Listen, we wanna welcome you guys, wherever you're watching from today, all of our folks online, at all of our different campuses, and everybody right here at Lincoln Road. Man, we got a full house here. You can tell it's kind of the beginning of something. And I wanna just be honest with you for a minute and kind of maybe just share a little bit about, um, man, my life. This has been one year, uh, since we've transitioned and I've been the lead pastor, and I want you to know this August feels a lot better than last August to me, right?

Like last August. I just want you to know, man, I was a nervous wreck in some ways. And I wanna say to you today as we kinda step into year two, a man, thank you, like thank you for being patient with us. Uh, thank you for being so faithful over this past year as we've made some changes. And so it just, it just feels a lot better from my point of view to come into this year now with one year behind me.

And I want you to know, man, we've had an incredible summer. Like if you've been gone some over the summer, uh, these past eight weeks for us, we've done some things that we've never done. And I need to say to you, man, thank you for being faithful in giving. You have allowed us and you've equipped us to do some things that, that really, that are new to us. And we've seen our kids come out in droves.

I mean, many of you have led over the summer. Uh, you've invited people to come, uh, you've served so that we could open up and do some things we hadn't done from last July. You ready for this? You don't wanna miss this. From last July to this July, we've seen 176 kids or students be baptized.

Can we celebrate that? I'm just telling you, that's the number. Like, that's who we are. If you're just kinda curious, like what's venture all about, we are so passionate about this next generation. Like if you're out there today and you're a young family, you don't need to go anywhere else.

If you're out there today and you wanna give towards something that matters and you wanna invest in a movement that's gonna make these communities better, that's gonna bring hope and help to the next generation, that is our focus. Okay? Now I want you to know this, we're starting a brand new series, and the message of today is real simple. If I had to give it a title, it would be this, who are You Becoming Now? Lemme tell you a little bit about what I know about you, okay?

Like, uh, you guys love to come to church in August and in January, alright? Learned that about you. So in August and January, we're gonna commit to giving you our best. Now, that just means we're gonna teach about the life of Jesus. So every August and every January, you can know this, we're gonna be in the gospels because we know you're gonna be here.

We're gonna bring you the most important thing we can bring you, and it's the life and the teaching of Jesus. So today we're gonna kick off a nine week series and it's gonna lead us into the fall. And I need to say this, I wanna challenge you to be here over these next eight or nine weeks. Now, I know college football's gonna crank up in about four weeks, and I know in my life, I'm looking at my calendar and travel, soccer's gonna start from my family. And so we're going ahead, we're having the conversations today before it all starts, about how many Sundays we're gonna miss.

And maybe you wanna have that conversation on the way home. You wanna talk about, Hey, over the next two weeks, how many Sundays are we okay missing? Because I, I just believe that it matters when you're here, it matters to us, and I think it matters to the rhythm and the pace of your family. Alright? So Matthew five, that's where we are today.

And it's the beginning of Jesus's teaching. If you wanna open up the app, you can do that. If you've got your Bible, you can jump in there. But this is such a powerful chapter, and this is the, it is called the Sermon on the Mount. It's the very beginning of the most popular sermon Jesus ever taught.

Now, we're not gonna teach all the way through the Sermon on the mountain. You'd be here a long time, okay? We're just gonna start on the first little section in Matthew five. So join me, you'll see it'll be on the screens, uh, but Matthew five, we're gonna start in verse one. Here we go.

Now, when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and he sat down, his disciples came to him, and he began to teach them. Sang. Now let's, let's stop for just a minute because can you imagine being there in that moment? Like, you guys are so gracious with us, like you, you're willing to receive our teaching and you're willing to open up the word with us. But can you imagine being on that hillside?

And it was Jesus, like Jesus was teaching to you. Man, I know the medicine of that day was terrible. I know they didn't have electricity, but they had Jesus teaching to them on that hill, and I would've loved to just been sitting right there at his feet. So let's keep going here. Here's what he says.

Now, this, this is where the beatitudes come into play and I'm gonna give you 'em. And this is, this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna take one every week for the next eight or nine weeks. Here's the first one for this week. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

I'm gonna come back and teach on that. Here's next week. Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. Exciting message for next week, right? Yeah.

Gotcha. Next one. Blessed are the meek for they won. Hear it the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Blessed are the merciful, for they'll be shown mercy. Blessed are the poor in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness. For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you, when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Now listen, these are the beatitudes. Now the tricky thing about the beatitudes is you and I are tempted to kind of make this like a checklist. You following me? Like, Hey, if I'm this thing, I'll be blessed.

