What does it mean to live a blessed life?

What does it mean to live a blessed life_ [00:00:00] [00:01:00] [00:02:00] [00:03:00] [00:04:00] [00:05:00] [00:06:00] Well, hello and welcome. I think I'm on mute again. No, I'm good. Hopefully you can hear me. I can see the, uh, just gimme a shout out in the comments. Lemme know if you guys can hear me. I see a few of, you're online already, which is cool. Welcome to Frontline City. [00:07:00] It's great to have you. So lemme just get myself set up here on the screen, which will be amazing if I can do that a little bit behind on the technology today. As usual. Nothing new there. I hear some of you say, but that's okay. It is the way of the world, the way it works, right? So who's here? Gimme a shout out in the comments if you don't know. Uh, we really, really love your feedback on the comments on the Facebook feed. Thanks Matt. Thumbs up. Oh, Sharon can hear me, which is great. Woo. As long as good lady wife can hear me. Life is good and sweet. Now what I want to do is just make sure that is there, which it is, which is good. Um, just gonna get some headphones, so bear me one second 'cause I can't hear anything. There we go. Headphones are [00:08:00] up. Oh, awesome. Oops, daisy. Lemme just move that around. There. That to there. There we go. How are you doing? Are you having a good week? Are you having a good Sunday? Sadaf here. Oh look, awesome. We've got all kinds of people coming in now, so let's, uh, Sadaf. Hey Sadaf, how are we doing? How's your Sunday? Uh, look, my wife can hear me, which is great. So, uh, good to have you guys. So for those of you who dunno me, my name is Matt Edmundson. Welcome to Frontline City. This is our online church service broadcast, which we do every Sunday afternoon from, uh, sunny, well, it's sunny actually. Yeah, sunny Liverpool, England. It's been raining, but it's sunny right now. Uh, it's great to see you. It's great to have you. Here it is, 4:00 PM in the UK and yeah, we're having a good time. So, um, I. As always, give us a shout out in the comments. We do love it when people comment on the Facebook feed. Just be aware that there is [00:09:00] a chance. I will show your comments on the screen. So if you don't want people to see your comments, you know, you probably shouldn't write them in the comments, if that makes sense. Um, but yeah, we uh, we do put 'em on the screen. We do react with 'em. So as we go through the service and you know, the talk and stuff, if there is something that you want to add, I'm just gonna move this microphone to a better location. There we go. Um, if there's something that you wanna add, feel the freedom to do so. It would be great to get your thoughts and comments. I really need to fix this microphone that's gonna bug me. I'll do that for next week. Um, do put 'em in the comments. It'd be great to hear from you. Uh, let us know who you are. Give us a wave. Say hello, uh, whereabouts you are in the country, in the world. Always good to hear from new folks. And if you're watching this on the recorded version, again, a big welcome to you. Uh, it is great to have you here now, Mr. Crew, what have you been writing here? Uh, when does the delivery of the pizza arrive from the Langstons? And [00:10:00] when is the head sha for Matt Eli? That's a good question. I don't know. Martin, when, when, when does the pizza come from your place? Uh, do you have an answer for Matt on this one? I genuinely don't know. I, I think it'll be good to get it later this afternoon. Do you remember last week, uh, for those of you who were watching the broadcast last week, we had the, um, we had the cake fairy and the ice cream fairy, and it was wonderful. And whenever we talked about cake and ice cream stuff magically appeared. So maybe, uh, Langston's, if we met, if we talk about pizza, does that make pizza magically appear? I dunno, I guess we'll find out. Um, so it is great to, uh, it is great to have you. Thank you for your, uh, ideas and thoughts, Emma, just in terms of the, uh, the head shave, no, we're not doing it. Uh, it's just not gonna happen. Uh, doe I hope I've pronounced your name right. Hey, from London. Great to see you. Great that you are here. Welcome to, uh, the broadcast. I hope [00:11:00] the weather is sunny in London just like it is here. Yeah, it's cloudy but sunny. It's England, it's the summer. You know. Anybody else missing the really good weather or is it just me that's missing the really good weather? I am missing that weather. Let me tell you, it was great that we had it for the time that we had it. Uh, so yes. Let me just, um, there we go. Get the seat right. It's the professionalism of how we do Frontline city online, which always intrigues me. Um, so today we are talking about blessing and what it means to live a blessed life and what sad IFE put here. Uh, is it not really sunny in London? Sorry to hear that. Um, yeah. Well, hopefully the sun will, will, will shine on you soon, you know? Um, or, or you just enjoy the rain either way. Uh, what's Martin put here? The Langston Sonny, but not singing enough for the pizza fairy. Sorry, Matt, you're, you're out a look on the pizza today and [00:12:00] you're out of look on the head shape. So if any of you, uh, are listening to me talking about head shaves and going, what are you talking about? This is a thing that Matt Crew, who is, he's one of our regular commenters on Facebook Live. Good guy. Love him to bits. Love you, Matt. You're awesome. He, um, he is trying to get me to shave my head live on Facebook. Uh, and Sharon's has put here the head shave thing will never get past planning, so. Um, but you know, what Matt is, is persistent in his requests for the Head Shave. Persistent, but it's just not gonna happen anyway, that's how we get on, that's how it works here at Frontline, uh, city. So Frontline City is a church plant here in the heart of Liverpool, in Liverpool City Center. It is headed up by my good self, my beautiful wife, who you've seen in the comments, uh, awesome. People like Martin, the Pizza Fairy are also involved. Uh, and we've been doing that for a few months. Obviously we are online now during lockdown and actually really, [00:13:00] really enjoying lockdown and trying to understand what this means for us going forward. But it means 4:00 PM it is the Live Frontline City Church service broadcast live from Liverpool. So, welcome, it's great to have you. Uh, for those of you who dunno me, my name is Matt