Do you have your Bible with you? I'd like for you to open the
Matthew chapter 5. Matthew chapter 5.
As we come to Matthew 5, we are stepping into a new section of
this series through the book of Matthew, which we've just called
the King and his Kingdom. Now up to this point, Matthew
has worked hard. He's labored hard to show us who
Jesus is, right? We've seen that he's the
promised son of David. He's the true son of Abraham.
He's the obedient son who passed the test in the wilderness.
He's the king who is announced repent for the Kingdom of heaven
is at hand. He's the king that has followers
now following him. And, and what, what's going to
happen now in Matthew 5 through 7 is we're going to hear the
king speak a lot. All right, He's going to open
his mouth and speak. Now, this is often called the
sermon on the mounts. But I want you to know it's
really more than a sermon. Not that it's less than, but
it's, there's more to it than just, hey, that's a nice sermon,
right? The, this is Christ sitting down
to teach. And so you might call it a
Kingdom manifesto, right? He's explaining to you what it
looks like in the Kingdom of God and what the citizens of the
Kingdom of God ought to look like.
So there's an authoritative declaration of what life looks
like under the king or under Christ's rule.
All right, so with that in mind, would you please stand?
I just had you sit. Go ahead and stand and honor of
the reading of God's Word. We're going to hear the words of
the king this morning, Matthew 5.
We're going to do verses one through 12 today.
OK, Sing the crowds. He went up on the mountain, and
when he had set down, his disciples came to him, and he
opened his mouth and taught them, saying, Blessed are the
poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for
they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for
they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for
they shall be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness
sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and
utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.
For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
This is the word of the Lord. Fights.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come to
Matthew 5 with great anticipation.
Lord, we have often read and heard the words of the Sermon on
the Mounts. So, Father, these things might
be familiar to us, especially the Beatitudes.
But Lord, I pray that You would open up our hearts and minds to
receive Your word. I ask that Your Spirit would
illuminate the text for us, that we might rightly discern it.
We may understand what it's saying and more Even so than
that, I ask that your spirit would apply these things to our
lives. Help us to be the kind of people
who bear fruits as a result of trusting in Christ, depending on
him becoming like him Father. And so we ask that you would use
your word today to make us more like your son Jesus.
To the name of Christ we ask Amen, Amen.
You may be seated. So every, every Kingdom has a
culture, right? Every nation has values.
Every movement has some sort of a a speech, right?
Some sort of a talk or a manifesto.
Every ruler produces a certain kind of people, right Now, if
you want to understand a Kingdom, you must look at its
citizens. So what does the Kingdom of
heaven produce that? That becomes the question before
us this morning. What, what does the Kingdom of
heaven produce? Many people will say they
believe in Jesus, all right. They'll say that they believe he
was a good teacher, he was a good man.
You know, things like that. They agree with a lot of the
moral things that he spoke about, especially in the Sermon
on the Mount. That's one that people often
appeal to. But and others will claim even
to belong to his Kingdom, right? More than just belief.
It's like I am a Christian. I belong to his Kingdom.
But Jesus does not leave the character of his people
undefined. All right.
We ought to know these people by the fruit that they produce.
And so here at the beginning of his public teaching ministry,
the King tells us what life looks like under his rule, all
right under what he says. And he describes it in really
startling ways. Now, it might not seem startling
because we're just reading it from Scripture and we expect
Matthew 5, the Beatitudes, to say the things it says.
But just think for a moment about what is being said, right?
The world says blessed are those who are strong.
Jesus says blessed are the poor in spirit.
The world says blessed are the self assertive, the go getters,
right? Jesus says blessed are the meek.
The the world says blessed are the comfortable.
Jesus says blessed are those who mourn, right?
So the king turns the value system of the world upside down,
or rather right side up, right? He, he, he paints it in a way
that looks drastically different to what we're naturally disposed
to. So another thing to understand
about the Beatitudes is these are not suggestions, right?
These are not personality types that he's walking through.
They're not optional virtues for those especially devoted
Christians over there, right? These are character traits that
they are the character of Kingdom citizens out of men and
women, boys and girls who love the Lord.
These are the kinds of things we ought to be becoming, all right.
And so here's the pressing issue for every one of us is, do our
lives reflect the rule of this king?
All right. Do our lives reflect what we say
about our allegiance to Christ or our submission to Christ?
Is there fruit of that evidence? So here's the main point.
If you're taking notes, you can write this down.
Submit to the king. Allow him to shape your
character into the likeness of his Kingdom.
I think that's what Matthew's ultimately trying to show us
here. Submit to the king and allow him
to shape your character into the likeness of his Kingdom.
So if Christ reigns over you, He will reshape you.
You're not going to stay the same on day one of salvation as
you are on day, you know 12,000 on salvation, right?
You're going to see growth, you're going to see fruit.
There's going to be evidence of faith because Christ is going to
reshape you by His Spirit, right?
The more you stare, the more you behold the glory of Christ, the
more you will be transformed into that same glory from 1° to
the next. So in these opening verses of
the Kingdom Manifesto or out of the Sermon on the Mount, we see
4 movements. First, what we see is that we
must come under the authority of the King. 2nd, we see we must
embrace the humble posture of Kingdom citizens.
Third, we see that we must display the merciful heart of
Kingdom citizens. And finally, we must be prepared
to endure the cost of Kingdom citizenship.
All right, this is life under the King's rule.
So before we ask whether we like these traits, which is really
kind of irrelevant, but before we start to appeal to our own
conscience or our own wisdom, right, and think, do I like what
the King's saying? Before we ask something like,
are these natural to me? We must ask, have I truly come
under the King's authority if I truly submitted my life to
Christ? All right, so we're going to
begin where Matthew begins, which again is setting up the
authority of the king. We've seen this a lot in Matthew
thus far, but verses one through 2, we see point #1 come under
the authority of the king. All right?
So verse one through 2, seeing the crowds, He went up on the
mountain, and when He had set down, his disciples came to him
and he opened his mouth and taught them all right, so before
Jesus describes the character of Kingdom citizens, Matthew makes
sure we see the authority of the one who's making the
descriptions, right? The Beatitudes only make sense
if you understand who is speaking.
