Matthew 5:1-12
The Beatitudes
Manuscript
What does it mean to be happy? To be fortunate? Blessed? Who are the ones we as people regard as the lucky ones? The fortunate, the blessed ones? What do we think of? We tend to think of those with money. They can afford to live the way they want. They never have to worry about paying their bills. If they want something, they can have it. We think of those who can afford a nice home, a nice car. When they travel they fly at the front of the plane and not in cattle class. And who can afford whatever their heart’s desire is. We don’t just think of the rich though. We think of the beautiful, those who are so attractive. Everyone wants to be with them. If they are an attractive guy, they can get whatever girl they want. And vice versa. The attractive woman gets the guy she wants. We can envy the beautiful people. We also think of the powerful. Those who have access to privilege and status. And of course, these things often go together. The rich, beautiful, powerful people. The fortunate ones, the lucky ones, the blessed ones. People like pop stars, movie stars, sports stars. Who wouldn’t want to be Micheal Jordan, Paris Hilton, Darren Lockyer, Taylor Swift or Justin Bieber? Who of us hasn’t wondered why we haven’t got the lucky breaks they have? Now even if we don’t go looking at famous names, who of us wouldn’t wish to be more beautiful, richer and more powerful than we are now? Why do we desire these things? Because we think that if we have these things we will be happy, fortunate, blessed. But are these the things that bring true happiness? Are these the things that bring lasting, eternal, happiness? And most importantly, are these the things that Jesus regards as the true hallmarks of happiness?
Today we start on the Sermon on the Mount and we start with Matthew 5:1-12 which is commonly known as the Beatitudes. In the beatitudes Jesus describes those who are happy – blessed. And He turns our idea of happiness and fortunate on its head. We think happiness is to be rich. Jesus says the happy ones are those who are poor in spirit. We say happiness is not to be sad. Jesus says those who mourn will be happy. We say it is the powerful who are happy. Jesus says is the meek and humble and merciful and those who are peacemakers who are happy. We say it is those who are able to indulge in whatever vice they want and get away with it who are happy. Jesus says it is those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, and who are pure in heart, who are happy. We reckon we are happy when we lead a life where everyone thinks we are wonderful and everyone looks up to us. Jesus says the happy ones are those who are persecuted, reviled and who are insulted and have evil things said against them. Wow, what a difference. What sort of happiness is this? What sort of blessedness is this that welcomes persecution, poverty and humility?
But first, a little bit of context. We are continuing on preaching through Matthew. Last week we looked at Jesus calling some of His disciples and we also looked at Jesus starting His public ministry. And in verse 25 we read that vast crowds began to follow Him as he taught and healed many people. And our passage today opens in chapter 5:1 with (pg 809)
Matthew 5:1 Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2 And he opened his mouth and taught them.
The area Jesus went to was probably the hills to the west of the Sea of Galilee. And somewhere near here, Jesus sat down and He began to teach. And chapters 5-7 contain this teaching and this section of teaching is commonly known as “The Sermon on the Mount.” Why? Because Jesus was on a mountain or hill when He preached it - pretty simple reason for naming it the “Sermon on the Mount”! And there’s a lot in the Sermon on the Mount. Because there’s so much in the Sermon on the Mount, it’s going to take us about 4 months to get through it. And in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches us how we ought to live.
