Welcome And Podcast Purpose

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Hey friends, welcome back. We're on episode three of the So Blessed series. We're in Matthew chapter five, taking a look at Jesus' invitation for us to experience a blessed life. Now, if you are new to the Be the Brave Ones podcast, we want you to know that our purpose is to encourage you to grow closer to Jesus and others. And you do this by gathering together, gathering with the women in your life, gathering with the girls in your life, growing in Christ and going out and making disciples. This is Jesus' purpose for us. We were never meant to do life alone. We are meant to do it together. We were meant to know God. We were meant to grow closer to Jesus. And we were meant to go and tell others of this good news that we have found and teach them the ways of Jesus. So that's what we want to encourage you here on the podcast. We want to give you more than just good information. We want you to experience transformation. And we know that that only happens when the Holy Spirit shows up. So let's take a moment and pray now. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for each person who's made it to the other side of my voice. Today is weighty and important, and there's so much freedom that comes with it, Lord. So I pray, Holy Spirit, that you would show up wherever each girl is, wherever each woman is who's listening, and that you would minister to her heart, that you would take the unsearchable things of yourself and make them true for her, Lord, because that is what we need. And we want to be transformed. We want to be transformed by you. So we ask you for that today. It is in your name, Jesus, we pray and ask. Amen. Another really important thing that we emphasize here greatly at Brave Girls Gather is the need for intergenerational relationships. What that means is a more mature believer in our life who's pointing us to what is true. So you are going to find when you encounter our content, our content, that we are going to encourage you in that direction. If you found us through our Bible study content, we are so glad that you're here. And if you're like, what Bible study content? I want to know about this, you can find it on the Bible app, The So Blessed Reading Plan. Just search for Brave Girls Gather. We'll also drop a link in the show notes. And you can also download the Bible study for free on our website. Just go to BravegirlsGather.com. All right, let's jump into today's content. So last week we took a look at the first three Beatitudes. We've been looking at what are the blessed bees? What does Jesus mean when he says blessed? And if you remember in Matthew chapter four, we learned that the kingdom of heaven is in our midst. This is what Jesus came to introduce us to. And he's doing that through his Sermon on the Mount. And so these first three beatitudes that we looked at last week showed us who the kingdom of heaven has come for. And guess what? It's not the prestigious and the powerful as we learned last week. It's for those who know that they need God. It's for those who are mourning. It's for the brokenhearted. It's for those who are struggling. It's for those who want to be righteous. And we're going to learn more about that today. We've all heard the phrase, there's no place like home, right? And in today's society and culture, we use that word home to describe a lot of things, not just a physical home that we live in. But it could be just something that feels right, something that feels like this is a place where I just feel like I'm supposed to be. And that's what we want to take a look at today through these three beatitudes. What makes the kingdom of heaven feel like home? And we're going inward with this, okay? This is not something that we're going to do, but this is something that we are going to realize in our hearts and become. And that's really what Jesus wanted to emphasize throughout this entire Sermon on the Mount, especially what we are taking a look at in Matthew chapter five. So we're done with the striving, we're done with approving, and we're really going to just kind of get into that today and emphasize it throughout the rest of our time together. So the first beatitude that we're going to look at this week is blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. And here's the promise, for they will be filled. What does this mean to hunger and thirst for righteousness? Well, let's start with that word righteousness. The word righteousness means right relationship with God and others. And to hunger for it means we want it. We want right relationship with God. We want right relationship with others. We also want others to have right relationship with God and others and we hunger for it. Jesus doesn't say you are righteous. He says you hunger and thirst for it. And there's a big difference. We want to be righteous when we hunger and thirst for righteousness. So when we see ourselves slip, when we see ourselves not measure up, we don't shame ourselves. We go, God, I want to be made righteous. Make my heart pure, make my thoughts pure, make my thoughts righteous like you are righteous. It goes back to that recognizing that in our own strength, we're never going to be able to accomplish the righteousness of God. It's all dependent upon Jesus. And you're going to see these connections between the different beatitudes as we continue to move through them. We can look back at other ones and see how they connect to the one that we're currently examining. So our thoughts and our actions and our words point to what we're currently hungering and thirsting for. And when we discover that our thoughts and our actions and our words are not righteous, we again don't have to and we should not shame ourselves. But we turn to God and we ask Him. We say, God, I don't want to think that. I don't want to do that. Make me holy like you are holy. Make me righteous like you are righteous. It's a simple prayer that we can stop and pray at any moment, at any time. The next beatitude that we're going to look at is blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. This word mercy means uncommon kindness. And it starts with God. God has displayed an uncommon kindness to us. He has displayed mercy to us. And we cannot give what we have not received. So first and foremost is understanding the mercy of God. So if you're in a place of I don't really know the mercy of God, I don't really understand the mercy of God, our first place is to say, Holy Spirit, help me to understand your mercy. And as we continue to move through chapter five of the book of Matthew, you're going to understand it more and more. That is my prayer and my hope for you. Now, mercy does not ignore sin. When we understand the mercy of God, we can look at our sin in its fullness and we can go, you know what? It's okay to look at my sin because I'm holding right next to it the mercy of God. And the mercy of God has declared me not guilty. And so I'm able to see my sin, encounter my sin, and see God's mercy. And what this does for me is it allows me not to ignore the sin of others because I look at their sin through the lens of mercy and through the lens of compassion. Seeing someone's sin through the lens of mercy allows us to call that person higher, to invite them into the fullness of what God has for them, because I'm seeing that their sin is covered by God's grace. So sin is not ignored in mercy, sin is able to be approached in mercy, our own sin and the sins of others. The final beatitude that we're going to look at is blessed are the pure in heart. Now, this one connects to the others that we've already looked at. When Jesus says, blessed are the pure in heart, and by the way, the promise of that is we will see God. And that is such a beautiful thing that we need in our lives is the ability to see God in our lives and see God working in the earth and see him working in the lives of others. But that pure heart, let me just be so clear with this, is nothing that we can manufacture on our own. This is what Jesus was wanting to emphasize. Underline it, highlight it, whatever you need to do. You cannot get a pure heart on your own. We are justified. That means that word justified means declared not guilty solely by Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection. It is solely by that belief that we trust that Jesus did the work. We trust that Jesus came and lived the perfect life that we could not live. He accomplished what needed to be accomplished for our salvation on the cross so that we can walk in God's mercy and freedom today and have right relationship with God and others because of what Jesus did. It truly is the perfect plan. And it is what makes good news, good news. I don't have to do it in my own strength. I know so many women and so many girls, and I find myself struggling with it as well, trying to prove myself to God. Like, look at me, God, look what I'm doing. Or I'm so sorry, God, I messed that up. You must be mad at me. And God's like, believe in the cross, believe in the good news of the gospel. There's no more striving, there's no more trying to prove yourself. I have done the work, I have made your heart pure. As we continue on in chapter five of Matthew, you are going to see that the standard, the bar for righteousness, Jesus is raising it. He's not lowering it. He's saying this is the standard of righteousness. And the reason why he's doing that is to emphasize the good news, to emphasize that we cannot accomplish righteousness in our own strength. We cannot make our own hearts pure. It is solely up to him. And the beauty of that is we get to rest. The only thing that he's calling us to is to number one, acknowledge that I'm never going to achieve righteousness in my own strength. Thank God. I don't have to. Thank you, Jesus. I don't have to. And number two, hunger and thirst. Hunger and thirst to be made righteous, holy, and pure. And just keep putting one foot in front of the other, hungering and thirsting, recognizing I can't do it in my own strength. I'm not going to be good enough in my own strength. Jesus, it's you. Thank you, Jesus, it to you. Thank you that I don't have to do it. We don't have to sit and try to figure it out. We don't have to figure out our sin. We surrender our hearts. We recognize our sin. We agree with our sin. We agree with God about our sin. It's wrong. It's not what I should be thinking, doing, saying. And God, I want to do it different. Help me to do it different. So as we wrap this up, I want to give us that moment to connect with God. And specifically today, asking God to reveal to our hearts what we're hungering and thirsting for. This is found in the things that we're thinking about, the things that we're saying, and the things that we're doing. And this moment, again, is not to shame us, it's to put it before God in view of his mercy, through the lens of his mercy, and ask him to change what we're hungry for. So let's take a minute and allow him to do that.

