NEW YEAR NEW ATTITUDE

So it is a new year. Who's excited? Amen. And it is an honor.

Thank you guys for going this last five years with me. It has been an amazing journey. There's a lot of people here that are sewn into my life and help me get to the place that I am now. And I believe that they're seeing people along with others are still going to encourage me and help me continue for not just another five years but another many years.

I don't worry about the five years ago with the addiction. I don't worry about yesterday. What I worry about now is right here, right today. And it's calming to be able to say, I don't really look forward.

I don't look backwards. I concentrate on right here, right now. And what can I do for God in this moment? Amen.

So with new year, we are going to, as Fred said, this isn't part of the series that we're going to do but it lines up with it. It's going to be new year, new attitude. There's a lot of us that need a, let's just put it bluntly, an attitude adjustment. Last few years have been hard on us.

We have had COVID. We've had the great toilet paper shortage and multiple other things that have just given us a bad attitude in life. I do got a boast and brag on my wife for a second though. Her attitude with me sometimes can be kind of shady but I can tell you that this year, the whole year, it has been spectacular.

We will see what the next 364 and a half days have to hold for us. See new attitude, new attitude. They wanted me to dance to that. We would lose half our congregation if you guys seen that.

We're trying to do something new but it is not dancing that I am doing. So the scriptures that we're going to look at today come out of Matthew and it is the B attitudes. It's for the new attitude of the new year. Now, as we're going through this, if you hear me say be a toot, it's because my grammar, English, writing and spelling was not always the greatest.

So as I read that, I always pronounced it as the be a toot. So please excuse me, I'm trying something new here. So what we're going to be looking at is Matthew 5 starting in verse 1. So before we start, let's go ahead and ask for God to take over this service here.

Father God, just thank you this morning. We thank you for the newness that you give us every morning when we wake up. God, it's not just a new year, but every morning you give us a new us. You allow all the past regrets and hearts and sins and all that to be washed away because of what you did for us.

God, we thank you for that. Now, we thank you for the new covenant. We thank you for just a new heart that you give us. God, as this service takes place, it's always allowed to be 100% of you, zero of me.

God, I ask that you speak to the ones that sit here, the ones that are online. Allow them to receive something out of this message that plants in their hearts and minds and carries with them all their days. God, we just tell you that we love you and we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

So like I said, we're going to be looking at Matthew. We're going to start right in verse 1. And it says, seeing the multitudes, he went up on a mountain and when he was seated, his disciples came to him and he opened his mouth and taught them saying it. I want to pause right there for a second because I want to kind of give you the meaning behind this and what's going on here.

And I think that it's very significant that it says he went up on the mountain. So what this is, it's a very famous sermon that is done by Jesus, probably a part of one of the greatest preachings that ever, as a matter of fact, I'm not even going to say probably it is the greatest preaching that ever took place. And I think, like I said, I think it's very significant that it says he went up on the mountain. The primary people that are sitting around Jesus right now is a Jewish culture.

And they was very familiar with something that was passed down to them for years. And that was the fact that the law was brought down off the mountain. So Jesus is kind of giving them a representation of I'm taking what was and I'm making it new. But what he's doing here is he is allowing them what he's going to preach to them.

He's allowing them to know that it's not the law, that's because the law is an external thing. It only makes you look good. It is something that people physically see of you and that's what makes them think that you're sanctified and safe. Jesus is redefining that.

He's again against what people in the world they know. And he wants you to understand that it's the inside of you. That is what matters. He doesn't care about a ceremonial cleansing and washing of your hands.

He wants a ceremonial spiritual heartwashing. So it's important that we know that. Starting in verse three, it says, 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. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure and heart, for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

That word blessed, and once you guys understand that blessed, yes, it is a factor of receiving, but it's not as we see it in the world today. When we see, when we hear blessed, we think of somebody giving something of great value or you're gifted or it's, you're better off than what somebody else is. And that's not what Jesus is declaring here. Blessed is used in a form of habit.

