The Counterculture Christ Part 1 - Archie Callahan

0:00Welcome to the Bridge Church for Genevieve podcast, where we connect all people to the person, power, and purpose of Jesus. Wherever you are listening from, we are so glad that you are joining us. Now, let's listen to this week's message. You know what you take out your Bibles and turn to Matthew chapter 5. We began a brand new series today called The Counterculture Christ. And we're going to look at this little subject up down, upside down, blessed. And it is a message that I think that we all need to hear. It's going to come out of Matthew chapter 5. But I want to ask you a question. Before we get into that, and here's the question, are you happy? Really? Are you happy? You ever heard this phrase, man, I want to go to my happy place.

1:01Anybody got a happy place? Anybody? Is it the beach? Sure. Is it the mountains? Is it your backyard? Is it watching the Dallas Cowboys win? Whatever your, come on, don't shout me down while I'm preaching. Whatever your happy place is, we often go to that happy place. But I found out after a pastoring 30 plus years, many people's happy place is not actually a physical place. It's more a place in the past, a moment in time where they experienced happiness. And when they get into distress, or when they get depressed, or when they feel down, they often drift there in their minds. And over the last several days, we've seen this on social media, people drifting into the 80s, the 1980s. And my daughter used AI to dress up her dad and myself.

2:03And look what in a pier light. My Lord, big hair, mullets, track jackets in all. See, my wife would look good in the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, 2000s, 20s. I had a time ex on it. They put a time ex on it. I don't know if I ever own one, man, but that was simple days. We often drift back into those times. Happiness. When Jesus came to earth, he began to turn the world upside down. He became a counterculture to the culture that was in existence. When Jesus did not come to give us a subculture to live in, he came to give us a counterculture to exemplify in the world in which we lived it. Jesus came into a culture that was dominated by a Greek understanding of theearders'

3:09arts and buildings. Along with the Romans who brought law, engineering and military dominance, these two cultures merged into the Greek-a-Roman culture. And Jesus was born into this culture. And Jesus brought a radical new way of living and existing in the culture. It was almost like when Jesus entered the culture, he was slapping the Greeks and the Romans in the face, not literally, but metaphorically when he began to teach on the kingdom of God. He began to instruct them that happiness was not based on military strength, military might, or physical or material success. He began to equate happiness with values that he began to teach about his kingdom.

4:12See Jesus didn't just come to earth to give us a way to heaven. He came to earth to show us who God really was. He came to earth to bring about a new kingdom. In fact, Jesus preached the kingdom of God is here among us right now because he was the representation of the kingdom of God. And so he began to reconstruct happiness and joy in a way that the world had never seen before. Because the Romans, happiness for them was success, military success, financial success, domination of other cultures. Greeks, their success was theater, arts and big temples and paganism. But Jesus came and he began to say, this is what success looks like from heaven to earth.

5:15And I'm going to give you a picture of happiness that you've never seen before. John Piper said this about happiness. He says happiness is a state of well-being and it's a tendent feelings of joy and satisfaction that persist in spite of being embeaddled, poor and persecuted. That's what he says happiness is. Jesus comes in and he says the definition of bless is the exact opposite of the culture is definition and it's far better. It's actually better than what the world deems as success. Are you happy? Are you happy? I read a recent report. It's called the world happiness report. And the U.S. ranks 23rd among all the nations of the world and the happiest nations. Jesus read the report this week that Virginia is the 16th happiest state in the union out

6:21of 50. And I begin to think of that with all our material wealth and with all our gadgets, with all our cell technology, with all our AI and with all the devices that we have in our hands, with our vehicles, our cars, our clothes. Why are we the 23rd happiest nation in the world? If we're one economically, why aren't we one in happiness? Here's the reason because things and materialism can never bring you happiness. Not the happiness that only Jesus can bring you. Not the joy that Jesus can bring you. And so this thing happiness becomes very elusive to us and we're in search of happiness and we think circumstances and situations and material things are going to make us happy but when we get them and we get the material things and we get the success, we realize that