Otherwise it becomes like a checklist in which you think I
have to try to measure up to these things and you'll see them
and you'll think I need to muster up the strength to become
that. You have to 1st see who is
speaking. All right, We need to understand
Christ. So all the first things that
Matthew shows us is that the King ascends the mountain,
right? Seeing the crowds that were
around him, right? He gained this great falling
because of all the miracles he had been performing.
All these people are coming out to see him, right?
We talked about last week that not all those people who came to
see were genuine believers. They're just there for the show,
right? This disciples are there.
There's probably some there who are believers.
And then there's a large crowd of people who are just checking
this guy out, seeing the crowds. He went up on a mountain.
Now, the, the detail of the mountain is not accidental,
right? Matthew is a, he's a careful
theologian. He's inspired by the Spirit of
God to write right? He's telling us things we should
know or we need to know. So why are mountains important?
Why is it important that Christ went upon a mountain?
Well, throughout Scripture, mountains are places of divine
revelation. All right, Currently the
Pharisees would teach. They would sit down and teach in
the synagogues. Jesus goes up onto a mountain
which has historically been a place of divine revelation.
You think about Abraham who offers Isaac on Mount Moriah in
Genesis 22, you see. You think about Moses and
receiving the law on Mount Sinai in Exodus 19 and 20.
You think about Elijah encountered the Lord on Horeb
right in First Kings 19. Mountains have been where God
reveals himself to his man at the moment of the moment, right?
And now Jesus ascends a mountain.
But here's the difference, right?
Moses went up to receive the law, but Jesus goes up to give
the law that to speak it right. Moses was a servant in God's
house. Christ is the son of God's house
or over God's house, as we see in Hebrews 3, five and six.
So so Matthew is presenting Jesus already as the greater
Moses, right? He's he's more than Moses and
and he's not merely delivering revelation.
He is the revelation. John one says he is the Word,
and the Word became flesh. All right, So it's Hebrews 1-2
says that in these last days God has spoken to us by his Son.
All right, So Jesus goes up to speak as the Son of God, of all
authority and heaven and earth, and he preaches right?
Now the mountain signals that what follows carries divine
authority. This is not a commentary on
God's word. This is God's word from God the
Son. All right, it's him speaking.
Secondly, we see here that the King sits to teach, all right?
And when he sat down, now in our culture, teachers stand and
speak, all right, This is how we go about it.
But in the ancient world, authoritative teachers would
sit. To sit was to assume the posture
of a rabbi. It was the settled position of
instruction. So Jesus is not wandering around
sharing his thoughts. He sits deliberately.
He teaches with authority. And later in the sermon Matthew
will tell us he was teaching them as one who had authority
and not as their scribes. Matthew 7.
What do the scribes do? Well, scribes quoted other
rabbis, right, that the Jesus speaks on his own authority.
He doesn't appeal to tradition. He does not say rabbi so and so
said this right, He speaks as the final authority.
So this is royal instruction. The the king has taken his seat
and he's going to speak. What else do we see in these
opening verses? Well, three, we see the
disciples draw near, right? The crowds have followed him,
but the disciples come to him now the sermon is addressed
first to disciples. Yes, the crowds are present, but
the teaching is for people who are following Christ.
The the beatitudes are not universal descriptions of
humanity. We'll we'll see that as we go.
I, I think you'll be convinced right?
They're, they're not natural human virtues.
They, they are characteristics of those who have drawn near to
Christ and who have submitted to his rule.
All right. So in other words, before we ask
whether we like the Beatitudes again, we must ask whether we
belong to the King. All right, what?
Your opinion on the Beatitudes is irrelevant if you're not
under the lordship of Christ, that you cannot detach the
character of the Kingdom from allegiance to the king.
You just can't do it right. The Scriptures and our
confession of faith reminds us that Christ has been given all
power and authority to govern his church.
So he's not a consultant for the church.
It's his church, right? He's the Lord of the church.
He's the Lamb that was slain for the church.
He's the King of all creation. But he's not a life coach for
Christians. He's not giving out mere
platitudes that we should think. You know, that sounds pretty
good. I think I'll give that a try.
No, when the king speaks, when the Lord speaks, we ought to
listen and submit because he's Lord.
The fourth thing we observe in his opening couple of verses is
that he opened his mouth. Disciples came to him, and he
opened his mouth, and he taught them again.
That may seem unnecessary. Of course, he had to open his
mouth to teach. But in Scripture, the expression
signals this solemn, weighty instruction.
And he opened his mouth, and it often introduces authoritative
or prophetic speech. Matthew knows this, and so he
writes this way. But what Matthew wants you to
do, I think it's especially important if you've been raised
in church. You're familiar with the Sermon
on the Mount if you've read it multiple times, it's easy to
just, like, just flow right through that thing.
What Matthew's trying to do for the readers right here is to get
you to slow down and to listen, right?
The king is about to speak. Listen.
Listen to what he says again. The Beatitudes are not ideals
for self improvement. They're they're declarations
from the reigning Son of God. And so when Jesus speaks, heaven
speaks, right? John Calvin wrote that in Christ
we see the living image of God. So what we understand about that
is that when Christ opens his mouth, the will of God is
revealed without any distortion. It's perfect.
It's not like when a preacher speaks or when somebody else
speaks and maybe they're saying true things, but there's this
distortion of the human nature and sin and flesh and all those
sorts of things that could get in the way right here.
We have Christ, fully God, fully man speaking.
There's no distortion here. So it should change how we hear
the sermon from our Lord. One final thing to note on this
is that we don't sit in judgement over these words.
All right, You understand what I mean.
We, we, we, we don't get to judge whether these things are
true or not. They are true.
And so what's really happening is in the words on the Sermon on
the Mount, those words are sitting in judgement over us,
right? They're they're searching our
hearts, they're revealing our conscience.
They're deepening our walk with the Lord of softening our heart
or hardening it, depending on how you see them, right?
But they said in judgment over us.
And so that should change how we hear Christ's words as well.
So the question is not, do I agree with what Christ is going
to say in the Sermon on the Mount?
