1. Jesus requires the attitude of blessedness
a. Mourn (5:4)
b. Meek (5:5)
c. Merciful (5:7)
d. Maker of peace (5:9)
2. Jesus requires the essence of blessedness
a. Poor in spirit (5:3)
b. Pure in heart (5:8)
3. Jesus requires the evidence of blessedness
a. Pursuit of righteousness (5:6)
b. Persecution for righteousness (5:10-12)
MATTHEW 5:1-12
If you ask parents today what they want most for their children, most of them will tell you one thing. They want them to be happy. The sad thing is, it is a futile quest. The more a person seeks happiness, the harder it is to find. The kind of happiness the world seeks, ends up being nothing more than a fleeting emotion. It is the kind of happiness that tries to cover up the pain and emptiness of our lives with entertainment, diversion, and distraction. That kind of happiness is fleeting, like a vapor. But there is a deeper kind of happiness. A kind of happiness that doesn’t come from ourselves, or the world. It’s a supernatural happiness that can only come from one Source—God Himself. Happiness that is given to us by God is more than just an emotion. It’s a blessing from God. So, this morning, our quest should not be a quest for happiness. We don’t need to be on a quest for something that is here today and gone tomorrow. Our quest needs to be a quest for something forever. Something given to us by God. A quest for blessedness. As we look deeper into these words of Jesus, I want each of us to begin a true quest for blessedness this morning. In order to do that, we’re going to look at Jesus’ three requirements for blessedness. As we look through these Beatitudes, we can see that four of them relate to a person’s attitude. That tells us that Jesus’ first requirement is an attitude of blessedness. The world tells us we need to have the attitude that we’ll do whatever it takes to have the edge—to reach the top. A winning attitude—that’s what it takes. Winner takes all—second place is the first loser. Isn’t it ironic that the first attitude that Jesus talks about is an attitude of mourning? Look with me in verse 4:
MATTHEW 5:4
We think of mourning when we think of the terrible grief of losing a loved one. Not when we think of blessing. But Jesus wants us to have an attitude of mourning. He wants us to mourn over the results of sin. Remember that Jesus wept over the death of Lazarus before He raised Him from the dead. Jesus was mourning the fact that death was a result of the original sin. He wants us to mourn over the consequence of sin. The fact that we all know many people who, if they died tonight, would spend an eternity in Hell should make us mourn. But He also wants us to mourn over our own sin. Every time we sin, it grieves the very heart of God. If it grieves Him, don’t you think it should make us mourn too? But not only are we supposed to mourn, verse 5 tells us to have an attitude of meekness. Look with me to verse 5:
MATTHEW 5:5
The original word for meekness was used to describe a wild animal that had been tamed. A horse has all the same strength of a wild mustang. But that mustang becomes meek when it submits itself to the full control of the master. It becomes useful. In the same way, we are blessed when we submit ourselves to the full control of Jesus Christ. His full control means giving up ours. Jesus showed us this when He told the Father, “Not My will, but Thine.” And He willingly gave up His life as a blood sacrifice on the cross of Calvary. That’s meekness. An attitude of meekness is allowing ourselves to be weak so God can show Himself strong. We are to have an attitude of mourning and meekness, but we are also to have an attitude of mercy. Look at verse 7
MATTHEW 5:7
The kind of mercy Jesus is talking about is the kind of mercy He showed to people. Think about it. As he hung on the cross, He looked down at the one who hammered the nails in His hands. He looked down at the ones who cast lots for His clothes. He looked down at the ones who mocked Him and spit on Him and plucked out His beard. He looked down at all of them and what did He say? He said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” He could have immediately called a legion of angels for His defense. But He didn’t. He showed mercy. He showed an attitude of mercy to those who had hurt him the most. That’s what mercy is. It’s showing mercy to those who least deserve it. To those who have hurt us the most. Mourning, meekness and mercy. We are also to have an attitude of making peace. Look at verse 9:
MATTHEW 5:9
