Private Life/Public Character

This is a message from leading the way with Dr. Michael. You sat we pray that it will encourage you in your walk of faith.

If you would like to learn more about Dr. you Seth for leading the way, please visit LTW.or, these days there's a great deal of debate on the issue of character proceeding to the is that our culture is changing before our very eyes probably and very few generation who able to see it as clearly as we can see it in our own culture right now. Not many years ago while we still have some Christian residue in our culture character in people was very, very important today as we get deeper and deeper into the post-Christian era character is becoming of less importance. Most of you know that the I spent a number of years and doing postgraduate studies in the whole subject of culture and cultural change in society as a matter of fact, back in my days of academia.

Thank God he delivered me from that. Back in those days there was a standard joke as to why God could never get a tenure to teach at the University and here are some of the reasons he had only one major publication back then was about. In all, the mother was publish or perish in the publication was in Greek and Hebrew.

It had no references he never published in a prominent journal.

Some deny the fact that he wrote the book himself. The scientific community cannot replicate his results. Thank God for that. He rarely came to class, but he often told his students to read his book. Some have insisted that it was his son who taught this class. In fact, there are several strikes against them. He expelled his very first two students.

Although he had only 10 requirements for the class. All students flunked his office hours were irregular and he often held his class on the mountaintop and that class on a mountaintop is what I'll be studying with you for the next several messages because in his class on the mountaintop, God's son, God in human flesh, the Lord Jesus Christ has taught us that what may have become acceptable or is acceptable to the culture may not be acceptable to him and what is acceptable to him. My never be accepted by our culture and that is why it is a vitally important document what is easily perceptible in our society today. And as we look around us and as we watch a television news at night is that we have crossed over the divide that has marked the difference between worldly standards and biblical and moral standards that we have crossed the divide, where secular and godless morality was practiced by a few, but admired by the vast majority to seeing right before our own eyes that the secular and godless morality is accepted by the majority in the United States today. Consequently, we are seeing that biblical morality has become less and less appealing.

Certainly it is practiced by fewer and fewer people today. What do we do in terms of cultural upheaval such as ours. What we do in times of cultural and moral shift. What we do when we see a wholesale departure from biblical frame of reference, even on the part of the mainline church. What do we do in times of cultural confusion. What do we do in times of social change. We have only one option and it is we are compelled to go back.anchor we are compelled to go back to our roots, we are compelled to go back to our foundation, we are compelled to uphold the truth and never birch to the pressure of culture that wants us to compromise every single day today as we begin to examine Masters manifesto that anchor that foundation that you gonna find that in the Masters manifesto. The manifesto of the Lord Jesus Christ. He turns the social standards on their head that Jesus turns the norms of cultural norms upside down. You gonna find in this Masters manifesto reverse of the secular patent of culture. Therefore, when the secular culture sense happy are you who are proud and aggressive for you will get your way.

Jesus says happy are you who are poor in spirit, for yours is the kingdom of heaven when the secular culture says happy are you who are party animals, for yours is the social ladder to climb going to hear Jesus say happy are you who mourn over your sin because you will truly know what comfort is all about. When the secular culture says happy are you who don't care, upon whom you step in order to get your way for yours is the corporate and political success you're going to hear the master say Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth. Then when you secular Lord's essay.

Happy are the ones who will die with the most toys for that will make life worthwhile. You hear the master say Blessed are you who hunger and thirst for righteousness, because you truly are going to be satisfied and know what satisfaction is all about when the society springs and say happy are you who are able to get even for this is a mean world, the Lord of all sales. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy when the liberal standardbearers in our society is saying happy are you who choose an alternate lifestyle for and it is the satisfaction of your perversion. Jesus says Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. And then when the world says happy are those who stir up trouble. Happy are those who scheme and manipulate and live for any selfish cause is a good cause. Jesus says blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God. And then when the cultural elite in our society today say happy are you when you eliminate godly standards from our midst. For there is restriction to our freedom to live as we want. You gonna hear the Messiah said, Blessed are you who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for yours is the kingdom of heaven, and when Satan is not a festive sense.