Well, the question becomes, will I bow to the words of Christ in
the Sermon on the Mount? Will I submit to his authority?
You're going to hear some hard things in the Sermon on the
Mount is what I'm getting at. Not necessarily in the
Beatitudes. There'll be some stuff today.
But as we walk through this, that's a settled thing you have
to have in your heart is, am I going to bow to what Christ
says? I'm going to submit myself to
his lordship. So before you examine whether
you're poor in spirit, before you think about whether or not
you're merciful or not, before we examine whether we are
persecuted, all right, we must examine whether we have come
under the authority of Christ. Have you surrendered your
definitions of blessedness? Have you drawn near to Christ as
Lord? Not, not merely A savior from
your consequences, not merely as inspiration for living, but have
you drawn nearer to Christ as Lord and King?
Have you laid down your right to define the good life?
Because here is what this text demands of us.
If Jesus is King, then He defines reality.
He defines blessing, He defines righteousness, He he defines
flourishing for us. We, we don't get to define those
things. We we get to enjoy it.
We get to live in it as we submit to him.
They are gifts from God in the midst of living for him.
But we don't get to define what that looks like, right?
But if we resist his authority, then we are resisting his
character. That the first step in Kingdom
citizenship is submission to Christ, right?
That the proud heart cannot hear the words of Christ rightly.
The independent heart cannot receive this sermon rightly.
We must come as disciples today, drawing near, sitting under His
word, ready to obey what He says, and only then can there be
attitudes shape our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
So now that we've seen the authority of the King, we're
ready to hear what the King has said.
And the very first word out of his mouth overturns every
worldly assumption. Blessed are the poor in spirits,
right? The Kingdom begins not with
strength, but with humility. And let's let's look at the
humble posture here of Kingdom citizens #2 embrace the humble
posture of Kingdom citizens, verses 3 through 6.
Blessed are the poor and spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of
heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for
they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they
shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and
thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Again, here we're talking about embracing the humble posture of
Kingdom citizens. After Christ has established His
authority, the king speaks his first words.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of
heaven. Now that word blessed
immediately confronts us. It means more than happy, all
right. It speaks of divine approval.
Again, you may think of Psalm 1. Psalm 1 mentions the blessed man
who meditates on the word of God day and night, and at the end
it's said of him that the Lord is known by him.
The Lord knows his way. It's divine approval.
It it's covenantal favor, it's flourishing under God's rule,
right? Jesus is not describing some
fleeting emotion that wanes and waxes, right?
He is declaring who is approved by God and the first group he
pronounces blessed is kind of shocking.
I mean, these people existed. This crowd that's come, these
disciples have come. They've existed under the rule
of Rome. Rome was strong and mighty.
You would think that the first words out of Christ's mouth must
be blessed are the strong, but they're not blessed are the
influential. But it's not.
It's not the religious elite. It's not the political elite.
It's blessed are those who are poor in spirit.
This becomes the doorway to the Kingdom, right?
To be poor here does not mean financially disadvantaged.
The word describe someone who's reduced to begging, poor in
spirit, begging of spirit, destitute, dependent, empty, but
Jesus as the qualifier, right in spirit.
This, this is spiritual bankruptcy.
It's the recognition that before God I bring nothing.
I bring no merit of my own, no righteousness.
I have no leverage with God. I am poor, I am destitute, I'm a
beggar in his courts. I have nothing.
All right, Isaiah 66 two says, but this is the one to whom I
will look, says the Lord, he who is humble and contrite in spirit
and trembles at my word. So the Kingdom of God begins
where self-sufficiency ends, right?
We we must become poor of spirit.
The the Pharisees of Jesus's day believed blessing belong to the
externally righteous. And so they paraded their
righteousness around, they added laws to God's law.
They made themselves try to look more holy than God.
But Jesus declares that blessing belongs to those who know they
are spiritually bankrupt. And that's the foundation for
justification by faith alone. It's to recognize that you are
poor in spirit. You're spiritually bankrupt.
Calvin wrote this. He said he only who is reduced
to nothing in himself and relies on the mercy of God, is poor in
spirit. So until a man sees his
spiritual poverty, he will never hunger for the grace of God.
He'll never thirst for mercy. He'll never understand his
depravity. But notice the promise to those
who will. For theirs is the Kingdom of
heaven. It's present tense.
Theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. The Kingdom belongs now to those
who know they deserve nothing. They've come by faith.
All right, so we live in a world that again says climb, but we
serve a God, a king who says bow, go low.
The second thing Christ mentions here are those who mourn.
Blessed are those who mourn, for this shall be comforted.
Now, I want you to understand the Lord does comfort you in
sadness, right? He's a great comfort to you in
your sadness, your despair. And there's a lot of scriptures
that point to that. But we have reason to believe
that Jesus is not speaking merely of like a general sadness
here. It's not a generic sadness.
Jesus is not blessing every form of sorrow.
He's making a point here. This is grief that flows from
spiritual poverty, right? When a man sees his sin clearly,
mourning follows. Sadness follows.
He recognizes that he cannot measure up to the perfection of
God, that he is poor in spirit, and so he mourns over that.
This is more like Psalm 51, mourning right where David,
after he's been caught in the lie of what happened with
Bathsheba and the murder of her husband.
David cries out to God. He says against you and you only
have I sinned. It's a godly grief.
It's an understanding of the depth of depravity and sin in us
and our need for Christ. Paul distinguishes this further
in 2nd Corinthians 710 where he says this.
He says for godly, godly grief produces a repentance that leads
to salvation without regret. So worldly sorrow laments
consequences, right? Worldly sorrow is sorry because
it was caught, all right, but Kingdom sorrow laments sin
itself there. There might be a sorrow because
you're caught, but there's a deeper sorrow because you
sinned, you acted against the will of God, you disobeyed the
Lord. That's godly grief, right?
Thomas Watson, I think I quoted this last week, but it's worth
mentioning in here. Till sin be bitter, Christ will
not be sweet. Right?
That the promise here is that the mourners will be comforted.
What kind of comfort comes to one who's mourning their sin
before the Lord? Coming to the Lord in faith,
coming to the Lord in mourning, seeking help.
