Hey podcast listeners. Thanks for streaming today's podcast from Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. And right now your generous gift will have twice the impact thanks to the Proclaim the Gospel matching challenge active right now through December 31st. To give a special year-end gift, go to ptv.org slash podcast and click the donate button or follow the link in our show notes. Now here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory. This is Robert Jeffress. In response to the horrific attack on Israel, I've written a brand new book called Are We Living in the End Times?
Go to ptv.org to order your copy. Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor, Dr. Robert Jeffress. Life really can be overwhelming at times.
Whether you're dealing with a financial problem or a health crisis, troubles really can weigh us down and rob us of all hope. Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress suggests that while the words of Jesus may not erase our day-to-day problems, they really can revolutionize our perspective. Now here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message.
Dr. Jeffress. Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. In light of the wonderful Christmas holiday ahead, I've decided to devote the entire month of December to focus on Jesus, our Savior. Our series is called The Incomparable Christ. All of us can take tremendous solace in knowing that our Lord is the same yesterday, today, and forever. In a moment, we'll turn to Luke chapter 6 to read the comforting words of Jesus.
When we take our eyes off Him, we inevitably lose our way. And so I'm challenging you to stay fixed on Jesus throughout 2024. You can do that by listening daily to this program.
And more importantly, you should spend a few minutes each day reflecting on God's word. To help you do that, we've published a brand new and exclusive Pathway to Victory daily devotional for 2024. I've written a chapter for every Monday through Friday in the new year. When you give a generous gift toward the matching challenge, I'll make sure you receive a forced green leather-bound copy. You'll not only benefit from this daily devotional, but your year-end gift will be doubled in size because of this active matching challenge. And when you give toward the matching challenge, I'll make sure you receive both the new daily devotional and this brochure called Jesus, The Fulfillment of God's Prophecies. In this brochure, I've highlighted 37 of my favorite prophecies about Jesus.
I'll say more about these opportunities later. But right now, let's continue the message I began yesterday called The Crux of Christianity. We've come in our study of Luke to some of Jesus' most familiar words. We call them the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is talking about how we are to act as Christians. And yes, it's difficult. If you believe this world is all that there is, these commands are impossible to keep.
There's no motivation for keeping them if this is all that there is. But remember the theme? When you know what Jesus knows about the future, you can be generous in your attitude toward difficult circumstances and difficult people. Now, let me remind you, this is just a summary of the Sermon on the Mount. You find a longer version in Matthew 5 through 7. This is a short version of it.
Let's just look at some of these. Verse 20, And turning his gaze on his disciples, he began to say, blessed, literally, happy are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Now, he's not talking about material poverty. Matthew adds the words, blessed are the poor in spirit. That is, blessed, happy are those of you who recognize your spiritual poverty.
Verse 21, blessed, happy are you who hunger now, for you shall be satisfied. He goes on to say, blessed, happy are those of you who weep now, for you shall laugh. There's nothing more painful than losing a loved one. Losing a loved one through death is painful. I've come to believe even more painful is losing a loved one through defection. Their heart turns cold towards you. They desert you.
They leave you. Many of you have suffered a loss of a loved one, either through death or defection. He said, blessed are those of you who weep right now, for one day, eventually, you will laugh. Remember when you know what Jesus knows about the future?
You can be generous, even about loss. Verse 22, Happy are you when men hate you and ostracize you and cast insults at you and spurn your name as evil for the sake of the Son of Man. Verse 23, for great is your reward in heaven. Students, teenagers, do you ever feel like you're ostracized from the rest of the group because you want to live for God? Do you ever feel like in your business you've been passed over for a promotion because you won't bend your Christian principles? Do you ever feel like there's a division in your family between you and your mate or you and your children or you and your parents because of your Christian faith? That's all part of the price for living for Christ.
But he goes on to say, great one day will be your reward in heaven. Let me illustrate that truth this way. Let's say like many people, many families, you're just keeping your head above water financially. You're trying to meet monthly expenses, think about your kid's education, think about your retirement. And every month you're hoping you run out of month before you run out of money. You're having a struggle.
It's tight. That's the bad news. The good news is you have an uncle who has left an irrevocable trust for you of $10 million that will be yours when he dies.
And the even better news is he's 99 years old. Now, what does that knowledge do for you? Does the fact that that trust has been set up, does it alleviate your day-to-day problems? No, it doesn't eradicate your problems. But it gives you a different perspective about your problems, doesn't it? You know your problems are temporary. There's a great reward coming. And that's what Jesus is saying here.