Edmundson. Um, and I've been around Frontline for very many years. Frontline City is part of Frontline, which is a bigger church in Liverpool, and we're doing a church plant down in the city center. And, uh, I've been in Frontline since I was a teenager. That's how long. I won't tell you how long it is, but it's a long time. And, uh, I've seen it grow from, I think when I joined there was maybe 25 people. Maybe I was the 25th person to join Frontline. I don't know. Uh, I've seen it grow tremendously over the, over recent years, and it's great to be doing Frontline City and, uh, reaching out to folks in Liverpool. So if you are here and if you're new, you are more than welcome. It is great to see you and great that you are here. Really appreciate you being here. So happy Sunday. Um, now [00:14:00] notices, uh, as always, there really aren't any other than, uh, welcome, uh, and make sure you comment as we go through the service. Um, throw stuff in there. Be cheeky. We don't mind cheeky, uh, comment on the scriptures. We don't mind that either. We just, you know, I, it goes back and forth, back and forth. Uh, Martin, the pizza fairy, I think. That may stick. It will. Now, I'm not gonna lie. Now we've mortalized it on video. Yeah. Martin. That's gonna stick bud. Sorry. Uh, it's just the way it is. Uh, Martin, the pizza fairy. I, I actually think I see a t-shirt coming on. Martin, when's your birthday, bud? Uh, I, I'm spying the opportunity for a great birthday present. Uh, kids, uh, Rebecca Abey, if you are listening to this right, Langston kids, listen up. [00:15:00] If you're listening to this from now on, dad is the pizza fairy ba and this is what happens when I get the microphone and the camera and you can't respond. So, uh, definitely says Matt. Absolutely. So, uh, once we finish making fun of Martin being the pizza fairy, uh, and we've sort of gone down that road, we are gonna get into this whole idea of blessing and talk about what it means to live a blessed life. Uh, what is blessing? How do I get it? How do I get more of it? Uh, what did Jesus have in mind when he said to Peter, you are blessed. It's all, all good questions, all good stuff we're gonna get into. So we're gonna get into that. Uh, and I'm looking forward to it. Uh, partly 'cause I've seen the teaching, so I know what's coming up and I really enjoyed preparing today, which is always a bonus. Let me tell you. Um. And then after that we are gonna hook up on Zoom. So for those of you who want to hang around and meet up on Zoom, uh, we head on over to Zoom and we, we just have conversation on June on Zoom, and I'll post [00:16:00] the link, um, to Zoom at the end of the service. I'll post in the comments. Um, the reason I'm not doing it now is I've not actually logged on to get it, so I'll do that at the end of the service. Uh, I'll post the link to Zoom and you can come join us and it's much more two way we get to see you and hear you, uh, rather than it just being me down the screen like this. Although, like I say, we love your comments, bring the comments, keep them coming, uh, it'll be much appreciated. Can I bring that look at that? That's better. Okay. So, um, that's comments ab uh, that's notices about Zoom done, which is great. Alpha is on Friday night. For those of you who are coming to Alpha, alpha on Friday night, seven 30 is happening this week, which is great. We're on week night. Uh, we've just had the Alpha day, which was fantastic. All about the Holy Spirit. Amazing time. So if you're joining us from Alpha welcome and then next Sunday. Next Sunday, as in a week today, Frontline City will be, uh, the, the talk is [00:17:00] gonna be done by my beautiful wife. Oh, yes. So gonna be infinitely better. And you're gonna enjoy it a whole lot because Sharon's amazing. No pressure babe. Um, but you know, it's gonna be epic and fantastic. So Sharon is next week and the week after that. Can I, can I answer now? I think I can. Drum roll please. Abby Sharples, uh, is gonna be doing the teaching. So, um, which, uh, and I, again, I know the passage in Mark that she's gonna be doing. I've seen, um, the outline of her notes is gonna be fantastic. So make sure you, you connect for that. And then the week after it is the Pizza Fairy. It's gonna be Martin, um, or it's gonna be Mrs. Peter, uh, Mrs. Pizza Fairy, Sarah. Um, I'm not sure out of the two which one's gonna be doing that passage. Uh, but we've got the Langston, so we've got some great teaching coming up, some great stuff going on in God's word. So make sure you subscribe to the Facebook Live. Make sure you hit the notification button so whenever we go live, you do in fact get notified and you get all of that good stuff, [00:18:00] right? Grab your notebooks and your pens 'cause we are gonna get into this. And, uh, to do that, I'm gonna intro it. With my wife, well actually my wife, I'm not gonna do it with my, my wife's gonna do it on my behalf. So let me play this video. Hopefully it'll work. Hopefully you'll be able to hear the sound. If you can't give me a shout out in the comments, bearing in mind there's about a 20 to second delay between when I say something and when you hear it, which means it's gonna be slightly delayed coming back in the comments. But that's okay. We love a technical challenge. So here goes, uh, let's bring on Sharon. Lemme press this button here. So last week Matt started speaking on the passage in Mark chat versus 28 to 30. Today he's gonna finish talking about this passage, but first I'm gonna reread it and then recap on what he said last week. So Mark. Let's try again. So last [00:19:00] week Matt started speaking on the passage in Mark chapter eight, verses 28 to 30. Today he's gonna finish talking about this passage. Okay, so first I'll reread it and then recap what he said, don't why. So mark eight. I think I have an idea why I just bear me one second. 