7:26it has no power for lasting true inner happiness and joy. And joy. So Jesus comes. Matthew chapter 4. He is in the wilderness being tempted by the devil and he overcomes the devil with the word of God and then he comes out of the wilderness in the power of the spirit. He picks his 12 disciples to follow him and then he goes about healing all who are sick and who had disease and people began to follow him from Jerusalem, Judea, the decapolis, begin to follow him from regions beyond the Jordan and Jesus was inundated by large crowds and eventually he gets tired of the crowds and he goes to the mountain and the Bible says in chapter 5. He sits down with his disciples on the mountain side and he begins to teach them.

8:28Who is that mean to teach them? He begins to instruct them on how to think as a kingdom man or woman. He begins to reframe their understanding of happiness, success and joy. See they were raised in a great-go Roman culture which touted strength, indomination and material wealth and success and the arts and the theater and they worshiped many gods and so Jesus comes into this culture and picks 12 guys and he doesn't first teach them how to behave. He teaches them how to think because all behavior flows out of thinking. It flows out of attitudes and in chapter 5 he begins to preach his famous message, the sermon on the mount and he starts to sermon on the mount with attitudes.

9:32Attitudes. Have you ever had someone to tell you you got a bad attitude? Jesus didn't really tell his disciples that but by teaching to be attitudes what he was saying boys you got a terrible attitude. I'm going to adjust your attitude and it's actually called the be attitudes because it's the attitudes that we should be. It's the attitudes that all Christ followers should exude from their lives. It's the attitudes that we should possess as believers in Christ Jesus. This word be attitude is it comes from a word that means attitude and he starts every one of these be attitudes with this word bless. The word blessed in the Greek can be translated happy, say happy. So when you read these be attitudes where you see that word blessed you can be happy or

10:35fortunate. Look how he begins the be attitudes. Unless read chapter 5, 3 through 12 it says blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Take your poor in spirit. The poor in spirit recognize they need someone or something greater than themselves. Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meat for they will inherit the kingdom or the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful for they. Blessed are the merciful for they will be shown what. How many you in here need mercy? What do you need to do to receive mercy? Show mercy. Show mercy. Show mercy. Give mercy. Blessed are those who are pure in heart for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called the children of God.

11:40Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness for theirs is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice, he says rejoice. My Lord Jesus is saying rejoice when you're persecuted. Don't fight back. Get joy and be glad because great is your reward where? In heaven for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. So look at these eight be attitudes. The last couple verses restate the last be attitude. Jesus is giving us a way of thinking. He's giving us an attitude of just men. He's adjusting the way we think and the way we believe and thus the way we will behave

12:40in culture. So if I want to change my behavior, I don't start with behavior. I start with belief. I'm going to say that one more time. If I want my behavior to change, I don't start with my behavior. I start with the way I believe because my behavior flows out of my belief system and Jesus didn't come to give us behavior modification. He came to give us live transformation that begins with the way we think. If we don't adjust the way we think, we never adjust the way we behave. See religion is behavior modification. Man, we just want you to act the way we act on Sunday morning for one hour and you can do what you want to after that. That's religion folks. Jesus did not come to bring us a religious system or religious rules. Jesus didn't die to institute another religion. Jesus died to bring you into a kingdom from another world.

13:45The kingdom of God here on earth and he came to introduce his kingdom. The Bible says that Jesus is the door and most people come through the door and never enter into the fullness of the house into the kingdom of God. And so they stop at the door. They have salvation but never transformation totally because they stop at the door. Come on. I come home every day. What if I came home unlocked the door because I had the key. You've got the keys to the kingdom and I stepped inside the threshold and I just stood there. 3300 square feet. I'm just standing there. I've got access to the refrigerator. Amen. The food pantry. Amen. God access to the microwave. Amen. I'm just standing there looking and I never take advantage of the access because I don't

