“Striving Together To Live The Kingdom”
February 2, 2014
The 4th Sunday of the Christian Season of Epiphany
Micah 6: 1 – 8/Psalm 37: 1-6/1 Corinthians 1: 18
– 31/Matthew 5: 1 – 12
His Excellency
The Most Reverend Ariel Cornelio P.
Santos D.D.
Auxiliary Bishop and Locum Tenens
of the
Archdiocese of Manila
the
National Church in the Philippines
and the
Territorial Church of Asia
International Communion of the
Charismatic Episcopal Church
Today is the Fourth Sunday of Epiphany and as
the theme says we are to strive together to live the Kingdom. It is a good
theme for me because if you haven’t notice yet, I always finish with my
signature ending which is, “That’s the way it is in the kingdom of God.”
Like Jesus, I would like to be able to impart what kingdom living is
about. It is a big challenge not just by words but also by example which
is not my sole responsibility but ours. We are witnesses of the kingdom
of God. We need to understand what it is all about in the first
place. Then, live it out and be witnesses of it because God starts with
us. He uses us like He did beginning with Israel as the first chosen
people. He would like all of mankind to live the kingdom life.
Today, the gospel talks
about the Beatitudes. Beatitudes came from the root word which means
blessed. The Latin term is Beata
Maria which means Blessed
Mary. Before a saint becomes a full saint, he goes through a ceremony
called beatification. After which, he is called blessed, like Blessed Lorenzo Ruiz.
The next step is sainthood, after which is being called a saint. He is
blessed even before he is a saint – like you and I.
In some translations,
blessed means happy, fulfilled, at peace, and satisfied in the innermost being,
in the spirit not just the flesh. Fleshly satisfaction is living.
Tomorrow, you would want to eat food again after being full today. Jesus
said to the woman at the well in John 4, “He who drinks of this water that I
will give him will never thirst.” A person will be fully satisfied.
Jesus said, “If you drink from the water of Jacob, from which you are
drawing, later you will get thirsty again; but what I will give you will
satisfy you in your innermost being.” This is what the Beatitudes are all
about. They are principles for our satisfaction, for the fulfillment of
our spirits and our souls. This is what God designed for us.
In Isaiah 65:18, "I
create Jerusalem (the kingdom of God) for rejoicing, for happiness, for
blessedness and her people for gladness.” This is God’s purpose for us.
Jeremiah says that His plans for us are for welfare, not for calamity. It
is not for anxiety, not for problems. You may ask why you still have
problems. The purpose is not to put you down or to make life miserable
for you, but to make you stronger and to make you realize that in obeying God,
despite the problems, you will overcome and you will be fulfilled and
satisfied.
Some of these Beatitudes
can be misunderstood. When Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,”
some interpret that as being in poverty. God’s intention and His will for
us is not calamity or poverty. God’s will in a capsule is seen in the
Garden of Eden. Is there poverty in the Garden of Eden? No!
Did Adam have to beg? No! When he needed something, he went to
God’s provision and took from His provision. Adam got the provision
because he was walking in obedience. God told him, “Cultivate the earth and it
will yield fruit for you.” Never was God’s intention poverty. Not in the
kingdom of God. You will never be in poverty if you walk in the
principles of the kingdom of God. I did not promise that; God did.
Being poor in spirit is
being dependent on God. It is trusting exclusively in Him. Being
gentle and meek, which has a reward, doesn’t mean you don’t have a backbone or
you allow everyone to bully you or trample upon you or you don’t have any
principle that you stand on. Being gentle and being meek means you are humble
and teachable. You are not arrogant as to say, “I know better than God or
the world knows better than God. If I want to know the answer to
something, I would go to www.ask.com. or go to Google or Wikepedia.”
Being gentle has self-restraint and self-discipline. Jesus
says, “Blessed are you when you do these things.”