'cause I really do wanna play this intro, so I am just gonna, this is why, uh, we have technical challenges when we do stuff live, but it's always good to do stuff live rather than just prerecorded, I think. So I'm just gonna change my sound settings here and let's make sure that is there and hopefully now if I do it. So last week Matt started speaking on the passage in Mark chapter eight, verses 28 to 30. Today he's gonna finish talking about this passage, but first I'm gonna reread it and then recap on what he said last week. So Mark eight verses [00:20:00] 27 to 30. Now Jesus and his disciples went out to the towns of Caesarea Philippine, and on the road he asked his disciples saying to them, who do men say that I am? So they answered John the Baptist, but some say Elijah and others, one of the prophets, he said to them, but who do you say that I am? Peter answered and said to him, you are the Christ. Then he strictly warned them that they should tell no one about him. So to recap from last week, Matt made many points, but there were four main ones for. Uh, in the form of four questions. So number one, who are you traveling with in life? Who do you journey with in life and discuss truth with? And the things that matter, and Matt's especially address, address this one to men. Number two, who do the people around you say that Jesus is? How does society view him? Number three, who do you say that Jesus is? [00:21:00] And this is probably the most important question. And number four, who or what is the Christ last week mapped by, finished by saying that Christ means chosen one, an anointed one, and that the Christ Jesus was anointed by God to bring us freedom and not freedom in the way that, uh, we in the West tend to think of it, but freedom being the ability to choose what binds us. That everyone is bound by something. But as Christians, we choose a new master, Jesus Christ, the anointed one. So now back to Matt who's gonna finish, uh, his thoughts on this passage. So now let's turn that up. Turn that back. Oh, let me move that back there. There we go. Thanks babe. Appreciate you doing that. And I think we got there technically. Then I got a text from Martin saying that he can hear me. So hopefully you could hear all that, which is fantastic. And that is what we did last week. It was that whole passage from, uh, Mark's gospel. We are working our [00:22:00] way through Mark. If you don't know, uh, we are working our way through Mark's gospel and just taking our time, just looking at each passage. And last week's passage was particularly meaty. So this is part two of that whole conversation, and Sharon beautifully summarized it before. So let's crack on with that, shall we? So, um, we're on the, we're on the road, right? Uh, so we're on the road. Peter makes this statement to Jesus, acknowledging that he is. Indeed the Christ, the Son of the Living God. So now let's jump into Matthew's Gospel and read his account, uh, of the story to find out what happens next. How did Jesus respond to Peter's life changing statement? Now, he said to them, but who do you say that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus answered and said to him, [00:23:00] blessed, are you okay? So this is Jesus's first response, right? Blessed are you, and it is this word, uh, that is basically gonna be the driver for today's talk. I really want to dig into this a lot more, uh, deeply try and get an understanding on why Jesus felt actually this was the appropriate response to Peter. So what does blessed mean? What does blessing look like? Well. Let's look at a few different translations of this word, shall we? So let me pull up my screen thing here. So, oh, it's gone blank. Why has it done that? Hmm. Okay. Don't understand why it's disappeared. Uh, the passion translation, which should have come up on the screen, writes, you are favored and privileged. Now, that sounds pretty cool, [00:24:00] right? You are favored and privileged. The amplified Bible says that you are blessed, happy, fortunate, and to be envied. Imagine that, right? You are so blessed. You are so happy that you are to be envied. Now. It is sounding very, very cool, isn't it? Right? Um, and in the New Testament, there are two key words that are translated blessed. Let's do a bit of New Testament Greek. Number one eulogy. Really sorry about my pronunciation. Eulogy, which means to speak well of someone to praise them. Uh, we get the word eulogy from it, right? We bless God and we bless each other. And when we do this, we speak well of God or we speak well of each other. Think about the song, the UK Blessing that's done so well recently. It is the church singing or [00:25:00] saying, uh, goodness to the people of the uk, right? So goodness is coming outta their mouth. We're saying something well and good. It is a blessing and it is deeply powerful. Okay, so the second word, ma, again. You'll have to forgive my pronunciation. Uh, this means to make large or long, right? We get the word macro from it. Um, I would basically translate it like this. Uh, I, I would say count yourself happy because you are larger, um, or bigger than what you think, right? Uh, and let's say larger is in spiritual terms, not necessarily the girth of my belly. Kind of larger for meeting too many of Martin's pizzas. Uh, but Do you know what I mean? It's like to be made bigger. You are made larger, and you are larger and bigger on what you think, which is why you can be happy spiritually speaking. [00:26:00] Okay, so now, uh, lemme just scroll down here. So, Jesus' response to Peter after Peter's confession is that Jesus is the Christ. He's the anointed one and Jesus. And Jesus says to Peter, you are. You are privileged, you are favored. Count yourself happy 'cause you are to be envied. And that's awesome. But at the same time, we have to be careful here not to add our own spin on what it means to be blessed, privileged, favored happy and envied. Because if I'm honest, it's easy, uh, to do that. And I have done it many times, let me tell you. Uh, so it's worth saying right here from the beginning that blessed doesn't mean everything will now go swimmingly for the rest of your life. Maybe it would be nice if it did, but it doesn't. And that's definitely not gonna be true for Peter, who [00:27:00] Jesus is talking to as he will have his trials soon enough. If you follow this story through, let me tell you now, John Harding said, let me bring that up here. John Harding said this, this ancient Hebrew word has worked its way into everyday language that I think has become quite unhelpful. There has been a move in society to see blessing as the good life blessing equals the successful life. Uh, blessing is about comfort. Blessing is about ease. The perfect marriage, the obedient children, and the all inclusive holiday in the sun. Okay. And I agree. It's easy for us to misunderstand the word blessing like this, right? As trying to understand it as what we have, the comfort, the ease. But I think it quickly leads us to a problem in our theology if we do that. For