What kind of promise exists? What kind of comfort comes to
that person? Forgiveness.
Forgiveness of sins. Casting your sins as far as the
east is from the West. Viewing us through the
perfection of Christ is now how the Father looks at those who
are in Christ, right? He became sin for us so that we
who knew nothing but sin might become the righteousness of
Christ. So there's forgiveness, There's
also reconciliation. But Second Corinthians 5 is very
honest about this, that you have become new creations in Christ,
that Christ through his death and resurrection has reconciled
you to the Father. He's restored the relationship
that we should have known, should have been enjoying since
the garden. What was ruined by the fall.
That's been restored through Christ.
We've been reconciled to God. And now you are there in second
five ministers of reconciliation.
You get to go share the good news of the gospel with others,
those that they might be reconciled to God also.
So there's reconciliation, there's restoration, there's,
there's restoration of life, there's restoration of holiness,
there's restoration of just a dependence upon God, there's
restoration of heart and spirit and soul and body.
So the comfort is not mere emotional relief.
It's emotionally relieving when you're in despair to have
someone come and to put their arm around you and to weep with
you and to pray for you. That's emotional relieving, but
it's also very spiritually helpful because they're taking
you to the one who provides true gospel comfort where your need
your your, your despair is solved in Christ.
Only those who mourn over sin will truly, truly rejoice in
grace. The third group he mentions here
is the meek, which we might say is strength under submission.
All right, blessed are the meat, for they shall inherit the
earth. I want you to understand that
meekness is not weakness. Meekness is strength under
control. It's controlled strength.
It it's strength under submission to Christ.
It's power under authority. It's the opposite of self
assertion, right? Psalm 3711, which Jesus is
echoing here honestly. Psalm 3711 says this, But the
meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves and abundant
peace. So the meek trust that God is
going to vindicate them, right? They're not grasping for
position. Jesus himself describes his own
heart in this way. He says I am gentle and lowly in
heart, right? The king describes the citizens
of his Kingdom with his own character here, right?
And So what is the promise for the meek?
Well, they shall inherit the earth.
The world fights for territory, but the meek and Christ receive
it. The proud grasp at things and
they lose, but the humble will trust and inherit what God
gives. This is what you would call
eschatological hope. That means it's N times hope,
right? That the renewed earth belongs
not to tyrants, but to the humble King and to the humble
ones of Christ. The 4th category of people he
mentions here is hunger and those who hunger and thirst for
righteousness. This is just a deep craving for
God. Blessed are those who hunger and
thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
So Jesus is intensifying the language.
This is not mild interest in the Lord, right?
There's a whole crowd of people here who are mildly interested
in the Lord. What he's talking about here is
starvation language, right? It's dehydration language.
It's desperation. Blessed are those who hunger and
thirst for righteousness. Righteousness here includes both
justification and sanctification.
It's right standing before God and right living before God.
So the one who is poor in spirit mourns his sin.
The one who mourns his sin longs to be righteous, right?
I mean, isn't that what we get to isn't when we when we
understand that we're poor in spirit, we mourn over our sin.
And when we're mourning over our sin, we're really mourning to be
righteous. We crave it.
We we want to grow in righteousness.
I don't want to be a Sinner any longer.
I don't want to dishonor the Lord with my life anymore.
I want to honor Him. I want to glorify His great
name. I want to do good to my neighbor
and all those surround me, right?
The one who mourns a sin is mourning to be righteous.
And the promise here is beautiful.
They will be satisfied. They shall be satisfied.
I mean, think about the dichotomy that exists in our
world. The world hungers, and we do.
We're guilty of this, right? I don't want to just point to
the world. Like when I say the world, I'm
just talking about world's wisdom and how it influences our
living. The worldly wisdom teaches us to
hunger for wealth, to hunger for applause, to hunger for comfort.
And the more you get of that stuff, the more you realize
Ecclesiastes is one of the most brilliant books in the
Scriptures. It's vanity of vanities.
There is no satisfaction in it. So the promise here that those
who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be satisfied
is huge. Those who crave conformity to
God will be filled. Augustine famously prayed this.
He said, you have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts
are restless until they find their rest in you.
So only righteousness. What Augustine's getting at with
Matthew's getting at here with reporting what Jesus has said,
right? Only righteousness satisfies the
soul, because only God satisfies the soul.
We've been made for him, and so our hearts are restless until
they find the rest in him. But notice the progression of
what Matthew has just done, what Jesus has just talked through.
There's spiritual poverty, there's grief over sin, there's
a submission to God, and then there's this craving of
righteousness. So you can see it's not 4
different personality types, right?
We don't need to go take the Enneagram and try to figure out
who we are on the Beatitudes. That's wicked, right?
What we need to see is, do I understand my depravity?
Do I understand I'm a spiritually impoverished before
the whole world? And as I'm seeing it, do I
grieve over my sin or do I try to explain it away and justify
it? You know what rationalize means?
It just means to tell yourself rational lies.
Do I submit to God? Do I crave righteousness?
Christ is painting for US1 portrait here.
He's describing conversion from the inside of the man, which is
interesting because a lot of the things he's going to point out
and the rest of the sermon are all about the inside of the man.
You're going to have a group of people who are sitting here and
saying, well, I'm not those things.
And Christ is going to show over and over again throughout the
Sermon on the Mount that you must have a transformed heart to
live for the Lord. The Kingdom begins in humility
before it will ever produce influence in the world, and that
cuts directly against the grain of our culture and our flesh.
Imagine for a moment a man who is dying of thirst but insisting
that he is indeed OK. Well, until he admits his need,
he will never reach for water, right?
The the Beatitudes begin by teaching us to admit our need.
We have a need for Christ. We are spiritually impoverished,
and only the empty can be filled, only the broken can be
healed, only the hungry can be satisfied.
So we have to examine ourselves carefully as we read these
things. Are we poor in spirit, or do we
subtly believe we bring something to God?
I'm useful to Him, He needs me, or I'm sufficient enough that
I'll just sprinkle a little bit of God into my life.
Do you mourn over your sin, your rebellion against God?
Do you mourn over these things or do you excuse them?
