I recently preached on the Matthew 5 and the passage known as “The Beatitudes.” I called the sermon, “Truth or Wishful Thinking?” You can find that sermon here under the date 10/31/10 (what a Sunday night to preach, huh?). In my sermon, I discussed how most of claim that this teaching of Jesus is true, but we really live as if it is wishful thinking. Because no one if they are actually poor, or mourning, or meek, or hungry actually considers themselves “blessed.”
Well, as much as I believe in that message, I just heard Glenn Packiam deliver a much better one tonight on the same passage at the Simply Youth Ministry Conference in Chicago, IL. If you would like to hear it you can buy the sermon from the Simply Youth Ministry Conference sight I just linked, or you could hear his message in more detail from his book Lucky. I haven’t read the book yet, but I ordered it immediately from Amazon.com after the service tonight. Seeing as how amazing his sermon was tonight, I would already recommend the book to anyone interested.
Instead, of going over his whole sermon, I just want to leave you with the quote of the night I heard from Glenn:
“Jesus doesn’t make us blessed so that we can be recipients, but so that we can be participants. It’s not that it can come to us, but so that it can go through us.”
I found this quote very inspiring. And as I look at going back to Michigan and ministering to the youth at First Church of the Nazarene, I am taking his message to heart. And each time I sit with a student and hear their pains, I know that I am making the Beatitudes true to them and they are actually “lucky.” It may not seem like it at the time always, but being Christ to them is short reminder of the full redemption and reconciliation that is to come through the God that makes all things new.
And as Glenn said, “Jesus isn’t coming to take us home; He is coming back to reign at home.” And for that we are all LUCKY.
-Levi