example, uh, Christian author [00:28:00] Sarah Walton, wrote the following. Let me bring that up. One of my children has, uh, several disorders that have often left us devastated, broken, and uncertain about the future. Are we no longer considered blessed? My husband lost half of his salary forcing us to lose our home, and all we had worked for are we no longer considered blessed? I have battled multiple health issues for most of my life. Did I just happen to draw the short stick and miss out on the blessings that so many others seem to have been given? Why do we most often associate being blessed with positive circumstances, wealth, comfort, and the absence of problems? I believe it's because many of us have a very short term and shallow view of what it means to be blessed. Ouch. Right. [00:29:00] Let me repeat that. Many of us have a shallow view of what it means to be blessed. As Dave Conley would say, sometimes you can't just say amen. You just have to say ouch. Right? Because the danger of viewing blessing, um, as, as it's about stuff and whether it's about health and wealth, is that when you don't have those things, there may be just, maybe we see ourselves as being less blessed. Uh, and if someone has more stuff, more apparent blessing, then I could start to think that maybe they are loved and blessed by God more than me, right? Just putting that out there. Okay. Or worse still, I could look at myself and compare me and what I have. With what somebody else has. And if I have [00:30:00] more, I can think that God has blessed me more than you, which is basically nothing more than very, very ugly pride. Okay? And this is interesting, uh, because if blessing right is about comfort and stuff and ease, how does that reconcile with actually the life of Jesus? What about the poor, right? Jesus said, if I can bring this up here, blessed are the poor, right? For yours is the kingdom of heaven. How can the poor be blessed if blessing is about stuff, okay, how can the poor be blessed if blessing is about stuff? Now, I've noticed a few comments coming up here. Let's take a quick pause what we got here. Who's John Harding Frontline pastor? [00:31:00] Yes, he is. Uh, Matt says he was only joking, just to clarify. Okay. Uh, Sadaf, what is the passage again? Okay, Sadaf. We are in Mark's gospel and actually, although we're in Mark's gospel, I'm actually reading right now or will be reading from Matthew's version of it, which is Matthew 16, uh, verses 17, I think, somewhere around there. So if you've got your Bible join in around those kind of verses, but it'll come up on the screen. Okay. So for me, blessing has to be more about the more about how can I state this sentence? It has to be more than just about stuff, right? So when Peter is having this conversation with Jesus on the road, he is actually gonna go on later to write this statement. Even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you are blessed. You see, Peter was blessed, right? Jesus said he was blessed, but being blessed [00:32:00] is not an absence of suffering. And in fact, in God's kingdom, if you are blessed, you're gonna be blessed even in suffering, right? And that's radical, and that's so very different, uh, to what many people think about blessing or how many of us think about blessing or measure blessing, right? It just is. Um, so Paul, one of the key writers of the New Testament, um, thought about this idea of blessing a lot, right? And in his letter to the Church of Rome, he quotes a verse from the Old Testament identifying what real blessing actually is. Okay? And he writes the following. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin. Okay, so this is the reason I'm blessed every day of my life. It's not because of the size of my bank account, but because of the size of forgiveness I have received to cover my [00:33:00] sin, right? I'm not blessed because of the stuff that I have. I'm blessed because of the forgiveness, uh, I have in Christ. Are you with me? Okay. So what I wanna do here is just take a quick look, um, at Sarah's story. Now you remember Sarah, I put the quote up on the screen. She wrote that blog post about all these crazy things, and if you listen to a story, it's heartbreaking. All these things that happened in her life. Um, and her and her husband recorded this video. So just watch this again. If you can't hear it, let me know. Martin, just text me. Oh, why does it keep doing this? Okay, just gimme two seconds. 'cause again, this is just a great, uh, quote. So let's go in crisis and our marriage was really strained. [00:34:00] We were so broken and we were wondering where God was. Why was he allowing such deep and layered suffering? We battled despair and hopelessness and deep questions of faith that neither of us had really had to face before. But we're still here, still together, and somehow we're stronger for it all. As we look back, we see that God has held us up. Not only to survive, but to grow in our love for each other and our love for him. Each moment of each day, God has helped us to press on. He's held our marriage together when we haven't had the strength to fight for it ourselves. He's taught us to find joy even within the sorrow. And by his grace, he continues to hold us up each and every day, despite many of our circumstances remaining the same. This is what we know as we look to Christ and His word. We can walk through the heaviest weather together with him and find [00:35:00] ourselves stronger in the storms. Okay, so hopefully that all came through loud and clear. Um, as a family, they went through crisis after crisis, right? And now they write about it. And they reach out to others offering hope that God's grace will sustain you and see you through the most trying of circumstances. And for me, that's what it means to be blessed. That no matter what you have or what you don't have, no matter what crisis, um, is or isn't happening in your life, the grace of God will see you through the storm. And as Sarah said, we're still here. God has held us up and even made us stronger despite everything that's going on around us. I don't know about you, [00:36:00] but that is a great understanding of what it means to be blessed sometimes. Well, quite oftentimes, the way God does things doesn't quite match with how I think he should do it. Um, I dunno how many of you know what I'm talking about, right? Uh, but we can trust him. Uh, and we can trust that he is good and that he's faithful