Happy are you who can stamp out God and his book out of public life. For that is how you will appear to be politically correct. You gonna hear the master manifesto say Blessed are you when people revile you when they persecute you when they insult you when they say all manners of evil against you for my namesake. That is the Masters manifesto. He turns the norms on the head determines the standards of society upside down. Blessed are you Blessed are you Blessed are you, the Masters manifesto you going to discover not only the nature of character are you going to discover the source of character. The world is often talked about it it's in the talk shows. It's in the news media. They talk about character, but they don't know where it comes from and how to get in.

The truth is this that character cannot be found character, be established in life without a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. You can talk about morality and its laxity in our society. You can talk about all of our social ills, but I want to declare to you that without the Lord Jesus Christ.

We are putting a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound without Jesus Christ. We are treating cancer with aspirin without Jesus Christ. We are trying to put out a bushfire with a bucket of water without the Lord Jesus Christ. We are draining a flood with 1/2 inch hose not to be sure the crowd to whom Jesus was speaking on that little hill that one of the seller comprehending everything that he was saying.

But here's what I want to tell you, God's Messiah, God in human flesh had a vision for them, for he did not only see them the way they were, but he saw them the way they could be heated not only see them in their inabilities but he saw them in the possibilities. He did not only see the current condition but he saw other possible future conduct, for the kingdom who has given us his rule and his manifesto and grooming in the hearts of men and women he knew that when his kingdom. When his manifesto is began to be manifested in the life of an individual that is going to take hold of a family and what it takes hold in the family is going to take hold of a community and what it takes hold of the community is going to be able to take hold of the whole society.

Jesus knew that one person plus the Masters manifesto will make a difference and the Masters manifesto. Jesus is telling us this, listen carefully, please hear me right.

Don't misunderstand me. It's a sense of pride to hear and he is telling us that character is before conduct.

He is telling us that being is more important than doing he is telling us that spiritual is above ritual. He is telling us that it is what is below the surface is going to shape the surface he is telling us that what is important is not what you have, but what you are. He is telling us that what is in your private heart. Sooner or later is going to come out in the public life that is the essence of the manifesto that the master handed to his followers.

Most of us claim to follow. That is why this Masters manifesto is a very important document. Now of course wicked men had their own manifesto's Hitler had his own Mein Kampf and he brought the horrors and were nearly brought the world into brink of disaster. Call Marx had his manifesto and give us the horrors of communism, Ayatollah Khomeini wrote a book on my Mein Kampf and I have a copy of it back when he was in exile in Paris France and secular media laughed at him joked at him. But listen since 1979 the Iranian revolution has been suspected of sponsoring terrorism all over the world and even after his death is still going on.

Wicked men have their own manifesto for the destruction and for evil. The Lord Jesus Christ on the extreme opposite side of that wickedness and these wicked people.

He given us his manifesto is a manifesto that gives life and not death. It is a manifesto where whoever will obey it. Whoever literate shape the life. Whoever will live to be part and parcel of who he is and who she would change the world for good and for God to give you one example and move on.

Don't have the time. I could go through history and I give you examples William Wilberforce.

Couple of hundred years ago was a parliamentarian in England and the British Parliament.

He gets impacted by the Masters manifesto and single-handedly help in the horrors of slavery will the force was introduced to the master and the Masters manifesto by John Wesley listen to the young people especially all everybody listen to me because that some people think what you have to be a big shot. In order to make a difference for God. And just in case you think that here I'm throwing the names of big people who've done big things and and have done great things for God. I want to tell you the John Wesley was introduced to the master by a lonely port in Oxford, England. When John Wesley was 21 years of age he went Oxford University.