But first of all, He starts His sermon off by telling us who the happy, fortunate ones are. Or in your Bibles, most versions use the word “blessed.” For example, verse 3 says
Matthew 53 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
And we have 9 phrases here that start with the word “blessed.” Now the word blessed is the Greek word μακαριος. Now when we read a word like “blessed” it can sound a bit old fashioned, but μακαριος was not an old fashioned word in everyday Greek back then. It was a normal word that translates into English as “blessed, happy, fortunate.” In other words, it was typically used to apply to those people who were born into rich families, who were well educated, who were beautiful and strong and powerful and famous. People back then were like us today, they thought the people who were μακαριος - that is, blessed, happy, fortunate - were the rich, beautiful, famous and powerful people who everyone liked and emulated. And so it must have been a real shock to the system when Jesus opens His mouth and the first thing He says is:
Matthew 53 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Before we go further and look at what being poor in the spirit is, we might have a bit of a look at what this Kingdom of Heaven is that keeps cropping up in Matthew. We’ve already seen, that the Kingdom of Heaven was at the centre of Jesus’ message. In Matthew 4.17 Jesus preached “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” And now Matthew 5.3 in the first beatitude, Jesus says that the poor in spirit are blessed because theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. If we jump over to the last beatitude in verse 10
Matthew 510 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
- we see again that the reward for those who are persecuted for righteousness sake is that theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. That is, they are the ones who get to live in the Kingdom of Heaven. What is the Kingdom of Heaven? Matthew use the term “Kingdom of Heaven” 31 times in His Gospel, which is quite a lot. And something very interesting is that the expression “Kingdom of Heaven” is only found in Matthew. It doesn’t occur anywhere else in the Bible – not even in any of the other Gospels. But there’s another very similar phrase that occurs throughout the rest of the New Testament, especially in Mark and Luke, but is very rare in Matthew. And that phrase is “the Kingdom of God.” The phrase, “The kingdom of God” occurs only 4 times in Matthew, but 14 times in Mark and 31 times in Luke. Could it be that Matthew uses the phrase “Kingdom of Heaven” instead of “Kingdom of God”? That is, as a synonym? Well, let’s look at some parallel passages and see if this is the case: Firstly – Jesus’ message in Matthew, as we have seen is,
Matthew 417 From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Mark describes Jesus’ message in Mark 1.15:
Mark 115 “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
Jesus of course has the same message, proclaiming the same kingdom, so it would seem the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of God is the same thing. We can see it again with a number of other parallels. For example, when talking about John the Baptist, in Matthew, Matthew quotes Jesus as saying:
Matthew 1111 Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
And Luke quotes Jesus as saying:
Luke 728 I tell you, among those born of women none is greater than John. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”
In the parables we see this too. For example, we see it in the parable of the mustard seed and the parable of the leaven. In Matthew, the Kingdom of Heaven is compared to a mustard seed and to leaven. In Luke, it is the Kingdom of God is compared to a mustard seed and to leaven. Obviously, this is the same parable. So the Kingdom of Heaven is the same thing as the Kingdom of God.
[ Matthew 13 31 He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. 32 It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” 33 He told them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.”
Luke 1318 He said therefore, “What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it? 19 It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.” 20 And again he said, “To what shall I compare the kingdom of God? 21 It is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened.” ]
And we see it again when children were brought to Jesus. In Matthew, Jesus says that the children belong to the Kingdom of Heaven, whereas in Mark and Luke He says they belong to the Kingdom of God.
[ Matthew 1913 Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, 14 but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”
Mark 1013 And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. 14 But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.
Luke 1815 Now they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them. And when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. 16 But Jesus called them to him, saying, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. ]
There are other examples as well. It seems quite clear from the parallel passages that Matthew calls the Kingdom of God, “the Kingdom of Heaven.” But why? Well, most likely because Matthew was writing His Gospel for Jews. You see, Jews in Jesus’ day, were afraid to directly use the word “God”, because they were afraid that they might accidentally use His name incorrectly and run the risk of blaspheming. When they read from the Old Testament, where the word “Yahweh” was written in the Old Testament, they would actually say “Adonai”, which means “Lord”, instead. Other times, they would say or write “Heaven” instead of “God”, but it had the meaning of “God”. So it would seem that Matthew, in writing to Jewish readers, usually substituted the word “Heaven” for “God.” That was common practice and Jews knew that “heaven” meant “God” when they read or heard the word in a context like that. Whereas Mark and Luke, who most likely wrote for Gentile readers, didn’t worry about that. But after all that, what have we learnt? We’ve learnt that the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of God are two different names for the same thing.
So then, what is the Kingdom of God, or Kingdom of Heaven? Well, kingdom means “reign” or “rule,” so it means the reign of God. And Jesus came proclaiming that He was bringing in the reign of God. Now we know that God is sovereign. God is already king over everything. So didn’t they have the kingdom of God already? Well, we learnt last year that right back in Genesis, that people originally lived under the direct rule of God, but they rebelled against God and sinned, and since that time we have tried to rule ourselves, usually with disastrous results. So although God is sovereign, He allows us to rule ourselves for a time. And that of course is an imperfect rule, because as people we are full of sin, so we don’t do a good job of ruling ourselves.
