​The heart of God is that all men and women would turn from their sins and find peace in Him. When this becomes our heart, we find ourselves as sons and daughters about our Father’s business, wanting to be found faithful to the task He has given us—testifying to the gospel of God’s grace. 

We have the ministry of reconciliation from God, who has committed to us this message of reconciliation: God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21).

This is the message we bring as ambassadors to as many as possible—that they might hear the good news and receive the gift of grace found in Christ Jesus, experiencing peace with God and the very peace of God. 

​We were once enemies of God, but Jesus took the penalty for our sins and our rebellion. Now that we have peace with God, we want others to know Jesus so they can have peace with God also. 

We receive this ministry of reconciliation to bring the message of reconciliation to as many as possible. As we continue to work through the Sermon on the Mount, we consider what it means to be a maker of peace in our study of Matthew 5:9.

​The Lord is our shepherd. He cares for us. He guides us. He provides for us. He serves us. He restores us. He protects us. And because He, as the Good Shepherd, laid down His life for us, we also have eternal life awaiting us!

When you are tempted to wander from His care, wonder how good our Good Shepherd truly is! Each of us has two lists at any given time—one list is of the things that we don’t have, and the other is a list of the things we do have. Unfortunately, our enemy is a master of tempting us to focus and to obsess on things we don’t have so we fall for his trap and ignore what we do have. 

But if we take a moment to honestly and thoroughly work through those lists, we will quickly find out that the list of what we have far exceeds the list of the things we don’t. David put it this way in Psalm 23: “My cup runs over.” Our cup is not half empty. It isn’t even half full. It’s more than full—it runs over! Why? Because goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of this life and we will dwell in the house of the Lord with Him forever!

Is the Lord your shepherd? Can you make these claims about Him in your life? Maybe you’ve wandered from His care. Return to Him—He is looking for you! Cry out to the Good Shepherd—confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead. The Bible says that if you do this, you will be saved (Romans 10:9). Ask God for forgiveness. Believe that Jesus died for your sins and that God raised Him to life. Trust Him as your Savior and follow Him as the Lord and Shepherd of your life.

​Psalm 23 is usually read at somber and solemn occasions in an effort to bring comfort to those who are mourning or grieving. While this isn’t inappropriate, there is certainly more to this psalm that we can appreciate. Within its lines, we see a celebration and declaration concerning the many blessings of having the Lord as our Shepherd.

We paused our study in Matthew this past Sunday to turned our attention to Psalm 23 and appreciated all that our Good Shepherd does for us!

​There is no separate class of believers who are in “ministry.” We are all in ministry if we continue to deny ourselves, pick up our cross, and follow Him. And if we continue to be His followers, He will continue to purify us—then we will continue to see God at work in us. 

Consider this about all we have studied so far in the Sermon on the Mount. When we recognize our spiritual poverty, we get to see God’s power through our weakness. When we mourn over our sins, we get to see His grace. When we lean into meekness, we see Him as He defends us. When we let go of caring about what benefits or advances us and hunger for what’s right, we see God at work in us. When we find ourselves being genuinely kind to the unthankful and the evil without even a hint of the desire to defend ourselves without any bitterness, Jesus is purifying us and we get to see God at work in us and through us. 

As we continue to follow Him and as He continues to purify us, we get to see God! “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8)

​God purifies us as we follow Him. He works in our lives to remove the things that contaminate us and then refines us with what He gives us. Through His refining work in our lives, we start to see Him—just as Jesus said: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8). Watch our study as we continue to work through the Sermon on the Mount.

If we want to thrive and not just survive in ministry, we must understand what being merciful to those who mistreat us is and what it is not.

Being merciful is relinquishing your right to retaliation or revenge.

Being merciful is not being silent when sin is sin.

Being merciful is being kind when communicating the correction of that sin.

Being merciful is not being a doormat and enabling that sin.

Being merciful is being kind to the unthankful and the evil.

Being merciful is not being manipulated by the unthankful and the evil.

Being merciful is the active portion of being meek (not being touchy or retaliatory).

Being merciful is not being touchy or retaliatory but actively being kind to your enemies—especially to enemies as the result of doing the right thing in ministry. 

