(Sermon #3 of Sermon On the Mount Series)
Parkview Church of the Nazarene
J. Richard Lord, Jr.
Living The Life Of The Privileged
Matthew 5:3
Intro
I don’t think I know anybody that has been born into privilege. There might be some of you that has met someone in your life that you could say has never had to worry about money. Someone whose means of monetary support go beyond our normal middle class existence. Someone whose life is not consumed with the need to make a living. Someone whose bank account balances contain so many numbers that you don’t have enough space in a normal wallet size check register to write it down.
They own the huge mansions that everybody drives by and gawks at. They eat in the finest restaurants. They own cars that cost more than most of our homes.
You will never see them in Wal-Mart or Winn-Dixie. They shop only in the most exclusive places. They have a summer home and a winter home. While we vacation at grandma’s, they vacation in Europe. They can have anything they want, any time they want.
It is hard for you and I to imagine what it would be like to have been raised in the life of the privileged. Much of our life experience has dealt with this one phrase: “We can’t afford it.” Our existence is determined by our means. And that is determined by our skills and placement as a worker.
There are some of us, who by the grace of God and some talent, have discovered a way to make a living that brings in a little more income than the average person. This gives us the ability to have a comfortable lifestyle, a relatively nice home and a easy retirement.
For most of us, this is all we could ask for. Most of us truly don’t have any idea what it would be like to live a life of privilege. We just want to be comfortable.
We describe the privileged as people who “have it all.” They seem to own the world. We just work for them. Indeed, sometimes they do seem to act as if the world does belong to them.
They are a different breed of people. I don’t mean genetically, but psychologically. Having been raised in the culture of the privileged, they have a different point of view than the rest of us.
1) Having wealth is ordinary. You and I might dream of what excitement wealth would bring to our lives. We think of the houses and cars, and the trips we would make. We dream of being debt free and of buying anything we want. We even think of how just our tithe alone might give our church the ability strike out in some sort of new ministry. (You do think about that, don’t you?)
But the privileged don’t think that at all. They see their status as ordinary, normal. In fact, they can’t imagine living any other way. Just as we might see a bum living on the street and say, “I just can’t imagine living that way,” they say the same about us. They can’t even imagine what it would be like to live in our condition. The idea horrifies them.
2) They are accustomed to the power wealth brings. People of privilege have people who cater to them. They are accustomed to being treated with deference. People say, “Yes, sir” and “No. sir” to them. We might call each other by our first names, but average people refer to the privileged as “Mr.” or “Mrs.” or “Miss.”
People of privilege are accustomed to having their wishes fulfilled. Statesmen and other powerful people listen to what they have to say, and they have great influence on other people of power, whereas you and I most times would not even be able to get our foot in the door.
3) They are accustomed to having the best life has to offer. As I mentioned before, you won’t see these folk in Wal-Mart. When they purchase something, it will the be finest example of that article. We look for the best value, they look for the best quality. When we buy a watch, for example, we buy Timex’s; they buy Rolex’s. We buy Chevrolet’s, they buy Rolls Royce’s.
When it comes to education, we go to community college and state college, they go to Harvard, Yale or Princeton.
They cannot accept second rate. They demand the best quality of any product or service. You and I might settle for something off-brand and cheap, if it serves our purposes. We are always looking for bargains. We choose a product or service based on cost, with the best quality we can manage. They look to quality alone, because cost is no problem.
The life of the privileged is something that all of us have dreamed of at one time or another. We would like to be the person that “has it all.”
People in Jesus’ day were no different. They saw the privileged as they walk the streets of Judea and Galilee. They dreamed of changing their life and living the life of the privileged.
As we study the Gospel, we see that it is story and a study in contrasts and opposites. It seems, at least from a worldly point of view, that you obtain a certain goal, you do the opposite. For example, Jesus told us that in order to gain our life we must lose it.(Mark 8:35) Jesus became an example of this principle when He came to earth. There is an old song that says, “He became poor to ransom my soul.“ He gave up the riches of heaven so that He might rescue us from the poverty of sin. His poverty led to our ransom.
As Jesus began to teach his disciples on this day, His first words shock them with this principle. All their life they have wanted the life of the privileged, but Jesus tells them that is the poor, not only the physically poor but the poor in spirit, the downtrodden, the distressed, the lost, those who do not have much hope for comfort in this life that find themselves with ownership of the kingdom of heaven. We, who are poor, now enter the life of the privileged.
If there is one thing we learn as a Christian very early, it is the fact that happiness is not related to our station in life or the size of our bank account. The view of life of the worlds privileged and their happiness is based on their station in life and the size of our bank account.
What Jesus is doing in this verse is permanently divorcing the idea that being privileged is related to one’s station in life and the size of our bank account. He is stating, unequivocally, that one can be privileged and still be poor. We can be happy and still be poor. In fact, we, the poor, “have it all.” God has given us His Kingdom.
Jesus is stating:
I. THAT WE ARE WEALTHY.
Because, as Christians, we are members of the kingdom of heaven, we are owners of everything. We are God’s children, heirs to the kingdom.
That should seem normal to us. We may be poor in this life, we may not have much in worldly goods, but we have a bank account in heaven that is brimming over.
There is an old phrase that states when we die, we are “cashing it in.” I think that is appropriate. This gospel, our relationship with God, is a check that God has given us. You can equate living this life that we are in as “standing in the line at the bank.” One day, we are going to stand at the window of eternity and God is going to “cash our check” and we will take possession of our inheritance.
But until then, we still live the life of the privileged, maybe not like the privileged of this world, but we are the privileged of God’s kingdom.
II. WE ARE POWERFUL
Hebrews 4:16 says, “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” (KJV)
When we become a Christian, for the first time in our lives, we have access to the powerful. Forget politicians, statesmen, and powerful businessmen. They’re unimportant. Who is more powerful that the God of the universe?
Can you imagine? Secretaries and assistants will not keep us from Him. We can walk right into the throne room of God. He can be busy running the affairs of the universe, but when we walk in and say, “Hi, Daddy!” he stops what He is doing and gives us His full attention and listens to what we have to say. If we make requests of Him, and it’s not outside of His will, He will grant our wishes.
III. WE HAVE THE BEST GOD CAN GIVE.
Jesus said, “Blessed and happy are the poor.” Luke 11:13 says, “ If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"
God gives us the best there is to give, Himself. His Holy Spirit abides with us and in us. But in addition to that, God controls our life. He gives us what we need to make it through this life. He makes our life abundant.
We may not have much in the way of worldly goods, but God gives us a quality of life that is unmatched anywhere in the universe.
CONCLUSION
The next time you see someone that has a life of ease and privilege, you can say to yourself, “They have nothing on me!” for God has given us the life of the privileged.
