What is the motivation that encourages you to keep going when adversity comes and you are under pressure to give up? The football player thinks about the upcoming game when he needs to summon the strength to lift the bar off his chest three more times. The medical student thinks about the patients she will one day help when she chooses a late night of studying over a night out with her friends. A soldier pulls out a picture of his family far away when he needs to remember why he fights and why he puts himself in harm’s way.

Most of you will be familiar with the names Cain and Abel, those two sons of Adam and Eve.  You may recall the sad story of these two brothers from Genesis 4.  Cain developed a deep hatred for his brother, and he nursed that hatred in his heart.  The Lord God came to Cain and warned him, “Sin is crouching at your door.” (Genesis 4:7)  That’s an interesting way to think about sin. 

To begin this morning, I want to read for you a passage from Scripture.  It is Matthew 23:26:  They placed the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus.  Do you remember this scene?  It is morning on Good Friday.  They are leading Jesus out to Calvary to crucify him.  Jesus began the death-march carrying his own cross.  But weakened as he was from beatings and blood loss, he is unable to carry it the whole way.  So the Roman soldiers grab an onlooker from the crowd. 

We have all seen the images coming out of Afghanistan over the last weeks.  Certainly they are images that touch our hearts and move us Christians to pray for God’s help and healing in that chaotic part of the world.  But for the moment, I want you to “freeze” on one image you have seen.  I want you to freeze your mind’s eye on the image of the U.S soldier dressed for combat.  Can you picture it?

Before us this morning is one of those things we find in the Bible called a “beatitude.” A beatitude is a statement of what is blessed. Perhaps the most well-known beatitudes in the Bible are those Jesus speaks in the Sermon on the Mount. Blessed are the poor in spirit…Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted…Blessed are the meek (Matthew 5), and so on. But those are by no means the only beatitudes found in Scripture.