Overall, he grew up in the rectors Anglican rectors home. He understood the biblical teaching. Although he was gifted he was intelligent he was good-looking. John Wesley was cynical he was snobbish and he was sarcastic and always cut people with his words in one night at Oxford University began to speak to a reporter who literally was so poor he only owned the coat that he was wearing an Wesley sarcastically said to him, and I quote, he said, what else do you think God in the Porter smiled and gently replied and I quote I sent him that he has given me my life and my being in a heart to love him above all a constant desire to show.

That was a turning point in John Wesley's life and all is been accomplished through John Wesley. The credit goes to this lonely port in 1791, when Wesley was at his deathbed at the age of 88. He attributed his life and attributed his ministry to that man who was a reporter at Oxford.

His life is being shy.

Jesus is manifesto came out in this man's life and God used him through Whistler to impact the world and save England from the horrors of the French Revolution. You don't have to be a big shot to make a difference for God in the Masters manifesto is about being and that is why Jesus pronounces these nine beatitudes nine blessings nine types of contentions that translated in some Bibles as happy are you, that's fine too.

As long as you understand what happy means does not mean the happy hour is nothing to do with in its real, literal meaning, you know happiness is a big business in our culture really is coming is just a big business. Everybody's trying to sell you something. And if your body can be happy all the way from denture cream to put fungus treatment.

Everything is make you happy enough. I thank God I have my identity in Christ Evan is so confusing. If you need to much she going to get die if you don't eat too much going to die if you read this you going to get cancer if you do not going to get him in this crazy world is going crazy. The tragedy is that the further we depart from the Masters manifesto. The more we believe that happiness and joy can be found in things that joy and happiness can be found in people while in reality it is like saltwater. The more you drink it, the more thirsty you become, the more you drink it, the more first you become, the more you want to drink it, and is never satisfying is contending that people go from one experience to the other, thinking that they gonna find content, but somewhere in the don't have someone said that the Americans believe in the life, liberty, and the purchase of happiness will I think because the Declaration of Independence says that everybody is intolerant to The Pursuit of Happyness I'm saying is that doesn't mean that the government should finance the chase, some do. According to the Masters manifesto. Happiness is not found in any of the places that people think they can find it is not found in the apartment of faith. You hear people all along if we just get rid of these restrictions. If we get in our culture we get rid of these religious right in our culture that we can get all these restrictions would be a happy people listen to what Voltaire said he was the outspoken opponent of the Christian faith. He said I wish I had never was born. It is not found in pleasure.

Lord Byron lived a life of pleasure. If anyone did listen to what he wrote. He said the worm to conquer the grief or old mine alone. So is not found in money Jay Gould had a time of money and when he was dying, he said, I suppose I am the most miserable man on earth and service not found in position on fame Lord Beaconsfield enjoyed more than his fair share of both and yet he walked you is a mistake. Manhood is a struggle old age regret it is not found in achievement of your goals and military success for Alexander the great. After he conquered the known world of his time. He sat and he wept in sorrow because there was no more worlds to conquer. The only contentment that anyone can have comes from knowing the master and knowing the master leads you to living by the Masters manifesto in the Masters manifesto is where true happiness is found well with a brief introduction this look at the Beatitudes. The first one. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

The first beatitude the king spells out the nature of his kingdom and on the nature of the kingdom of God by the cycle. This is the nature of the kingdom of God is president of the root word in the Greek for happy or blessed this word Makarios McAfee joy.

Blessed are you, and it could be easily translated contented is the poor in spirit.

Fortunate is the poor in spirit fulfilled as the poor in spirit usually mean that that's what I meant earlier happiness means fulfillment and means contentment. That's what Jesus is pronouncing blessed indeed all those who recognize their poverty in spirit in Luke's gospel group does not say poor in spirit to just leave the word poor, but the Greek word support here means spiritual poverty and not material poverty will explain that the it's very important because all of these nine beatitudes.

This Masters manifesto have to do with the inner character and not the outward appearance, they have to do with the spiritual condition of my heart. I'm not more material possession Leatherman exhortation the Scripture regarding the poor and caring for the poor, and I do not minimize that. Not for one moment, but here in this Masters manifesto.