and that his ways are higher than our ways. So, so I hope you get an idea, a sense of actually blessing is, is way more than just my bank account. The comforts, the ease. It's about him. It's about the life he's given me. It's about the grace. It's about the blessing. It's about his forgiveness. It's about the fact that he is the Christ. He is the anointed one, and he's here to break every yoke. And it doesn't matter what I'm going through, he's with me and he will get me through it. That [00:37:00] that's a great way to understand blessing. Okay? So Jesus said to Peter, let me bring the next screen up. Uh, blessed are you, Simon Barjona. Full flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my father, who is in heaven, now, let me say this. I don't want to just skip over the fact that Jesus uses this name, Simon Bar. Jonah. Uh, man, do I want to get into this right? Uh, but as much as I want to get into it, um, I think we would be here for a while looking at it. Uh, so for now I'm gonna put a pin in it. I'm sure there's a song for that. Um, so we're gonna put a pin in it and we can, we will come back to that soon enough. Okay? So just something in the future. I just didn't want you to think I was ignoring it. Uh, what have we got here? Amen. Love this. Absolutely. Uh, Walter Abby. So, okay, so Jesus is telling Peter [00:38:00] here that this revelation, um, that he has heard about Jesus being the Christ, the anointed one. It did not come from him. It did not come from man, but it comes directly from God himself. And that is in some ways the whole key to this story and the key to the blessing and the key to being able to see Jesus as the Christ. In fact, the passion translates it, uh, says that, um, it is my Father in heaven who has supernaturally revealed it to you. You see both. Here's the interesting thing, right? Both Peter and Judas hung out with Jesus, the Pharisees. They got to see the miracles. But watching that and hearing that wasn't enough. There has to be an encounter, I think, with the Holy Spirit whereby your heart sees it too. There's got to be this heart change where there's a supernatural revelation that Jesus is the Christ, the anointed one, right? So the [00:39:00] Apostle Paul who outlined to the church at Rome earlier. About what blessing is wrote in another letter to the Church of Ephesus and said, I do not cease to give thanks for you making mention of you in my prayers that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, uh, let me quote this right, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom. And revelation in the knowledge of him that the eyes of your understanding will be enlightened. Now, for me, this is one of the best prayers to pray for yourselves. Uh, it's one of the best prayers to pray for your family and your friends. For those of you who are, you know, Christians and are talking to people who aren't Christians, that God would give them this revelation, this spirit of revelation. Um, I pray for you guys all the time that God would give us this revelation. This is where the Holy Spirit breathes in our [00:40:00] hearts. The truth of Jesus being the Christ, the anointed one, the one with the anointing to break any chain from any oppression. Hashtag fact, full stop, end of story, right? Because without that supernatural revelation, I think we stay stuck in the things that bin us and hold us down. So we've gotta have that to break free. But when do we, but when we do get that revelation. Um, about Jesus being the Christ, and we get that revelation about his being the anointed one, and that he has this anointing. Then we get to call ourselves blessed. Awesome. Right? Blessed indeed. In fact. So let's bring all of this together, right? Let's try and bring all of this together. Uh, James, the brother of Jesus said this. He said, uh, he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it. And is not a forgetful hero, but a doer of the word there. This one will be blessed in what he does. So let's [00:41:00] say that this is about someone who gets into the word of God, and as you get in, God breathes, um, his Holy Spirit on your heart, and you get this revelation of the truth of Christ, the truth of Jesus. It's why in Frontline city, all of these talks, while we're going through the gospel, we are talking about Jesus. Because there has to be that revelation of Jesus and his anointing, okay? And when that happens, you become blessed in what you do, right? The source of blessing fundamentally is God himself. And it occurs when the Holy Spirit reveals something to us about Christ, the Anointed one and his anointing to break the chains that binds us, right? That's what you need to be blessed. I hope this is clear, right? You don't need stuff. Not stuff. No more stuff now. Well, I say no more stuff. Sure stuff is gonna come. Stuff's good. We like stuff. Uh, but the more you have doesn't make you more blessed, right? And conversely, [00:42:00] having less stuff doesn't make you more blessed either. For the self-righteous amongst you. Uh, the more revelation from God you have about Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, the anointed one, the more blessed you are and the more you understand your identity in Christ, the more you understand what it means to be in his tribe. The more you understand that you are in fact a child of God, a son or a daughter of God, the more blessed you are. And this is not just a one time event, right? This is a daily event. This is what happens when you walk down the road with, you know, your fellow man and you chew the kds and you have these conversations. This is what happens, um, in Prayer times and personal devotion times. This is what happens when you listen to online sermons. You get blessed 'cause you get this revelation of who Jesus is, right? I notice that the more I study the Bible, the more I pray, the more I spend time with fellow Christians, the more I worship, the more I seek him, the more blessed I get. It's all [00:43:00] good stuff, right? I mean, it's all good stuff and it doesn't just stop there, which is fabulous. Should we please note Jesus carries on and says to Peter for, you didn't discover this. Oh, lemme bring the slide up. Uh, I dunno where the slide's gone. Okay, for you didn't discover this on your home, but my father in heaven has supernaturally revealed it to you. I give you the name, Peter A. Stone, and this truth of who I am will be the bedrock, the foundation on which