I want to welcome you to Walking In the Living Word Ministries. This week 2 of our 16-week journey where we will be looking at the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount. i would say today's message talks about bring your sorrow, confession, and longing before the God who comforts His people. Our big idea for this week is: Kingdom comfort belongs to those who refuse numbness and bring their sorrow to the Father. There is a kind of Christianity that tries to smile too quickly. It rushes past grief, quotes promises before tears are allowed to fall and assumes that faith means never feeling sorrow deeply. But Jesus does not begin His Kingdom sermon by telling mourners to cheer up. He blesses the. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." That means there is a holy kind of sorrow that God does not despise. There is grief that becomes a meeting place with grace. Before you look at this podcast, let me ask you what sorrow have you learned to carry quietly? Some wounds are obvious, but others are hidden beneath responsibility, busyness, humor, service, or spiritual language. Maybe you are grieving a loss no one sees. Maybe you are mourning a sin you have tried to excuse. Maybe you are tried from acting as if you are fine. Jesus does not shame mourners. He calls them blessed because the God of the Kingdom meets His people with comfort.

i want to welcome you to Walking In the Living Word Ministries. This week we will start our 16-week series on the Beatitudes and the Sermon the Mount. We will break each Beatitude down so hopefully we can understand them better then we will drive into the meat of the Sermon on the Mount. I like to call the Beatitudes - the Kingdom Character. The theme for the first 7 episodes is, Jesus opens with the Sermon on the Mount by describing the blessed life of His Kingdom through all eight Beatitudes. Which are humble dependence, holy sorrow, meekness, hunger for righteousness, mercy, purity, peacemaking, and faithful endurance under pressure. This week is the doorway to the Kingdom.

I want to start this with honesty and with a shepherd's burden, because many believers are trying to fight spiritual battles while living with a quiet famine of prayer. They love the Lord, but their prayer life has grown thin, irregular, hurried, or weary. Some only pray when they are in a crisis. Some feel guilty every time the subject of prayer comes up because they know how often they have neglected it. Some are simply tried. They have been carrying burdens, resisting temptation, serving others, and absorbing the pressure of life, and now they find themselves spiritually worn down. Church, that is exactly why this week matters. When Paul finishes naming the armor of God in Ephesians 6, he does not move away from the battle. He moves to prayer, "Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance." Prayer is not an appendix to the armor. Prayer is the atmosphere in which the armor is worn.