Touching Lives With Dr. James Merritt

John’s letter in 1 John opens by diving straight into the significance of Jesus. John’s focus is on the true comfort and joy that Christ’s coming brings. With this in mind, we’ll explore three ways to take joy in Christmas: the historical reality of Jesus, the heavenly identity of Jesus, and the holy community Jesus invites us into. These truths are foundational to experiencing a joy that goes beyond the Christmas season.

Being thankful is so important to God that He actually commands us to be thankful. A man in the New Testament by the name of Paul went through a tremendous amount of suffering and heartache that would cause anybody to be bitter and ungrateful and maybe even mad at God. He wrote these words, “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” (I Thessalonians 5:18) You may not feel very thankful right now because of where you are in your life. Even though you may not feel thankful you can be thankful. This great man tells us how to be thankful and why to be thankful. 

When it comes to the gospel, silence is sinful. When we've experienced the love of God, surrendered our lives to Jesus Christ, been fed the bread of life, and tasted the living water, we can’t keep what we’ve experienced to ourselves. It's time for us to say something for the sake of growing God’s Kingdom. In today’s message, we're going to learn today how to make sure we speak up and don’t shy away from sharing our faith.

In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus takes on the matter of honesty, and we desperately need it. As we look at this passage in Matthew 5, here is the key thought that Jesus is giving us. Let the words “you” and “true” always go together. To help us make sure that happens, Jesus tells us three things to remember not just on telling the truth, but how to do it.

In Jesus’ day, divorce was more commonplace than you would have imagined and there was a great debate about when divorce was even allowed. It wasn’t incidental that Jesus had just finished talking about lust when He started to talk about divorce. Lust causes adultery and now shockingly, He is going to say that divorce and remarriage can do the exact same thing. Jesus is going to remind us that God’s ideal is one man and one wife for one life. It should be “’til death do us part.” There are two things that Jesus asks us to do when it comes to the topic of divorce. Let's dive into those together.

From today’s key passage of Scripture, we’re going to see how adultery is not only a sin in the bed, but it is a sin in the head. Adultery can be both physical and mental. It can be both on the inside and the outside. In a day and age where sexual immorality is running rampant, not only are marriages being ruined, but even the very concept of a biblical marriage is being tainted. Thankfully, Jesus gives us three principles to remember so we can guard against this terrible sin of adultery and avoid the look that kills.

In today’s key passage, Paul reminds Christians then and now of an important truth to remember. The God that gives us grace also gives us government. So with that in mind, how are we to relate to the government? That’s exactly what we’re going to discuss in this message. Let’s dive in.

We find in 1 Timothy chapter 2 what every Christian should do politically for every political leader. Simply put, every day we should always pray for the political leaders who lead the way. So what is the politically correct thing to do when it comes to any political leader? That’s what we’re going to discuss in this message.

Approximately 70 murders happen in the United States every single day. We are the murder capital of the Western world. Yet, if I were to ask you, “Have you ever murdered anyone?” you would probably and emphatically say, “No!” But listen to what Jesus said about murder. He is going to show us in today’s key verses that murder is not an act; it is an attitude. Put simply, Jesus said, “Murder from the hands comes from murder in the heart.” We are going to see exactly what Jesus says about murder and you will see it in a totally different light.

If you are going to be rightly related to God both in this life and the life to come, you had better be rightly related to the truth of God’s Word. We are going to learn in today’s message that when you honor the Lord, you honor the law that the Lord honors. Now, what does that mean exactly? Let’s dive in together and find out.

Jesus makes two important statements to His followers in today’s key passage. He says, “You are the salt of the earth, and you are the light of the world.” As we study this text together, we are going to see that Jesus used these metaphors because we live in a world that is decaying and dark. The culture before our eyes is disintegrating. The darkness of evil is a cloud that covers this entire planet. We need to be the salt that stops the decay and light that penetrates the darkness. With this in mind, here is the whole point of what Jesus is going to say – Jesus makes us different so we can make a difference. And when we make a difference by being salt and light, we can bring the world under the influence.

If you get through this life, particularly in the culture of this world, and you are never in any way, shape, form, or fashion persecuted, maybe it's because you're not standing for Jesus. Hopefully, today you will decide in light of this message that you are going to stand up when you need to and you are going to speak up when you need to. If you pay the price of persecution, you can be reminded that Jesus says you are blessed. So to prepare for that moment, let’s look at the three pieces of counsel Jesus gives regarding facing persecution.