“But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.“ –Luke 6:35-36

​Sometimes, in the beautiful worthy difficulty of ministry, you will make enemies. Even as a broken, humble, and others-centered servant endeavoring to do the right thing, others will actively oppose you with hostility.

Which is why mercy is a core component of ministry. Being kind, even and especially to your enemies, is essential. Jesus gives us a whole new way to be merciful to enemies who would mistreat us. 

“Blessed are the merciful,” Jesus said, “for they shall obtain mercy.” Watch our study of Matthew 5:7 as we consider the importance of mercy in ministry.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
For they shall be filled.”
– Matthew 5:6

As we follow Jesus, our metric for making decisions changes. It changes from self-focused to selflessness. We no longer consider whether something benefits us personally or whether or not something advances our agenda, but rather simply whether or not it is the right thing to do.

We hunger and thirst for this—whether or not a decision is right. We no longer take into account whether or not a decision personally benefits or harms us—because sometimes doing the right thing will cost us. Our whole metric for making decisions has radically changed!

For a disciple of Jesus who continues to count the cost of discipleship, this isn’t a work of the human will. It is a work of the Holy Spirit. Only by the Spirit’s power can we have the attitudes Jesus defines in the Sermon on the Mount.

​From the mountain, Jesus delivered a sermon to His disciples. He taught them what their attitudes must be like if they were to continue to be His disciples. He wanted to give them (and us) as much disclosure as possible to know what ministry would be like. 

Through this sermon, Jesus desired to communicate the beautiful and worthy difficulty of bringing glory to God through the selfless service of others. However, the attitudes necessary for such a service cannot come from our strength. It is only a work of the Holy Spirit, and not of the human will.

And this is true with the fourth beatitude, as the Holy Spirit draws those who continue to follow Jesus into an even deeper level of humility. Watch our study of Matthew 5:6 as we consider what it means to hunger and thirst for righteousness.

​What does it mean to be meek, and why is it important? First, meek does not mean weak. To be meek means to be gentle and patient, not given to anger or resentment—critical qualities to have in ministry.

Meekness is the God-given ability to patiently endure without being touchy or retaliatory, relying on God rather than ourselves against injustices. We are hard-wired in our flesh to be touchy and retaliatory. But when we look to Jesus, we never see Him take personal offense or become bitter with resentment. He was meek—gentle, patient, and secure. This attitude is necessary if we are to survive and thrive in ministry. 

Are you meek? It doesn’t come naturally—it is a work of the Holy Spirit, not of the human will. You can ask the Lord for meekness—He wants to give good things to those who ask Him. Come to Him regularly and ask Him to change and transform you by the Holy Spirit.

​As we continue our way through the Sermon on the Mount, we read of the qualities God is forming in His disciples. We must see our spiritual poverty to survive and thrive in ministry. We must recognize the depth and depravity of our sin to realize it’s only by God’s mercy that we have an opportunity to minister. 

We will not survive long if we think we are capable of what God has called us to because of our resume or spiritual skill set. It is only by His mercy that any of us are in ministry.

This is especially important to be aware of as we consider the third beatitude—“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5). What does it mean to be meek and why is this an attitude important to have if we are to survive and thrive in ministry? Watch our study of Matthew 5:5 as we consider this important, but often misunderstood quality of a disciple of Jesus.

We cannot enter into ministry pridefully as if anything on our earthy resume would qualify us for serving. Not only are we unqualified for such a task, we quickly realize that we are disqualified because of our sin. If our hearts are humble about this, we mourn.

This mourning forces us to realize that it is only because of God’s great mercy that we have any ministry at all. The Apostle Paul wrote about this in 2 Corinthians 4:1, “Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we do not lose heart.” Yes, we are unqualified. We might even be the worst—the chief of sinners. And yet somehow, only in God’s mercy, He has called us to serve—so we do not lose heart.

We can mourn over our sin while we receive comfort from the Lord. This is where true worship begins—at the intersection of the awareness of our own sin and God’s great grace, which is greater than our sin!

Guilty, helpless, lost were we;
blameless Lamb of God was he,
sacrificed to set us free:
Hallelujah, what a Savior!