Matthew 5:1-12
Title: New Kingdom Order - The Beatitudes
Proposition: Jesus begins to share with us His New Kingdom Order. By following Jesus we will experience a transformation of our 1. Vocabulary 2. Our Vision 3. Our Values/ Virtues. Our lives will emulate the way things are in God's Kingdom.
INTRO:
Grace and peace from God our Father and from His Son Jesus Christ who came to take away the sin of the world.
In the first four chapters of his Gospel, St. Matthew shares with us some amazing stories concerning our Lord Jesus Christ. In chapters one and two Matthew shares with us Jesus' genealogy, some stories surrounding his birth and early life. In chapter three Matthew introduces us to John the Baptist and subsequently the baptism of Jesus. In chapter four Matthew shares with us Jesus' temptation in the wilderness, the early days of his ministry and all its successes. He tells us in Matthew 4:24 - 25:
"So his (Jesus) fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan."
What we are to understand then is that Jesus and his disciples were actively preaching the Good News, healing the sick and delivering people from bondage. Jesus was transforming lives and bringing about the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth. In just a few chapters Matthew has provided us a great deal of material to meditate and digest.
But then we begin to read chapters five through seven and find ourselves immersed in what has been called the greatest sermon of all time. We find ourselves sitting on the mountainside listening to Jesus give us this amazing sermon which over the years has been called "The Magna Charta of Christianity", "The Manifesto of the King", "Life Under the Reign of God" and "The Law of Christian Society.
As you read it, I think you have to agree what Matthew shares with us here in these three chapters has to be considered a part of his greatest gift to the Church. No other Gospel writer shares with us in such a concise way so many of Jesus' essential truths and teachings. If you really want to know what the Christian life is all about then read I would encourage you to read, meditate and study these three chapters.
However, don't attempt to do it all in one setting. Or at least don't try to just read them and think that you have absorb it all. Anyone who has taken the time to read all three chapters in one setting knows what I mean. There is more material in these 111 verses than you can absorb in one setting. or even a few settings. What Jesus teaches and preaches here is enough material to last us a lifetime.
It has long been known that the sermon that Matthew shares with us here is actually a compilation of a great many of Jesus' sermons put together in one setting. That is to say that Matthew has collected the main themes of many of Jesus' sermons and complies them into the sermon that we see here in chapters five through seven. It doesn't mean that Jesus did not share all that we have written here but instead of them happening all at once they are pieces of different sermons that have been put together in one long sermon.
Dr. William Barclay correctly points out "anyone who heard it in its present form would be exhausted long before the end." "There is far too much in it for one hearing." One would "be dazzled with excess of light long before it was finished." I think we all would agree this morning. There is a great deal of spiritual revelation, insight and inspiration in these chapters.
I believe that what St. Matthew is doing here is letting us know very quickly in his Gospel Jesus' identity and message. He has taken great pains in sharing with us that Jesus of Nazareth is in fact the Son of God, the long awaited Messiah and the one who has the power to baptize us with God's Holy Spirit. In chapters five through seven St. Matthew wants us to understand that this is the life that we can live through Jesus Christ. This is the life the LORD will enable us to live and this is the life that He desires for us to live.
Some have theorize that Jesus' sermon here is one that must not be taken literal. That believe that there are sections that we must allegorize and other sections we must look at as metaphors or parables. That what we have here is a more like a Platonist goal of the Christian life and not an instruction manual for the Christian life. That is to say that one must understand that Jesus was not telling us that this is how we are to live as his disciples in this present life but is sharing with us some lofty aspirations that we are simply to contemplate upon and perhaps if we desire we may attempt to attain to some limited measure.
The only problem with all of that is such an idea would be totally foreign to a Semitic/Hebraic audience. If the people of Judah were anything they were people who lived very practical lives and who thought in very concrete ways. The majority of Jews at that time were not given to abstract teachings and philosophies. For them the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY was real, the world was real and life was real. To read some platonic ideology into the Sermon on the Mount I believe is to totally misunderstand our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
The real quandary is that what Matthew shares with us here is so real. Jesus' words are clear and concise. It may be our desire that if we think His words and thoughts can be considered ambiguous it then provides for us an excuse not to attempt to live them out. The more we can make ourselves think that this sermon is full of allegory, metaphors, parables and even platonic thought the more we can divorce ourselves from its fundamental truth. What we must understand as we read this sermon is that this is God in Flesh sharing deep truths concerning how to speak, how to see and how to live life here on our world as His followers.