Yes, your difficult circumstances are real and they're painful. But remember, when you know what Jesus knows about the future, you can be generous in your attitude toward those difficult circumstances. You can also be generous in your attitude toward difficult people. Look at verse 27 through 30. But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Now, don't read into this what Jesus isn't saying about your enemies. He's not saying you have to hang around your enemies.
It doesn't mean you have to have them as your best friends. He says, love them, pray for them, do good to them. You know the best way to pray for your enemies is to pray God's best in their life. If they're your enemies and they're not Christians, pray for God's best that they would be saved. If they're your enemies and they're Christians who are acting unjustly, pray that they would come back to God.
That's what it means. To love your enemies means to wish and pray for God's best in their lives. He goes on in verse 29 and says, whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also.
Again, people misinterpret this. When he talks about people hitting you on the cheek, he's not talking about somebody threatening your life. In Jesus' day, part of the Middle Eastern culture was if you wanted to insult somebody, you would slap them on the face. It was a way of insulting somebody. And Jesus said, when somebody insults you, don't feel like you have to respond with a Don Rickles insult to come back at them, the best line you can come up with.
Don't do that. Don't return insult for insult. This is not a prohibition against self-defense. Remember, we believe in the sanctity of life as Christians. And the sanctity of life not only refers to life inside a mother's womb, it also refers to life outside the womb. Human life is valuable.
It's created by God, and we're to try to do anything we can to prevent destruction of human life, including our own life. There's nothing wrong with having a weapon. There's nothing wrong in defending yourself or defending your family. That's a godly principle. He's talking about returning insult for insult. He says, whoever takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from him either.
Give to everyone who asks of you, and whoever takes away what is yours, don't demand it back. Again, let's not go to extremes of what Jesus is saying or not saying here. If somebody cheats you out of money, is it ever wrong to try to get that back and go to court to try to settle the issue?
No. In Luke 18, Jesus told a story about a woman who was being mistreated, a widow. And she went to a judge to seek relief for the mistreatment, the financial mistreatment she was experiencing. Jesus didn't condemn her for going to the judge.
He commended her for going to the judge. Here's what I think Jesus is saying is, he's saying when somebody wrongs you, don't let it be the consuming passion of your life to get back what was taken from you. What Jesus is saying is, you know, sometimes you just have to take the loss and move on with your life. Don't demand everything that is yours when it's been taken from you. Let God settle the score.
That's what he's saying here. By the way, let me also remind you that these commands in verses 27 to 30, they are given to individuals, not to nations. Nowhere in the Bible is any nation told to turn the other cheek when faced with mistreatment. Can you imagine after this tragedy and niece, that terrorist attack, can you imagine the French leader standing up and saying, well, we need to invoke what Jesus said and we just need to forgive and turn the other cheek. No, he would be run out of office for saying such a thing.
That is not God's plan for nations to forgive, to turn the other cheek. I was on NPR radio a couple of weeks ago doing a debate. And the guy I was debating with was a Christian evangelical professor of a well-known university. And this professor said to me, Pastor Jeffress, don't you want a leader for this nation who will govern this nation according to Jesus' words in the Sermon on the Mount?
I said, heck no, I don't want that kind of leader. In fact, any leader who says I'm going to rule this nation according to the Sermon on the Mount, I'm going to run as far and as fast from that candidate as possible. Because that is a perversion of the Sermon on the Mount.
God never gave the Sermon on the Mount as a constitution for how a nation is to order itself. You know, in Romans 12, God says, do not repay evil for evil, leave room for the wrath of God, for vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. He's talking about how we deal individually with injustice. Leave room for the vengeance of God, let God take care of it. Then in the very next chapter, Romans 13, he says, for government is an instrument of God designed by God to seek vengeance on evildoers. God's going to take care of evildoers. The instrument he does it through many times is government. Don't confuse individual responsibility with governmental responsibility.
This is for individuals. You know, Jesus not only gave us an exhortation of how to treat evildoers, he gave us a great example in his own life. Remember as he hung on the cross? 1 Peter 2 23 says, while being reviled, he did not revile in return. While suffering, he uttered no threats, but he kept entrusting himself to the one who judges righteously. Jesus could have called 12 legions of angels, 36,000 angels, as they wanted to, to get those guys who were doing him such evil. But instead he said, Father, what? Forgive them, for they know not what they do.
