My message this morning is titled “Happy New Year.” Part of the reason for that is because we are going to take a look at the Beatitudes. In the Beatitudes, Jesus said, “O how blessed are the …” and the word there “blessed” is makarios, which means, “O how happy..”
These are counter intuitive statements – “O how happy are those who mourn…” “O how happy are those who hunger…” People in the world think you are going to be happy if you pursue what you like, but Jesus tells us what makes us happy is when we are pure in heart. By our nature we are not like this. What the Beatitudes ask of us is impossible by our human nature; we cannot do and be what Jesus calls us to be. So Jesus gives us an impossible beginning for an impossible sermon.
“Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.”
Yesterday there was a gentleman taking pictures. He happened to take a picture of me and I saw the picture from a distance. As I got closer, I was wondering, who that bald guy was? And then I found out that it was me! Jesus is saying, “be ye therefore perfect.” And I can think of various imperfections in me – not just physically, but in terms of character, my response to people who are not pleasant to me etc, my character is not really how Jesus is describing here. In fact it is impossible to be what Jesus wants us to be!
Jesus is calling us to something higher, eternal, and better than ordinary, human existence. He is calling us to a spiritual, godly, and a heavenly existence.
“We were created to become like Jesus. From the very beginning, God’s plan has been to make us like His Son. In all of creation, only human beings are made in God’s image, in His likeness. We don’t know all this might include, but we do know some of the aspects: Like God, we are spiritual beings – our spirits are immortal & will outlast our earthly bodies; we are intellectual – we can think, reason, & solve problems; like God we are relational – we can give & receive real love; & we have a moral consciousness.” - MELVIN NEWLAND
From the beginning, God made us to be like Jesus.
There are 9 Beatitudes. Many pastors have said there are 8. But verse 11 is also a beatitude, although the pattern is different. You can say it is an expansion of the last of the eight beatitudes but they are all connected.
They are groups of 4 - some say inward and outward, some say character and behavior, and another said the first 3 have to do with the process of coming to Christ, of salvation.
For example: If we are mourning for our own sin, because we know what we have done is wrong, then that would lead us to repentance, and through that we will receive the comforts and blessing of God in a relationship with Him, through Lord Jesus Christ.
There is also the poorness in spirit. Before I start speaking every Sunday, I am in my closet praying and pouring out my heart to God saying, “Lord, I do not feel worthy to give this message. I feel that I am poor in spirit.” I do not mean a kind of false humility. “But by nature I am not a spiritual person, and yet You have called me to give this message. Yet, You have called me to give this message to these people. You will have to give me Your grace and me a simply a recipient of Your mercy. And through Your grace, pour out a blessing on these people in spite of me, not because of me.” When we have a poverty of spirit, we leave room for the work of God.
B - Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
E - Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted
A - Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
T - Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
I - Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
T - Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
U - Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God
D - Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
E - Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you
__________________________________________________________________________
B
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. – Matthew 5:3
Paul said, “I am the chiefest of sinners.” Actually when you go through Galatians, Ephesians and Romans, in each one, Paul makes a statement about his character. In one of the earliest letters, he says:
1. I am not the least of the apostles. I have these qualifications and gives his CV.
2. I am the least of all the apostles, born out of time!
3. I am the chiefest of sinners.
There are some people who argue, the closer you get to God, the more in touch you become with your own sin. That is true.
If you have a genuine encounter with the almighty God, His holiness and His light will reveal your impurity and your darkness. You see your own sin more clearly when you are the closest to God. So those who become truly near to God, come face to face painfully with their own poverty of spirit.
E
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. – Matthew 5:4
ILLUSTRATION:
Thomas Dorsey was a concert musician and was scheduled to give a concert outside his city. Since his wife was sick, he did not want to leave her. He felt God was telling him that he needed to stay. But as his wife urged him to go, he went and the concert was a great success. While there was a celebration, a man came to him with the telegram that his wife had died.
He says, “When I got back, he learned that Netty, his wife, had given birth to a boy. I swung between grief and joy, and yet that night the baby died. I buried Netty and the little boy together, in the same casket. I fell apart. For days I had closed myself in the closet and did not want to serve God anymore. I did not want to write gospel songs and go back to the Jazz music. But as I hunched over, along in the dark apartment, I thought back about that afternoon I wanted to go to St. Louis. Something kept telling me to stay back with Netty. If I had paid more attention to Him that day, I could have stayed close to my wife when she died. From that day I vowed to listen more closely to Him. Yet I was lost in grief. Everyone was kind to me. My friend Prof. Fry seemed to know what I needed. He took me to the neighborhood college of music. Late evening the sun crept down and I sat down at the piano, and my hands began to browse over the keys and something happening to me then. I felt peace. I felt I could reach out and touch God. I felt playing a melody which I had never heard before and words came to my head.”
