Receiving The Blessing God Has For You Series

January 22, 2012

Morning Worship

Text: Matthew 5:1-6

Subject: The Beatitudes – Part 1

Title: Receiving the Blessing God Has For You

We have been talking about the Kingdom of God and the message of the Kingdom for the past couple of weeks. I hope that these sermons are helping you to see in a new way the plans that God has for your life in this age. You are living in the power and authority of God’s kingdom right now and because of who He is and who you are In Him you have the opportunity to receive His blessings right here - right now!

The promise of blessing from God began when God called Abraham out of his homeland to a place he did not know. And it continued with a nation that He Himself called out of captivity under the leadership of Moses. As the nation of Israel wandered in the desert God spoke through His servant Moses and pronounced blessings upon them. These blessings had a contingency clause – Deuteronomy 28:1-2, 1 If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. 2 All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the LORD your God…

And then the Lord begins to list the blessings… territorial blessings - 3You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country. family blessings - 4 The fruit of your womb will be blessed…; financial blessings - the crops of your land and the young of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. Victory blessings - 7 The LORD will grant that the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven. Political blessings - 10 Then all the peoples on earth will see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they will fear you. 13 The LORD will make you the head, not the tail. Again, the condition attached - If you pay attention to the commands of the LORD your God that I give you this day and carefully follow them

Now it can easily be assumed, if you want to take that step, that this promise was for the nation of Israel alone and has nothing to do with the church. That is a really illogical step for several reasons. 1) We (the church) have been grafted on to the vine along with Israel… 2) the word promises blessings to all according to Psalm 34:7-9, 7 The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them. 8 Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. 9 Fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him lack nothing. 3) As the body of Christ we are intended to be full participants in the kingdom, which includes God’s blessings. Ephesians 1:18-23, 18 I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, 20 which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21 far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. 22 And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

I think we can safely assume that the Lord wants to bless His people. That desire continues on into the New Testament as well.

Today we want to look at the Beatitudes that Jesus taught in His Sermon on the Mount and see how they relate to the kingdom message that we are hearing.

God wants His servants of the Kingdom to be blessed.

Read Matthew 5:1-12,

Lord, I believe this is Your word…

I believe it is for me…

I accept it as mine…

And I appropriate it to my life today…

In Jesus’ name…

Let’s start by looking at the first two verses. That will give us a jumping off point. 1 Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them, saying: Here, when Matthew uses the word disciples he is not referring to the twelve apostles. This is the crowd that was following Him. Notice that it says that they came to Him. He didn’t go to them. What caused them to come to Him? 4:24-25, 24 News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed, and he healed them. 25 Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him. The NIV says, and he began to teach them… This message is just a beginning. Now let’s look at the message…