14:57know who I am and I'm the owner or the steward of the house and I never take access or I never take full reign of the house. That's the way most Christians are today. They've been brought into the kingdom of God and they've never made their way fully into the kingdom of God and received all the blessedness of the kingdom of God and received all the joy of the kingdom of God because they've never learned how to access the runes that are in God's kingdom. And Jesus said, I am coming to give you another kingdom, give you another life, give you another way of living but we just sit here and we get saved and we're waiting to go to heaven and nothing in our life changes and we're dull, we're confused, we're not maturing, we're not growing and we're just standing here inside the threshold. I've got Jesus and we never mature into the fullness of the kingdom and what God has for us here on earth. I wonder what Jesus is going to say to us when we get to heaven.

16:01Man, I prepared all this for you and you just step through the threshold and you sat down called Kingdom Life. It's a way of living. Jesus in this Greco Roman culture that the epitome of success was military domination on Rome's part in engineering and law and architect and on the Greek side, the epitome of success was theater and arts and philosophy and Jesus comes into this culture and says, God, you got it all backwards, I'm going to flip this thing on you and show you what true life is and it gives them a new definition of happiness and being blessed.

17:02Here it is, guys, culture's version of blessed is a moving target. It's a moving target. I've got an iPhone, 17 Pro Max, the highest memory because I do a lot of work on my phone, all my sermons are on my phone and I was sitting down last night because culture's happiness is a moving target. I got a text message from Apple, the new Pro Max 18 is coming out and if I'm not secure guess what, I'll feel like I'm left out. And culture is designed to make you feel like you're on the outside looking in.

18:09And if I'm not secure in God's kingdom and if I don't understand happiness according to God's kingdom, you know what I will do every four months, every six months, every year, every time they come out with a new iPhone, I got to go get one. So I'll spend 12, 13, 14, 15, $100 every six months just to keep up with a status, not understanding that the goal post keeps moving. They keep moving the goal post. They keep moving what's the, what it's supposed to be like and it's all designed to make you feel like you're not good enough. You can be sitting there watching, come here, you can be sitting there watching the cowboys dismantle the giants tonight. This is church folks. You can be sitting there man and a commercial will come up and make you feel like you

19:11lack something. A beautiful commercial. They'll show you a juicy hamburger. A diet coke. Large fries. And say you need it. And you feel like you needed it even though you just ate 12 chicken wings. Because they know how to move the goal post on you. It's constantly moves the goal post and says, well, this is what success used to be, but here, here what success looks like today. If you don't have this, if you don't obtain this, if you don't go to college, if you don't have a master's degree, if you don't have a doctorate, you're nobody. How many, you know, all of that is moving the goal post. It's designed to keep you feeling less than and insecure about what Jesus has called

20:17you into. And now you feel like, man, I don't have what everybody has. And so Jesus comes in and he names the opposite conditions as the doorway to blessings. They opposite. The totally opposite is the doorway to blessings. It's amazing what Jesus does. He comes in and he gives us correct attitudes to correct the two, the attitude of the culture and which he came into. Say, why are you messing with your iPad? Well, I've been preaching without iPad because it was updating. So he comes in and he begins to preach and he begins to flip it on its, it begins to

21:19flip the world right side up. And he says, this is the doorway to blessings. See, Jesus' goal post is not a moving target. The world, the culture in which you live in is a moving target. It is constantly moving. You can never keep up with it. You can never get to a point. And he says, hey, I'm going to bring you into a kingdom and Paul understood this. He begins to reiterate what Jesus taught in the gospels. How many, you know, the gospels are the manifestation of Jesus into the world. The small books of the New Testament is the appropriation of what Jesus did in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And so Paul teaches us how to live out the gospel in the world. And so he says at Romans 12, too, do not be conformed to the world but be transformed by the renewal or the renewing of your mind so that you may be able to test and approve

22:20what God's will is. He says, good pleasing and perfect will. And then he goes over in Colossians 3.2. He says, your mind set them on things above and not earthly things. Second Corinthians 4.18, fixing your eyes on eternal things. Philippians 3.20, you are citizens of heaven. So if I'm a citizen of heaven, God is trying to teach me to no longer think, no longer think from earth to heaven but from heaven to earth. To think from an earthly perspective is death. To think from a heavenly perspective is life. So I begin to think differently so that I begin to live differently. Live differently. Did you know it's hard to change your mind? It's hard to change the way you think.