If I'm this thing, I'll be blessed is Craig, this is Craig that, and I want you to know right out of the gate, because this is really important. The beatitudes are not a checklist because if you see them that way, you're gonna walk outta here defeated. At least I know I would. And my challenge to you, or my promise to you, is when you come over these next eight weeks, we're not gonna beat you over the head with the beatitudes. Instead, we're gonna point a picture.

We're gonna give you a picture of what it looks like to live and to follow after Jesus. And if you will do that now I'm asking a little something of you if you will invest in your own followship. I checked ai. That is a word. Followship means you're willing to follow someone.

If over these next eight weeks you will be willing to follow Jesus. You won't recognize you in eight weeks. You see the difference? It's not a checklist where you feel guilty every week. Instead, I'm painting a picture and Jesus is saying, here's what it looks like when you begin to follow me and you begin to look like me, and you're gonna become something new over these weeks.

You're gonna walk outta here and you're gonna go, well, I don't, I don't even recognize myself. I'm beginning to be transformed. I'm beginning to be changed. I'm beginning to look more and more like Jesus. And that's the heartbeat behind this series.

The beatitudes are who we are becoming. As we follow Christ, we're committed to giving you hope. Now here we go. Let's start with the very first one. Here's the one we're gonna look at today.

Blessed are the poor and spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Now, when I read that, I'm no different than you, the very first word that pops to me is blessed. You tell me, Hey man, you, you come over to my house. I I got a blessing for you. I'm there.

If you say, Hey, listen over here, there's something going on, man, those people seem blessed. I'm going, Jesus knew he could get our attention when he uses the word blessed. Now, here's the tricky part. When you see that, if you're like me, you think about people that live in a certain neighborhood, you think about what it's like when you pull into the, maybe when you pulled into Stone County this morning or when you pulled into Lincoln Road and you found a parking spot, you're like blessed. I, I don't think that's the intent with it.

Maybe when you got your school schedule, come on. I get it, Ryan, my kids, we've been having that conversation. Who's in your class? Oh man, I'm blessed. I got this person.

This word, this the, the context here is different. I want you to see, when you see blessed, this is what I want you to think. Flourishing, I think complete think whole. Think the name of the series, the Good Life. Jesus is saying, if you want these things, like if you wanna be flourishing, if you wanna be complete and you wanna be whole, this is the picture that I'm painting for you.

And I'm gonna describe for you how to be there and how to achieve that and how to have that in your life. And the next word that pops out when you go back to that and you look at it, you saw blessed, but you also saw poor. Now I need to reframe poor for you because when you see poor, you think like me, you think, oh man, bless them. They're, they're kind of, they don't have as much as we have. They're poor.

No, no, this is different. This is another level. This is the word destitute. This is the word desperate. You see how different that is?

Now, I'm gonna put these two things together and we're gonna read it again. And this is gonna shock you a little bit because, uh, this might not be what you think is coming as you follow Jesus. Here's, here's when you put this together, flourishing are the desperate in spirit. Didn't necessarily want be that this August, but this is what it says. Flourishing are the desperate in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Now, here's some other translations. Look, look how I think it's, the message says it, you're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. Now, that just doesn't make sense to me. Uh, what are you talking about up there? You're blessed when you're at the end of the rope.

When you're done, you're blessed. That's not the way we see life today. Jesus turns it upside down. He says, you're blessed when you're in the rope with less of you. There is more of God in his rule.

Here's the living translation. Here's what it says. It says, humble men are the very fortunate. It just doesn't make sense with the way we think for the kingdom of heaven is given to them. Those who are humble.

Here's what I'm gonna do. The the best way for you to kind of connect to this, I want you to think back to Hurricane Katrina. I don't know where you were when Katrina hit, but I know, uh, my family was in Jackson and my wife's a teacher and she was teaching and she had like a couple of weeks off of school in Katrina. And, and we would go down to the, uh, to the fairgrounds if you've been down to the fairgrounds. And, and, and they were bus literally they were busing families in and people into the fairgrounds from Houston.

And we got to know a few of them and we would go down every day and, you know, kinda, we'd bring coloring books and do anything we could to kinda engage with those kids. And, and we saw Katrina through that lens, like, but then we drove to Hattiesburg, we left Jackson and came down here. And I remember we stopped in, in, uh, Collins that the water park, there's a hotel right there. I had to use the bathroom. And I'm, I still remember going in that bathroom of that hotel and there was no power.

There was no running water. And that's when I realized, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is different. Like, what's going on here? These people are desperate.

