Theme: Sincerity is rewarding
Text: Zeph. 2:3, 3:12-13; 1 Cor. 1:26-31; Matt. 5:1-12
The Sermon on the Mount is not just a creed but a way of life. On the one hand they are mere principles, on the other they are a practical way to walk in the truth. Jesus meant everything He said and taught but His words can only benefit us when they are put into practice. We know that Christ has told us to "turn the other cheek" when we have been hurt and yet very often we are eager to retaliate when we are wronged. The teachings of Jesus are often ignored because His teachings are just the plain opposite of what we want to do. When someone wrongs us we want to fight back. Corrie Ten Boon, a Dutch Christian woman, and her family hid Jews during the Second World War to save many of them. They saw it as their Christian duty. They knew they could be killed for doing so but could not do otherwise because of their love for Christ. When the Germans found out what they were doing the family were sent to a concentration camp. Corrie Ten Boon lost her whole family in a concentration camp where they maltreated and their existence became a living hell. In spite of all suffering she continued to serve the Lord after the war by preaching the good news of the Kingdom of heaven. Her ministry took her to Germany and after a very successful meeting she was approached by a man who wanted to shake her hand. Suddenly she froze as she recognised the brutal Nazi that had been their tormentor in the concentration camp. She just could not bring herself to shake his hand. After what seemed like eternity she asked the Lord to lead her to do the right thing and as the love of God flowed through her, her hand reached out and shook the hand of her former tormentor. According to her she felt a peace and a joy that she had never felt before. We can also experience that peace and joy when we are sincere with the teachings of Christ for sincerity is rewarding.
The beatitudes can be seen as signposts to the blessed life which is God’s will for our lives. The first signpost points the way with the words, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Jesus is here pointing out the right direction to true joy. It is realizing our spiritual poverty and our need for God. It is only when we recognise our own limitations that we can feel our own emptiness and weakness and turn to God. The person who finally recognizes that he or she can not make it or handle it alone is a very happy person. He or she can come to God and say, “God, I need you in my life because I can’t make it by myself.” The next signpost points the way with the words, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” When we finally realize that our only hope is to have God in our life we will have to take a serious look at our life, mourn at what we see, turn from sin and come to God who promises to comfort us. The beatitudes guide us to live a blessed life and it is to our benefit practice. When we realise that our only hope is in God we need to turn from sin and submit to Him totally. We can only do that in humility for “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” The word “meek” is another word for humility. It is the ability to treat people who have wronged us as if nothing had happened. A meek person is someone whose life has been brought under the influence of the Holy Spirit and God is in control of his or her life.
The Lord loves the meek who trust Him. Joseph and Moses were meek and Moses was described as the meekest man on earth. They relied totally on the Lord. Self reliance and arrogance has no place among God’s people or in His Kingdom. The example of Joseph as a meek person can be seen from his life. As a teenager he was cast into a pit and sold into slavery by his own brothers. While a slave in Portiphar’s household he continued to trust God and lead a righteous life. He refused to sin against God to please Portiphar’s wife and the result was that she lied about him and he was thrown into prison. God finally brought him out of prison and exalted him in the land of Egypt. One day during a famine his brothers came down to Egypt in search of food and had to come to him. Joseph treated them as if they had never mistreated him. At one time his brothers were afraid he would get even with them but he never tried to do so. He had the power to make them suffer for what they had done to him but he did not and that is meekness. We can only live a blessed life when we acknowledge our need for God, turn from sin and submit our lives to Him. This is the way into the Kingdom of God and God wants us all to be part of that Kingdom.
We do not enter into the Kingdom as adults – we are born into the Kingdom. We are born as babies in Christ but we are not to remain babies. We are to grow to spiritual maturity and Jesus shows us the way when He says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” When a baby is born, and mothers know this better than fathers, it soon lets you know that it is hungry. This is because its little body needs to grow, and the only way it can grow is if it receives the needed nourishment. What applies to physical growth also applies to spiritual growth. When we are born into the Kingdom of God, we are babies spiritually and we need to grow. And we grow by feeding on the Word of God. Nourishment does not just come from bread alone, but from every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. So the natural thing, once you become a Christian, once you’ve accepted Jesus as your Saviour, is to become hungry for the Word. When we are hungry and thirsty for the things of God, God says He will fill us and satisfy us. We cannot mature in our Christian faith without feeding on His word. Many Christians remain spiritual babies because they have never really fed on the Word of God. As we grow spiritually one of the first traits that become evident is being merciful. Jesus says, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” This principle of mercy or forgiveness runs all through the Scriptures. We declare this during every service when we pray “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us” We are actually declaring that only the merciful will receive mercy. When we realise God’s mercy through Jesus Christ, we can only respond by also being merciful.