I will build my church. Okay? So the truth of who I am will be the bedrock on which I will build my church. In other words, what causes us to be blessed? The same thing, which is the foundation of the church. It's what causes the church to stand firm in adversity as it understands who Jesus is and that it is Him and his anointed. He's the anointed one. It's not governments, it's not public opinion. It's not stuff, [00:44:00] it's not possessions, it's not celebrity, it's not fame. It's not even our right to be right. I'm gonna say that again. It's not even our right to be right, but he, Jesus is the true redeemer. He is the source of any and all hope, and he is the anchor of everything that is good and right. And that's why the church grows under persecution, because Blessed is the church, because she understands who she is. She understands what her identity is. She understands sonship. Family and tribe. She knows, uh, to whom she belongs, to whom or to whom she belong, to whom she just knows. She knows who her master is. Right? Uh, and in that is true freedom coming back to what we talked about last time, true liberty, true li, true liberty and true purpose. And that's the rock on which Jesus' Church is built. The short and steady foundation of revealed [00:45:00] knowledge about the Christ, the Anointed one, and his anointed. It's good stuff. Hey, I hope you're enjoying it as much as I am because I, I just love this kind of thing, just getting into scripture and trying to understand what all these different things mean. It is great, and yet he carries on because this is Jesus, right? Jesus goes on to say that, uh, where's the slide on? There it is. Uh. I say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell or Hades shall not prevail against it. So let's just recap where we're at, uh, for a minute, shall we? Uh, so God has supernaturally revealed to us that Jesus is the Christ, the Anointed one, and we are free as human beings to choose whether Jesus is gonna be our Lord and master, right? We're free to choose whether we become children of God. And when we do, we are blessed. We are happier. We're more content with life because life takes on a different meaning. [00:46:00] Uh, we see things in a different way. Okay? But it just doesn't stop there. That revealed knowledge about Jesus being the Christ, being the anointed One is the foundation upon which the church is built, and it is referred to as a rock. It is sure and safe and immovable and immutable and all those things that rocks are right. And so this gives us hope and surety for our lives. But then Jesus goes on to say that the church will be so strong that the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Death itself cannot defeat it. It cannot overcome it. And I want you to stop and think about that for a second. Just let that sink in and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. The church. Wow. I mean, just, wow. No wonder we are blessed. We are part of something so big and so strong that hell itself [00:47:00] cannot prevail against it. Hell may try it, may try and overcome it, it's gonna attack it. But it never will defeat it. And we are part of that church. We're on the winning team, boys and girls. That's what that means. That's just love this stuff. Just love it. Okay? So not only are we part of the winning team, we get a part to play in it too, and that is quite extraordinary, right? So, uh, let's bring up the next slide here. Jesus said, um, that I will give you the keys of heaven's kingdom realm to forbid on earth that which is forbidden in heaven and to release on earth that which is released in heaven. Just want that to sink in a sec. Uh, we have the keys of heaven's kingdom realm. Oh my goodness. So we are now [00:48:00] starting to drift into this whole realm of the authority of the believer. And let me tell you, that is a series just in and of itself that said, uh, when you've come to a place, um, I think of surrender right to Christ, and you are faithful to his teaching, um, and you are faithful to his word and you take your place in the body of Christ, you are given an authority by God to bring heaven to earth in the area of your calling and purpose, which is extraordinary in a simple sense. It's why we pray for the sick to get healed. There is no sickness in heaven and it is forbidden, and we can carry that truth from, uh, heaven to earth and pray for healing right in the Lord's Prayer. Uh, we're taught to pray. Our father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your [00:49:00] will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Right? Notice that your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. This is in effect praying the reality of heaven, uh, onto earth. This is, you know, it's the same thing, it's the same idea. So, um, is someone sick? Well, let's pray for them because in heaven you wouldn't be sick, right? So, uh, Lord, your will be done. IE no sickness on earth as it is in heaven. We can pray for that, okay? So we can bin or we can forbid things on earth because of what's going on in heaven. Uh, so what can we release on earth? In essence, all of those things that Jesus has been anointed to do is the short answer. Uh, and to summarize that, it is basically to break those things that bind up. People that bind up, people in church, that bind up people outside of the church. The same principle applies. What do you see in heaven? Forgiveness, grace, the presence of God. [00:50:00] Harmony, unity. There is all of this amazing stuff, and we get to bring it from heaven to earth. That's the role of the church. Now, just want to take a little sidestep here and say, there is based, there is no pandemic in heaven, right? There just isn't. There are no protests there about racism because there is no racism in heaven. We are all one. And you know what? I am utterly gutted about what has happened, uh, recently, what has happened in the States and the subsequent protests around the world. I'm, I really am gutted about it. Uh, don't get me wrong. I think it's good and right to protest something that is unjust and unfair and unrighteous. And it's right. That together we say Enough is enough and it it is. Enough is enough. But the truth is, I look at this and I think the church has got such a long way to go. I think the [00:51:00] church has to take its responsibility here. And as a church leader, I have to stand before God and the people that have suffered. And if