The blessings of God are spoken by Jesus in the opening of the Sermon on the Mount. Then because of God's grace, we can know how to live.

June 22, 2009

Makarios Living – Because We are Blessed by God

Big Brother is still watching 65 years after the book “1984” by George Orwell, we are getting a clearer portrait of how Big Brother can watch in the real world in 2009.

Welcome to Haven Today. I’m Charles Morris telling the great story that’s all about Jesus. Big Brother is still watching and watching now more than George Orwell could have ever dreamed. He died just as his best seller was hitting hte market. He was never able to enjoy the royalties the book later earned. In his book the Ministry of Truth concerned itself with news, entertainment, education and the fine arts and certainly wasn’t always true. The Ministry of Peace concerned itself with war. There was the Ministry of Love which maintained law and order and the Ministry of Plenty which was responsible for economic affairs. Big Brother was everywhere and there are signs that Big Brother is still seeking to be everywhere. Double speak is still with us today. Thought control can be viewed as good and bad though. Take China for instance. The government is insisting on mandatory inclusion of software called “Green Dam” in every new computer sold. The filter software is touted as filtering out pornography from prying eyes in the country of 1 billion + citizens. That certainly seems good to me. Yet on the other side the same software appears over your shoulder and some believe can allow government monitors to watch everything you watch. Computer manufacturers and other organizations are arguing against this layer of control in the world’s largest country. Bad controls, good controls, they come in a Christian’s life as well. Scripture tells us that we ought not to use our freedom to indulge in things we shouldn’t. But on the good side, we have been given much if we are in Christ Jesus. Where the words of Jesus take root there is freedom. Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is life that is free. Where God is worshipped, there is joy. Stay tuned as we talk about what Jesus preached in the Sermon on the Mount. Blessed living because in Christ Jesus we are blessed. Let me ask you something, in what or him whom are you trusting to live today? I’m trusting in Jesus and so is my dear friend and brother in Christ Steve Ragsdale who has a long association with Haven Ministries. We have a brand new album by Steve called “Simply Timeless”. Darrel Smith there on the guitar and Steve Ragsdale opening this Haven Today.

Song: Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus/The Solid Rock Medley
Performed by: Steve Ragsdale

From the brand new album by Steve Ragsdale “Simply Timeless” opening the program today with a medley “Tis So Sweet To Trust in Jesus” and “The Solid Rock” this Haven Today called “Makarios Living”, the Greek word that we translate “Blessed” in English, “Makarios Living – Because We are Blessed by God”. Matthew 5 is where Jesus begins to share the Sermon on the Mount. Let me begin with verse 1,
Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them.