You will be, you will rejoice in your heart. You will be, you will be, you will have a different attitude, I guess you can say, towards the perspective of things. It's not something that makes you greater than anybody else. Verse three though, it starts it right off, it said, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

You'll see that all of the blessed, they're two parts. It'll say what is, what it is that makes you blessed and then what you receive or what outcome you get from that blessed. So I told you the word blessed means happy. And if we, again, I'm not changing God's word, I'm not doing anything.

I'm not adding to, I'm just giving you a different look on the wording of it. So if you read that with, instead of blessed putting happy there, happy are the poor. Again, Jesus has taken what we know, what the world sees it as and flipping it upside down. Because anytime we see the word poor, we think of somebody who is less than, we think of somebody who doesn't have something, somebody who's financially not okay, homeless, that kind of thing.

That is not what poor in spirit means. Poor in spirit is realizing that your worldly spirit, that your spirit itself is nothing and that there is something that is greater than you. If we, you know, when we look at it in a worldly view, poor financially means that somebody out there is better off financially than I am. And that is what this is declaring right now.

It's declaring that poor in spirit is that there is a spirit that is greater than mine. So the word poor, I'm not going to pronounce the Greek, I believe it is of that, but I do want to read the definition of it to you. It says reduce to begery, begging, asking Elms, destitute of wealth, influence, but the last two are what I want you to see. Poor, excuse me, poor is position and honor, understanding that your position is of no value, that your honor is of no value.

It is worthless. We need to understand that. And that's the first of the heart issue that we really need to see. Jesus, I want to say God here, God does not want the proud to be in the kingdom of heaven.

He had that once and he had to give him a kick in the butt and send him back out of there along with many others that followed along with him. So God doesn't, God opposes the proud. And we need to make sure that we understand that it is not I that is great, it is he that is great. He says for those is the kingdom of heaven.

If you understand that I need him to do anything is where you can begin to understand receiving the kingdom of heaven. Because I want to read blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted. Now from what we're going to do, this is two things that make absolutely no sense to us. I've got to be poor and I've got to be sad.

I can't have no money and I'm supposed to be like depressed in my life. Again, Jesus is taking what we think, how we look at it and flipping it on its head. The word mourn there when it says blessed are those who mourn. It's almost referring back to the first along with it of being poor in spirit.

God wants you to mourn the fact that spiritually I am nothing. Because when you mourn something, you want something better. You want something greater. When let's, I don't want to be a Debbie Downer, but let's look at that death itself.

When we mourn the death of someone, it's because we want them back. We want, we don't want them to be gone from us. We're sad about it. God is telling us here that you need to mourn so that you want something better.

You need to mourn the fact that you can't get right. That you're sin. You need to mourn your sin. That you are a sinner.

It gives you the encouragement, the want and the drive to change what it is inside of you. What is going on with you. It says for they shall be comforted. Once you guys, the under some of us grew up without good role models in our life that comforted us exactly.

But let's look at it from a perspective of a love of a father and mother who care for their child. When that child is hurt or that child is mourning something or that child is sad, what does her parent do? He comforts them, sits down beside them, puts his arm around them and says, son, it's going to be okay. But also in that when you are comforted, you are told where you're wrong in the situation.

You're told how that situation can become better. And I believe that God is telling us that right here. That when you mourn the fact that you are a sinner, when you realize that you are poor in your spirit, God is willing to sit down beside you and say, it's okay in my child. I'm here.

I'm going to make you feel better about the situation with that comforted God's telling us that he is there in our time of need. When it looks like nothing else for us, he is there for us. Here's one to say, blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. The best way that I can describe the word meek to my understanding of it is strength under control.

It means that you have the power to do things, but you control how it's done. When I'm wrestling with my youngest son or messing around with him, I know that I could cause physical harm or injury to him. But I take my strength and I keep it under control of how much of it is used on him. That's a little bit different of a story with my older children.

I probably wouldn't wrestle with them. It's a person that doesn't try to throw their weight around. Knowing that you have the power to do the things in the world, you have the authority. But it's a submission.