23:24Jesus to illustrate this point that second be attitude. He says, blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. Now there's two primary interpretations of this. The secondary interpretation of this is people who mourn because they have lost someone. They have lost something. Loss always creates pain or mourning in our lives. So if I lose a loved one, I'm going to naturally mourn and Jesus says, blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. That word comforted. It actually is the same word in which we get the Holy Spirit paracletos in the Greek. So Jesus is teaching that when you're in mourning, the comfort of the Holy Spirit comes to you and helps you in your grief. Anybody ever lost a loved one?

24:24Let me tell you something. I don't know how people without Jesus endure it. I need Jesus, the Holy Spirit with me to comfort me. The primary meaning of this verse, blessed are those who mourn, mourn over what? Over their fallen nature, over their sin, over missing the mark. Over their perpetual sin nature, blessed are those who mourn over their sin. They will be comforted by understanding that if we do sin as a believer, we have an advocate with the Father. And first John 1 9 says, if we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness and Jesus is saying, if you're going to be

25:26blessed, if you're going to be happy, you've got to understand that you are a broken person and the way that you begin to be comforted in your life is to come to Jesus who is the great comforter and his Holy Spirit will comfort you and bring you into a position of sonship with God Himself and through the power of salvation, he will make you one with God. But last you will become happy when you realize yourself righteousness will not marry you heaven. That's when you get happy and understand that, hey, it's not by my words, it is by grace that I am saved. William Barclay, a great commentator of the Word of God, he said, the kind of grief which takes such a hold on a man that cannot be hid, not only the sorrow which brings an ache to the heart, but the sorrow which brings the unrestrained tears to the eyes. This is the kind of grief that Jesus was talking about.

26:28But can I tell you, when I'm mourning over my own lack of righteousness, my own sin, the Bible talks about sorrow and it talks about sorrow in two ways. It talks about godly sorrow and worldly sorrow. Second Corinthians 710 says, Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads the salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. So when I'm mourning over my own personal sin, I got to determine is this worldly sorrow or is this godly sorrow? Godly sorrow is focused on God and we understand that our sin grieves him. It leads to repentance, a change of mind and direction. It leads to salvation and life. It leads no regret and it produces humility in my life, but worldly sorrow is focused on self.

27:29It grieves that I got caught. It leads to regret. It changes nothing. It leads to death. It leaves shame. It produces self pity in our lives. Godly sorrow looks up and moves forward, but worldly sorrow looks in and stays stuck. In the New Testament there's a great picture of Godly sorrow and worldly sorrow. Our worldly sorrow and Godly sorrow, the first one is Judas. He exemplified worldly sorrow. The second Godly sorrow is Peter. Both of these guys follow Jesus. Both of these guys fail Jesus. Both felt crushing sorrow. They had the same failure, the same tears, the opposite direction. When Judas, worldly sorrow led him to go kill himself. Godly sorrow led Peter and tears to reconnect with Jesus and to receive life.

28:31That's the difference. Jesus said, Blast are those who mourn for they will be confident. See this blessing is received. All these blessings and these be attitudes are received, not achieved. It changes what you carry into the world. What are you talking about pastor? I can't earn the blessing of God. Paul teaches us any Ephesians 2.8 that we're saved by grace through faith, not by works, unless any man should boast. It is the free gift of God. Through everything in the kingdom of God, my salvation, my healing, my joy, my happiness, everything that God gives me, does it come because I'm good enough or I achieve it, or I strive, or I work for it. How many you know, religion tells you to work. Jesus tells you to rest.