These are not the words of some itinerant rabbi wandering around the hills of Judea being followed by a motley group of unemployed fishermen and others. These are instead the words of the Son of God clothed in human flesh do all He can to make it clear what it means to live out a life of progressive holiness. These are the words of God in flesh showing us the way that we can live if we accept Him as Savior and LORD and allow the Holy Spirit to infill the totality of our very beings.
This morning, I would like for us to turn our attention to the first 12 verses of this sermon. This section that has been given the label - The Beatitudes. Many of us who were raised in church may have been taught to memorize them. Many of us were taught to commit them to our minds but I am not so sure that many of us understood that we were also to commit them into our hearts and souls. We were to allow the words of the Beatitudes to transform us from the inside out.
As we read these beatitudes one of the first things that we may think of is this - "I am so glad that those people are blessed who are going through such tough times but I am more glad that I am not one of them." After all, who this morning wants to raise their hand and volunteer and say - "I want to be one of those who considered themselves to spiritually bankrupt, one of those overwhelmed with sadness or one that is enduring persecution and facing false accusations?
Now, we may go to the LORD and say, "Yes, Lord I know you bless those people but if it is all the same you can leave me out of that blessing." "I want to be holy and a peace maker but I'd rather not be a person who endures persecution or false accusations made against them." "I want to meek but if it's all the same I would also like to owe some real estate here on this earth." "I want to grow in your grace but all that hungering and thirsting sounds a little too painful."
And yet, if we allow the Holy Spirit to reveal to us the meaning of Jesus' words here I believe we will find inspiration and encouragement. I believe what we will discover that beginning here in these beatitudes and continuing throughout the rest of this sermon is that Jesus wants us to experience a transformation in 1. Our Vocabulary 2. Our Vision and in what we see as 3. Our Virtue or Values.
I. Jesus wants to Transform Our Vocabulary
In the Beatitudes Jesus shares with us some key words that He will use throughout the rest of his ministry. They are words that include such things as poor in spirit, meekness, humbleness, righteousness, mercy, purity, peace and blessings. They are words which find their opposite in the secular world at large. Words like boasting, pride, arrogance, sensuality, popularity, power, position and greed.
The words Jesus wants us to focus on are on the opposite ends of the scale of the words that our world loves to use and emulate. At times it appears that our world loves words like humility, purity and righteousness but if we take the time we notice we see that it is only paying lip service to those words. The world does its best to redefine those words so that a humble or pure person can also be a person who seeks revenge, promotes immorality and enjoys a life of greed.
The vocabulary, the words and ideas that Jesus wants us to focus on are far different than the words and ideas that the world wants to embrace. Just grab a newspaper, read an article in a magazine or on-line, listen to the words people use on Facebook or look at the pictures people put out on instagram. The majority of the words that we find there have nothing to do with meekness, mercy, hungering and thirsting for righteousness or being a peacemaker.
People lose a game, a job or even a campaign and their attitude and behavior is not gracious or kind. People don't humbly accept a loss but instead cast blame on the referees, on their employer's greed or on a half a dozen other reasons that have little to do with the situation.
More often than not we see this - We win a game and instead of being humble we point out how the team rallied around us as we led them to victory. We get promoted at work and wonder why it took the company so long to realize our talent and expertise. We win a campaign and seek not to work with those who lost but we begin to focus on ways to make sure that they never win another campaign or even exist.
These are just some of the reasons why our LORD JESUS wants to transform our vocabulary. There are more reasons as well. We find the foundation for it all way back in Genesis chapter one verse 3 where we read these words - "AND GOD SAID". Time and time again as we read the creation story we hear these words - "AND GOD SAID".
Words matter. Word are important. Our vocabulary is important. Words were the means in which the LORD brought about creation, connection and conversion. God could have been silent and simply thought the world into existence but He used words. God more than anyone else knows the power of words. The word we say, the words we hear and the words that make up our vocabulary are vital. With them we bring life and with them we can bring death.
Listen to how a person speaks and what they say and you will soon begin to know the person. If their language is full of sports metaphors, shopping tips, hunting advice or teaching lessons then you will know what the person does, what they dwell on and what is important to them. If they talk in equations or chemical formulas or use medical words then you will know them as well. Our words come from the depth of minds, our hearts and our souls. Our vocabulary is created through repetition. The more we saturate ourselves into an area the more we use their words, absorb their thoughts and flesh out their philosophies and principals.