So God is telling us that we're willing to be submissive to him. So I am meek under pastor fret. I'm willing to submit to his authority and his power in the situations. And I believe that God wants us to understand that we need to be submissive to him.

We need to be under control and our strength of what we can do for him. Psalm 3711 tells us with a meek shall inherit the earth and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace. Strength under control is not being quarrelsome. It's not causing havoc and it gives us peace around us.

But I believe that Jesus is referring back to that verse here to allow the Jewish culture that he's talking to to understand that he's creating something new with what is already there. The meek shall inherit the earth. And also once you see that it says are the blessed are the meek. It doesn't say the blessed might.

It doesn't say the blessed could have or that. It says that you are the ones that shall inherit the earth. That being meek, you are the one that will gain from it. Now going on to the most important verse in this entire thing.

And that's verse 6 chapter 5 verse 6. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. If you hear nothing else that I say, if you hear nothing else in this entire passage, I'm begging of you guys to hear this verse right here and implement this verse into your new year and the sword of this. You must thirst and hunger for righteousness.

There is only one who is righteous. You must thirst and hunger for God. You must thirst and hunger for the the word, the prayer, the fellowship, the all of it that comes along with it. But I want to be very clear when it says hunger and thirst.

I go back to the book Psalms, chapter, excuse me, yeah, chapter 42 verse 1. It says, as a deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my, pants my soul for you. Oh God. It says a deer who pants.

So when you hunger and thirst for God, it can't just be, eh, there's a soda in the fridge. I'll take a sip of it. This needs to be the thirst of you standing in the middle of the desert without water for 48 hours and you will die if you don't receive it. It must be the every want and desire that you have.

But I think it's interesting how it uses the word hunger and thirst. Those are the two things that sustain our life. You can't live without water and you can't live without nutrition of food. It is physically impossible.

And I believe that the goddess is telling us that right now that what must sustain your life is your hunger for him. And also when you get thirsty, you take a drink, don't you? When you get hungry, you make a baloney sandwich. And it must be a thirst and hunger as it says the deer pants for the brooks.

It must be a thirst and a hunger beyond anything else in your life. It must be the thing that you want to fill yourself with the most. I want you to hear how the Apostle Paul speaks of the hunger and thirst. And I believe that's what Paul is truly saying here.

You'll find it in Philippians 3 verses 8 through 11. It says, yet indeed I also count all things lost for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish. That I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, be in conform to his death. If by any means I may obtain to the resurrection from the dead.

That righteousness that we search for is the only thing that matters. Everything else in life is rubbish. It's counted as nothing. It says, for they shall be filled.

If you are searching for your righteousness in a car, money, house, marriage, any of the boxes that you can check off for your worldly things, it may sustain you for a moment. You may be happy with it for a time frame, but it will eventually disappoint. It will not fill you. My family is in a transition right now of trying to obtain something new.

And I've really came to the understanding that, yes, there will be joy in it. There will be gladness in it, but it is not the thing that sustains my household. What sustains my household is the very thing that I've done for the last five years of my life. And that is searched for my purpose and my meaning with inside of Christ.

Everything else is garbage. Now, I don't mean go throw your car away. I don't mean go home and trash your bank account or anything like that. Those are all great things to have in a worldly view.

But if that is what you're trying to sustain yourself off of, I promise you by the end of the day, you're going to be unhappy. It's an intense desire for God. Without a hunger and a thirst for God, you will not pursue a deeper relationship with him. It must be a continual hunger or thirst.

If I'm physically hungry and I eat something, I don't continue to look for more food. I'm sustained for a moment when I get hungry again. Physically, I will look for more. The hunger and thirst that you have for the relationship of Christ, the word of God needs to be a continual hunger and thirst.

I promise you, I've tried a couple of times to only fill myself when I find the need. I talk to people all the time that are in the situation of something bad is going on in their life, so they only search for God in that moment. We've got to get away from that mentality. God is a continual hunger and thirst.