Most of the time when we think of peace, all we’re really talking about is a truce. Some sort of a cease-fire agreement. Peace is not the absence of war. It is the absence of sin. Peace is a condition that exists only when all sides have an absence of sin and a presence of righteousness. Jesus is the Prince of Peace. But in Matthew 10:34, He said that He did not come to bring peace on earth. He did not come to bring peace but a sword. How can that be? Because, He makes peace not by making a cease-fire. He makes peace by bringing righteousness. A maker of peace isn’t the person that says, “let’s just forget all our differences and just get along.” A maker of peace focuses on righteousness and on the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Mourning, meekness, mercy, and making peace. Those are the attitudes Christ demands in order for us to be blessed. You might say, “but preacher, I try to do the right thing.” I’m a pretty good person. Are you as good as you need to be? Are you as good as God requires? Do you have the attitude that God requires for you to be blessed? I can tell you that you don’t—neither do I. And I can tell you that you never will unless you have the essence of blessedness. You see, not only does Jesus require that we have the attitude of blessedness, He also requires that we have the essence of blessedness. Essence is an indispensable property that characterizes something. In other words, essence is what makes something what it is. As we continue looking through these Beatitudes for the characteristics of people that God chooses to bless, we see that two of them are fundamental. They are essential. They are the essence of blessedness. The first essence Jesus requires is that we are poor in spirit. Look back up to verse 3:
MATTHEW 5:3
I heard a story one time about a new, cocky young preacher, straight out of seminary. He was going to preach his very first sermon in a big, old Presbyterian church. The church had an elevated pulpit with a long flight of stairs leading up to it. This kid was about as prideful as he could be. All week leading up to his sermon, he bragged on how well he was going to do and how he was going to be the next great preacher. This church won’t be big enough to hold all the people who will come. Well, Sunday came. He strutted up those stairs when he got up to preach. Then he proceeded to lose his place in his notes. Not that that mattered much, because his notes were horrible anyway. He stuttered and stammered all the way through his sermon. When he finished, he hung his head in humility and walked slowly back down that long flight of stairs. One man on the back row leaned over to a wise old man sitting next to him and asked, “What happened! I thought he was going to be a great preacher!” The old man leaned back and said, “If he would have gone up the way he came down, he’d have gone down the way he went up.” There is a reason this is the first Beatitude Jesus lists. There is no room in God’s church or His kingdom for your pride. James 4:10 says, “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and He shall lift you up.” You see, there is no way for us to fully trust God if we’re still trying to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. If we still have pride in what we can do. The first essence of blessedness is being humble. Being poor in spirit. The second essence is being pure in heart. Look in verse 8:
MATTHEW 5:8
An essential characteristic we must have is a pure heart. A holy heart. That isn’t just simply following a list of do’s and don’ts. The Pharisees did that and you know what Jesus thought about them. You can follow all the do’s and don’ts you want and still be lost and on your way to an eternity in Hell. That’s not what it means to be pure in heart. What it means to be pure in heart is that all my thoughts have to be pure. All my motives have to be pure. All my secret passions and desires have to be pure. All the parts of our heart need to be pure. Not just the parts people see at church. Not just the parts people see at home. But the parts people see when you’re having your worst day ever. The parts that only you see when it’s late at night and no one else is looking. All the parts. Poor in spirit and pure in heart—the essence of blessedness. Jesus requires the attitude of blessedness and the essence of blessedness. In these Beatitudes we’re seeing words that always seemed so poetic and peaceful. But we’re seeing that they are really pretty depressing. They’re depressing, because no one here has the attitude of blessedness. We’re not meek, we don’t mourn, we’re not merciful, we’re not peacemakers. Even when we might bump the scale a little bit with some of those attitudes, the essence is off. No one here is truly poor in spirit. We all have areas of our heart that we close the door on because we know they’re not clean. So far, these words that always seemed so peaceful are really very condemning. What about the third requirement for blessedness? Maybe we measure up a little bit better with that one. Jesus requires that we show the evidence of blessedness. The last two Beatitudes we haven’t covered are the evidence of blessedness. Look with me in verse 6 at the first evidence:
MATTHEW 5:6