He could have added, but you know what you're doing through them. You see, that's how Jesus was able to forgive. First of all, he knew one day God would settle the score. He would judge righteously those who had done evil to him.
But he also knew that God was working out his perfect plan in Jesus' life and using evildoers to do that. You know, there are some of you right now who are just eaten up with bitterness over what somebody has done to you. You know the greatest key to forgiveness, I believe? It's realizing that nothing ever happens to a child of God that has not, first of all, passed through the perfect, loving will of God.
Nobody is free to do to you whatever they want to do. God is sovereign. He's in control, even of that person who has hurt you and wronged you so deeply, and he is able to take what was absolute evil that's been done to you and use it for your good and for his glory. That's why Jesus was able to say, Father, forgive them.
They know not what they are doing, but you know what you're doing. You're working out your plan for the redemption of the world. When you know what Jesus knows, you can afford to be generous in your attitude toward difficult circumstances and difficult people. Now, Jesus closes with three quick parables about the importance of listening and acting upon his words in this message. First of all, a parable about sight. It's so easy to hear a message like this today and say, I know somebody who needs to hear this message.
I'm going to buy a CD for them. I'm going to give them out because I know people who know this is a message for us, first of all. And that's what Jesus says in verse 41. And why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye? But do you not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, Brother, let me take the speck out that is in your eye when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother's eye. Now, again, don't misinterpret this verse like so many people do. They say, oh, well, Jesus says we should never try to correct anybody involved in sin.
That's judging and we're not supposed to judge. How many of you have ever had something in your eye very uncomfortable? You know that feeling, a speck, a little grain of sand?
It's terribly uncomfortable. The most loving thing somebody could do would be to help you get that out of your eye. They would have to perform a judgment, first of all, to say what's in your eye is bad and it shouldn't be there. There's nothing wrong with that. Galatians 6, 1 says, if you see somebody who has been overtaken by sin, let those of you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness.
The most loving thing you can do for somebody who's caught up in sin is to help them, rid themselves of that sin and restore them to a right relationship with God. Just imagine, you've got this speck in your eye, you go to the ophthalmologist, Doc, can you help me? I've got something in my eye and it's just killing me. And the doctor says, I'm sorry, I don't do that. I don't do that.
I don't remove specks from people's eyes because that would require me to make a judgment and I don't judge anybody or anything. What kind of doctor would that be? I mean, that's why he exists, to help people like you. But imagine you're sitting there and you're waiting for the ophthalmologist to come in and he walks in and he's got a two by four coming out of his eye.
He said, well, let me see if I can help you get this thing here. And you're ducking trying to miss the two by four. You'd want that doctor to take the plank out of his own eye first before he tried to perform a delicate operation on you. And that's what Jesus is saying. If you see somebody overtaken in sin, you need to help them.
But before you can see clearly to help them, make sure you've dealt with unconfessed sin in your life as well. Second parable is one about fruit, verses 43 to 45. For there is no good tree which produces bad fruit, nor on the other hand, a bad tree which produces good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. Imagine you have an apple tree in your backyard and it's producing delicious red apples.
What do you know about that apple tree? You know it's alive because it's producing fruit. However, if you go out doing fruit bearing season and there's no fruit and just dried up withered limbs on that tree, what do you know about the tree?
The tree's dead. Where there is no fruit, there's no life. Now all of these things Jesus has said about loving your enemies, praying for those who do wrong, standing firm in times of trial, these are not the means by which we become a Christian doing these things, but they are the proof that we are a Christian. If we are truly saved and born again, our life will be producing the fruit that Jesus describes in Luke chapter six. If there is no fruit in our life, it means there is no faith. That's why James said faith without works is a dead, non-existent faith.
The third parable is a parable about construction. Verse 46, Luke six, And why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say? Jesus is not just interested in professions of faith. He's interested in the practice of faith.
That's the thing you see over and over again. And to illustrate that, he gives this parable. Look at verse 47. Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and acts upon them, I will show you whom he is like. He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation upon a rock. And when the flood rose, the torrent burst against that house, and he could not shake it because it had been well built.
But the one who has heard my words and not acted accordingly. He is like a man who built a house upon the ground without any foundation. And the torrent burst against it, and immediately it collapsed, and the ruin of that house was great.