This is especially true for us as followers of Jesus. If our vocabulary is sprinkled with words of righteousness, words including humility, meekness, peace, kindness, joy, love etc... it is a testimony of us allowing the Holy Spirit to work in our lives. It is a testimony of the life we are living in Christ. It is a testimony of how we are reading and studying His word and the depth of our prayer lives. If however, what comes out of our mouths increasing are four letter words, words of anger and bitterness then we have blocked the Holy Spirit's transformative work and are allowing the vocabulary of the world to come in.
We need to understand that there is a spiritual battle going on for our vocabulary. Our brother James writing to the church reminds us that:
"So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a fire is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. For every creature of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature , can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God." (James 3:5-10 ESV)
Today, as you read these Beatitudes - look at the words, the meanings and allow the Holy Spirit to transform your vocabulary. Surrender your heart, your mind, your soul and your words to the Holy Spirit. Allow Him to place words like meekness, humbleness, thirsting after righteousness, peacemaking, mercy and purity of heart into your everyday speech and thought. Allow the Holy Spirit to recreate your everyday vocabulary.
II. Secondly, we are to understand that Jesus wants to transform Our Vision
Just as important as our words is also is our vision.
Proverbs 29:18 reminds us that "Where there is no revelation, no vision the people cast off the law."
Genesis 3:6 reminds us that "When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from the fruit and ate; and gave also to her husband with her, and he ate."
1 John 2:16 - "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world."
All of these verses speak of the power of vision; whether it is physical, emotional or spiritual vision. Matthew 5:8 reminds us that those who are pure in heart are not only blessed but they also can see God. Seeing God, being able to see like God, seeing the same things God sees are all things that the LORD JESUS desire for each of us this morning.
Jesus gets our attention by sharing with us the people He calls blessed. He begins by having us focus our vision on the very people that He considers to be able to receive God's blessings. It is not the high and mighty. It is not the proud, the boastful or the arrogant. Instead, it is those who the world would see as unimportant. To use a phrase that has been going around lately - the world would look at those mentioned in the beatitudes and may for want of a better world call them "deplorables". The world may even label them as unfortunate, woeful and appalling. And yet, these are the very people that Jesus was reaching out to and was sharing with them the message that the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY considers them to be recipients of His blessings.
It must have been shocking for those who first heard those words. At the same time it must have brought great comfort to many who were hearing those words. They knew all too well what it meant to feel spiritually bankrupt, to experience great sorrow and to be persecuted for their faith. Many of them knew what it meant to be run over or stepped over because they their meek and mild nature. Many knew that by nature they were more introverted than extroverted and tended to shy away from crowds and attention.
Many of the "people groups" Jesus mentions here are the very ones that unless we want to see them we often either do not see them or even look for them. How many times has the center of our attention been drawn to those who seek peace and not war? How many peacekeeper movies over the years have become blockbusters? How many from the "meek and mild" crowd find themselves on center stage rather than in the far corner of the room? How many people reach out to those who are being persecuted and lend a protective hand or instead find some shelter for themselves?
It takes great vision, Jesus vision to truly see all these people around us.
+The Woman at the Well - she is spiritually bankrupt and Jesus sees her, talks to her and redeems her.
+Mary and Martha at the tomb of Lazarus overcome with sorrow and Jesus sees them, joins in their sorrow and later in their joy
+The humble and meek woman in the temple drops a couple of coins thinking no one notices her extreme sacrifice but there is Jesus praising and adoring her.
+The woman who anoints Jesus feet does so in a spirit of complete surrender and humility only to face ridicule and persecution from self-righteous Judas. Jesus sees her and steps in and protects her and promote her.
As much as we need to change our vocabulary as Christ followers we also need to refocus our vision. By our human nature we are all drawn to the super stars, the extroverts, the charismatic people and the ones who smell of success. We gravitate towards those who hold power and position over those who are mild and meek. We tend to allow the people Jesus calls blessed here to live in the corners of our lives and churches.
However, it is that selection of individuals that Jesus wants us to understand the Father loves, promotes and pours out His everlasting blessings. They are the ones we should be looking up to rather than looking down upon. They are the ones who we should go to and sit at their feet as they teach us about meekness, how to have mercy and how to promote peace. It is the other crowd promoting arrogance, greed and self-idolatry that we need to develop a certain deafness.