Maybe the reason why we don’t really face much of any persecution is not because we are living in a different age than the early Christians. It may be because we are living a different kind of Christianity than the early Christians. The reality is that you are going to be persecuted if you truly live up to the standard that Jesus expects. With this in mind, let’s take a look at what Jesus is telling us in His powerful statement about persecution from the Sermon on the Mount.

Isn’t it interesting that our heroes are not peace-makers, but they are the fighters, the soldiers, and the warriors? The people who make the history books and the news are the people who fight the battles, win the wars, and conquer the enemy. Then, Jesus comes along and said, “Blessed are the peace makers. For they shall be called the children of God.” What we are going to learn today from Jesus is simply this - when we make peace with God, we can then make peace for God. This statement leads us to answer four questions about peace and peace making. Let’s dive into answering those questions together.

The word “pure” from today’s key verse is translated from the Greek word “katharos.” It means “to purify by cleansing from dirt, filth and contamination.” The reality is that we were all born with dirty hearts. That is why a king named David who was a man after God’s own heart asked God to create in him a pure heart. But what does that mean? Well, the idea of a pure heart is a heart that is pure in its motives, in its thoughts, and in its desires. It’s the kind of heart Jesus is encouraging His followers to have according to the Sermon on the Mount. With this in mind, today’s message is going to be all about what it looks like to have the kind of pure heart Jesus was talking about.

Both character and conduct are important when it comes to following Jesus. Conduct without character is meaningless. And character without conduct is useless. You have to have both. As you study the Sermon on the Mount, you realize that what Jesus is saying is, “You are not a Christian because you act like one; you act like a Christian because you are one.” With all of this in mind, today’s message summed up in a sentence is this - when you truly experience the mercy of God, you will freely extend mercy to others. So let’s look at what our responsibility is when it comes to showing others the same mercy God has shown us.

In today’s key verse, Jesus says if you have a holy appetite, an appetite for righteousness, you will be filled. That is, you will be satisfied – satisfied in a way that nothing in this world, of this world, or from this world could ever do. We are going to learn today that the healthiest appetite is the holiest appetite. In other words, a healthy appetite leads to holiness, and holiness leads to happiness because happiness leads to the only one who is holy – Jesus. Let’s use this analogy of being hungry and being thirsty to learn what it means to have a healthy appetite.

We live in such a competitive culture that we are taught never to give up, never to give out, and never to give in. There are certainly times when that is great advice, but there is virtue in a totally different way and for a totally different reason to sometimes giving up and giving in. What we are going to learn today is simply put: the way to be in control is to be surrendered to God’s control. That is when you are blessed. That is when you are going to inherit everything that God has for you, both in this life and the life to come.

In the second beatitude, Matthew 5:4, we see one of the absolute strangest things that Jesus ever said. It is something you would never hear the world say, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Matthew 5:4). This statement does not align with our natural leaning. We all want to be happy all the time. But Jesus says, in effect, “Happy are the unhappy.” You are blessed if at least sometimes you have a broken heart. Honestly, don’t we all want to go through life without any sorrow, any pain, anyheartache, any suffering? I think it would be wonderful, but you will learn that it is not all you’d expect it to be. I’ve learned that you grow closer to God in the bad times than you do in the good times. You learn more about yourself, your spiritual maturity, and your real love for Jesus, not in the good times, but in the bad times. So with this in mind, let’s take a closer look at what Jesus was talking about in this beatitude and learn how to apply it to our lives as we follow Christ.

Over the next several weeks, we are going to be camping out in a section of the Gospel of Matthew, specifically chapters 5-7. These chapters make up the Sermon on the Mount, the most famous sermon Jesus preached during His earthly ministry. And as we kick off our study of this section of Scripture, we will begin with the Beatitudes, listed in chapter 5. The Beatitudes tell us how to enter the Kingdom of God, how to express the Kingdom of God, and how to enjoy the Kingdom of God. Jesus begins by telling us this, “You will never be filled with God until you realize you are empty without him.” Or to put it another way, “You will never be blessed by God until you admit you are bankrupt without Him.” Jesus makes it clear that the first step to being different, to finding significance and satisfaction in life, is to declare bankruptcy. Let’s dive in to see what this means.