing to wrestle with because when we launch into this conversation, the Sermon on the Mount is this invitation from Jesus Christ, the rabbi from Nazareth, who is going to declare a new kind of kingdom.
[2:31] He's gonna introduce Himself as a king of a kingdom and wanting to launch the work of God in a new way in this world. But the challenge is, if we mishear, if we don't pay attention, if we miss out on what He's actually calling us into, we can fall into the trap that so many others have fallen into. And we end up becoming like the Christians that are searching for something more akin to what Jesus was actually challenging in His day. There was the Roman empire, you heard that, that oversaw and were the political ruling class. And there were a whole contingent of God-fearing Jews who wanted to overthrow that empire because they believed they had the ethic from God, and we're gonna be the ones that are going to introduce it to the people.
[3:20] And so they would look out for political power, they would look out for opportunities to overthrow the government. And so they would kind of be the types of people and you hear them that would track with the political conversation that you even hear today. You even hear from candidates and from parties over the, even the last century that say something like this. This is kind of the archetype of the invitation that Christianity will have power. If I am elected, you're gonna have plenty of power and you don't need anybody else. And what's happened in our world today is that people have gotten a little bit hesitant, and even us gathered in this place would be a little bit hesitant to say that we are gonna follow a Christian ruler. What does that even mean?
[4:07] And what's happened is that we have these quotes and we have these stories, and you have friends or family members, you've got conversations online, you've seen comments and comment sections where people, again, are contending and wrestling with this idea, what is the Christian ethic? What is the value system of the Jesus people? And people end up saying things and this quote, this quote is kind of misattributed to Gandhi. He didn't, we don't know for sure if he actually said it as such, but the thought is still there. And people have it. I like your Christ. Somebody said, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. And so when we walk into the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus' sermon to declare what the kingdom is gonna be about and who the kingdom is for, I want us, I want you to wrestle with this morning, but even over the next 10 weeks with these two questions for yourself and together as a group.
[5:05] Question number one is, who is the Jesus kingdom for? Who is the Jesus kingdom for? Is it for you? Is it for me? Is it for your neighbor? Is it for your coworker who benefits from the Jesus kingdom? And then the second question, and this one is difficult to wrestle with, the second question is this, is Jesus your king? Is Jesus your king? Because what happens is when we talk about these kinds of things, they're ideas for sure, lovely ideas. We love the concepts. And surely this is a message from Jesus, the Sermon on the Mount that is that is important and critical. But it has to come down to, and you'll see this even in His message, that Jesus in the conclusion asks people to make a clear declaration.
[6:00] Is He your king? It's not just enough to show up in a church. It's not just enough to believe in God. Even the demons in those days believe in God. The demons themselves understand and know who God is. That's not the question. The question is, is Jesus your king? And if you're in His kingdom, are you willing to shape your entire life around serving that king no matter where that goes? Because over our lifetime, if He is indeed our king, if He is your king, then we spend our lives reshaping to form ourselves after Him, and it changes everything.
[6:45] And here's the thing, if you're here, and again, you don't believe in this, you don't believe in the God thing, you got a lot of doubts, you got a lot of questions. The great news is that you can come along in the journey and just kind of hear what it's about. But let me tell you, my hope and my dream and my prayer is that in hearing about the Jesus from our Scriptures, that you too might put your faith in Him and make Him the king of your life. And so the Sermon on the Mount, it's found in Matthew's Gospel, Matthew's, the the very beginning of our New Testament, the first Gospel account in chapter 5, Matthew recording this account, And it starts off this way in chapter 5, verse 1. It says, "One day as He saw the crowds gathering, Jesus went up on the mountainside and sat down."
[7:36] Now, what we know from reading this and from understanding a little bit of how they were recording the stories of Jesus in the first century, this is the likely, perhaps an actual legitimate account as Matthew says, but also likely Jesus's greatest hits. You know, He would travel and He would preach in lots of different places. And so He would bring the message that we get a chance to read and hear about today. And He would bring that and likely preach it again in different places. If you've ever, you know, seen a comedian, obviously they tour around, they don't give new jokes every night. They're bringing the same stories. Jesus would've worked this message out. And the clarity and the really nice beautiful way that it's brought together as we'll see over the 10 weeks, seems to indicate that there was a lot of thought gone into shaping this as a particular body of work.