But Jesus came to fulfil all righteousness, to do away with sin. And so He came to usher in God’s rule, His kingdom. When He died on the cross and rose again, He defeated satan and sin and death and inaugurated His kingdom. However when Jesus came the first time, He only inaugurated His kingdom and we, at this point in time in history, still await the time when Jesus will return a second time sometime in the future, when we will live directly under God’s perfect rule. In that time there will be no sin, no disease, no sickness, no injustice, we will be living fully in the Kingdom of God. But in the meantime, in this time period that we are in now, we live in the time when God has inaugurated His Kingdom in Christ, but we still wait for the full outworking of Christ’s rule. But when we come to God by repenting of our sins and trusting in Christ for our salvation, the Holy Spirit comes and lives in us, and we experience in part the Kingdom of God in our own lives right now as a foretaste of the fullness of the kingdom which is coming.
And so in these beatitudes in Matthew 5, Jesus describes the person who puts God’s kingdom first. He describes the people He is looking for, who count as nothing the things of this world. The people who do not strive after the things of earthly, man-made kingdoms, but instead have their eyes set on the coming reign of God. So let’s now look at these beatitudes with these things in mind. So to our first beatitude
Matthew 53 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
In the Jewish context of those times, to be poor meant someone who was completely reliant on others. There was no social security, so no independence for the poor. You were totally dependent on others. And so poor people tended to rely on God more than rich people did. They had to, and the word “poor” came to be used for the “righteous poor.” That is, those who relied on God for everything, whether they were financially poor or not. But of course, the financially poor find it easier to rely on God than the rich do. In our society we esteem the self-made man or woman. But not so in the kingdom of God. God is looking for people who are not self-made, not trusting in their own strength, their own wealth, their own abilities, but people who are solely dependent on God. The poor in spirit. For theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. Onto verse 4 we read:
Matthew 54 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
Literally it is “happy are those who are sad.” An interesting way to put things. It doesn’t say here what they are mourning about, but in the context of the rest of the beatitudes, it most likely refers to those who mourn because of the state of the world. If you are a person after God’s own heart, there is no way you can be happy with the way the world is today. There is no way you can be happy with injustice and oppression, with poverty, death and disease. And the person who is attune to God’s purpose will realise that the root cause behind the world’s problems is our sin. So there is a grief, a mourning at both our own personal sin and the sin of others. But in the Kingdom of Heaven, when a person submits to God’s rule in their life, and in a fuller sense, when Christ returns and established His kingdom in all its totality, there will be no more oppression, injustice, poverty, disease and death, because there will be no sin. And so the person who mourns now because we live in a sinful world will be comforted.
Matthew 55 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Again, it seems odd that meek people would inherit the earth. Who inherits the earth in our world? Who gets the power, who rules countries? It’s not often a meek person who plays the dirty political games to win an election. It’s not often a meek person who commands an army to conquer and win power. It seems ridiculous that a meek person will inherit the earth. But in God’s economy, it is the meek who do inherit the earth. What does meek mean? Here, the Greek word means, humble, gentle, mild, considerate - and lowly. That is, they don’t regard themselves as superior to others, and they are humbly dependent on God. In the Kingdom of Heaven they will inherit the earth.
Now that they inherit the earth might at first sound confusing, because haven’t we been talking about the Kingdom of Heaven? That is, heaven, not earth. But one fact which is often overlooked is that when Christ returns and ultimately sets up His eternal kingdom, it is not just a kingdom in the clouds, but as Revelation 21.1 reminds us:
21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.
That is, God’s future kingdom is not just heavenly, but is a totally renewed creation- heaven and earth. The meek, the humble, will inherit the earth in God’s coming kingdom. Let’s move on.