you are one of them watching, I ask for your forgiveness because we have not, as the church taken our responsibility seriously enough. In fact, I think the church has often endorsed racism with the way that he has, has acted out of a desire for power rather than a desire to extend God's kingdom from heaven to earth. And whilst I think that local church is genuinely the hope of the world, I'm not naive enough to think that it's not played. Its part in so many atrocities over the years. We all have a past, and in that past are things that we are now ashamed of. And the church as a whole is no exception. So I ask for forgiveness on behalf of myself, on behalf of the church I seek. I do seek reconciliation. Um, and I hope and pray that I can be part of a brighter and better future. One where the [00:52:00] church understands both its blessing, but also its responsibility. And how those two things aren't separated, they go hand in hand. It's the church's responsibility to release unity and grace, and acceptance and forgiveness. Prejudice and racism cannot exist in the church because it is the exact opposite of the teachings of Jesus. So please forgive us. Yes, I think we should protest, but more than that, we should extend God's kingdom, his will from heaven. Down to earth and as a church, uh, and as we understand that gospel, as we understand the good news of Jesus and as we grow in our understanding that he is the anointed one and has the anointing, uh, to break every yoke that binds every chain that oppresses us, including racism, including prejudice. And then the kingdom of God comes and God's will is done [00:53:00] on earth as it is in heaven. And that's what blessing is. And that's what I think the church should be doing. That's what I think you and I should be doing, especially at this time. And that's why we can call ourselves blessed. Am I blessed? You betcha I am. And not because of the size of my bank account, not because of what I have or what because I don't have. The truth of the matter is I'm blessed because God in his infinite grace revealed to me. For whatever reason, the truth about Jesus, that he is indeed the Christ, the Anointed one, and that I am forgiven, that I am set free and I can choose to live for him, and that when I do the gospel impacts the world around me. Lives are changed and God's kingdom is extended. Amen. Yes, I am blessed in such an extravagant way and generous way, and a beautiful way that I, I just have nothing but gratitude and thanks to my God and my savior for [00:54:00] the way that he has done that. Nothing to do with me, everything to do with him. And I would encourage you, if you don't know, uh, this Jesus that we are talking about, keep coming along to the Frontline Church services because hopefully we will be able to introduce you to him. Uh, he is such an amazing, such an amazing guy, so beautiful and so helpful, and together as one. Regardless of skin color, regardless of creed, regardless of all this nonsense, we are one in him. And we are blessed because he has extended his grace from heaven to earth and rescued us in a way that no one else could. Love it. Love it, love it, love it. Amen. So lemme go to your comments here. I, I've been getting these dings coming up in my ear, so I know you've been commenting. Uh, do, do, write in the comments, any thoughts, ideas that you had on anything that was said this morning. Would love to get your viewpoint on it. [00:55:00] Um, and see what we've got. Karen Max is here. We're living in end times. You know what, Karen? I totally agree with you. I think we are, um, a doe. I really hope I'm pronouncing it right. Preach it. Pasta. Oh, bless you. I dunno when you put that in there, I'm hoping it was a good bit. Uh, Abby. Amen. Thank you for saying these things, Matt. Uh, my pleasure. Um, you know what, this, I just felt really convicted and challenged by what I saw on TV and by what's going on to say to my brothers and sisters, we're all one, but the church has, its has to fess up here. Um, and, and yeah. And repentance, as Karen said. Absolutely. Um, it has definitely not got clean hands, uh, but hopefully our future can be different. Amen. Absolutely. Oh, Mims joined us. Hey, Mim. I'm not sure when you joined us, but hey, how you [00:56:00] doing? Um, it's great to have you. Great that you are here. So any other comments, thoughts, jot them down in the comments below. Um, and let's remember about blessing. Now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna, as always bring up some questions for us to think about, uh, if I can. Here we go. Let's bring these questions up for contemplation. By all means, write some answers in the comments below. Uh, write down what you think. Um, be good to hear your thoughts on them and stuff to go through the week. Are you blessed? Question mark. If so, why? I appreciate that Might be a slight trick question given today's topic and sermon, but that's okay. Um, are you blessed? If so, why are you blessed? Are you blessed because your sins are forgiven? Or do you think you're blessed because of stuff that you have? Be brutally honest with yourself. Challenge your thinking. Uh, do you ever compare yourself to others and think they are more blessed than you? Anybody else think, [00:57:00] oh my goodness, they have more than me. Not quite sure how I feel about that. Um. And take what they have as a sign of blessing. And this, I think, is so much easier in the church. You know, if someone comes in, you say, Hey, how you doing? Say, oh, it's amazing. It's totally been brilliant week. You know, I started off the week I was feeling no, and then an angel came down and mop my brow and bought with him a suitcase of money so I could pay off my mortgage. And then I went out and people got healed as a walk past 'em, as my shadow fell on them. And you're sitting there thinking, man alive. I've, I've just made it through the day without, without, you know, throwing the cat out the window. And, and I, I managed to tweak my tea. Do you know what I mean? And you kind of sitting there and you, and you compare what's going on. And you know, it's great that in church we have testimonies and we get excited when God does things and answers Prayer and we share them, but sometimes just sometimes. So the person that you're sharing that with, they can be a little bit disheartened, um, because it might not be as a bless, bigger a blessing to [00:58:00] them as it is to you. Uh, and um, and so