It is something that you need to desire daily, hourly, momently in your life. It's not something to eat and then put back in the fridge and then pull back out two weeks later. Here's one to say in verse seven, blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. The NA and AA program, this is the one thing that they got completely correct inside of.

And they're saying with addiction and alcoholism and that is you have to give it away to keep it. Basically saying if you want to keep the recovery, you need to keep helping people recover. You need to stay plugged in and connected to it. What this is talking about the mercy of Christ and it's explained best in Luke 6 verse 37, judge not and you shall not be judged, condemn not and you shall not be condemned.

Forgive and you will be forgiven. I do not deserve what Christ did for me. I do not deserve to be forgiven of the horrible things that I committed for many years of my life. Now I am in no way saying that I stand here perfect today.

I fail daily, but you know what's super awesome. I'm forgiven daily. I don't purposefully do the things, but my spirit is poor. I need that mercy because I continually need something greater in my life.

You ever seen somebody with a double standard? Like to live one way, talk about something else? Who's ever had a double standard of mercy and grace? Because I promise you I have.

On the fact that I do something wrong and it turns out good. Whoo-hoo! Yay! But when you do something wrong, I've had that mentality of you deserve what you get.

We've got to get away from that because it's very clear to us the ones that are merciful will receive the mercy. You cannot accept what Christ did on the cross if you're not willing to do the same yourself. Trying to figure out how I want to explain the forgiveness. I've heard it often saying I say it myself sometimes that forgiving is not forgetting.

And I in a way do agree with that. But I want you guys to question yourself in that when you think that process, when you're acting out that process of if somebody continually, every time I let them in my house, they steal something, does that mean that I have nothing to do with that person? No. We consider it on my porch and talk.

And that's more of the attitude that we have to have because I watch it in our homes all the time. Well, I remember this. I remember this. And it's not a fact that about remembering it.

It's can you look at that person with the same love as you did previous to it? When Christ looks at you, he doesn't see, he doesn't instantly look at you and say, you was an adult, you was a drug addict. No. He knows all those things about me, but he doesn't hold those things against me.

And he talks me to me the same today as he did five years ago. I just wasn't willing to listen five years ago. I wasn't willing to hear it five years ago. And it wasn't fair.

It's not fair for us to be forgiven and not forgive. It is not fair for us to have mercy and not give mercy. So next time that you feel an animosity or an anger towards a person, I want the first thought for 2023 to be in your mind. I was forgiven for something much worse.

One more thing on mercy. If you don't give forgiveness, if you ever heard it said that it's like you, you're an employee and expect the other person to die, you're forgiveness, you're mercy, you're grace over top of somebody else's life benefits them and it's spectacular, but it's not specifically for them. You will walk around and bondage to your own mind without mercy inside of your heart, without grace inside of your heart. And too often we do it.

We're mad about the situation and it doesn't, it doesn't just affect that situation. Watch how it balloon effects out into every aspect of your life. You get mad at something, you get mad at an employee or somebody that you work with or something like that. And next thing you know, you're standing at home and you're having a great fest to your wife about that person.

Now you haven't only affected the mercy and grace with that person in your life. You've taken, you've stolen time to love your wife, your husband, your children, whatever it may be. You've brought that same animosity into another area of your life. It's affecting you.

And you know what the other person's doing? Living up their best life while you're at home complaining about them. Use that, utilize that mercy and grace inside of your heart for your own family, for your own self. Blessed are the pure and heart for they shall see God.

I told you at the beginning that when Jesus started this sermon, he was trying to make people understand that it's not about ceremonial cleansing in that, that it was about an inward perspective about your heart. And I believe that that's what Christ is, is reimplementing here to, to clean up the inside before you ever worry about cleaning up the outside. You know, I dropped back to the mercy until you have forgiveness in your heart. You can't give it, you can't give it out to that person.

You can't have it on an exterior time. And at the time, like I said, Jesus is talking to super dominantly Jewish people that believed very much in ceremonial cleanings. And they had a cleansing for almost every aspect of life. And it made them look clean.