He said:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure 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. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
That’s the word of Jesus from Matthew 5:1-12. Foolish optimism or hopeless despair? Those are two ways of hearing the greatest sermon ever preached, delivered by Jesus on one of those steep hills rising up from the north shore on the Sea of Galilee. If you’ve been there you have this bold, vivid picture in your mind of what I’m talking about and as we respond to this teaching of Jesus there is first the foolish optimism. There are some who superficially say, “I live by the Sermon on the Mount. I follow those standards set out by Jesus.” This reminds me of the young rich man who came to Jesus and pronounced that he had kept all the commandments but when Jesus said, “Sell all you have and give the money to the poor,” the young man went away in deep sorrow. He really hadn’t kept the commandments. When I hear someone say they live a good life and follow the teachings of Jesus – and I have had people say that to me and I think you have as well or maybe you’ve even said it- I can only think to myself, “Obviously this person has never carefully read the Sermon on the Mount.” Let me give an example from real life but also from the world of great literature. Leo Tolstoy was one of those Russian novelists who could only write books that were hundreds and hundreds of pages long, kind of like his one novel that you may have heard of, “War and Peace”. Not exactly bedtime reading. He knew himself to be an abysmal failure but he also knew that Jesus could be followed and he put his conviction into the lips of a prince, the hero of his last great novel called “Resurrection”. Tolstoy’s prince is recognized by most as a thinly disguised portrait of himself. At the end of the novel the prince rereads the Gospel of Matthew. He sees in the Sermon on the Mount, I’m quoting now from the book, “not beautiful abstract thoughts, presenting for the most part exaggerated and impossible demands, but simple, clear practical commandments which if followed could bring about the kingdom of heaven on earth.” Now I’m not going as far as Tolstoy but I do think his words show that moment of how he met Christ. They certainly reflect how after hearing a sermon preached on Nicodemus at an evening service at age 16, I wrestled through the night reading the Gospels and finally knew in my heart that I knew Jesus and my life has never been the same since. Listen to these words of Tolstoy from the end of his book “Resurrection”, “The prince sat staring at the light of the lamp that burned low and his heart stopped beating. Recalling all the monstrous confusion of the life we lead he pictured what this life might be like if people were taught to obey these commandments and his soul was swept by an ecstasy such as he had not felt for many a day. It was as though after long pining and suffering he had suddenly found peace and liberation. He did not sleep that night and, as happens to vast numbers who read the Gospels, he understood for the first time the full meaning of words read and passed over innumerable times in the past. Like a sponge soaking up water he drank in all the vital, important and joyous news which the book revealed to him and everything he read seemed familiar to him confirming and making real all that he had long known but had never fully understood or believed. Now he understood and believed. He said to himself, ‘Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. But we seek all these things and obviously fail to attain them.’ That night an entirely new life began for the prince, not so much because he entered into new conditions of life but because everything that happened to him from that time on was endowed with an entirely different meaning for him.”
That’s Leo Tolstoy from his book called “Resurrection”. I read that ending of Tolstoy’s book and said, “That’s me! That’s what happened to me at 16 years of age! That’s what happened to the young man Afshin who we included in our “Christians You Should Know” series in the past few weeks. Raised as a Muslim, memorizing the Qur’an as a young boy, molded into a Hezbollah terrorist cell with training in how to make bombs and take lives until then, in a prison cell on his way to recruit terrorists in the United States, Afshin met Jesus. Even in a Muslim prison a guard found him a Bible and the words of Jesus came alive and real and now he is not only a Christian he is also a pastor. You should hear his full story as he tells it, and we still have it there on our homepage, haventoday.org. Maybe something has happened to you as well, reading the Gospels and the power of Jesus coming over you through the words of Jesus. There is this tension between the ideal that Jesus preaches on the Sermon on the Mount and the reality of asking, “How can I even begin to live like you are telling me to live? ON the one hand, Tolstoy was convinced that to obey the Sermon on the Mount was quite feasible. On the other hand his own mediocre performance told him it was not. Foolish optimism or hopeless despair. Where does the truth lie? For the standards of the sermon are neither readily attainable by every person nor totally unattainable by any person. To put them beyond anyone’s reach is to ignore the purpose of Chrsit’s sermon. To put them within everyone’s reach is to ignore the reality of our sin. They are attainable alright but only by those who have experienced new birth which Jesus told Nicodemus was the indispensible condition of seeing and entering God’s kingdom. For the righteousness he described in the Sermon on the Mount is an inner righteousness. Although it manifests itself outwardly and visibly in words, deeds and relationships, yet it remains essentially a righteousness of the heart. What really matters is what a person thinks in his heart and where he fixes his heart and that’s where the problem lies for all of us. The Bible is clear. Jeremiah the prophet said it. The heart is deceitful. It’s evil. It’s out of our heart that evil things come and out of our mouths Jesus said. It is the tree that determines the fruit and there is only one solution. If the tree is good the fruit is good. A new birth is essential. Only a belief in the necessity and the possibility of a new birth can keep us from either reading the Sermon on the Mount with foolish optimism or hopeless despair. Jesus spoke the sermon to those who were already his disciples, already citizens of God’s kingdom, already the children of God’s family. Grace is never earned. It is always God’s free gift.
This is Haven Today and a program called “Makarios Living – Because We Are Blessed by God”. Earlier in the program we opened with Steve Ragsdale, longtime friend and for many years part of our team here at Haven Ministries. Steve, talk to me about that song we opened with, “’Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus”.
SR: it’s another one of those of course that takes me back to my childhood, probably in particular to Sunday nights. We would have called that kind of a Sunday night song.
CM: There actually used to be Sunday night services in many churches across North America, right?
SR: Right, right. Remember those days?
CM: Yes
SR: But this was, you know, the kind of a song that had a joy to it and it was fun to sing but it really had that powerful message too about trust. And it’s hard to trust sometimes in life but it’s always rewarding, isn’t it, when we really do place our trust in the Lord to care for us and to walk us through life.
CM: And you also coupled that song with another song that is brought up so many times in the Psalms and of course, Christ Jesus used this himself as an illustration. Who is our rock? Where do we find our refuge? It’s Jesus, the Solid Rock, isn’t it?
SR: Absolutely, absolutely.
CM: Steve Ragsdale we look back over our Christian lives and we see how the Lord was there all along. He was leading us along his pathways which are the best pathways. You actually met your wife Rachel before you really knew her and knew she would be your wife. Many people say that but it’s certainly true for you, isn’t it?
SR: It certainly is Charles. Interesting story, we met in 1985 on the phone – and I’m making a very long story short – but Rachel had wanted to record a piano album and I had produced an album for some mutual friends of ours so they gave her my phone number, she called me one afternoon introduced herself and told me why she called and on the phone we talked and I found out she was from India and I told her, “You know 20 years ago in 1966 I was in India myself with Youth for Christ and traveled for about 4 months in India with a music team.” And she asked questions. She said, “What was the name of the group?” And she kept asking questions and we found out that our group had sung in her church and her school and she remembered talking to me after one of those concerts. I played French horn in the group too and she talked to me about the French horn one time after a concert in her church and saw me dumping the spit out of it – if you’re a musician you know what that’s all about.
CM: Hey you even signed your autograph for her didn’t you?
SR: Yes I did, I did. When we finally met to talk about her piano album she showed me an autograph book that she had kept for many years and –
CM: There was your name!
SR: There was my name, there was the teen team and we had indeed met 20 years prior to that.
CM: You didn’t even know you were famous when you were that age then did you?
SR: I was 19 then, when we first met and I was famous, yeah.
CM: And you just finished celebrating an historic marker in your marriage, the Lord brought you together and –
SR: Oh, it’s been fabulous 20 years just a couple of weeks ago and –
CM: I remember talking to you on the phone on your anniversary. You were going out to have a nice afternoon together and you sounded happy!
SR: Oh, well, it –
CM: After 20 years you sounded happy.
SR: I am. Are you kidding? Aside from accepting Christ as my Savior that was the very best decision I ever made, marrying that beautiful lady. Rachel, she changed my life. And of course you know her, people who know her know how beautiful she is inside and out and to live with her and then travel together in ministry – she’s an amazing pianist – and I mean, it’s just, you know, it’s a win-win for me and God leads us out, we do concerts in churches and it’s just, it’s just an amazing journey.
CM: Rachel Ragsdale, you just did an album on classic hymns and songs of the church. Your wife that God has given you is a classic lady and the Lord gave you a precious gift.
SR: Amen, amen to that. Absolutely.
Cm: Steve Ragsdale, you’ve got a new album out, “Simply Timeless: Classic hymns and songs of the church”. You‘ve got a lot of great music like “Amazing Grace” which everyone knows and “No One Ever Cared for Me Like Jesus” but you also have some classic hymns on there too like “Great is Thy Faithfulness” but I’m also thinking of another one that people have sung for well over 100 years. It speaks of the Lord leading us in our lives, doesn’t it?
SR: Yes, it’s entitled “Be Thou My Vision” and a prayer that was written, again as you said, so many, many decades ago and it still has impact today and it still the cry of my heart as I know it is yours and the people listening today is that, “Be Thou my vision, let me see who you really are and in a sense let me see myself as I really am in the light of your grace and your mercy and your love for me and the sacrifice that you paid for me.” It’s a, it’s an old, old hymn of the church and I just never get tired of hearing this. It’s just beautiful.