Do you rename them? We we live in a world that loves
to psychoanalyze everything and there's a diagnosis for every
sin under heaven. You're not a Sinner.
You're XYZ. Here's some medication for that.
Here's some therapy for that. That's not, I won't even qualify
the statement right? That exists in our world and we
fall prey to it often. We want to rename our sins.
We want to make them less than sin.
We want to minimize them as best we can.
We don't want to mourn over sin, but we ought to mourn over our
sins. Are we meek right, or do we get
defensive? Do we get self protective?
Are we quick to assert ourselves or do we practice meekness?
Do we hunger for righteousness or are we content with just
surface level spirituality, just blending a little bit of Christ
or the Bible or church or whatever into our lives, just
surface level things, or is there a real hunger and a thirst
for righteousness that's present in your life?
Well, here's the hard truth. You can't manufacture these
traits by willpower, right? That they are produced by grace.
They're evidence that the King is reigning in you.
If these qualities are absence, the issue is not your
personality. You have to hear that the issue
is not your personality, it is Lordship.
Have you come to the end of yourself?
Have you bowed before Christ because the door to the Kingdom
is low and you must stoop to enter it?
So when the king reigns in the heart, humility is born.
But when but humility does not remain hidden, it begins to
reshape how we treat others. And that leads us to the next
marks of Kingdom citizens, where we see mercy and purity and
peacemaking. All right, so #3 display the
merciful heart of Kingdom citizens.
Look at verses 7 through 9 again.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of
God. So if the first four Beatitudes
describe the inner transformation of the heart
before God, then the next three reveal how that transformed
heart expresses itself toward others.
Humility never remains. Prophets, all right, when the
King reigns within your heart, he reshapes how you relate to
him on the outside of everything you're doing.
All right, When you get the word in your head and in your heart,
then your hands are transformed. And so Jesus continues there.
Blessed are the merciful, blessed are the pure in heart.
Blessed are the peacemakers. These are not disconnected
virtues. They are the fruit of a heart
that's been conquered by grace. So look at the first one there
with me, the merciful. It's grace received and grace
that's given. Blessed are the merciful, for
they shall receive mercy. So mercy is action and
compassion toward the guilty and the needy.
It's not mere sentiment like Lord bless her heart, it it's
costly kindness toward those who do not deserve it.
And notice the order of the Beatitudes.
You you cannot be truly merciful unless you have first seen your
own spiritual poverty. Only those who have been
forgiven much extend forgiveness freely.
James 213 warns US judgment is without mercy to the one who has
shown no mercy. But mercy triumphs over
judgments. So the merciful are not earning
God's mercy. That's not what we're saying.
That's not what Jesus is teaching that that would
contradict everything we have just seen about spiritual
poverty. Rather, mercy becomes the
evidence that mercy has been received.
The showing of mercy becomes the evidence that you have received
mercy, Right. Calvin again is helpful here.
He said nothing moves us to mercy more than the knowledge of
our own misery. So if you stood before God
bankrupt and you've been forgiven you, you will not stand
over others harshly. It's a contradiction.
It cannot exist. And a heart that's truly been
transformed and the promise here, right?
Blessed are those who show mercy for what they shall receive.
Mercy. Again, this isn't transactional
salvation. This isn't you must muster up
mercy in and of yourself. No, you've received mercy, so
you're showing mercy and guess what?
You get more mercy. It's covenantal assurance is
what it is. Those marked by mercy show that
they belong to the God who delights to show them mercy.
Secondly, he mentions the pure in heart.
It's just undivided devotion to God.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
So purity of heart is not external performance, is it?
No, it's internal integrity. You're pure in heart.
The the Pharisees Polish the outside of the cup, and Jesus
says here that it's important to address the inside of that
thing. Psalm 24, three through 4:00 ask
this question, Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord, and who
shall stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a
pure heart. So purity of heart means a
singleness of devotion, and I'm pure in heart.
It's undivided loyalty to the Lord.
There's no hidden compartments. I don't have part of my heart
going after God. And then other desires in my
heart want to do different things.
There's no double allegiance here, right?
The the word pure carries the idea of unmixed, like metal
that's been refined of its impurities.
So it's not to say that as you've received mercy, as you've
been justified by God, that you won't have impurity.
Still, of course you will. That's why I thought it was
important to read Romans 6 before Judas baptism this
morning. That's why Paul writes Romans 7
and Romans 8 for us. That's why 2nd Corinthians 3 and
4 points of this need for transformation, right?
That there's going to be transformation.
First Peter writes about literally how when your faith is
tested, then it's shown to be true because the impurities of
our faith are being burnt away in the fire, right?
So there's going to be struggle, there's going to be problems,
there's going to be issues, there's going to be sins to
overcome and put to death. All those things still exist as
a Christian, but now you have the power of the Spirit of God,
which raised Christ from the dead in you, to help you put
those things to death. You don't have to give up.
You can show up each day trusting the Lord, humbling
yourself before Him, mourning over your sins, asking God to
cleanse you, trusting that He is faithful and just to cleanse
you, as first John tells us, and then asking Him to rule your
life by His Spirit, to make you obedient to Him, to put to death
the deeds of the flesh. So the pure and heart are those
whose allegiance is not split between God and the world.
And what's the promise? Well, they shall see God.
That's staggering because in the Old Testament to see God meant
you died. But blessed are the pure in
heart here. Why or how?
For they shall see God. Yet here Jesus promises that the
pure in heart will see Him again.
This is going to find its ultimate fulfillment in
glorification. When Christ returns, or when you
go to be with Him in glory, we shall see Him as He is.
The apostle John writes in first John 32, but even now purity
clarifies spiritual sight. The sin is clouding the vision,
as I was mentioning a moment ago, but holiness is sharpening
our vision, and in the more undivided the heart becomes, the
clearer the sight of God's beauty becomes.
Again, Agustin prayed something really helpful here.
He said grant what you command and command what you will, even
purity. Then as a gift of grace, we also
see here the peacemakers. They reflect the reconciling
king. Blessed are the peacemakers, for
they shall be called sons of God.
Notice he doesn't say peacekeepers.