[8:25] And so Matthew brings it to us as an example. Perhaps Jesus was on the mountainside, of course, but that also, this wasn't the only time He would've talked about these things. And so because of it, we see Jesus as, kinda launching something in this moment. But then we'll see echoes of this message throughout His ministry and through the other Gospel accounts, you'll see the way that it's affirmed and the way that He taught other things and the way that He interacted with other people. And so one day though, He gets up and He's on the mountainside. That's where the Sermon on the Mount comes from. It's the idea that it's a place His disciples gathered around Him and He began to teach them. Now, interestingly to note, the disciples in this instance aren't the 12 disciples that you see in the paintings at the Last Supper.
[9:10] At least not necessarily so in Matthew's Gospel, He doesn't clarify who the 12 were until later on. And so a lot of times when we hear the word disciple, we can actually assume that it just means what disciple actually means, that somebody hearing from this teacher, they become a disciple of this particular rabbi and this teacher. And the nature of that is that there, there's lots of folks that are on the fringe, they're kinda wondering where all this is going. And we'll know from the whole narrative and the whole story throughout the Gospel accounts that some people walked away at some point. You know, Jesus is doing these miracles, He's got some wild ideas. And so it's interesting to hear, but it doesn't mean that everybody followed through all the way to the end.
[9:57] In fact, at the end, everybody walked away. So if you're here and you're not quite sure, the good news is, you can be a disciple. You can still wade into these kinds of teachings without fully committing to the whole thing. You know, sometimes this becomes a struggle for lots of folks. I talk with people all the time, it's like, I wanna believe or I wanna try things out, but I can't sign on to everything that I think Christians believe in. To that, I would say, well, why don't you be like the disciples and come along and hear what Jesus has to say and He'll invite you to take steps. And that's all that we're all here to do, is to take steps towards Him. So His disciples gathered around and He began to teach, and this is the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount.
[10:44] He starts with what's known as the Beatitudes. It starts this way. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed is the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." This is the first Beatitude of what will be nine different Beatitudes, is what we call them. And each of these, each of these Beatitudes, each of these statements comes with the same type of formula, the same type of form. And it's worth just kind of talking with. Because when you go into your own quiet time or into your small group this week, if you grab that devotional as you wrestle through the Beatitudes, you should understand what we're really reading as we read through each of those nine.
[11:30] So Jesus saying, "Blessed are the poor." "Blessed are" is simply an opportunity for Him to articulate what is actually good or what is actually the good life or what is actually hashtag blessed. I dunno if people still use that, but, you know, you might see on a social like, "Hey, you know, I just went to the cottage or I just had a nice steak. Like hashtag blessed," this idea that the blessing that you're articulating is just that this is a good thing and this is a good life and this is something worth appreciating. So Jesus in this moment, He's not blessing this situation. What He's doing is He's saying, "Hey, the nature of each of the situations, the nine things He's going to articulate, there's actually a goodness in the midst of them." And the crazy thing is none of them seem good.
[12:18] They all seem kind of awful. One or two of 'em actually seem not too, too bad, but this one seems terrible. You wouldn't want your kids growing up to be poor in spirit. You wouldn't wanna describe that as a parent like, "Hey, I'm just praying. I got three kids. Like, I'm just praying every night that they be poor in spirit." What does poor in spirit mean? Poor in spirit is, this idea that your spirit, your life, that you're just kind of down, that you're kind of on the outs, you're maybe on the margins of society, that your life isn't exactly full of autonomy or power. You know, poor in spirit is just this idea that perhaps it's not going fully well for you in, like the traditional sense of like, you've got power and, resources to make your own decisions. And so Jesus says, well, blessed are those people. And you're like, I don't think so.