Song: Be Thou My Vision
Performed by: Steve Ragsdale

Would you join me in prayer right now?
Thank you Lord for Jesus. Lord, for those of us in Christ, we know we don’t measure up but I thank you that Jesus has. Strengthen our trust and faith in Jesus today. May we not be the same today as yesterday? May we by the power of the Spirit be committed to live like him? And for those of us who have never met Jesus, we’ve never professed our faith and confessed our sins, may we realize today that we are sinners and we are in deep need of repentance. And may we fall at the foot of the cross and cry out with the loudest voice we can muster, “Lord save me today just as the thief on the cross!” May we find this grace living in us today and living in us every day for the rest of our lives and then living on with you into eternity? I ask this now not because of my faithfulness but because of the faith given to us by Jesus Christ.
This Haven Today called “Makarios Living – Because We Are Blessed by God” and from his brand new album called “Simply Timeless: Classic hymns and songs of hte church”, thank you Steve for joining us and being here in the studio with me and we’re going to hear some more of your beautiful music from this brand new album as the week goes on. It’s a lot of music that I haven’t heard for a while, music that I grew up with as a young Christian, hymns that you would know like “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” but also songs like the spiritual “Were You There?” and “Jesus, What a Friend for Sinners”, “Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us”, “My Jesus I Love Thee”, “Tell it To Jesus”, “Leave It There”, “Simply Timeless: Classic hymns and songs of the church. You can listen to audio samples of this new album by Steve Ragsdale. Just go to our homepage haventoday.org. We ask for your gift to the ministry and we’ll get a copy out to you right away. We have them in our warehouse. Steve Ragsdale, “Simply Timeless: Classic hymns and songs of the church”. We also have that book by Warren Weirsbe, “50 People Every Christian Should Know: Learning from spiritual giants of the faith”. If you want to read about the stories of Christians you may not know much about, Charles Spurgeon, Amy Carmichael, Jonathan Edwards, James Hudson Taylor, those and more are contained in this brand new book where you can find strength in their stories. If you don’t know Warren Weirsbe let me just tell you he was the speaker on the “Back to the Bible” program for many, many years. He was also the pastor of the famous Moody Memorial Church in downtown Chicago. This book was just released and I think it’s a book for the hour, encouragement that all of us need right now, “Learning from spiritual giants of the faith”. You can find that book there at haventoday.org, h.a.v.e.n.t.o.d.a.y, haventoday.org along with Steve Ragsdale’s album. Or you can also call us on our toll free number in North America. That’s 1-800-654-2836. The number once again is 1-800-654-2836. Let us know the station you’re listening to also when you get in touch and if you’d like to send this program on to a friend just go online to our homepage, type in your friend’s email address with a little note from yourself and it’ll be on its way and they’ll get to rejoice and enjoy some great music by Steve Ragsdale.
I’m Charles Morris and thank you for joining me. Would you come back again tomorrow? We’re going to be talking about salt and light and what that means to all of us. Words from Jesus and we’ll talk about it together as we share the great story together that’s all about Jesus here on Haven Today.