Living the blessed life and attaining spiritual maturity should be the goal of every believer. No father is happy to have a child who is malnourished and does not grow to become an adult and God our Father is not happy when His children suffer from spiritual kwashiorkor and do not grow up to reach spiritual maturity. We are designed by God to grow and something is wrong spiritually when we do not grow or stop growing. Just as a physical body has within it the ability to grow to maturity so a spiritual body also has within it the ability to grow to spiritual maturity. But just as the physical body needs nourishment so also the spiritual body needs to be nurtured and all the nutrients for spiritual growth are found in the Word of God. The goal of spiritual maturity is to develop into the image of Christ. Our intimacy and fellowship with Christ should continue to the stage of total obedience. Anything that can hinder us and prevent us from obeying Christ is a hindrance to spiritual maturity. It is no sin to have riches, to eat well, to laugh, and to be popular but we should be careful not to put our ultimate trust in these things. We should be careful not to regard these things as sure and certain indicators that we are better than other people who lack them. We should never despise the poor, the hungry, the mournful, and the rejected ones in the world. Instead we should help them, share what we have with them, pray for them, and love them in the same way that God loves them. As believer’s God has made His abundant blessings available to us. We can only enjoy them as we grow spiritually by studying and living by God’s Word. If your only study of the word of God is on Sunday morning then you are not getting enough. You are starving to death spiritually. We need to feed on the Word of God by taking time to read it and study it and we need to participate in the activities of the various groups in the Church. There are many immature Christians because they have never really “hungered and thirsted after the things of God.”
The Christian life involves being pure in heart and is contained in the words of Christ, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” Being pure in heart is to be sincere and single-minded – to be genuine. When we, at one time want to do what is pleasing to God, and another time what is pleasing to ourselves, we are not being sincere. This however does not mean that we are never going to think a bad thought the rest of our life. This is impossible because living in a sinful world no one can completely escape the sinful thoughts that pass through the mind. Satan will see to that. And bad things will still happen in our lives. But we can come to God with our sins and He has promised He will deal with them. Let us be sincere and stop pretending to be the person we are not as sincerity is rewarding. The Christian life is to be a source of peace for “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.” It takes a lot of spiritual maturity to be a peacemaker. A peacemaker is not just someone who stands between two people who are fighting and separates them. A peacemaker is someone who changes the whole atmosphere of what is going on by his or her presence. God wants peacemakers in His church. God wants peacemakers in the workplace. God wants peacemakers out in the world. God wants people to focus on Him and see the good things He is doing in His church and in the world even when they are facing persecution. “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The world doesn’t know how to respond to people who are living so close to Jesus. When such people walk into a room there is something about their behaviour and their speech that makes everybody else uncomfortable. The world, however, cannot deal with this type of behaviour and often responds with persecution.
We can only come under God’s control when we realise our spiritual poverty in God’s sight. It is only when we reach this state that we can totally submit to Him and depend on Him for strength. When we are under the control of the Lord we will tolerate it when others hate us especially when the cause of their hate is our obedience to God. Many people today are concerned with the things that the world values - things like success, prosperity and health. It is not that these things are bad in themselves or that those who trust in the Lord are not concerned about these things. They are, but for them the most important thing is to do the right thing in God’s sight. This brings with it the blessing of true success, prosperity and health. Doing the right thing in God’s sight serves as a witness to others. A lady on a cold winter day saw a little, barefooted boy, shivering from the cold standing before a shoe-store, looking through the window, and speaking to himself. After observing the boy for some time she went up to him and asked what he was saying. The boy replied that he was asking God to give him a pair of shoes. The lady took him by the hand into the store, and bought him some clothes, a coat and a pair of shoes. As she turned to go, the boy caught her hand, and looking up into her face, with tears in his eyes, asked “Are you God’s wife?” Do people see Christ in us? Our greatest achievements are nothing without Christ so let us come to Him by repenting of our sins and turning our life over to Him. If we have already come to Him let us find the time and discipline to feed on His Word and grow to spiritual maturity. Let us be honest and sincere in everything we do for sincerity is rewarding. Amen!