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Reveal that to us.

Find A Mentor And Closing Prayer

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If you need more time, I want to encourage you to press pause right now. Wherever you are, press pause. Take more time with God to reveal what you are hungering and thirsting for. Get in the habit of allowing God to search your heart and show you this so that you can admit that this is not what I'm called to hunger and thirst for. This is not what brings me life. To see that this is not the life-giving life, Jesus, that you've called me towards. And that's what I want. So change my want-tos, change, Jesus, what I'm hungering for. And it doesn't have to be an elaborate prayer when we see these things. It can just be a God, change me. God transform me. Finally, in today's study, we want to encourage you to connect with others. That means find a more mature believer that you can process with. The things that God stirred up in your heart today, whatever it is. And it could be a phone call, uh, it can be riding home. It could be your mama and riding home from school, uh, or it could be another woman or another girl in your life. And you're like, hey, can we get together? There's some things I want to talk about and share with you. And I pray for you as you go. I want to do that now. Heavenly Father, I thank you so much again for each person, each girl, each woman who made it here today. Father, I pray that you would make your mercy known first, Lord, because it's hard to look at the things that don't look good. It's it's almost impossible. It feels too weighty, it feels too hard. So I pray the mystery of your mercy would be made known to her. The mystery of the gospel through the power of your Holy Spirit would be made known to her, the mystery of the hungering and thirsting, and how that leads us to the wellspring of life, Lord. I pray that you would make these mysteries known. And I pray that if she doesn't have a more mature believer in her life, Lord, I pray that you would show her where that more mature believer is and that you give her the courage to step out and have conversations. Until we are back here on the podcast again, our hope and prayer is that you will gather with the girls and women in your life, that you will grow together, growing closer to Jesus and each other, and that you will go and make disciples.