[13:06] But He comes in with the promise, and this is the nature of the Beatitudes. He says something, blessed are, He gives this articulation of what He's trying to describe. And then He explains, why would you be blessed? And He says, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Well, what does that even mean? You know, the Bible Project that we saw their video, and if you watch this, you should again watch on YouTube, it's fascinating. They'll actually take this and they'll offer a slightly different translation because the nature, so the Bible is, the New Testament is in Greek. And so if anybody here's bilingual, you get the idea. Sometimes when you're bilingual and you're thinking about an idea in one language and you're trying to translate it to the other, you're trying to like circle around this range of meaning to explain something in the different language.
[13:53] And so what the Bible Project was doing is trying to articulate this using maybe some different language. This is what they said in terms of this. Matthew 5:3, they said, How good is life for the poor in spirit? Again? Which, to all of us, we would say no, but Jesus seems to think perhaps it is because He says theirs is the kingdom of the skies. You see, the kingdom of heaven is the kingdom of the skies. It is this heavenly realm. It's a little bit undefined, it's a little bit out there, but it's a sense of if you were to look up and believe that there's a God out there who cares about things and is trying to bring things under His control, that that's His kingdom, that's His purview. And that's what we're talking about. And so the kingdom of heaven, it's actually in the Greek. It is plural. It's kingdom of the heavens.
[14:41] And the idea is just that this work of God in our midst belongs to those and starts with those who are poor in spirit. It's completely different than what people would think. And it's probably different than what you would think. So what the commentator says, they say this much about this very first beatitude, and this sets the tone. This first one undercuts the predominant worldview that assumes that material blessings are a sign of God's approval in one's life, and that they automatically flow from one's spiritual blessings. He goes on, he says, instead Jesus teaches that the norm of the kingdom of heaven is spiritual bankruptcy, unlike the spiritual self-sufficiency that was characteristic of the religious leaders.
[15:28] You see, we assume that the good life has particular markers to it. And Jesus says, actually, it's quite a bit different. And this is important because there's people in the room here today and you feel like you got a bad hand dealt to you in life. Like life hasn't actually gone the way that you wanted it to go. You've got heartache, you've got difficulty, you've got challenges, you've got health concerns, you've got things that just feel like crashing in around you. And you look at people that have it all together and you think, I wonder how it'd be like to just be able to relax like that. And instead you've carried this weight of life being tough about being poor in spirit.
[16:14] And what you need to know is that Jesus looks at you and He says, you're the one that I wanna bring My kingdom into this world through. You are the one that will be blessed. You are the one that people will know about Me because of, not in spite of, your circumstances. And this is the first three beatitudes. He goes on, Jesus will say, blessed are those who mourn. He'll also say, blessed are those who are meek. And the meek isn't about like a humble disposition. The meek is like this. Again, this sense of, I don't have strength to fight even my own battles. And in the first century that was so many people.
[16:59] I don't have any control. My boss is a tyrant. You know, my life is difficult. I can't meet my obligations, I can't figure out how to get better, I can't sort out this situation. And meekness just overwhelms and creates all sorts of things to mourn about. And yet Jesus says that if that's your story that you have the benefit of the kingdom coming through you, that your status, that your status when it's low is where God wants to do something spectacular, quoting the Bible Project. This is what they'd say about this. They said there's something about being in a powerless position in a society that makes that person more easily grasp and understand the upside down value system of the reign of God.
[17:53] I get a sense of this when I talk with Christians and church leaders from different parts of the world. So sometimes here in the West, North America, it's hard to like disconnect the fact that we believe that the blessing is about like financial security and ability to do what we wanna do in autonomy. So a couple weeks ago I was interviewing this missionary in Thailand. He's actually Burmese, Thailand and Myanmar, or Burma, I'll show you on the map here, is in Southeast Asia. I actually, when I was a teenager, this isn't important, but I went to Cambodia on a mission trip from this church that was kind of cool. We didn't go to Thailand though, but he's in Thailand. And then Myanmar's right here. I didn't really know much as I was interviewing him, we're over a recording like kinda like Zoom and he was in Thailand and we were just talking about ministry and he was talking about the ideas of Jesus and how they were making a difference in Myanmar.
