"Learning From Jesus: The World According to Jesus” | Rev. Vicki Harrison
At New Hope This Sunday
New Hope Church launched its fall series, Learning from Jesus: The Sermon on the Mount, with worship, the Apostles' Creed, and the first message in Matthew 5. Executive Director Mandy New welcomed first-time guests and shared what's coming up around the church.
Back to School Bash is Wednesday, August 19, for kids in the gym from 6:30 to 8:30 PM. Pizza, ice cream, games, and fellowship.
Recharge, New Hope's midweek gathering, meets Wednesday night. Worship starts at 6:30, and this week the pastors take live questions in a Pastor Q&A. Pizza for adults too.
Coffee with the Pastor runs through the season for anyone new or looking for a next step: bring your questions about New Hope, getting connected, or what's next.
The Men of Valor breakfast met Saturday morning.
The World According to Jesus
Two thousand years ago, Jesus sits down on a hillside and calls the poorest, most overlooked people in the crowd blessed.
That is where Pastor Vicki Harrison starts New Hope Church's fall series, Learning from Jesus: The Sermon on the Mount. Before she opens the text, she names the ground the whole church stands on: New Hope is unapologetically Jesus-centered. When New Hope says God, it does not mean a universal spirit or good vibes. It means Jesus Christ, God himself, Lord over our lives, this church, and everything else. If we are going to learn from his teaching, we have to get his identity right first.
Jesus has a manifesto
The Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5 through 7, is the closest thing Jesus has to a manifesto. Vicki defines it plainly: a public statement of intention, a picture of the way you mean the world to be. Think of the vision behind JFK's "we choose to go to the moon" or Martin Luther King Jr. saying his children would be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. Both cast a picture of the world as it should be.
The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus casting his: this is the way God always intended his world to be. It is a picture of God's kingdom, and Jesus is describing it.
The Beatitudes are not a to-do list
The series opens where the Sermon on the Mount opens, with the Beatitudes. Beatitude is a churchy word for blessing. Translated literally, it means "how full of honor."
Here is the part that reorders everything: the Beatitudes are not commands. Commands come later in the sermon. The Beatitudes are Jesus stating who his followers already are.
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth." (Matthew 5:3-5)
Jesus is not telling anyone to go get poor, or to chase suffering, or to seek out persecution. He is looking at the people in front of him, the hurting and the broken, the ones with no status and no control over their circumstances, and telling them they are already blessed. Most of them had never once thought of themselves that way.
It helps to remember how hard their lives were
We read the Beatitudes through 21st-century eyes, so Vicki slows down on the world Jesus was speaking into. Life was hard. No running water, no AC, and the ordinary person was very poor. Somewhere around 70 to 80 percent of people lived on the edge of extreme poverty. "Give us today our daily bread" was a real prayer, because daily bread was not a given. Rome kept the peace but crushed people with taxes, and religious life under the Pharisees piled on rules no one could keep.
Into that, Jesus says: blessed are you. You are honored. You are the first to be welcomed into my kingdom.
A kingdom that turns the world upside down
Walk the words and the reversal gets sharper. Poor in spirit means dependence on God, in a world that prizes self-sufficiency. Those who mourn are noticed by God and promised comfort, in a world that looks away from grief. The meek, the gentle and humble, are the ones God works through, not the ones who bully their way to the top.
Everything the world trains us to want, self-reliance, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, worldly success, is not what Jesus calls blessed. The Beatitudes show us the heart of God, and they show us how far we fall short of it.
So what will you do about it?
Vicki does not tie the message off with a bow. She hands the church three questions to sit with, the ones you'll hear again through this series:
What do the Beatitudes teach us about God?
What do they teach us about us?
Does the way you're living look like what Jesus called blessed? If not, what are you going to do about it?
Taking in the teaching is one thing. Letting it change how you live is another. That is the whole point of learning from Jesus.
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More Sermons in this Series
Other Sermons from Pastor Vicki
Jesus opens the most famous sermon in history by calling the poorest people in the room blessed. Pastor Vicki Harrison launches New Hope Church's fall series in Matthew 5, and the Beatitudes turn every rule about who counts upside down.