He says peacemakers. Peacekeeping avoids conflict.
Peacemaking moves toward reconciliation.
God himself is the great peacemaker.
Alright. Romans 51 Therefore, since we
have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our
Lord Jesus Christ. What did God do to make peace?
He moved towards sin, right? He sent Christ.
And now we have been justified by faith.
We have peace with God through Christ.
Colossians 120 says that Christ made peace by the blood of the
cross. So the gospel is the ultimate
act of peacemaking. Those who belong to the king
reflect his reconciling work. Then we've been called to this,
as I mentioned earlier in Second Corinthians 5:00, we, we pursue
peace and relationships, whether it's your marriage, whether it's
a relationship with your children, whether it's a
relationship with someone in the church or someone outside the
church, right, We're seeking peace.
We're pursuing peace in relationships.
We seek unity in the church. We labor for gospel
reconciliation. And Jesus says that those who do
this will be called sons of God. So in Scripture, sons reflect
likeness to be called sons of God as to bear the family
resemblance. All right, Peacemaking proves
your father's identity. So, as the Scriptures remind us,
those who are justified have also been adopted.
You've been adopted as sons of God.
You've brought into God's family.
You've been conformed to his character or you're being
conformed to his character, I should say.
And so peacemaking is family likeness.
So again, notice how these are building.
Mercy flows from forgiveness received.
Purity flows from a heart that's been transformed.
Peacemaking flows from reconciliation that's been
experienced. So none of this is moralism, is
it? None of it's moralism.
It's spiritual regeneration. It's spiritual transformation.
When grace roots itself deeply in us, then fruit must grow
visibly. So imagine you take a a tree,
right, and you transplant it into rich soil, that the change
may not be immediate in appearance, but over time the
health of the roots show up in the fruit of the tree.
The Beatitudes are describing the fruit mercy, purity, peace.
These grow from the soil of humility and grace, and if the
fruit is absent, then the root must be examined.
So we should ask ourselves plainly, are we merciful?
Am IA merciful person, or am I sharp?
Am I critical? Am I quick to condemn?
Do you remember the depth of your own forgiveness?
We should ask too, are we pure in hearts, or do we have divided
loyalties? We have hidden sins, private
compromises? Would those who are closest to
you, those who live in your home, describe you as sincere
and undivided before the Lord? Are we peacemakers or do we stir
up division? Division in our homes, division
in the church, division in the community?
Do we avoid hard conversations that could bring reconciliation
or do we labor for unity as Christians?
Now this is searching of us because it's possible.
You have to hear me. It's possible to attend church
and yet not reflect the King. But where Christ reigns, mercy
must increase, purity must deepen, peace must spread.
You see, the world prizes dominance.
It prizes self protection. But the Kingdom of God prizes
mercy and reconciliation. And the fruit of that does not
always earn applause. In fact, it often invites
opposition, doesn't it? Well, guess what?
Christ knew that as well. Point #4 endure the cost of
Kingdom citizenship. We must endure the cost of
Kingdom citizenship. Verses 10 through 12 Blessed are
those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs
is the Kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others
revile you and persecute you, and utter all kinds of evil
against you falsely on my account.
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.
For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Jesus concludes the Beatitudes of all things with something
that really ought to jar us just a little.
He has spoken of poverty of spirit.
He's spoken of mourning over our sins.
He's spoken about meekness and mercy and purity and
peacemaking, all these wonderful things that seem like the world
around you would love you for being this.
But now he says, blessed are those who are persecuted for
righteousness sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
Persecution, really blessed persecution, blessed
persecution, blessed right? How?
This is where the Kingdom most clearly collides with the world
that you live in. You're persecuted for
righteousness sake. You have to notice the
qualification here. It's not just blessed for those
who are persecuted. No, it's blessed for those who
are persecuted for righteousness sake.
Not persecuted for being abrasive, though.
You don't get to walk around being what you might think is a
holy turd head, all right. You're not persecuted for
foolishness. You're not persecuted for
political alignment. No, you're persecuted for
righteousness sake. The the word persecuted carries
the idea of being pursued. They're after you.
You might think the persecution that David endures, he fled Saul
and he fled his son Absalom. He's being pursued, he's being
harassed, he's being haunted down.
That's what Christ is talking about here, and it implies
sustained pressure. Not just momentary discomfort,
but a sustained pressure from the world against Christians.
Why though? Why might a husband be
persecuted in his home by his wife if he's trying to live
righteously? Because righteousness exposes
darkness, Jesus will later say in John 320.
For everyone who does wicked things hates the light, everyone
who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the
light, lest his works should be exposed.
So why do they not come to the light?
Why do they hate the light? Because they don't want their
own evil works to be exposed. It's self assertion.
It's self protection. It's making them Lord of their
own life, what Kingdom citizens live with.
When Kingdom citizens live with humility and purity and moral
clarity, it unsettles those around them who love their sins.
Light provokes the sort of resistance.
And theologically that makes sense, I think.
Scripture tells us that the world lies in the power of the
evil one in first. John 5/19 There's an underlying
hostility toward God that exists in the hearts of everyone who's
an unbelieving Sinner. So when you live in allegiance
to Christ as a Christian, you step into spiritual conflict.
And so Paul says plainly in Second Timothy 312, indeed, all
who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be
persecuted. Indeed, you live for Christ, you
will be persecuted. It's not might be you will be.
So this might not always mean imprisonment, right?
You might look around and think, man, Kyle, we live in America.
It's fairly unpersecuted here, but but again, I'm talking about
the what when you live out your life as a Christian among people
who are not wanting to live their lives in submission to
Christ. You know what I'm talking about
when I talk about persecution. Again, it can be as simple as or
as close as. I'll say as close as not as
simple. It can be as close as a husband
who's seeking to serve the Lord in his home and a wife who
refuses to submit to that. It can be as close as a wife who
is seeking to submit to her husband and everything in the
Lord. And a husband who refuses to
love her the way Christ loves the church.
That's persecution. It's revealing sin.
It's causing conflict. There's a thousand other
examples we could sit up here and give, and I have no time for
1000 examples. So it may not mean imprisonment.