[18:49] I'm like, oh, well tell me more about that. So his heritage is from that part of the world, from Myanmar. And he's like, right now there's like this civil war where thousands of people are dying and it's one of this massive exporter of, I think, opiates. And he said that the drug trafficking is so pervasive that the drugs are everywhere. And then the human trafficking that happens a part of it. And then the fact that there's this civil war going on and rebels and you get conscripted into fight a battle where you might end up going back into your village armed to fight against your own family. He's like, it's just absolute hell on earth. And I'm like, this is evilness in like the most realistic sense.
[19:34] Like, and I legitimately said this, I'm like, sometimes I feel like, you know, I think about the evil in the world and I use examples for my life and it's just embarrassing recognizing what's going on in a place like that. But he said, he's like, the thing that this part of the world needs is the gospel. He's like, 'cause I watch all the time as people leave and escape that civil war and they'll come across the border and they'll come to Christ and then Christ will compel them to go back into the war torn country, forgive the people that have decimated their friends and their family and start churches to preach the gospel because the hope of turning things around in Myanmar depends on the gospel according to my friend. I'm like, wow, that's a different kind of faith.
[20:20] That's a faith in the midst of people that are living a poor in spirit kind of thing. They're living in existence that has all sorts of meekness to it because they have a lot that they're not in control of. And yet it seems like that's where God wants to move and see the most profound change happen. And so the status of the lowly God says, those folks, you folks I wanna work through, I want you to experience something. And if that's your journey and that's your story, you should consider that your Heavenly Father has something so profound for you that you could actually redeem even the hardest things that you've experienced and gone through. And it doesn't have to be as bad as Civil War Myanmar.
[21:06] I know it probably isn't, but it might still be really bad. And you gotta know that when you're poor in spirit, Jesus says that you can experience His kingdom. He goes on, there's a few other beatitudes, and and you should take the time using that devotional. You should watch these videos to really go deep in each of these kinds of things throughout this week. We'll go kind of past this, these, but the idea that Jesus is inviting us to, experience the, He would say, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness." And when He talks about righteousness, we know both from this context and throughout His preaching that He means helping us find a right relationship, both with God, but also with others.
[21:52] That Jesus from the beginning, His kingdom is marked by finding us in right relationship with those around us, which it's like, hey, like, let me just kind of pray to God, like, "Can I get forgiveness here?" And He's like, "Well, if you want forgiveness here, you actually have to go and ask for the forgiveness from those that you've wronged." And that's a high calling. And this is the invitation that He gives to us. "Blessed are the merciful." You're gonna need to be merciful for the experiences of life that you've had. You know, if you're poor in spirit, if you've mourned, if you've had things that are, just absolutely terrible around you, mercy is gonna be something that will be essential for you to be able to live out this kingdom, these values, these Christian kingdom values. And then, "Blessed are the pure in heart."
[22:38] All of this comes down to this idea of, like, your motivation, your heart. Jesus is after your heart and wants to shape it after Him. And then the last three, "Blessed are the peacemakers." "Blessed are those who are persecuted." "Blessed are those who are misunderstood, who have things, lies, said about them that are lies." And each of these things remind us that this work that Jesus is inviting us into actually has dramatic implications. It forces us away from just kind of walling ourselves off. We have to go into the world to be the peacemakers. We actually have to go and discover and find where are the places where there's no peace, and can we actually wade in and offer the peace that people so desperately need? And so these are the actions that Jesus is inviting His people to.
[23:27] These are the kingdom values. And if we can take the beatitudes and if we can own them and embody them, then He says, and He goes into immediately afterwards this explanation that you, calling His disciples, those that are choosing Him as the king. He says, "You are the salt of the earth." And there's a lot of ways that we could take that and understand that. And there's this kind of sense of, like, the salt is the thing that preserves our world and our culture. But also the salt is this hearkening back to the Old Testament actually. Like, if you go all the way back to 2 Chronicles, you read this particular about the Old Testament and the people of God, "Don't you know that the Lord, the God of Israel has given the kingship of Israel to David and his descendants forever by a covenant of salt?"
