Jonathan Newlon
Uniontown Church of Christ
18 July 2020
Sermon on the Mount: Beatitudes
Introduction
One of the most famous passages in Scripture not only to the Christian, but also to the secular world, is Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. This is also one of the most important passages in the New Testament. This passage spans three chapters in the book of Matthew. In it, we find the foundations of Christs teachings on which he builds throughout his ministry on earth. These teachings were not just for the people sitting on the mountainside with Him that day but were for all mankind. Over the coming weeks, we will be examining Christ’s Sermon on the Mount and see what Jesus has to say to us.
This morning, I want to start with the first section of the sermon on the mount known as the Beatitudes. We’ve talked about the Beatitudes before, but this morning I want to focus on one word that is used repeatedly throughout the Beatitudes. That word is “blessed.” Many groups have different ideas of what this word means. This morning I want to look at the world’s concept of blessed, how Jesus used the word here, and take a look at how we are blessed throughout the Beatitudes. (Read Matthew 5:3-12).
The Worlds Idea of What it Means to be Blessed
The world is a fickle place. They’re cynical about the Lord and about Biblical truths, but they want to be “blessed.” I once followed a story on twitter of a woman who made a lot of mistakes in her life. She was an atheist who was into getting high, getting drunk, and partying until the early hours of the morning every week. She was never married but had three kids. Because of her partying ways as well as her drug and alcohol abuse, her kids were taken away from her by the state and put into foster care. The next week she won $100 on a scratch-off ticket and posted a picture of herself with the ticket along with the hashtag “blessed.” She obviously has no idea what it means to be truly blessed.
The world is a crazy place when something like this occurs regularly. People have no clue what it means to be blessed by God. You see, the world has very different ideas about what it means to be blessed. They think blessings can only be measured by worldly possessions. They say that blessings aren’t from God but come from either good fortune or from your own hands.
The world thinks that things like money, fame, power, and other physical possessions are the true blessings. I was sitting in a gas station eating biscuits and gravy one morning. As I sat there, I watched a man come in with $100. He spent it all on lottery tickets. After scratching them and seeing that he’d won nothing, he took out another $100 and bought more. I think he ended up winning $15 total. I asked him what he was doing, and he replied, “just waiting to get blessed.” He quit talking to me when I told him that wasn’t going to happen with the Hoosier Lottery.
Just like this man sees the state of Indiana being the source of his “blessings,” so we see many others who think that they are the source of their own blessings. Some people try to work themselves to death in order to have the physical possessions they want but don’t really need. I know a man who works 2 full time jobs. He does this in order to afford a somewhat lavish lifestyle. He has a large house, fancy cars, and a big yard but he never gets to enjoy them. His wife and children hardly ever see him. He has all the things that the world considers blessings, but he is one of the most miserable men I’ve ever known.
Others think they can lie, cheat, and steal their way into blessings. How many times do we see a CEO of a company slash jobs and then get paid a very large bonus for all the money he’s saving? I remember when Delphi Electronics went bankrupt. Their accountants had been cooking the books for years and the Executives knew about it. It finally caught up to them. The company went bankrupt and they fired many people. They stole the pensions away from the men that worked for them for so many years to cover their debts. When it was all said and done, the executives who were in on the scheme each took multi-million-dollar bonuses to end the year. They were incredibly happy to ruin many lives in order to pad their own pockets. I’m sure these men consider themselves to be blessed but think about how they’re going to feel when they have to answer to God for their actions.
The Biblical Truth of Blessings
The plain and simple truth is that the world has it wrong. They don’t understand what it truly means to be blessed. I want to read to you a passage from the Pulpit Commentary about what it means to be blessed in its discussion of the Beatitudes. It says, “The world is wrong. Good fortune is not blessedness; blessedness is the gift of God; what he gives cannot be taken away by the chances and changes of this mortal life. Blessedness is not an outward ornament of life; it is man’s own, for God has given it; it is the heart, wrought into the inner being; it is holy, spiritual, heavenly. It is the character, the privilege of the children of the kingdom, for they must bar the image of their King.”
Blessings are not obtained through worldly means. They are not from yourself and you can’t gain them by lying, cheating and stealing. True blessings are given by God. To be blessed means to be favored by God. We as Christians are favored by the Lord. The way in which God chooses to bless us may include possessions or things in the world, but the most important blessings are in heaven. Look at what Jesus said in Matthew 6:19-21, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on the earth, where moth and rust destroys and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” The blessings or favor of God is not measured by worldly possession, but by heavenly reward.
Blessings in the Beatitudes
Now that we’ve discussed what blessings aren’t and what it really means to be blessed, I want to look at the blessings we see in the Beatitudes. In our passage we see eight different blessings given by the Lord. You can count nine, but really the last one is stated twice. The first four beatitudes are a picture of the Salvation process. We see how we are blessed when coming to salvation through Jesus Christ.
The first reads, “blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” This is when someone first understands the Gospel. They become poor in spirit realizing that without Jesus and without God, they are nothing. They realize just how great God is and how little we are. Our salvation starts here and God says that he will bless those with the Kingdom of Heaven.
The next reads, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” These people who are poor in spirit now mourn because of their transgressions against the Lord. They realize how they’ve been living in sin, and they mourn because of it. However, God blesses them with comfort by forgiving their sins and accepting them as His children. They are truly comforted.
Third, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Meekness is defined by Jerry Paul as “an attitude toward people and situations around me, especially when there could be a sense of superiority” in his book Personal and Spiritual Development. In other words, when we have been forgiven of our sins and come to salvation, we seek not to rub it into the faces of others. We don’t act like we are better than the sinners around us because we were once in their shoes. We stay humble before the Lord and before others. The meek let go of worldly attitudes and become inheritors of everything because in Christ, everything becomes theirs.
Fourth, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.” Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are seeking the ways of God. They seek to conform to His commands. They are the ones who learn and study the Word of God. God blesses them by filling them with His Word and with His righteousness.
These first four beatitudes are a picture of the process of salvation. The next four beatitudes are about the attributes of the Christian. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” This falls in line with the parable of the unforgiving servant found in Matthew 18:23-35. The king forgave a servant his debt, but when the servant refused to forgive a much smaller debt owed to him by another, the king punished him and did not forgive him. Jesus stated, “So my Heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.” Also, in Matthew 7:2 Jesus said, “For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.” God blesses those who show mercy with mercy.
Next, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Our heart becomes purer the more we concern ourselves with the things of God and not the things of the world. When we study scripture, our hearts change more to the likeness of Christ. God shows that this is the way for us to see Him in eternity. In other words, we will spend eternity with Him in Heaven.
Next, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” When we act as peacemakers, God calls us his sons. Jesus did not start a war with the kings of the world when He was on earth. Rather, he was peaceful. He loved people, so he sought to preach to them salvation rather than fight against them. Remember that our fight is not against men, but rather, against Satan and his demons.
The last beatitude is stated twice. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are you when they persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you for My sake; Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Make no mistake, it is very possible that all of us will be persecuted for the faith. It happens on a daily basis all around the world, including right here in America. In different places in the world, Christians are jailed or even killed for daring to have faith in Jesus. Here in America, we are called intolerant, unloving, hateful and bigots. However, We are blessed because our willingness to suffer for the name of Jesus leads to our heavenly reward. Remember what Jesus said in John 15:18-19: “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”
Conclusion
In closing, we are truly blessed as Christians. The world may have messed up ideas about what it means to be blessed, but we know that we are truly blessed by the Father through our faith in Jesus Christ. Let’s seek to bring those in the world into the fold that they might come to faith in Jesus and reap the same blessings as we.