I find myself in situations like that. I can compare myself to us and think, oh man, why am I not as blessed as they are when actually that's not how I should be measuring it. Question number three. What has God revealed to you about Jesus recently, given that revealed revelation, knowledge about Jesus is the source and key to any and all blessing? I thought that would be a really good question to ask. Uh, what have you learned about Jesus recently? Keep learning about Jesus. That's how you get blessed. Hashtag the sane, hashtag Blessed, hashtag hope. Facebook puts that in the. Anyway. Uh, and then my fourth and final question, how are you bringing heaven to earth? So if we as the church combine stuff that's banned in heaven, if we can release stuff on Earth that's released in heaven, if we have this mandate to pray, Lord, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, how are we doing that, especially during these times in which we live? [00:59:00] Okay, let's have a look at this. So Karen's written here, needed to hear this today. With all that's going on in media and social media, it's just easy to get lost in it all and lose our folks on Jesus. Totally agree with you, Karen. It is good to return to basics, the fundamental who is Jesus, what is going on there? Thank you for sharing that. Matt's put, I am hashtag blessed despite the storms of life is the interesting thing, Matt. Um, that video that I showed you from Sarah earlier on, she and her husband wrote a book called Through the Storm, I wanna say it's called Through the Storm. In fact, that video is basically, I, I cut it down. It was about five minutes long talking about the, the book and their marriage and how their marriage, you know, all that went on their marriage came under a lot of strain and they are, they sort of wrote a book about it, how to go through the storms. Um, and she also wrote a book, what to Do When It Hurts. I've not read them, but I'm really [01:00:00] keen to read them. Um, I just loved her story and her testimony and so despite the storms of life, yes we are blessed and sometimes he doesn't deliver us out of things. Sometimes he delivers us through things, but in any and all situations, we are blessed. That's super cool. Thanks Matt. I genuinely have no idea what to say to that other than I think you are probably right. And I'm hoping that on the heavenly banquet table, when I actually get to heaven, I'll be able to eat pizza. I'm on this thing at the moment where I can't really eat carbs 'cause I can't really eat sugar because I'm trying to avoid diabetes. Right? And um, and one of the things that I miss is pizza. So, uh, I'm hoping that, you know, there'll be good healthy pizza in heaven. Uh, what shall we put here? Too blessed to be stressed. Hashtag a may. [01:01:00] I dunno why I said that with an American accent, a may going back to my old American, uh, roots there. Amen. Um, okay, so thank you, uh, all you wonderful people for joining in on Facebook Live. I am now, uh, if you'll give me a second. So I know you're all waiting for it. I'm gonna log onto Zoom and get this week's Zoom link. It will be the same as last week's. That much I do know. Um, but I can't remember what last week's was. So let me just get that and in a few moments I'll close the live stream and then we will head on over to Zoom and chat on, on Zoom, on internet, on phone. Some of you'll know what I've just done. Others of you would be looking at me like I'm weird, but that's okay. Uh, Frontline City Sunday, that's what I want. Uh, let me copy that. Invitation. Copy meeting in. Protect. Oh, not the whole [01:02:00] thing. Cheaper. Uh, just copy the URL. Where's that? There it is. Okay, so for those of you who want to come and join us on Zoom, even if you've never been to a Frontline city thing before, you are more than welcome. If you're newbie, great to see you. Great to meet you. Do come and join us. I have put in the comments, um, if it shows up, uh, the Zoom link, is it actually showing up? Ah, there it is. Let me add that to the broadcast. Not that you'll have any opportunity to write that down, but that's in effect what it looks like. Um, that's, oh, where did it go? I did, again, that's what the zoom link looks like. So just go through the Facebook comments and look for that link. You can click that link in about, I'm gonna say 120 seconds. You can click it now ahead of time. You just won't get in. It's gonna take me about two minutes to get it all set up here, but we will see you in Zoom, where my beautiful wife will be carrying on our conversations and we'll be chatting and praying. [01:03:00] Um, and yeah, it'll be, it'll be great to see you in there. Sadaf, thanks for this. Matt. Enjoyed this very much. It's great to have you here, ef. Uh, glad you enjoyed it. Uh, for those of you who dunno, Sadaf works with me and I think within like the first week of Sadaf working here, she pulls out a Bible and says, right, let's talk about the book of Revelations. I'm like, whoa, okay. Uh, you like deep, you like your deep theology, don't you? Uh, deep theology, thi theology. I'm gonna stop talking now. I think that's probably something we should end on, that bombshell, ladies and gentlemen, thanks for joining us. Thanks for watching. Don't forget, do come back next Sunday. Sharon, uh, my beautiful wife is carrying on our study in Mark's Gospel. So we are gonna be on the next bit. Um, and there's gonna be some good stuff there because, uh, Sharon is sharing that. So, uh, true story. It is a true story, absolutely. Uh, more anointing in Jesus' name. Amen. The more we understand it, the bigger our anointing grows, the more we understand [01:04:00] that word, Christ, the anointing, one his anointing, the bigger our anointing gets. The more yolks we can be destroyed. So, um, that just one thing to say actually on that, if you are sick, if you need healing, if there is something that you would like us to pray for, do come and join us in Zoom. We would love to pray for you or write it in the Facebook comments if you don't wanna do that. And we will pray for you at some point during the next half an hour or so. Um, pray God's blessing upon you. Pray his will be done. Uh, great stuff today. Thank you Matt. Thanks for joining us. Great to have you here. Okay, I'm gonna end the broadcast now. Ladies and gentlemen. Have a beautiful day. Do come and join us in Zoom. If not, we will see you here next week. God bless you, and bye for now.