Jesus is implementing here that it is, it's your inside, it's your heart, which needs to be cleansed with the cleansing of the heart. It is, it is great to give the people. It is, it is awesome to serve others. It is, it's great to feed the hungry and the homeless and all that kind of thing.

But unless it's in the heart that you do it, it has no value to God. Whether you give one blooming sandwich or a hundred blooming sandwiches to two different people. If you do it with a wrong motive, you're doing nothing but giving a sandwich. It has, it has no meaning.

When, when you sit down and talk with somebody because you purely love them and you want the best for them, it's not the same as you just using it to, to have the knowledge or gossip or or whatever it may be. We, we really need to, to examine our motives behind everything. I, I dropped it back to, to when I first wanted to become a pastor. And, you know, I had to have a heart check of why.

Why do you do what it is that you do in life? Why do you, why do you bathe your children? Why do you feed your children? Why do you, why do you, why do you provide a home for them?

Do you do it because the law says you have to? Or do you do it because you truly love your child? And that's, that's the best example of that, of a pure heart that I can give. Think back to, to John 8 where there's a woman caught in adultery and, you know, under the law, they said she should be staring at death.

What does Jesus say to those people? Him without sin to cast the first stone and what took place. Everybody, everybody walked off. There's the, the verse that says, you know, remove the, the plank in your own eye before you worry about the splinter and your brothers.

The, the pureness of your heart is to understand that I am as poor in my spirit as he is poor in his spirit. As, as the next person sitting next to me, I'm no greater. And we have to, we have to, we have to, we have to want to pull the splinter out of somebody's hand because of the fact like I don't want you to be in pain no more. I don't want you, I don't want to do it just to say how I look at what I did for you.

Look how I served you. I often, when I'm in here preparing and that I often wish sometimes that there, there was a veil in front of this so that it was never I that was seen what him. I always want my motives to be pure and hard. I don't say that to boast a brag or anything.

It's, it's really where I'm learning to have my heart. Do I fail in that in some aspects? Absolutely. Where that, but that's the great part of, of the mercy.

And also we're told in Proverbs four, twenty three, keep your heart with all diligence for out of it springs the issues of life. I promise you, if your heart is not sure on what you do, it will eventually be seen. You may be able to pull the wool over people's eyes for a day or two, a year, whatever it is. The motives of your heart will be where your life lays.

If you are pure and genuine in your heart, you will receive pure and genuine in your life. I'm not talking about your, your life in this world of what people can see of it. Get to a point in life where I know my motives are pure and I don't care what you think about me because I know where I'm headed to. I know what I will receive.

I will know where I'll sit. It says at the end of that verse, like I was just saying, for they shall see God. I want you guys to really understand that you're hunger and thirst. It's very important, but I also want you to understand that the motives of your heart, there's one reason you do it.

You will stand before God one day and give an account. And the one thing that God is not going to hear from you is, but I did this, but I helped this person. Oh, but Sally Sue did this and that's why it made me do this. The motives of your heart is what God is going to examine.

He's not going to count how many sandwiches you gave out. He's going to ask when you gave the one, where was your heart in the situation? That goes on to say, blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God. I don't listen to a funny sermon this week.

And it really made me understand it. When somebody calls you a son of a blank, whatever words you want to put in there, it's not because your mom was like that, it's because you're acting that way. It's what I can see in your life. So when you're called a son of God, it's because of the fact that somebody sees the heart of God operating through you.

So it's an honor when somebody says that to you. It's an identification factor, but peacemakers, blessed are the peacemakers before they shall be called sons of God. If somebody is seeing peace in your life, they're seeing that because you have a spirit of peace and God came to bring us peace, correct? So it's also when this is one of those external things.

Yeah, you want peace in your heart, you want your heart to be pure and your motives and not to be pure. When when I have mercy on somebody, it is for peace in the situation. Peace with that person, peace within myself. And also what is peace?

It's a fruit of the spirit. Again, it's identifying God in your life. I can see the actions of the spirit. Our sense says, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake.