III. Finally, Jesus wants us to transform our Values/Our Virtues
Please notice with me this morning the values and virtues that Jesus tells us that are blessed. Values like hungering and thirsting after righteousness. Values like being a peace maker. Values like standing strong when others revile you and say all manner of evil about you.
None of those values are passive in nature. Think with me for a moment what it means and what it takes to hunger and thirst after righteousness.
First of all it takes some radical hungering and thirsting. It takes a desire to go without so that you can obtain. Two of the most forgotten spiritual disciplines today are the spiritual disciplines of fasting and simplicity. Both of them require a great measure of being so hungry and so thirsting for righteousness that we will put down the wants and the desires of our physical bodies and minds for the sake of the LORD and our spiritual formation.
If anyone here has ever fasted for an extended period of time then you know what I am pointing towards. When we fast for the LORD we are asking the LORD to help defeat and discipline our physical bodies and put in balance our physical wants and desires. Our stomachs and our fleshy desires are like whinny little children who after just a few hours demand their needs to be meet. 99% of the time it is not starving but instead it is demanding that its needs and desires are meet over and over again.
The same is true when we practice the discipline of simplicity. The discipline of purposely going without for the sake of the Kingdom of God or divesting our lives of junk and clutter. The discipline of removing all the stuff from our lives that just sits around and does nothing but take up space. I shouldn't say does nothing because all too often that stuff can cause us to worry or fret because we are afraid that someone will want it, steal it or it will simply rust and rot. So, we put it in storage containers or buy special buildings to house it all. Some people even have their stuff put in safety deposit boxes so that no one else can see it or be able to touch it. It's out of sight, safe and secure. We don't use those items but we believe that have them. We don't wear those items but they are ours and no one else's. But do we really own them or do they own us?
That is where the discipline of simplicity helps us get a God value on things. If we have to hide it, store it, put it away then we need to ask ourselves the question - Do we really need it and are we the owners of it or does it own us?
The disciplines of fasting and simplicity allow us to see the true value of things. They allow us to see that in God's world - the really valuable stuff, the really virtuous stuff are things like
+Being a person of mercy
+Being a person who is more hungry for righteousness than they are for the riches of gold
+Being a person who can stand up under persecution and accusations
+Being a person who wants to promote peace (shalom)
+Being a person who values purity of heart over sensuality
Those are the values that the LORD wants us to possess in our lives. Those are the values that His Holy Spirit will help us to work on, emulate and possess as we grow deeper in our walk with the LORD.
The beatitudes reveal to us this morning that we have a great deal of transformation that needs to occur in our lives, in the Body of Christ and in our world. For when we listen today the vocabulary of the Beatitudes is scarce these days. The vision of the beatitudes is lacking these days and the values of the Beatitudes is meager these days. Not gone, not vanished but at least in the United States they are anemic and in need of a much needed transfusion of Jesus' blood of redemption today.
As a child I was taught to memorize the Beatitudes. As an adult in Christ I am being led to live them out in everyday life. To speak like Christ, see like Christ and have values/virtues like Christ. In order for that to happen I must lay down my life and allow the Holy Spirit to teach me a new language. I must allow the Holy Spirit to give me a new vision and I must allow the Holy Spirit to teach me a new value system.
None of this will happen automatically or overnight. That is why Matthew wrote down this sermon. He knew that we would need to revisit it over and over again. He knew that we would need to read it, meditate on it and allow the Holy Spirit to work on our lives bit by bit by bit.
Matthew tells us that Jesus went up on a mountain away from distractions and the discourse of life to teach these truths to his disciples. Matthew wants us to understand that these mountain top truths can only be ours by we ourselves going away to read, reflect, receive and be renewed. Matthew knew that we need some time to allow the LORD to speak to us and for us to then allow Him to transform us from the inside out.
As we close this morning let's commit to the LORD this week that we are going to study, we are going to meditate and we are going to allow Him to bring the truths and principles we find here in the Beatitudes into our hearts, minds and souls. That we are going to allow the Holy Spirit to teach us His vocabulary, His Vision and to obtain His Values and Virtues. Let us pray.
(May the LORD bless you this week as you work on your sermon for His people. May the LORD use this sermon to inspire you, encourage you and enlighten you. May the LORD grant you His favor, anointing and blessing. May He infill your mind and your voice with His Holy Presence. Thank you so much for doing all you can for the Kingdom of God).