Two men, both building a house, both experiencing storms. That's what they had in common. But one house stood, the other house fell.
What was the difference? It all had to do with the foundation. Jesus said, the one who listens to my words and builds upon it is like the man who built his house upon the rock. Every one of us here today is building some kind of life. We have a limited amount of time, energy, resources. You can build a life built around pleasure, recognition, material accumulation. That's a life built upon the sand. And when the storm comes into your life, especially the storm of death that we're all going to face, nothing will remain.
Therefore, you can build your life around not just hearing, but applying Jesus' words. You know, I heard an illustration from Chuck Swindoll, and then I later read it in a book by John Ortberg, and I can't tell who stole from whom. I spent all week trying to tell who stole this from whom.
I couldn't figure it out, so I just decided to steal it from both of them. How many of you have ever played Monopoly before? It was my favorite game as a child, Monopoly.
I used to play it with Julia and Dorothy too. You know Monopoly, you get the board out, you have the little pieces, you move around the board, you have all of this pretend money, the idea is to gain as much property as you can, build as many houses and hotels as you can, and extract as much money from your children as possible, you know, in the game, and leave them frustrated. It's a lot of fun, and at the end, whoever ends up with the most money wins. The problem is, it's all a fantasy.
None of it's real. And eventually, everything has to be folded up and put back in the box. You know, life is like that.
We spend our time trying to accumulate recognition, pleasure, material assets. It's all a fantasy, folks. It's all a fantasy. Everything you've experienced, achieved, or accumulated is either gonna be burned up one day or left behind.
And you are going in the box. And the only thing that remains is your relationship with God. Isn't that what the Bible says? It's appointed unto every one of us wants to die than the judgment. The wise person is the one who understands that, hears Jesus' words, and builds his life upon it.
Life is like a fictional game of Monopoly. When our time comes, fame and fortune will evaporate, and only our relationship with God will stand. This is the crux of Christianity, and it's the very reason Pathway to Victory exists. Today, I'm inviting you to join us in this worthy effort to reach more people with the truth of the Bible. I'm asking you to stand with Pathway to Victory and share the bright light of God's Word with a dark and hurting world.
As I mentioned earlier, Pathway to Victory has established a matching challenge in the amount of $500,000. We're asking God to lead people like you to give toward this goal in order to proclaim the gospel of Christ with more people than ever before. When you give a generous gift of $100, $200, $500, your gift will have twice the impact.
Every gift, no matter the amount, will be doubled until we reach the goal. In appreciation for your generous gift today, it's my privilege to send you a brand new and exclusive resource just released in time for the holiday season. It's the 2024 Pathway to Victory Daily Devotional. You can use this leather-bound book to keep you in God's Word throughout the new year or put it under the tree at Christmas for a loved one.
The leather cover is forest green with inlaid gold accents. Together, let's seize this opportunity to double our impact, push back the darkness in our culture, and fill it with the bright light of God's Word. David? Thanks, Dr. Jeffress. Today, when you give a generous year-end gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory, we'll say thanks by sending you the brand new Pathway to Victory Daily Devotional for 2024. Call 866-999-2965 or visit ptv.org. Now, when your gift is $100 or more, we'll also send you both the CD and DVD sets for our current series called The Incomparable Christ. Plus, you'll also receive a brand new music CD called Celebrate the Savior Volume 2, filled with outstanding music from the First Baptist Dallas Choir and Orchestra, like the Christmas favorite you're hearing right now. Your donation to Pathway to Victory today will have twice the impact because of the Proclaim the Gospel Matching Challenge. Contact us right now with your special year-end gift. You can give by calling 866-999-2965 or go online to ptv.org. If you'd like to send your donation by mail, write to P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. That's P.O.
Box 223609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. I'm David J. Mullins. You know, most people would agree that it's better to be hopeful than pessimistic, but it all depends on what or who you're putting your hope in. Find out why Jesus Christ is the only one who's worthy of our hope, faith, and praise. That's Wednesday on Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. You've made it to the end of today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory.
We're so glad you're here. Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible. And right now, your special year-end gift will be matched and therefore doubled in impact thanks to the Proclaim the Gospel Matching Challenge. Take advantage of this opportunity to double your impact before the deadline on December 31st. To give toward the matching challenge, go to ptv.org slash podcast and click on the donate button or follow the link in our show notes. We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast, From Pathway to Victory.