Blessed are you when you
are persecuted and when you stand for righteousness sake. We fight for
life in this country. At this point, our battle is not as intense as
those already in the bondage of the spirit or in the culture of abortion.
Here, we need to continue fighting. We will be persecuted if we stand for
righteousness. Jesus said, “Blessed are you when that happens to
you. Blessed are you when men say all kinds of things falsely against you
because of Me, because you stand in righteousness, because you preach the
gospel and you stand on principles.”
Businessmen know this.
Politicians know this that if they follow God that they will be persecuted
because the way of the world is against the way of God. Jesus said,
“Blessed are you; happy are you.” Basically we don’t understand
this. What do you do when somebody persecutes you or says something
against you that is not true? How do you feel? You feel sorry for
yourself. What do we do? We go to our brethren and we say that
somebody said something against us. We say, “I was just trying to follow
the principles of God.” What do we get? Persecution. “I
pity myself.” Our brethren would say, “Yes, I feel sorry for you.”
We don’t understand this. Maybe, if we went to Jesus, He would say,
“Blessed are you! Do you want to be more blessed? I will send more people
to persecute you.”
Count it all joy when you
are persecuted for the sake of righteousness. Now, if we really deceived
somebody and were caught, it is not persecution but justice. You can
complain to God and say, “They disciplined me. They put me in prison for
stealing.” We say, “Can you imagine that God?” God says,
“Yes, I can imagine that. I made the Law: Thou shall not steal.” If
you get caught, you will get the consequence.
If we stand for
righteousness and we are persecuted and we know that we just following God, it
is not a cause for feeling sorry for ourselves. It is a reason to
rejoice. It is a blessing. Our understanding of blessing is a new
car, nice shoes, or a new job. I didn’t see those things in the
Beatitudes. Jesus says that the real blessing is when you follow God and
obey the principles of His kingdom. Then, you will get your reward. You
can get rewards from the honor of men, but that is it. Jesus said that
the Pharisees displayed their religiosity, being spiritually elite to the
people. They get praise and people think highly of them and are put in
pedestals. Jesus said, "I tell you that they have their reward
in full. This is how far as it goes. “You follow the principles of the
Kingdom and your blessings will be real and eternal, in this life and this life
to come.” This is what God is after for us: to live the Kingdom life for
our sake – that it may be well with you.
Jesus says, “Rejoice.
Don’t complain; don’t murmur; don’t grumble, but rejoice!” This indicates
God knows when you are standing in the truth and in His principles and you are
persecuted. Not only does He allow the persecution, He knows the
persecution because that will bless you. This is what He is after – our
welfare; our happiness; our blessedness; our fulfillment.
In Micah 6, God says through the prophet, “My commandments are not a set of rules. They are not for ceremonialism or legalism.” He says, “God has told you man, what is good and what He requires of you – to do justice; to love mercy; and to walk humbly for our God. God doesn’t really care about our offering. Our offering will not make a dent on His bank account. I am not mocking our offerings. When we gather and count the offerings for the land, we can get all our calculators and make computations. We can see how short we are for what we need. I will tell you that what we will come up with is five loaves and two fish to feed five thousand people. At the same time, that is enough, but we need to give those things. God is not after the money but the obedience. Money is the medium. We say, “I can just give a few pesos if it is not about money.” Whatever you put in there reflects the obedience of your heart. You will really know how much to put in there because God will put it in your heart. He knows whether it is your surplus or whether it is your sacrifice. This gauges your obedience to God.
God’s intention for us is
life.