There's a sense of destitute, there's something different about that. Like, I need you to grab hold of that feeling the way that you felt in the midst of that storm. Because here's the point, without Jesus, you are desperate and you are destitute. Now I've got to say something to you. Ask your pastor, this is why you pay me to say things to you that you don't want to hear.

You ready. I've had to kind of gear myself up for this. Jeff was good at this. I'm learning how to do this. You don't have as much as you think you have.

You're like, bro, you, I'm over here at the hunt Club. You don't see who's sitting down the road from me. No, no. IIII don't see them, but I can imagine them. And what I'm telling you is even if you spent all summer at 30 A, even if you've got three SUVs, even if you've got season tickets, you are desperate and you are destitute without Jesus.

You say, well Craig, why are you, why are you, you know, you're kind of coming pretty hard at us this August. Is that even in the Bible? Yeah. Look at this verse in Romans for the wages of sin is death. You see where we're starting, like I've gotta, I've gotta, this is hard for me because I I'm not poor in spirit.

I'm blessed. I'm like 75, 85, maybe 95% of the audience today. I don't hurt for much of anything. It's hard for me to preach on being poor in spirit. There's been seasons that I connect with that.

But I've gotta remind you that if you have everything that the world offers, you are still broke down without Jesus. Because that's the heartbeat behind this very first beatitude. Jesus is sitting there and he is teaching to his disciples. He's got them right next to him, but he's also got a crowd on the hill. And these are the broken and the hurting that have come to hear him.

But in this moment, I think he's picking on his disciples a little bit. I think his disciples had kind of had some swag. They'd been with Jesus. They were on his right, they were on his left. I think they'd kind of gotten youth group cool.

I don't know if you're youth group cool play every week on those drums. No, he, he looks at him, he says, you gotta understand something without me. Uh, you, you, you, you, you're, you're, you're, you're nothing. You want you to say this with me. Maybe it's been a while since you've kind of said this or thought this.

You ready? It's real simple. Jesus, I need you. Let's say that together. You ready at all of our campuses?

Jesus, I need you. Here's what I'm gonna do today. And and we're gonna do it every week in this series. This is one of my, I don't know, I've just been excited about this, but I want to give you a picture of this because sometimes it's just hard to see. Like, I, I need, like Craig, I get what you're saying.

Like we, we need to be desperate for Jesus and all the blessings. And the thing of this world, I can't find my significance. I can't find my worth in those things. I've gotta get to a place where I'm desperate and I'm destitute for Jesus. Because that's where the blessed life is.

What does that even look like? Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you a picture and, and I'm gonna give you, I'm gonna kind of give a spoken word over you because there's a moment in Scripture where there's a woman that was desperate and destitute. And every week we're gonna take these beatitudes and then we're gonna connect it with a word picture. And I want you to see this picture and I want you to hear this Scripture. So if, if you've, if you've got something, you may wanna kind of close it out and just kind of open up your ears and open up your eyes to see this image and to hear this story.

Listen to this. Now, when Jesus returned, a crowd welcomed, welcomed him for they were all expecting him. Then a man named Jairus, a synagogue leader, came and fell at Jesus' feet pleading with him to come to his house because his only daughter, a girl of about 12 was dying. As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for 12 years, but no one could heal her.

She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. And immediately her bleeding stopped. Who touched me? Jesus asked, when they all denied it, Peter said, master, the people are crowding and pressing against you. But Jesus said, someone touched me.

I know that power has gone out from me. Then the woman seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet in the presence of all the people. She told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. Then he said to her daughter, your faith has healed. You go in peace.

I hope you heard this phrase, 'cause there was one phrase I heard in the midst of that story, then she noticed that she could not go unnoticed. Listen, I I need you to hear that today because you are probably surrounded by a campus where there's a lot of people you may be at home watching and there's a lot of noise. I need you to know, Jesus had this gift of swimming through the crowds, the, the hillside with all the people. And he, he sees the little boy the moment where he is in the home and all the people are cri just pushing in against him. Yet he sees the four friends and the man that's crippled.

There's a moment in the streets that we just read about where the streets are slammed with people. He cannot move through the streets. 'Cause everybody wants some of Jesus. Yet he has this way of noticing and seeing the poor in spirit. And what I know about you is in the middle of this audience of all the Sunday best and all those folks got that top button collar, you know, looking good like you from Madison.

No, there's some folks today that are broken in spirit that you're hurting. I'm, I'm gonna give you three promises today and here's the very first one. This is, this is, this is so strong. The first, I think it's gonna come up here on this tv. The first shall be last and the last shall be first.