Do you have any kind of food you crave? Sometimes I will tear the house apart looking for a piece of chocolate. I say that’s a craving, but that’s not nearly as strong as the craving that Jesus requires us to have for righteousness. One of the most traumatic things you can ever see is to watch a drug addict go through withdrawals. Every fiber of their being cries out for the drug. That’s the picture Jesus is painting with His words, “hunger and thirst” for righteousness. To be blessed, He requires that every fiber of our being cry out for His righteousness all the time. God says that everything we do, all the time, is to be marked by our insatiable desire to be like Jesus Christ. Is your life marked by your continual, unending, passion to be like Christ? Do you cry out day and night for His righteousness? Well, maybe we’ll finally measure up with the second evidence. Let’s look at verses 10-12:
MATTHEW 5:10-12
Are you persecuted for your pursuit of righteousness? I’m not talking about made to feel slightly uncomfortable for praying before a meal in public. Are you persecuted? God has blessed us with a wonderful country where we are not put in prison or beaten by the government for our religion. But if we truly pursue righteousness, we will begin to make the lost around us very uncomfortable. When that happens, eventually, we will be persecuted in some way, shape, or fashion. But the problem is that we’re scared of persecution. We pray that God will keep us from it. The persecuted church in China prays for it. It prays for it, and the Gospel is spreading like wildfire over there. Homes are raided and Christians are beaten for having a Bible. And you know what happens? Revival! The underground house churches are in revival. So we’re not persecuted for righteousness and we don’t pursue righteousness. We don’t have the attitude of blessedness. We don’t have the essence of blessedness. And we don’t show the evidence of blessedness. These wonderful, poetic Beatitudes that many of us memorized as a child aren’t so comforting after all. As a matter of fact they’re condemning. That’s exactly why Jesus preached them. He preached them to show us the way to achieve all the blessings we want. To show us how to be comforted. How to inherit the earth. How to be filled. How to obtain mercy. He even showed us how to see God and to be called His children. He showed us the way to His Kingdom of Heaven. In just 9 short verses, He told us how to be blessed with, as Paul said in Ephesians 1:3, “all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.” He told us the attitude we have to have. He told us the essence we have to have. He told us the evidence we have to show. There’s only one problem—we can’t do it. Just 9 short verses, and we can’t do it. That’s why Jesus gave them to us. He gave them to us to show us that we can’t do it. We can’t be good enough. We can’t—but He can. And He is good enough. That is why He came to the earth over 2000 years ago. Conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of a virgin. Immanual—God with us. He lived a sinless life and died on the cross 33 years later as a perfect sacrifice so that you and I wouldn’t have to. He was raised on the third day and ascended to Heaven where He is seated today at the right hand of the Father until one day He will return to call His children home. Because we can’t live up to the requirements God demands in His Beatitudes, we all deserve to die and suffer eternally in a burning, fiery place of torment and suffering called Hell. But because God loves us, He provided a way. He sacrificed His Son to take the penalty for us not living up to the standard. Not living up to what He requires for us to be blessed. If you simply trust Him, repent of your sins, and believe that He did what He said He did, your sins are hung on that cross of Calvary and covered with the blood of Jesus Christ—never to be seen again. Not only does Jesus take away our sin, He covers us in His righteousness which is sufficient. Sufficient to supply the attitude of blessedness. Sufficient to supply the essence of blessedness. Sufficient to supply the evidence of blessedness. The righteousness of Jesus Christ is the answer to the quest for blessedness. The question I have for you this morning is, do you know Him? Have you been given the gift of His righteousness? When you see your life laid up against the plumb line of the Beatitudes, what do you see? Do you see yourself trying hard to live up to them in your own power? If you are, that doesn’t lead to blessedness, that only leads to condemnation. Do you see yourself just living life, working for the American Dream? Are you in an endless pursuit of purpose, fulfillment, and happiness? Without Jesus, it’s all just chasing rainbows. It’s an endless quest with nothing to show for it except frustration and emptiness. This morning, let your quest lead you to Jesus.