Matthew 5 6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
What does it mean to hunger and thirst for righteousness? I’ll tell you what it means. It means that when you sin, it creates a hunger and thirst in you that you won’t sin again. You know, when you don’t get to eat or drink for a while, nothing else matters but eating and drinking. You hunger and thirst for food. Do you have that hunger for righteousness? When we become Christians, and when we allow the Holy Spirit to fill us and change us, we change. And one way we change is we become revulsed by our own sin. So that when we do sin, we know something is wrong, we feel it. Have you ever experienced that? You’ve shouted as your spouse in anger. You’ve looked at that cute girl in the short skirt for too long. You’ve told a little white lie on your tax return. You’ve yelled abuse at the driver of the car that cut you off. You’ve ignored that person in need who asked for some help to put food on the table. By the way, these are all sins mentioned later in the Sermon on the Mount, and I think I’ve done most of them at some stage and you probably have too. How do you feel after you’ve sinned? Do you shrug it off, or does it bother you that you sinned? Do you have a hunger that you would be holier, that you wouldn’t be so prone to sin? That’s what it is to hunger and thirst for righteousness. And in the Kingdom of God, as we come under Christ’s rule now, we will sin less. And when Christ’s kingdom comes in all its fullness, we will be sin no more. Our hunger for righteousness will be satisfied! When I sin, it bothers me. O, come Lord Jesus come, and make me holy! And so we move on
Matthew 57 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
Merciful here can refer to both the act of showing compassion to those in need, as well as forgiving those who are guilty of sinning against us. And look at the reward for those who are merciful - they will receive mercy! Oh, how I need God’s mercy, especially in light of what we talked about in the previous beatitude, where we realise our sin, and hunger and thirst for righteousness. How we need God’s mercy!
And if you are here today, and you realise that you are a sinner, but you haven’t experienced God’s mercy, I want to tell you that God’s mercy and forgiveness is available if you will repent of your sins and turn to Christ.
We must be merciful, and we will receive God’s mercy. Our next beatitude says
Matthew 5 8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
What does this mean: “pure in heart”? Well some understanding of Jewish culture will help us understand us. In Jewish culture at the time, ritual purity was very important. That is, doing things so that people could see that you were holy. Fasting and praying and giving in public so that everyone can see how holy you are. But often this outside purity was just a desire to look good. It wasn’t real, wasn’t a purity from the inside, from the heart. It is not those who look good on the outside, but those who are pure on the inside who will see God. And Jesus talks more about that in chapter 6 which we’ll get to in the fullness of time. Our next beatitude
Matthew 59 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
This is not just those who are peaceful, but those who make peace, who bring peace. We know Jesus was the ultimate peacemaker, who through His death and resurrection brought peace between us and God. And we are His peacemakers as we share the Good News of Christ, so that we bring peace to others. And our final beatitude:
Matthew 510 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
and then verses 11 and 12 explain more about being persecuted
Matthew 511 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
You know, look at the beatitudes we’ve looked at so far:
poor in spirit
mourning
meek
hungering and thirsting for righteousness
merciful
pure in heart
peacemakers.
Are these the things the world values? Are these the things that characterise the beautiful people in our society, those we tend to look up to? No they aren’t. If anything, they are the opposite. As we as followers of Christ seek to live out those things, it will attract opposition. People will think we are nuts. They will revile us, accuse of us evil things. But when they do that, Jesus wants us to know that we are in good company, because the prophets were also persecuted. And of course we now know that Jesus was Himself persecuted too, persecuted for righteousness’ sake, to the extent that the Jews and their Gentile overlords conspired together to crucify, to kill Him.
What have we looked at today and how does it apply to our life? Well in the beatitudes, Jesus introduces a whole different way of viewing the world. Who does the world regard as happy, fortunate, blessed? The rich, beautiful, strong, famous, powerful. But what does Jesus say? If you look at each of these beatitudes, Jesus is looking for people who are the opposite to what the world is looking for.
He is looking for the poor in spirit
– for those dependent not on themselves but on God for everything.
He is looking for those who mourn
– for those who aren’t happy with the world the way it is and mourn at its lostness.
He is looking for those who are meek,
- those who are humble and don’t think of themselves as more important than others.
He is looking for those who hunger and thirst after righteousness
- that is, for those who are intensively dissatisfied with their own sin and long for the day when they will be perfected in righteousness and no longer sin.
He is looking for those who are merciful
- taking pity on those in need, and willing to forgive those who sin against us.
He is looking for those who are pure in heart
- that is, they are pure for real, not just on the outside.
He is looking for the peacemakers
- those who will bring the message of peace to others.
And He is looking for those who will endure persecution and reviling and slander on account of His name. He is looking for those who will die to self, and who will shun temporary happiness in this world, in order to receive eternal happiness in His coming eternal kingdom. What are your values of happiness, of blessedness? The values of the world – which will only last for a short time, or the values of God – which will last for eternity?