It may not mean that you're literally going to be killed,
but it will mean that you could be marginalized for your faith.
You could be slandered for your faith.
You could be excluded from things because of your faith.
You can receive pressure because of your faith.
All right? I mean, persecution shows up in
a myriad of ways. It doesn't just mean you've been
martyred. And yet Jesus says, blessed,
blessed are you when you're persecuted, husband, for trying
to live for the Lord in your home.
Blessed are you, wife, when you're persecuted for trying to
live for the Lord in your home. Why?
Because yours is the Kingdom of heaven.
Notice he's repeating the promise of verse 3.
The Beatitudes here are bookended with the same
assurance. The poor in spirit possessed the
Kingdom. The persecuted possessed the
Kingdom. How do you think Christ was
intentional with His words? One.
Yes. All right, we got more work to
do. Strap in.
Yes, of course he was right. The Kingdom belongs to those who
bow low, and it also belongs to those who stand firm.
The second thing Christ points out here in verse 11 is those
who are personally reviled on account of Christ.
Now Jesus becomes even more personal here.
Blessed are you. It was.
Blessed are those. Now it's blessed.
Are you? He shifts from third person to
second person. This is no longer abstract.
He's being direct. Lester, you when others revile
you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you
falsely on my account. Now the defining phrase there,
the phrase you have to pay attention to on my account,
persecution for righteousness is persecution for Christ.
You think about Saul right before his conversion in Acts 9,
right? The Lord appears to him.
He's on the road to Damascus to do what?
Persecute more Christians? The Lord appears to him.
Saul, Saul, Why are you persecuting them?
No. Are you persecuting me?
They're being persecuted on account of their walk with the
Lord for being persecuted for the sake of Christ, for the name
of Christ. And who shows up to defend him?
Christ himself on my account. The world may frame it as
intolerance or extremism. Those around you may say that
you just don't get it, but at its core, those sort of things,
when you're persecuted for righteousness sake, at the core
that is hostility towards Jesus, not you.
That's a comforting thing for me.
He says in John 1520. If they persecuted me, they will
also persecute you. So union with Christ means that
we're going to share in the rejection of Christ.
We must. The Scriptures remind us
believers are united to Christ in his humiliation and in his
exaltation. If we share in His glory, we
must also share in his reproach. Calvin observed that believers
should not be surprised by persecution because he says the
cross is the badge of our discipleship.
So if the king was crowned with thorns before he was crowned
with glory, then you and I should not really expect a
different path. We should expect to walk the
same kind of path. So what do you do when you're
being persecuted for righteousness sake?
Look at the third thing Christ says.
Rejoice in eternal reward. Jesus commands something so
astonishing here. Rejoice and be glad.
The the language is strong. There's exuberant joy.
There's not denial. There's not some stoic
endurance. No, it's joy.
Rejoice and be glad. Why?
For your reward in heaven is great.
Who cares about the reward on earth?
That's what Christ is saying. Your reward in heaven will be
great. This does not mean that you earn
heaven through suffering. It means that heaven vindicates
your suffering. It means nothing endured for
Christ is going to be wasted there.
There ought to be some of you jumping up out of your chairs
because you're enduring some things for Christ right now.
There ought to be some joy here, right?
It means that Christ is vindicating everything that
you're going through as you suffer for his name's sake, as
you suffer for righteousness sake.
Paul echoes this in Romans 818. The Scriptures echo this a lot,
actually, especially in the New Testament.
This was a refrain. This is the thing that got me
through Winnie's death. I'll be honest with you.
It's just this refrain of eschatological hope.
Romans 818 For I consider that the sufferings of this present
time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be
revealed to us, the reward. As we're talking about reproach
here, the reward outweighs the reproach, but the reward also
outweighs the suffering, whatever it may be.
Could be health, could be marital struggle, could be
finances, could be the death of a loved one, could be anything
right. The sufferings of this present
time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be
revealed to us. Praise God and Jesus adds this
for those who are suffering under reproach.
For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
What is Christ saying? Every man that I called by my
name to speak my word, who has gone before you, has been
persecuted. Do not think that you will get
out any differently, but blessed are you.
Blessed are you Now think about it.
Persecution for your faith places you in the company of the
faithful. The prophet Elijah was haunted.
The prophet Jeremiah was beaten. The prophet Isaiah, according to
tradition, was Psalm. And two, to suffer for Christ is
to stand in the line of the prophets.
Brothers and sisters, it's not a sign that God has abandoned you
at all. It's a mark of authentic faith.
Imagine a soldier who's wearing the uniform of his nation while
he's in hostile territory, right?
That that uniform makes him identifiable.
He's not with us. And so it also makes him a
target because I said it was hostile territory, but it also
proves who side he's on. Righteousness is the uniform of
the Kingdom. It draws fire from the enemy,
but it also reveals allegiance. Persecution is not an
interruption of Kingdom blessing.
That's what Christ wants you to see today.
It's evidence, it's evidence of Kingdom blessing, that the
Beatitudes do not move from blessing to curse.
No, they move from humility to hostility.
That's it. They declare that both of those
things are blessed, that the world may reject you, but heaven
claims you, right. The world may slander you, but
Christ identifies with you. The world may cost you comfort,
but Christ promises a reward in heaven.
So then we have to ask, when the pressure comes for my faith on
account of righteousness, do I retreat?
Do I soften truth so that I can avoid criticisms?
Do I hide my allegiance to Christ to maintain my
reputation? Or do we stand humbly,
graciously, firmly? I want you to understand some of
this passage is not calling you to be a persecution seeker.
You're not to become a hot head for Christianity.
You're not to go out looking for persecution, but it does call
you to expect persecution when you're walking faithfully with
Christ and when it comes. This passage is reminding you
that it is not failure, it's fellowship with Christ.
Brother, sister, if you've been mocked for your obedience, take
heart. If you lose influence because
you refuse to compromise with the world, take heart.