[24:19] This sense that salt was used to signify the promise that God had made with His people, and that Jesus was inviting people to become His action in the world today. That right from the very beginning, the story of Scripture, it's fascinating that God wants to bless His people, His church, but He wants to bless them so that they could be a blessing to the nations around them. That was the whole point of the blessing of God, bless His people so they can go and be a blessing to others. And when we live out the beatitudes, we become that blessing. We become that blessing to the world around us. And Jesus is trying to say, "This is the calling. If you want me to be your king, this is what you step into.
[25:06] You're gonna be the salt of the world." And if it's a little bit confusing, He uses another metaphor to try to help explain. He says, "You are the light of the world." "You are the light of the world." Which, when I read that, I get confused because I came to our Christmas Eve service here and our lead pastor, Pastor Jim, he preached this message about the light of the world. It came from John, and this is what he read in John 8:12. It says, Jesus talking, "I am the light of the world." It's a nice throwback. I know you wouldn't have known. So I kind of add that context, but I was thinking about it because I just think about these messages all the time. But the point is, what's Jesus doing here? He says that He's the light of the world. We look to Him for light. And then He turns around and He says that you're the light of the world. I'm light of the world. It seems like a big responsibility.
[25:55] He says, "You're the light of the world." And then explaining it a little bit more, He says, "Like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden." Okay, tell me more. Jesus, what do You mean? He says, "Well, like this," He says, "No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand where it gives light to everyone in the house." The point of the light is to light the way for others. He says this, He says, "In the same way, let your, your what? Your good deeds. Your what? Your good deeds. Let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that," what's this word? "Everyone." Everyone, that's a high calling, so that everyone, where, Jesus, like everyone in the first century or like everyone in Moncton, Moncton is a big place, like everyone on my street, like everyone in my workplace.
[26:57] What do you mean? Yeah. Yeah. He says, "So that everyone will praise your heavenly Father." You mean to say that my responsibility, if Jesus is my king and I'm in His kingdom, is that my good deeds have to shine so much so that people see, so that everyone will then not just look and say, "Oh, that was nice," but that they would look at my good deeds and then praise our heavenly Father. Like, whoa, that weight and that heaviness and that responsibility, that's a lot, like my faith and your faith, to say it's dependent on the expression of other people.
[27:45] Like, I need to look and look around me and say, "Hey, have I lived out my faith? Have I lived out these kingdom values in such a way that the people around me praise my heavenly Father, that everyone, I don't know Jesus?" How do we do that? We're gonna talk about it for nine weeks. But the point is that the calling is that we are meant to be in the world shaping and reshaping everything around us. One of the commentators, Michael, I've already quoted him, but Michael Wilkins writing about this passage. He says, "Jesus's disciples are called to be the light of the world. They cannot be hidden for their very nature. The kingdom of life within them is living testimony to those in the world who do not yet have that light."
[28:37] Amen. And, and in those days, there was a whole movement of people, they were called the Essenes. They thought the culture is so difficult and the people are so in opposition to us, and people are so crazy. They just wanted to remove themselves from the culture. And they created their own little hamlet, their own little area. And Jesus, reacting against that, said, no, it's gonna be quite different than that actually. And then there's this other movement called the Zealots. And they wanted to overtake with power. And Jesus said, no, no, no, no, no. That whole power thing, my followers are much different than that. And He steps into the whole landscape of the first century. And He says, this king and kingdom thing is gonna look dramatically different, but it's not fuzzy. It's actually really clear. And when people take it seriously, it looks like the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
[29:26] Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor. He lived through the Second World War, and Dietrich had opportunities to take pastoring jobs, in theologian jobs in the US and in the UK. And he felt compelled, and his Christian brothers and sisters challenged him to stay in the midst of where there needed to be peace more than anywhere else. And it was in the midst of Nazi Germany. And Dietrich would go back and he would be a pastor in the midst of that regime, bringing the salt and light, wanting that whole thing to turn around. And this is what he wrote in his book, The Cost of Discipleship, trying to explain what it's like to live out kingdom values in the midst of a world and in the midst of his world that was incredibly, incredibly different from the Sermon on the Mount.