In Deuteronomy 30:19-20,
Moses tells the Israelites, "I present to you: life and death; blessing
and curse. Choose life that you may live by loving God and obeying
His voice so that it may be well with you in the land or the kingdom which God
will put you into. The words that I say are spirit and life.” Jesus
said, “My food is to do the will of God. Obedience to God’s commands is
preservation of life itself like food preserves the body.” The
commandment says, “Honor, obey your father and mother, to those whom you are in
submission to so that you may live long.” Long just doesn’t mean length
of time but quality of life. You may live long in the land, in the
Kingdom that God will give to you.” The kingdom of God is not eating
and drinking in the worldly sense or the legalistic sense – eating and drinking
like gluttony and drunkenness, like the world preaches. It is not also
eating and drinking ceremoniously and legalistically and obeying rules. It is
all about righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Jeremiah 7:22, 23 says,
"I didn’t speak to your fathers about offerings and sacrifices. I did not
speak to them about law and legalism, but about obedience.” The purpose
of God is that it may be well with you. “I did not require burnt
offerings, but it is not the end and all there is to it. I did not
require burnt offerings, but the knowledge of God through your
obedience.” Your obedience is seen in your offering of yourself and
gifts. It is not legalism; it is not a set of rules but kingdom
living. Jeremiah 7:24, “But your fathers did not obey.” What
happened is that they went backward, instead of forward.
We, as a people, are to
move forward. If we are in the kingdom of God, the only way is forward;
growth; prospering always because His kingdom is always on the increase.
Jeremiah 31:33-34 continues, “Therefore, I will put My law in your
heart.” Not on stone so that you may understand that this is not about
what is legal or not. This is about the heart. It is a matter of
the heart. Obedience is of the heart and is not forced. God is too much
of a gentleman to do that. God says, “I will be your God, and you will be
My people, and you will all know Me.”
Knowing means having an
intimate relationship with someone. Knowledge is the fruit of a
relationship based on obedience when it comes to God. With God, knowing
is loving; loving is obeying. Jesus said, “If you love Me, you will obey
Me.” The opposite of knowledge and knowing is ignorance. Ignorance
is not just not knowing God, but it is an exclusion from the life of God. If
you don’t know God and you don’t have a relationship with Him, you are excluded
from His life, and you will not be blessed.
God also blesses the
wicked. He makes the rain fall on the wicked and the righteous alike, but the
difference is this: fullness of life. He wants us to have fullness
of life. God is a God of abundance and fullness. He doesn’t want to give
us joy; He wants us to have fullness of joy! He doesn’t want us to have
enough; He wants us to have more than enough. It is not so that we will
get fat but so that we will also be channels of blessings. We are first
satisfied, then, the surplus we bless others with. That is real
blessing. When we bless others, we will be more satisfied than when we
satisfy ourselves first by enjoying the blessing. There is fullness when
we obey. God loves us so much that even if we don’t obey, He still meets our
need. That is short of His will because He wants the fullness of blessing
in us. Ignorance makes us not see this.
Psalm 40:11-12 says, “Evils beyond number have come to me and my iniquities have overtaken me so that I am not able to see.” When we don’t follow God, it clouds our vision. It is not that He is mad at us, but He just knows that we don’t get that fullness when we don’t obey. This is not His will. His will is not to make slaves of us. He doesn’t get a kick out of seeing us scramble around doing His will. He knows what that will result in, that is, in obedience, it may be well with us.
Psalm 37 encourages us not
to fret, not to be anxious, or not to worry even if we see the unrighteous
seemingly prosper. Seemingly because it is not real prosperity. Real
prosperity comes from God. Sometimes, we see the wicked, the corrupt and
it seem like that they prosper in what we understand as blessings, in material
things. The Psalm also says that they even leave their inheritance
to their families. We are here struggling financially, and we don’t even
know how to move out of here to another place, but “Blessed are we if we walk
in these principles.”
I will tell you the Word
of the Lord about us: we will have our place! God said a couple of weeks ago,
“They will dwell on their own soil.” I know that in my heart and in my
mind. Asking me how, I don’t know how! I know the “what” and that is
enough for me. The rest, I take by faith. Just as a Church and
personally we have done before, we see God miraculously worked. If you
have seen miracles in your life, get ready for more. This is what the kingdom
of God is all about.