And he wrote one of the famous gospel songs, which was written. It was Martin Luther King’s favorite song. It was President Lyndon Johnson’s favorite song too and was sung at his funeral.
The words go like this,
“Precious Lord, take my hand, Lead me on, let me stand. I am tired, I am weak, I am worn. Through the storm, through the night, Lead me on to the light; Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home.”
Those who mourn will be comforted. But through our grief, God reveals Himself as the One, Who is truly our Comforter, a very present help in time of need.
There was one pastor who wrote about the Beatitudes. He wrote a book, “The Be-Attitudes.”
I was talking to a friend who was frustrated serving on the board, because of politics. It is a Christian organization. He was saying to me, “Ken, we as Christians, are far too focused on DOING, and far too unfocussed on BEING.” Character is what counts in the Kingdom of God.
The Be-Attitudes
A
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. – Matthew 5:5
Many of us think of meekness as weakness. But the two are not associated. The word that is used in the Greek is used for a warhorse. You capture a wild horse, then you train it and domesticate it to take a saddle to bear a rider in war or a race. That kind of a horse is called a MEEK horse, that horse whose strength and power has been brought under control. That is meekness.
ILLUSTRATION:
When I was in the US in the 1980s as a teenager I loved watching the American football. In the middle of the 1980s one of the unbeatable team had this defensive line which was considered to be an immovable object. One of the reasons is that this line backer named Johnson, about 6 foot 4”, and he weighed 320 pounds! He was really huge! When he was standing there, and a few tried running against him, it was funny to watch it – they would just bounce off of him. And he would run through the defensive line of the offence, and sack the quarter back, over and over. They called him the “refrigerator.” There were times when “refrigerator Johnson,” would take his two year old son for a walk during his off season. That is meekness!
Meekness is not weakness, where you become a doormat for everyone to step on, but it is strength under control.
Jesus, I believe, was the meekest man ever to walk on earth. The disciples tried telling Him not to go to the cross. But Jesus could have called an entire legion of angels for His help!
As one pastor said it, “When the men came to arrest Jesus, and Jesus said, “I AM,” and they fell down backwards…He could have said, I AM and you are not, and they would have disappeared. But, in His meekness, He humbled Himself to death, even the death on a cross! That is true meekness - to have such unlimited power, and yet not to use it to destroy your enemies, but to love your enemies.
T
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. – Matthew 5:6
What is it that we hunger for? Obviously we hunger for food. Some of you as I am at the message might be thinking, “I know what I am going to do about lunch.” You know what you are hungering for and you make plans for it.
There are other things we hunger for too – to be loved, for recognition, for accomplishment and significance, for adoration, honor, respect, but Jesus says, “O how happy are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness!”
I think we are so busy hungering for other things that we do not have space for that we need most.
John Piper said,
“The weakness of our hunger for God is not because He is unsavory, but because we keep ourselves stuffed with other things.”
The Psalmist said, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” We need to hunger and thirst for righteousness – for the Spirit of God that He would give us purity.
Some people have a New Year’s resolution to lose weight but maybe many of us are becoming spiritually emaciated, because we have lost our ability to be hungry for the right kind of food. Why not make a resolution to gain some spiritual muscle?
We need to not only go on a weight loss diet to lose fat, but we need to go on a muscle gain diet to gain spiritual strength – to build those spiritual muscles through love, mercy, kindness, study of God’s Word, through prayer and supplication.
I
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. – Matthew 5:7
At the end of the disciples’ prayer Jesus goes on to say, “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”
If we are harboring unforgiveness against others, we are unable to receive the forgiveness of God. It is not He is unwilling to give it, but when you are holding a grudge against someone, and not forgiving; when you are offended by your brother/sister by some wrong they have done to you, we then lose the ability to receive His grace and mercy, because we are not giving His grace and mercy.
Our reception of mercy is associated with giving of mercy. The unforgiving servant from Matthew 18 was unwilling to forgive a lesser debt that his servant owed him.
When we hold something against someone, we end up in prison. The person we cannot forgive is set free, but we are bound.
