I want to start by reading Matt 5:3, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
First Blessed means more than happy, happiness is an emotion often dependent on surrounding circumstances. We all know people who strive for happiness. These are people who when things are going there way they are top of the world. These people are full of jokes, smiles and kind words when they are in a good situation, but when they are in a bad situation things change drastically. They are irritable, unpredictable, unreliable, frequently pointing to how some bad situation is not their fault and how others are making their life difficult. These people are fun to be around when things are good and miserable to be around when things are bad.
These people struggle with conviction, because their goal is to experience the emotion of happiness. The more things required to make a happy-environment, the more difficult it is to sustain happiness. When a person’s sense of well-being comes from their situation: that is the type of friends they have, the amount of money they have, the condition of their health, whether their goals, ambitions and promotions are on track, these people must manipulate their world in order to maintain happiness. For this person conviction makes their quest more difficult, because convictions just add to a long list of things required to experience happiness.
Blessed people are different. Blessed people do not see the glass as half empty or half full. They just know they have a drink of water. Blessed people are blessed and speak of being blessed, whether their situation is good or bad. Blessed people understand that they do not generate the good things that come their way and that the blessings they have are not there just to benefit them, but to benefit others as well. Blessed people have a sense of already possessing enough; no matter how much or how little they have they do not require more to find satisfaction. They are not trying to win at life; they know that life itself is a victory. Blessed people are nearly unshakeable, it’s not the idea of if life gives you lemons make lemonade, blessed people are content with the lemons and grateful they didn’t get brussel-sprouts.
Blessed people have convictions, lots of them, because they are completely persuaded that once you disconnect yourself from the source of your blessing all goodness stops. An atheist can have a sense of blessing: they can obtain that from a strong family or scientific research or a connectedness within a community. But if someone tries to take one of those things away, they can get quite hostile, because they are losing their source of blessing. Blessed people continue to feel blessed as long as their source of blessing is in place.
Are you blessed? If so what is your source of blessing? Can the source of your blessing be removed from you? Can you lose it, can it be taken away from you? Can government intervention, changing laws, corruption or political activists terminate your source of blessing? If the answer to those questions is no, Does your life reflect your belief? Do we speak more about being blessed or more about things that interfere with our blessings? Do we dare dig a little deeper and ask, Can family problems remove our blessing? Can ill health or financial distress remove our source of blessing? If the answer is yes, we are seeking happiness, not blessedness. If the answer is no, does our life reflect our belief?
If this is something you struggle with the answer lays in a deeper study of Matthew 5:3. Blessed are the poor in spirit. The word poor translated from the Greek, ptōe-khoos means a beggar. Not just any beggar, not like when a kid begging his dad for the car key, but a cringing beggar, a pauper who lives on the handouts of others. Someone who can only sustain his existence by asking for help.
Jesus said, Blessed are the poor in spirit. In the context of His message, Jesus is advising people to beg God for our spiritual life and telling us we will receive the gift God’s blessing and the kingdom of heaven.
Proverbs 16:18 & 19 Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. Better to be lowly in spirit and among the oppressed than to share plunder with the proud.
Jeremiah 17:7 & 8 But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him. 8He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leafs are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.”
Through Jeremiah God paints a picture of a person who is bless, not because of who they are or what they have done, but blessed because of where they have been planted.
It is okay to pursue happiness. But it must be understood that happiness is a temporary condition based on certain circumstances being in place. It is good to be happy when you get off work on Friday afternoon and start your weekend, but Monday is coming and your happiness will end. It is good to be happy on your birthday and to sing and celebrate, but aching joints, sore backs, heart conditions, lowering metabolism and loss of energy, will remove much of that happiness.
Being blessed by God puts us in an entirely different situation. Because God’s blessing is not temporary or conditional. It is permanent and based on the works and sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ.
God’s blessing is not generated by us, His blessing is created solely by Him.
We cannot lose it, only fail to feel it.
We cannot control or stop it, but we can ignore it.
We cannot remove it from our lives, but we can remove all the effects of the blessing from our lives.
We fail to experience God’s blessings when we chose a life of sin.
Isa 59:1 Surely the arm of the LORD is not too short to save,
nor his ear too dull to hear.
Isa 59:2 But your iniquities have separated
you from your God;
your sins have hidden his face from you,
so that he will not hear.
Jer 5:25 Your wrongdoings have kept these away;
your sins have deprived you of good.
Ps 84:11 For the LORD God is a sun and shield;
the LORD bestows favor and honor;
no good thing does he withhold
from those whose walk is blameless.
Ps 84:12 O LORD Almighty,
blessed is the man who trusts in you.
This idea of being blameless or living a sin free life may sound impossible to you? From our perspective living a perfect life means we have no failures. Consider Acts 13:22 where it says, ...I have found David son of Jesse a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do. What did David do? Among other things he raised a dysfunctional family, had an affair, and plotted to have a man murdered. Doesn’t really sound like a great guy does he?
How about Abraham, the father of the faith, James 2:23 says, And the scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. Called God’s friend, now that’s impressive. Yet we read then when God asked Abraham to leave his country and leave his family behind. Abraham took family with him, a family that caused him a lot of trouble. After Abraham reached the promised land, he faced the obstacle of a famine. So what did he do? He left and went to Egypt. Where fear over took him and he gave his wife to the king. Then just to add to the drama he did the whole thing a second time.
David, the man after God’s own heart and Abraham, the friend of God, these men were not perfect. Being perfect is Christ job and no one will live up to it or is expected to live up to it. To live sinless is our goal, but we are not failures if we cannot attain a perfect lifestyle. God’s blessing is not reserved for those who never fail, but is free poured out on those who are willing to raise from their failures and to try again and again.
On July 27th 1993 Javier Sotomayor of Cuba set the world record for the high jump, he cleared a bar 8 feet high. That means he’s the best. But how many times do you suppose he knocked the bar down before he reached that height? And he never cleared it again. Does that mean he’s a failure? Of course not, he is considered the best high jumper ever, but he wasn’t perfect. Christ is the only sinless One. When we place expectations on ourselves higher than the expectations God places on us we are doomed to fail. Once we understand that, we cannot attain a sinless life we are left begging God to forgive us in Christ Jesus. Blessed are those who know that they cannot earn the kingdom of heaven, but who know that because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. That is Ephesians 2:4 & 5 and the cry of every person who knows they are spiritual beggars crying out to God for help.
Every single one of us is richly blessed by God. We have the opportunity in place to be in a right relationship with God through Jesus Christ and most of us have taken that step. We have turned our eternity from hell to heaven, we are blessed by God. Acts 16:31 says, Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household. That means if you believe Christ you are either a continuation or the perpetuator of seeing your family reached by God for salvation for generations. We are blessed by God.
This week the message is on how to live with strong convictions without being unreasonable. We can live with our strong convictions knowing that God has blessed us and given us gifts that we have not earned and do not deserve. We need to extend to others the news of the blessings of God and when others are making our lives difficult we need to remember how many times we have made God’s life difficult. How many times we have failed Him and we need to do the best we can to extend the same forgiveness to others that God has extended to us.
Conviction is a good thing and is the result of being completely confident that we are right. The way to avoid being unreasonable in explaining or standing up for our convictions is to remember that the most important thing we have received is a gift given to us by God. A gift that will never be taken from us and a gift He has asked us to share with others.
I’ll finish with a reading from Psalm 131
Ps 131:1 My heart is not proud, O LORD,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
Ps 131:2 But I have stilled and quieted my soul;
like a weaned child with its mother,
like a weaned child is my soul within me.
Ps 131:3 O Israel, put your hope in the LORD
both now and forevermore.