The Psalm says, “Dwell in
the land and be a good citizen of it.” Be faithful! Stay committed!
Don’t fret; don’t turn to the left or tight. Stay on course! Don’t
lose your vision and your focus because there will come a time the wicked will
be no more. Their days are numbered because God won’t allow it. He loves
the wicked so much for Him to allow them to continue in their sin. It is not
punishment but a blessing. Sometimes, we judge criminals. They
get caught and we say, “Good for them.” They get a life sentence and we
say, “Good for them.” Think this way: could it be that God
allowed them to get caught so that they will come to their senses and not
continue in sin anymore? That to me is a blessing. That to me
is mercy. But we will call it justice and say, “That is what you get.”
The bottom line is that God does not want any one soul to perish that is why
these things happen.
Hosea 5:11 says that
Ephraim was oppressed because he was determined to follow man’s command and
man's ways. Psalm 37 says don’t follow man’s ways. Continue to
follow God. To you it may seem that they are prospering. To you it may
seem that your harvest comes slow. Stay on course. Be faithful.
Just wait patiently for the Lord and continue to dwell in the land! Dwell in
the Kingdom; walk in the principles. Study the Beatitudes. Apply
them. Continue and be patient! Hold on! He who endures to the end shall
be saved! Be patient!
Brothers and sisters, hold
on and be patient! This is the message of the Kingdom! This is the
message of the Cross. St. Paul says to his letter to the Corinthians,
“The message of the Cross is foolishness to those who don’t understand, to
those who are not in the Kingdom, to those who are perishing. But to us,
this is preservation of life, which is what salvation means.” It is
preservation and enrichment of life. It is wisdom. The message of the
Cross is the message of the Kingdom.
St. Paul also says, “We
preach Christ crucified.” I know somebody who is a Christian of a
different denomination. His argument is that the cross should not have
Jesus body on it because he says that He is risen. He is not on the cross
anymore. But then at Christmas, they have the baby Jesus, and He is
not a baby anymore. My thinking is that if He is in heaven now, at the
right hand of God, let us tear the pages of the first few chapters of the
gospel that tells when Jesus was on earth. He is not on earth anymore; He
is at the right hand of God. I am not attacking that but what I am sharing is
the message of the Cross.
St. Paul says we preach
Christ crucified because Jesus crucified, symbolized by the crucifix, is a
message of love.” It shows how much He gave, which is His all – His own
life. He died on the cross and that is what preaching Christ crucified
means. It is showing the love of God by giving His Son so that we might
have life. The message of the Cross is foolishness to the world
because the world’s ideology is, “I take advantage of you. I don’t give my life
for you to enrich myself.” It is the very opposite of Christ crucified.
It is the very opposite of love. It is the very opposite of the
Beatitudes. It is the very opposite of Kingdom principles. In
the kingdom of God, we follow Him. He is love and He is all about giving
of Himself for the sake of others.
In doing so, we gain our
own lives and that is in abundance. When we withhold the blessings, then
we will run out soon. When we don’t withhold the blessing and we keep them flowing
by blessing others, then we will be eternally blessed like Jesus says in the
Beatitudes.
My brothers and sisters,
we need to understand this is what God wants for us – fullness of life.
He only begins with us. God reminded Abraham, “In your seed, all the
families of the earth shall be blessed. He uses you first.” James 1:18
says, “He brought us forth by the word of truth so that we would be a kind of
firstfruits among His creatures.” We experience the Kingdom and the
abundance and the fullness of life first so that we can be an example to the
world of how it is to live the Kingdom and be blessed by God.
This is exactly the way it
is in His kingdom.
LET
US CONTINUE OUR REFLECTION
WITH
CARDINAL OF
HOLY MOTHER CHURCH
AND
VENERABLE PRIMATE
OF
THE PHILIPPINES
THROUGH
THROUGH
THE WORD EXPOSED
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