Mercy is when someone deserves punishment, and you do not give it. How happy are those who may be offended, and yet they forgive…and they shall receive mercy.
T
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. – Matthew 5:8
We sing the song, “purify my heart – make me as gold or rich as silver...”
The purity of heart is associated with the refining of gold or silver.
ILLUSTRATION
Gold is refined by heating it to 1600 degree Celsius. The chemicals are added. And those chemicals when it is heated to this high temperature, and this gold becomes liquid, these chemicals in the gold attach, and then those lighter elements rise to the surface. And then you can scrape the impurities off. And what the gold refiners do, is they scrape off the impurities till all that is left is pure gold – purest gold.
And as human being, by our nature, we are duplicitous and multiplicitous. We have our hearts desiring to all kinds of things, related to our hunger and thirst. But David says, “Give me an undivided heart. This one thing, have I desired, one thing will I seek after, that I might behold the beauty of the Lord, to enquire at His temple.”
U
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. – Matthew 5:9
Think about the Prince of Peace, the price that He paid that He might give us peace.
ILLUSTRATION
In the 1920s there was a serious conflicts between England and Ireland. Ireland wanted to be an independent nation. They did not mind being part of the United Kingdom, they wanted to govern themselves.
That organization that was there as a resistance against the British government, is still there today, IRA, the Irish Republican Army. There are still some terrorists acts carried out against the British government, because those seven counties in the northern part of Ireland wanted to be free.
Winston Churchill was sent to solve this problem, and it was considered to be an unsolvable problem. He met with the head of the resistance, and before that he had taken out a bounty against them. There were posters posted in Ireland, ten thousand pounds for this man – dead or alive. And it was actually Churchill, who had that secretly done. He had also established the Black & Tans. They had the authority to shoot on sight if a member of the resistance was found.
There was tremendous hostility between Churchill and Michael Collins, the IRA. Nevertheless, they met in 1921, and began peace talk. They both were bull doggish men! Stout, harsh and rough. They went back and forth on how posters were made - The Boars had put out a poster against Churchill for a bounty of just 10 pounds. Anyway, this was the beginning of the peace talks. Over the course, they made the decision that the 7 northern counties remained a part of Britain, and the rest of Ireland a free state, as part of the Empire.
The Agreement was signed, Dec. 6, 1921. As they were signing, Churchill and the others said “this may be our political death warrant.” Collins said ‘this is my death warrant’. Within two months he was killed by his own people, IRA gunmen.
There is a price to be paid for peace-making, and if you are going to be a peace-maker, you probably will have to sacrifice your own life to do it. You have to lay down your own ego, your own desires to make peace.
There are no peace fakers, as if there are no difference between us, but peace makers, learning to work together.
D
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. – Matthew 5:10
One of my favorite stories in the book of Acts is in Acts 5.
“They called the apostles in and had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. 42 Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ.”
I Peter 4:15 says, “If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. 16 However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name.”
E
“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” – Matthew 5:11-12
We have to be willing to embrace persecution and opposition because we are doing what God has called us to do. And I think, whether to show mercy or to mourn or to sacrifice our ego to have poverty of spirit, or financial struggle, we put it off. We think of the good thing we want to do for our friend, to be a blessing, and we decide we are going to put it off. Let’s not put it off. Let this year be the year of the Beatitudes for us, the year of happiness. Let this be truly happy new year.
If our New Year is to be truly happy, truly blessed, we must be willing to say goodbye to the past and move on toward the future, the future with God in Christ, to embrace that high calling for which we have been called heavenward in Christ Jesus; we must lift up our eyes toward heaven, where as CS Lewis says, “joy is the serious business of heaven.”
John Maxwell said,
"They were going to be all they wanted to be, TOMORROW. None would be braver or kinder than they, TOMORROW. A friend who was troubled and wearied they knew, would be glad for a lift and he needed it too, and on him they would call and see what they could do, TOMORROW. Each morning they stacked up the letters they’d write, TOMORROW. And thought of the folks that they would fill with delight, TOMORROW. The greatest of people, they just might have been. The world would have opened it’s heart to them, but, in fact, they passed on and faded from view and all that they left when their living was through was a mountain of things that they intended to do, TOMORROW."
Let us not wait until tomorrow, to embrace the character of Christ, to love our neighbor as ourselves, to be merciful, to mourn with those who mourn, to lift up the weak and the heavy hearted, to show God’s grace in this world. Let us be that today.