What a promise for you today because you're going, does anybody still see me? Does anybody still hear me? I'm looking around at all the things that everybody's got and it doesn't add up to my life. And Jesus says, well, listen, I see you, I hear you. I've got a plan and a promise for you.

Listen, this is so good. I want you to walk through several of these things. Maybe you fit in one of these categories. Ready? Here's the first one.

It says, A single mom that's exhausted and overwhelmed by life and the demands that seem impossible to meet. This is a welcome for you, recovering from addiction, separated from your kids and desperate to see them again and get back what was lost. This is a welcome for you in depression with an elephant on your chest and the joy that you once have lost. This is a welcome for you, a refugee in a new town with new people and new school and new faces and new language and new looks. This is a welcome for you powerless, stuck in what seems to be a dead end world.

If you're grieving, if you're ashamed, if you're defeated, if you have walked into today, unseen, unheard and unknown, this is a welcome to you. This is Jesus saying, in the midst of the sea of people, I see you. I haven't missed you, I haven't given up on you the first, they're gonna be last and the last, they're gonna be first. Number two, this is a promise, and I love this. I want you to see this language.

I thought this was so powerful. It's a future and a present promise for the most presently distraught. Here's what I know, man. We've got folks watching today and you're on the edge of your seat because the two words you've connected with the most in this whole message is presently distraught. That's where you are today.

I had breakfast this week with a a couple, uh, they've got a senior in high school. There's others already graduated and they're in the stage of life where they're taking care of their parents. Both of their parents, both sets of their parents. Were going through some pretty serious illness. And when I read this about being in a season of being presently distraught, I thought about them because there's a promise in this beatitude for you.

Lemme pull the beatitude back up. This is the heartbeat of what we're looking at. But there's another word for you. If you're presently distraught, see this, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is this is present tense. He's saying, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Yes, I've got a promise for you. And, and it's eternity with me. And if you've been doing the Bible reading Plan, uh, I think it was this week, maybe the very first of this week, it talked about like what our restored bodies are gonna look like. So I think it's one Corinthians 15. It was so encouraging, but this beatitude says, it's not just about one day, it's about the kingdom of heaven being yours today.

And that's not natural for you and for me. Uh, we tend to think we're one decision or one moment away from happiness and it goes something like this. And now listen, I'm about to, I I know this is gonna get you because this has been me. When my kids get outta diapers, things are gonna get better. I when, listen, when they start napping, things are gonna get better.

I'm gonna tell you when my kids begin to drive and I don't have to sit in that car line at the Oak Grove Middle School, things are gonna get better when my kids go off to college. Things are gonna get so much better when my kids have kids. Oh, it's gonna be amazing. I can't wait. Listen, here's what happens is we, we begin to think that happiness is a what, but happiness is a who.

It's Jesus. And, and I'm, and I'm reaching out to you because I know you, because I know me and I have thought this way and I thought it's gonna get better when I'm in heaven. And I still believe that. I mean, I read about that this week. We are gonna be restored, but I'm here to tell you, I don't think you have to live as a victim of your circumstances today.

I think Jesus has come to give you help and healing and hope in the moment of today. I think he's looking at this hillside of all these different cases and all of these situations that are hard, that are real, that are, I mean, broken people that are dealing with things that they shouldn't have to deal with. That breaks my heart that they're even having to be in that situation or that stage. This is a broken world. But he says to them, I want you for just a moment to look past those circumstances and look to me, because I'm close to you.

I've come for you. And I want you to hear that today because that's a promise for you. I wanna share with you, I-I-I-I-I really, I hesitated to share this verse with you because I don't want you to judge me like, Hey, Craig, if you were in the season of depression that I was in, you wouldn't feel like that. Or if you were taking care of the parents that I'm taking care of, you wouldn't feel like that. I'm not belittling what you're facing.

'Cause man, you're facing some really hard things. I I'm just gonna give you some encouragement today that he is with you in the midst of those trials. And I want to give you a verse because maybe you've just accepted a, a season or a stage of defeat and you've just accepted being angry and you've just got into a rut of being bitter. Look, look at this verse in Psalms where Jesus is describing, here's what happens when you fear the Lord. David says this in Psalms, he says, he does not fear bad news.

Can you even imagine being in a place where you didn't have to fear bad news? Some of you, every text that goes off, you're like, it's probably bad news. He does not have to fear bad news nor live in the dread of what may happen for he is settled in his mind that Jehovah, that the Lord will take care of him. Would you just receive that today that there's someone bigger? I mean, I got some, I got some families right over here about to go drop their son off at college.