Jesus is dealing specifically with the inner spiritual condition of so what is spiritual poverty doesn't mean the person who doesn't read the Scripture doesn't mean the person whose prayer life is haphazard never spend time before God seeking, glorifying, honoring, praying, no discipline. The person who does not walk in spirit. These people what is spiritually poor but not poor in spirit, and there's a difference. What does it mean to be poor in spirit please him the right by nature or human nature, and you have run into people like this, you probably like this you be like that. We are self-sufficient by nature.

We think that we are okay by nature.

We think that if we don't kill Rob or steel.

We are fine by nature. We think that if we have a church affiliation that means we're Christians, by nature, we think that if we give couple of dollars here a couple of dollars.

There will the last of the big spenders. But what Jesus is saying is that our presumption is wrong.

Very wrong.

Why, because by definition, the word poor does not suggest happiness, by definition, the word poor means lacking in something to be poor in spirit is to recognize that I am nothing in myself that I have nothing and that I can do nothing without Jesus Christ to be poor in spirit is being conscious of my own emptiness, poverty in spirit is the work of the Holy Spirit of God in me that is showing me the way I am not the way I like to deceive myself and think that I poverty in spirit means that I come to the painful discovery that all of my righteousness is like a filthy rag, poor in spirit is that spiritual awakening that tells me that without Christ the best of my performance is unacceptable. Yeah, it's an abomination to the holy poverty in spirit manifests itself when an individual can say without Jesus Christ and his saving work of the cross.

I deserve nothing but hell and damnation for all eternity. Now don't misunderstand me. Jesus is not saying that if someone is poor in spirit. Jesus is going to give him the kingdom in order to make them happy. Know Jesus, not in the business of handing out sobs, but is saying that the poor in spirit is happy.

Why because he hands the kingdom already that the happiness of the kingdom is a natural sequence and is not an arbitration award. The king is not bestowing gifts to make people happy, but rather that he creates the condition in the inner heart. He creates a condition within that enables us to find but I wonder how many of you really believe that happiness is an inside job as an inside job, not dependent on the outward circumstances I hear people's all if I have a boyfriend or have a girlfriend. I'll be happy. No you don't. You bring happiness to the relationship. I was if I get married I'll be happy.

Now you want to bring happiness into the matter. Hire people if I can only have this job.

I'll be happy. Now you want to bring happiness into the job. I hear people say what I belong to the church. I think that's gonna meet all my needs not want. There is no church is going to meet your needs. There's no church is going to make you happy you took your happiness to the church.

Happiness is an inside job, and it begins by recognizing that both with absolutely, without doubt, dependent on the living God that I am not the master of my destiny that I am not the captain of my ship that I'm not the all-powerful being that society tells me that I am and that the motivational speakers tell me that I am and that the schools tell me that I without Jesus, I am nothing have nothing can do nothing. I can see where I would make a great motivational speaker. If I am willing to be governed and ruled by the king, then I'm admitting my spiritual poverty. The poor in spirit of those in whom the pride will the pride of the intellect and the pride of the heart of all pending.

The key to obtain the kingdom be in the kingdom have the kingdom happens when you only submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

Poverty in spirit emanates from the very act of submission and I don't know what is like to declare financial bankruptcy probably will never will, much to declare bankruptcy with but I lived some years ago with a friend who has a very pleasant very painful.

Some of you Prince Rupert you know what I'm talking about declaring spiritual bankruptcy is the greatest act that will bring you true joy and happiness. The apostle Paul lists all the pain and the hurts and the weakness in his life and he declares that his without Jesus Christ is nothing. And then he said thanks be to God that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens without Jesus Christ, we can do nothing. Heavenly father, I surrender to you in a declare bankruptcy. I know that spiritually I can do nothing without your power.

I am not saved from own strength not saved by my own efforts, but only by the blood of Christ should uncover thank you father for the Lord Jesus Christ fill me with your spirit, for Jesus sake, a man