If your name is misrepresented because you hold the Christ,
take heart. Christ has said theirs is the
Kingdom of heaven. If you've never suffered, even
in the even the slightest discomfort for Christ, then it
might be worth asking whether your life is distinct enough to
provoke notice. The King does not promise you
ease, but he does promise you himself, and he promises a
Kingdom that cannot be shaken. Remember, we have heard the King
speak today, Not a philosopher, not a motivational teacher, not
a political revolutionary. We've heard the King of heaven
speak. And what has he shown us?
Well, he's shown us that the character of those who belong to
his Kingdom looks like certain things.
We've seen, first, that we come under the authority of We must
first come under the authority of the king.
Secondly, we must embrace the humble posture of Kingdom
citizens to be poor in spirit, mourning over a sin, meek,
hungry for righteousness. Third, we've seen that we must
display the merciful heart of Kingdom citizens becoming
merciful pure of heart peacemakers.
And 4th, we've seen that we must endure the cost of Kingdom
citizenship, becoming willing to suffer for righteousness and for
Christ himself. That's life under the King's
rule. And here is what it what should
strike us. None of that is natural.
It's all supernatural. The world does not produce this
kind of character. Your flesh will not produce this
kind of character. Education does not produce this
kind of character. Only the reigning Christ
produces this kind of character. So the Beatitudes, then again,
it must be said, they're not a ladder that you climb to get
into the Kingdom, that they're a mirror that reveals whether the
king has claimed your heart or not.
And so I say to those of you in here who are believers, if you
belong to Christ, this passage should humble you and comfort
you. It should humble you because
none of us embodies this perfectly, right?
Are you always poor in spirit? No.
Do you consistently mourn over your sin?
Probably not. Are you relentlessly merciful?
No. We take offense.
We act out in aggression over those offenses.
Do you always hunger for righteousness?
No. What did that do for us?
It ought to drive us back to grace.
It ought to drive us back to the mercy seat of the Lord.
It ought to drive us back to fellowship with Christ.
But it should also comfort you because if you've seen it, if
you see even the beginnings of this character in your life,
maybe I'm not always poor in spirit, and sometimes I am.
Maybe I don't always mourn for my sin, but I have been broken
over my sins at times. Maybe I'm not always merciful,
but I do recall where the Lord led me to show mercy.
You see what I'm saying? If you see a growing hatred for
sin, a growing hunger for righteousness, a growing desire
for peace, well, that's evidence of the King's work in you.
These qualities are not the cause of your salvation.
No, they are the fruit of your union with Christ.
So continue to humble yourself before the Lord.
Continue to bow low. Continue to hunger and thirst
for righteousness. Continue to seek to show mercy
and when opposition for walking with the Lord comes, do not ever
even remotely think of it as God has abandoned you.
Instead, see it for what Christ says it is, it's identification
with Him. There's Christ says theirs is
the Kingdom of heaven. Not was, not will be, is.
Theirs is the Kingdom of heaven. Now, if you're an unbeliever,
you haven't submitted your life to Christ.
If you're able to examine your life honestly.
And none of these things describe you.
If pride defines you more than a poverty of spirits.
If sin doesn't grieve you. If righteousness does not hunger
in you. If mercy is foreign to you, if
the thought of suffering for Christ seems foolish, then this
passage isn't comforting for you.
It's confrontational, isn't it? Because it means you're still
living under another king yourself.
Now, the good news is this. The King who speaks these words
is also the King who went to the cross.
He perfectly embodied every one of these beatitudes.
He was truly poor in spirit. He was fully dependent upon the
Father. He mourned over the sin of
mankind, and He gave His life for it.
He was meek, He hungered for righteousness, He was merciful,
He was pure. He made peace by His own blood,
and He was persecuted unto death.
The only perfectly blessed man in the whole world became a
curse for sinners so that rebels like you and me could be brought
into His Kingdom. You do not enter his Kingdom by
reforming your character. You enter his Kingdom by
repenting of your sin and trusting in the king, laying
down your pride, bowing your knees to the Lord, receiving
mercy from him. If you'll do that, the King will
begin to reshape you from the inside out.
Church, the world is watching. Our culture is utterly confused
about what the good life is, but Jesus is not confused about it.
Blessed are the humble. Blessed are the merciful.
Blessed are the pure. Blessed are the persecuted.
That the Kingdom does not advance through dominance, it
advances through transformed people.
So let us submit ourselves to the King.
Let us embrace his definition of blessedness today.
And let us live in such a way that when the world sees us,
they see something different. They see the Father in heaven
who has rescued us, who has reconciled us to himself through
his Son. They don't see perfection.
We're not out trying to be Pharisees and act like we're
perfect. No, no, no, no, no.
They see the evidence of a reigning Christ.
Remember, Christ has said theirs is the Kingdom of heaven, and so
may it be evidence among us. Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word today.
We thank you for the words of Christ this morning.
We thank you, Father, for all that he has said in the
Beatitudes and all that it reveals about the character of
the citizens of the Kingdom of God.
And God is believers. We ask that you would continue
your good, gracious, merciful work of conforming us more and
more into the image of Christ, the only perfectly blessed man.
God. Would you help us to walk
faithfully with him? And Father, I pray for those who
may not know Christ is Lord, whether they're young or old.
God, I pray that is they've seen the words of Christ today, that
they have been examining their own heart.
I pray, Father, that You would use Your word to draw them to
yourself, that nothing would hinder them from coming, that
You would take them out of darkness and place them in
marvelous light. By Your great grace, your mighty
salvific hand, they would grant to them new life.
They might walk in accordance with your word, with your
teachings, with the life that you intend us to live, a life
close in fellowship with the God of all creation.
Father, would you save them today?
I'm going to give you a moment now in your seat to pray, to
seek the Lord, to respond to the message, or to reflect how the
Lord leads you by His Spirit this morning.
Take a moment and do that now. Heavenly Father, we give you all
the glory and the praise and the honor for every good work that
you're doing in the hearts of your people today.
We thank you again for your word.
We thank You that you are faithful always, that You're
steadfast, abounding in love. Father, we thank you that you
save sinners from their sins, to grant them new life, and you
mature them in that life. You sanctify them.
You cleanse them. So Lord, we thank you for your
work and our own hearts today. The work and the hearts of those
around us today. We thank you for your word.
Father, it's Christ name I pray. Amen.