29:33I'm going to say that one more time. He will keep you on the hamster wheel of moving the goalpost and you never get good enough. It keeps you on the hamster wheel of pintance. You never quite can get there. So everything in these be attitudes come to us by the grace of God. We are saved by grace through faith, not by works, unless any man should boast. If I can produce the be attitudes, produce the be attitudes in my life, guess what? I am gaining that through self effort. Therefore I don't need God's grace. I do not need Jesus and I do not need a savior because I can save myself. Jesus came to show us that all our good works are like filthy rags are self righteousness

30:36or filthy rags. They will not win a salvation. It's when I come to Him in my brokenness and my humility and I say, God, I am warning over my sin and then He brings the comfort of the Holy Spirit my way and He gives me new life and new salvation, the free gift of the forgiveness of sin. And I made a new creation in Christ. Jesus God does something supernatural in my life. Jesus, that each one of these are in the present tense. Blessed are the pure and hard for they will see God. Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. So it's in the present tense, it's a present tense declaration over your life. It's not a future reward for good performance. That changes everything about what you're carrying when you leave the room today.

31:36I understand that I am presently carrying these be attitudes because I have positioned my life in humility before God. Instead of proving you carry security. Instead of scarcity, you carry generosity. Instead of performing, you carry authenticity. I mean, most of the modern church in America is performance base. And people put on a facade when they come to church and they're no longer authentic until they leave the building. They get home. I mean, when you get home, you're the real you. And instead of self-focused, you carry overflow toward others. This is what Jesus is talking about. He's talking about you don't need a facade. Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest and learn the rhythms of my grace and the salvation that I've given you and walk in my kingdom and

32:39allow me to transform your life as you humble yourself under my mighty hand. And I'm going to exalt you in due season. So he lays out the attitudes of the kingdom and they are counterculture to this world. See oftentimes the world, if it's persecuted, it stands up and it starts throwing fist. It starts fighting. You can tell how saved a person is during a political season. You can tell how worldly the church is during a political season because it does look nothing like the be attitudes. Man, if we get a Christian president, America will be Christian. No, it won't. Jesus never fought for politics. He never fought over politics. Let's go. It's a friend day.

33:39Let's keep going. He came and he introduced the new kingdom, folks. It's not Republican or Democrat. It's the kingdom of God. Sure my theology and what I believe about Jesus will inform me on my political persuasion. But never mix the kingdom with Republican and Democrat. When you do, you will be sadly broken and the church becomes a subculture when politicians come on, when politicians get the ear of the church, the politicians manipulate the church, the church becomes a subculture and we lose the effectiveness of being a counterculture and a world that needs to see Jesus. Amen or Ome? He is a counterculture.

34:39I know Jesus came to die for our sin. But ultimately, Jesus's death was a political one. Go study your Bible and go study history. He died because he interrupted the powers to be the religious ones and the political ones because he showed them another kingdom. And Caesar was the only one who wanted to be called Lord and his followers started calling him Lord. Don't touch the power. Don't touch the money.

35:39Just stay in your little church. Amen, stand up. Amen. Happiness is not something you achieve. When you receive from God, it's something that you receive from God. I'm going to say this again. The hope of the world is not a politician. The hope of the world is Jesus, folks. And it's a church that is in love with Jesus, alive with Jesus, following Jesus, empowered by Jesus, strengthened by Jesus, looking like Jesus, acting like Jesus, thinking like Jesus, reacting like Jesus. What would Jesus do is just not a slogan that you wear on your wristband. It's actually a lifestyle. How do we live like Jesus? Aren't you about your head? Well, I just thank you for the grace that's in this place today.

36:44The grace to be transformed into the image of Jesus. Have you given us a new way of thinking in these be attitudes? Help us to embrace the attitudes of your kingdom and not the kingdoms of this world. Thank you for joining us today. If you would like to connect, text Bridge to 94,000, visit our website at bridgechurch.tv and follow us on all social media platforms. Thank you for listening. Now go out and be the bridge.