Little girl we just saw being baptized. She's about to go to Mississippi State, she's about to move off from West Jones and head up to Starkville. And that makes, that makes me nervous as a parent. I need to know that Jehovah, that the Lord is with her, that the Lord is with him. That is why he is not afraid, but can calmly face his foes at, let's just be honest, it's been a long time since some of us have been calm about anything.

I mean, that's the word I want you to hear today. That's the promise. We started off with a welcome. If you're broken, he sees you. And then we're giving you a promise to say, I'm closer than you think.

The healing that is coming for you, the circumstances that you're facing, yes Lord to the kingdom one day, but yes also that there's hope today. Now here's the third one. This is the last one. Real simple. We don't settle in salvation.

Now, I need to explain this because I'm all about salvation, but we've created this kinda weird culture where I just don't think Jesus would know what to do with it. I think he would look at us stunned when we think like the ultimate goal is just to raise your hand or to walk down an aisle or to celebrate. And I'm all about baptism. Just one moment of baptism. Jesus's plan was that you would follow him.

Remember the followship word? Remember the idea that these eight weeks we're gonna talk about what you're gonna become. It's like we, we, we've made the the starting line, the finish line. And what what I'm telling you today is I don't want you to settle for that, that there's so much more for you. I, I had lunch this week with a, a senior in high school and one of the things he was telling me is that one of the ways he's staying connected, uh, with his brother was they play PlayStation together.

So at night when there's not much going on, they'll get on PlayStation and they'll play together. But the thing about PlayStation, and I'm not a gamer, lemme just say that, but I'm learning a little bit about gaming, is to, to survive the level of game that your own, you're looking for little keys. You're, you're looking for little moments and sources of strength. And if you can find those sources of strength, then all of a sudden it's like you're, you're, you're supercharged or you're, you've got a, you, you've got access now. You've got the key now to advance.

And man, there's, there's too many of us that have been saved, but we're not living with God's power. He's given us all these keys, all these fruits, all these beatitudes, all these promises of who we can become in Christ. But we've settled into this little level, this little game, and we're not advancing and we're just dealing with shame and guilt because we're not there. We don't feel like we, we are ever gonna level up. And he says, man, no, no, no, no, I've got more for you.

Like this August, this September, this fall, this school year, this marriage, this parenting thing, this idea of being a partner in a movement. This concept of reaching our community and caring for the next generation, this promise of launching out movement and students that walk into schools with hope. I've got more for you. Our conversation at lunch with this senior in, in high school was all about how he wanted to reach the university he was going to for Christ. Do you see?

My mind was just survive, bro. His mind was, reach them with the Gospel. We've settled. And I just tell you, I don't wanna be at a church that settles. You Won't be at a church that settles.

You just show up every Sunday. I wanna be a church that gets to celebrate 176 baptisms of kids and students. I wanna be a church that's settling into following Jesus and getting used to being different. And here's how we're gonna end. We're gonna end the same way we started.

I'm gonna ask you to say this with me. Jesus, I need you. Listen, we're gonna pray together and I wanna look right in that camera and say to you, if you're here today and you are broken in spirit, we see you God, man, we hear You, But so much bigger than me is the beatitude, Is Jesus teaching on that hillside? And he looks past the disciples, the one, the ones that had it all, and he looks to the broken and he says, man, I'm gonna tell you something. The kingdom heaven is yours today and an eternity.

And in just a moment, you can come down and you can pray, or you can be prayed for. You can come down to the cross and you can leave some things saying, Hey, as I start a new semester, I'm gonna do my best to start it without this fear, without this worry, without this compulsion. And man, I'm gonna go back to my seat and I'm gonna worship. I'm gonna say, God, would you take this from me? Could I experience your kingdom?

Because I want it more than anything. I'm not gonna settle. Just pray together. God, I thank you for your love. I thank you for your grace, and I thank you for your word.

I mean, father, the reality is we, we can't find that hillside today. God, you're, you're waiting on us. You're preparing a place for us. But you've sent us, you've sent us to every school. You've sent us to every home.

And we're to walk in there giving hope and help and encouragement. God, you've given us something where no longer do we have to be defeated. No longer do we have to be discouraged. God, you've given us something to hold onto and it's this promise that you see us, that you hear us, and that God, you're close to the broken. So Father, I pray that today we would remember that all the things of the world will not get us what we want.

But when we come to you desperate that God, you meet us there. Father, we love you and we worship you's in your name. We pray today. Amen.