For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. But then fight the beginning of this, that what is righteousness? Righteousness is God. So it says blessed are those who are persecuted for God.

There's a big difference from being persecuted for your own dumb actions than being persecuted for God. There's a lot of people out there that often wonder why are you tithing to the church. Why are you serving in the capacity you do? Why do you take yourself down to the mission on a monthly, weekly basis and everything and serve those people?

They put their self there. It's their fault that they're there serving others, serving into mission doing things like that. It's beneficial to those people. Yes, you're being a peacemaker in the situation, but it's not for them.

I mean, this is a walk with God is almost selfishness sometimes because I don't do what I do for you. I do what I do because God wants me to do it. So the people around you, they can receive the peace. They can receive the benefits of what you're doing.

But I'm doing it because God has called me to do it. I'm doing it for righteousness. So what part student it means to receive opposition or rejection when you receive rejection for the sake of Christ. I don't believe any of us here know what persecution is.

We live too much of a fairy tale Christian life to truly understand what persecution is for Christ's sake. We have the freedom to sit in this church at any moment. We have, I believe it was Fred that was just telling me about a place where they literally starve. It was your message strip where they will walk hours to get a Bible.

Okay. There is places that it's not available to them. There's places where they are killed for the sake of God's work. If you are found with a Bible, if you are found with a scripture, you will die.

That's persecution. I can honestly, when I was going through this, I can honestly say, have I had some people be negative to words me because of my belief, because of my heart, because of what I did is that I do for God. What I have never been persecuted for the sake of Christ, but I do want to give you guys a wake up call. This should encourage you to memorize as much scripture as you can.

This should encourage you to dive into it right now. It's coming. It's coming. They are going to try to shut our churches down.

They are going to try to take God's word out of our hand. Now, I am not sitting here prophesying saying, oh, this is going to happen in 2023. This is going to take place over the next time frame or something like that. But I promise you that there is a time coming where you truly will be persecuted for the sake of Christ.

To display your heart of God in the streets as you come to that conclusion of understanding that time is going to come and the more that you hunger and thirst for God, the more that your relationship drives into him. I want you to know, this is off topic of all this, that your life, you're going to see more troubles. You're going to have more attacks in your life. I feel like there's really somebody that needs to hear this here today that as you go deeper into Christ, you're going to see more flaws in your life.

You're going to see more trial, tribulations and troubles in your life. If you do not have no troubles in your life, it's because you're not walking with Christ. I really want you guys to hear that because, many times, I have people come to me and say, well, I'm trying to follow God, but this keeps happening and this happens. A lot of that's your own stupid actions.

Suck it up, buttercup, and move forward. But there is times that as you are walking closer to God, that the enemy is going to come more after your life. When I was in the military, the enemy didn't attack people that were not trying to attack them. They attacked the people, they attacked the front line troops, the ones that were trying to stop them.

And I believe that there's somebody here that is seeing this manifest in your life, and I want to encourage you right now to keep pushing forward. Christ will protect you. The attacks will come. They will damage you.

They will injure you. But none of them will prosper. You'll be okay. I want you to see what it says in 2 Timothy 3.12.

It says, yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution, will suffer it. There is no maybe, there is no might, there's no, if you live in this certain country, you'll experience it. Those, how does it work exactly? All who desire.

Your desire will bring persecution. And that brings me back to what I was just saying. Your desire to move closer to Christ. Your desire to pick up the word of God.

Your desire to pray. Your desire to have that relationship will cause persecution in your life. Now this may not be persecution from your brothers and sisters sitting around you, but sometimes it will be. This is not persecution of the government or the family.

There is also persecution of the enemy that we fight against that will come against your life because of your desire to be more like Christ, because of your desire to accept and have the spirit inside of you. Blessed are those whom they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my name's sake. I should have taken that word falsely and made it real big. When they come against you for his sake, not when they come against you for your own desire, your own ambition, your own selfishness, your own will, but when they come against you for the sake of what you're doing for Christ.