[30:16] This is what he says. He says, "Flight into the invisible is a denial of the call. A community of Jesus, which seeks to hide itself, has ceased to follow Him." That if we're gonna follow Jesus, it's gonna require us. It's gonna require you to find more ways to let your light shine, to live out the kingdom values of the Beatitudes in such a way that those people around you respond by praising your heavenly Father. Well, what happens if I live out those values and the people don't praise my heavenly Father? Well, you should be in a small group and get somebody to check your heart because maybe you did it a little bit. You know, there's a different way.
[31:03] Well, I'm trying my best, but I just don't know anybody that isn't already praising my heavenly Father. Well, then you gotta go find somebody because until everybody in our community is praising our heavenly Father, we are called as Christians to live out these values in such a way. Matthew says it right here. "In the same way, your good deeds, they have to shine out for all to see so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father." This is the start, the introduction, the kingdom of the heavens that Jesus wants you to be a part of and wants me to be a part of. So the questions that you have to wrestle with, the questions that I have to wrestle with are the same questions from the start. Who is this Jesus' kingdom for?
[31:50] 'Cause if you've been on the fringe and you've been onshore and you're not quite confident that your life has been going the way you want it to, you just need to hear that all of that pain, all of that addiction, all of those broken relationships, all of that stuff, Jesus wants you to bring it all to Him. And the kingdom is actually exhibited by what happens in your life. You bring all of that to Him and He will use you. And then, is Jesus your king?
[32:35] Like, I know you believe in God, I know you showed up to church. I know you turned it on and you've listened to it. I know you've downloaded the podcast episode and that's great, but is He actually your king? And do you step into your world day after day hoping that He will be the one to shape it? Do you live in such a way that His kingdom values are the things that you care about or have you lived for something else? And we have to wrestle with that 'cause it takes a lot of energy to keep our focus on Christ. And so as we journey through the next few weeks, there'll be parts of the Sermon on the Mount that are gonna cut to your core.
[33:23] They cut to my core. And our response in those moments need to be, if Jesus is our king, then we do anything and everything we can to follow after Him and what He demands and calls from us. I wanna pray for you and pray for me, and we're gonna sing this song about who Jesus says you are. And as that song goes in just a moment, I just want you to know that you are always welcome. If you need to find like a different place as these songs go, just to feel like you're focused in a different way, you're always welcome to come up here at the front. You know, if you need to come and you just need to declare in a new kind of way, and you wanna pray that kind of thing up at the, that's, we're totally welcome to do that. Our prayer team will be up here at the end of the service and we'd love to pray with anybody that's around.
[34:10] You know, if you haven't yet made that declaration that Jesus would be your king. You've said, oh, I'm believing God, but you haven't said, like, Jesus is my king. You need to make sure that you declare that today, because that's very different than just showing up. And so if you want to come down during the song or you wanna come down afterwards and declare, Jesus is my king and I'll go where He leads, you can do that. And we'd love to pray with you as well. But let me pray for all of us. Heavenly Father, in light of Your words, we know that this is meant to shape and change and adjust everything about our lives and then our world around us. And God, I can't speak for the people here, but I know in my heart how convicting it is to read that You introduced these ideas 2,000 years ago.
[34:58] And I so much struggle to live them out. Like even for 30 years as I've looked to follow You. When I go through the Beatitudes, I just don't know. I just don't know if I can, if I fully embodied them. And so, God, I pray that for any of us that have chosen You as our king, would You give Your Spirit to us and the power to live and be the kinds of people You need us to be and You want us to be and You invite us to be. And then I'm not sure why You would want us to be Your light and Your salt in our world today, but You've so chosen us and so God, would You allow us to see as You do the world around us, that we could understand what's at stake when we show up at work or at school, or in our family, or walking through the neighborhood, and God, would You give us the power to do those good deeds that You would have for us so that the world around us, that they would praise You too.
[35:59] And we praise You and we ask that You would never leave us, but always strengthen us for this work. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.