I want you to see that word. I would revile it. I believe I'm pronouncing that correctly. But it means the same thing that's set towards the end of speaking, saying.

It is people slandering and talking bad about you. And I promise you there's hundreds upon hundreds of people out there that talk badly about me. It's a thing. People are going to speak badly of you.

You guys have heard the old saying, Sticks and Stairings made break my bearings, but words will never hurt me. I don't care what you say about me. Why? Because I have a pure heart in the actions of what I'm doing.

A lot of us need to get more of that. And not just in the sake of Christ, in the sake of your own life. Stop worrying about what everybody else says about you. Are you happy?

Are you forgiving? Are you pure heart? Because if you're doing all those, I don't care what Fred says about me. I don't care what Amanda says about me.

I know what I do and why I do it. But it does stay for the sake of Christ. So when you get that desire, when you get that thirst and you start pushing more than words, God, and you start seeing more of his blessings, you start speaking more with him, you're going to have people that are going to tell you it's false. And this is where we tell you anytime that you hear a scripture or any time that you're taught anything out of the word of God and Fred teaches the stimuli all the time of what does it say to you?

There's going to be people that are going to tell you you're understanding it wrong or that. And I'm not saying that sometimes you're not wrong. But come to your understanding. Listen, listen to what God is saying to you and about you before you ever even consider what the people around you are saying.

I want to go back to that word blessed and what it means. To be happy. Happy are you when they revile and prosecute you. I mean, when somebody's talking harshly to me about me, I kind of get kind of depressed or sad about it.

What we're called to be happy in those situations. Have a heart of joy because on verse 12, the last verse of it says, Rejoice and be exceedingly glad for great is your reward in heaven for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. There's three sayings in that verse. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad.

You are called to have your own happiness in life. That you are to rejoice in what it is that you are doing. Not worrying about what everybody else says you should be doing. If you know you're doing what you're supposed to do because you're doing it for the right motives with a pure heart and it's a desire for God, be glad in the situation.

No matter where you're at in life, no matter what what's outside of the matter, no matter what's going on around you. Be happy in the place that you're in. If you're in a hope home, be glad about it. If you're in college, be glad about it.

What is your is your motives behind it? Pure. The next one is for great is your reward in heaven. This is the one thing that we really need to strive for because there is no participation trophies.

There is a clear cut. Yes and no. You either get in or you don't. And I'm sorry to Catholicism or whatever.

There's no mental ground. You don't sit stagnant and I believe they call a purgatory or something like that and just dwell there until your sins are paid for. It's a yes or no. Your walk with Christ is a yes or no.

I receive you God or I don't. I believe there's the other person to talk about being that lukewarm being spit out, spewed out of his mouth. Again, there's no participation trophies in it. And that needs to be the goal that we shoot for the reward in heaven.

That needs to be the motives behind your love. That needs to be the motives behind your poor spirit, your comfort, your meekness, your forgiveness, all of it. That I don't do it to look good to the world. I don't do it for you.

I do it because I want to receive the reward of heaven. I want to sit with Christ is why I do what I do. And it says for the so they for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. I believe that Jesus is summing it up here by saying you've seen it with them and you can have the same.

The people before you were persecuted, the people before you were slaughtered and all that. You can receive the same. I don't want you to do it because they did it. I want you to do it because you want the reward yourself.

So what I want to just leave you with today and encourage you guys truly is why you do it, the pure heart. But I really I want your I want your 2023 to revolve around verse six of blessed are those who hunger and thirst for the righteousness for they shall be filled. Don't sit half empty this year. Don't sit lukewarm this year.

Have an intense hunger and thirst for the righteousness. Have an intense hunger and thirst for the word of God for your relationship with Christ because that is the only thing that will fill you this year. We just seen for the last several years that everything else can be taken from us. The one thing that cannot, no shape, no form can ever be removed by someone else out of my heart is the righteousness of Christ.

No matter what you do, what you have to make sure that it's your heart that is pure in the situation.