Sermon Tone Analysis

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Let’s open our Bibles to Matthew Chapter 4, we’re going to read starting in verse 23 and read till verse 12 in chapter 5.

My sermon this afternoon is titled “The Kingdom Reward for Righteousness”, and this text will teach us something about the true righteousness.

Let’s Pray

Intro

Blessed is a word that gets kinda thrown around today isn’t it?

Steph Curry the pro basketball player often claims he’s “blessed” all the time, usually because of his family or because he did well in a game or because of his wealth

And it’s not just him.

If you watch interviews with celebrities they will pretty often say how Blessed they are, how they’re so thankful for all they have and where they are, they’re so Blessed.

Even Christians will talk about how they’re blessed because of all these physical, worldly things.

They’ll post on facebook how they’re so blessed to have an amazing family.

Those things are all great things.

But what does it actually mean to be Blessed?

What does the Bible say?

Well Jesus in the beginning of his Sermon on the mount defined what kind of person is blessed, in about 10 verses that are often titled “The Beatitudes”

That word beatitudes isn’t in the original greek manuscripts because it’s a title given by man to the text to organize and understand it.

The word is related to the latin word beatus, which means blessed.

And Jesus has been spending all this time with people who are sick and suffering and demon-possessed, and epileptic and paralyzed, preaching the good news of the kingdom of heaven to them and healing them.

He sees all these crowds following him everywhere, and decides to go up on the mountain.

They follow him up there and he sits, and begins to teach them.

Does that sound familiar?

Where in the bible before was there a man who led crowds of lowly people to the top of a mountain and taught them?

It was Moses!

Throughout his Gospel account, Matthew portrays the life of Jesus, and he has a specific image he wants the reader to see.

His goal is to show the reader how Jesus is like a New Moses.

Moses gave God’s law to Israel on top of Mount Sinai, and now Jesus is going to preach to Jews on this mountain, re-interpreting the law of moses.

He’s correcting a lot of the understanding of what they knew to be true about their God and the law, and one of those corrections is what blessing is, and who is Blessed.

So lets read verses 3-8

Verse 3

The poor in spirit receive the kingdom of heaven.

Poor in spirit can be confusing at first, but it is referring to those who recognize their spiritual poverty.

It’s THESE people who are rewarded The Kingdom of Heaven.

Just a side note real quick, whenever Jesus talks about the Kingdom of Heaven we might automatically think of the future Church, or we might think of the future new creation.

And it might seem like it must be one or the other, but the kingdom of heaven is actually both!

It’s kind of an already/not yet mindset where yes, the Kingdom of heaven is those who put their faith in Jesus and are on Earth as his church, but it also going to be fully realized as a true and complete Kingdom when Jesus reigns on the throne in the new creation.

With that being said, lets continue.

The spiritually lowly people get the kingdom, it’s theirs.

I can just imagine Jesus saying this and everyone awkwardly looking at the rich Pharisees who brag about their spiritual wealth.

It’s not them who get the kingdom, but the poor in spirit.

The people who recognize their own sinfulness and wickedness and shame, and their need for a savior, those people get the Kingdom.

Those who know they are sinful are treated like they’re righteous.

Verse 4

those who mourn will be comforted.

Jesus, teaching all these people who are going through so much, doesn’t discard or diminish mourning.

He specifically says that they are blessed.

And not only are they blessed, but they receive comfort.

Nothing can replace whoever or whatever they lost, but they will be comforted by God.

They aren’t comforted by just getting over it, or by buying stuff off amazon, or by ignoring their feelings.

They seek God in their time of grief, and he comforts them.

All throughout the Old Testament God comforts the mourning, and Jesus teaches Israel again that they will be comforted.

Even in their mourning they are Blessed.

And how great will their comfort be when they are in the kingdom of heaven.

And think about how mourning comes right after being poor in spirit.

they are poor in spirit, recognizing their absolute depravity of spirituality and knowing how sinful they are.

it makes them mourn, and Jesus says that they will be comforted.

Verse 5

the gentle will inherit the earth.

your translation might say the humble, or the meek. in direct contrast to the world of tyrants and dictators and empires, Jesus says the meek will inherit the earth.

The humble inherit the earth.

these are the people who seek God for rescue, seek God for guidance.

notice the similarities to being poor in spirit, but rather than getting the kingdom, here inheriting the earth is the reward.

It’s those who are willing to submit to christ and turn aside from their own desires, the humble, who inherit the earth.

And as a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, they will enjoy the whole earth in new creation under God’s kingship.

and think about this now after they’ve mourned their spiritual poverty; they are humbled.

they have an attitude of humility and meekness about them in light of how spiritually poor they really are.

Verse 6

Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be satisfied.

these are those whose desire, their need, is righteousness.

Again, this person recognizes their own unrighteousness and therefore HUNGERS and THIRSTS for righteousness.

They humbly recognize that they are spiritually poor, starving and parched for righteousness.

they hunger and thirst for righteousness, and are satisfied by Jesus.

Their starving need for righteousness will be met.

Ultimately, they will see that fulfilled in the future kingdom of heaven, when they are in the full presence of the embodiment of righteousness.

Verse 7

The merciful are blessed.

In turn, those who show mercy receive mercy. the merciful are those who do not give others the punishment they deserve, and because of their mercy that they show others, God gives them mercy.

God does not favor vengeance and ruthlessness from his people, but instead mercy.

The Pharisees came down on a paralytic for carrying his mat on the Sabbath after being miraculously healed in John 5. The Pharisees accused Jesus and his disciples of breaking the law of Moses by “working” when they took leftover grain from fields when they were hungry travelers in Matthew 12.

It was actually in the law of Moses, Leviticus 23, for field owners to not collect all the grain in their field, but to leave some on the edges for the poor and foreigners.

But since it was Sabbath they immediately condemned it.

The Pharisees were legalistic.

They had no mercy when it came to obeying God, no room for exceptions.

They even added to the law to make sure they wouldn’t break it.

Jesus says instead, the merciful are blessed, and they receive mercy.

these people recognize the mercy they have been given and seek to show others mercy.

they seek to find out how they can minister to others and help others.

They respond to their persecutors with mercy.

And since they are shown mercy from their sin, they are part of the kingdom of heaven.

Verse 8

The pure in heart are blessed.

Their reward is getting to see God.

Their integrity is blameless, and pure in heart!

Jesus isn’t saying that it is somehow possible to be completely sinless and pure in our flesh; not at all.

Again, think about the religious leaders.

Jesus would go and compare them to whitewashed tombs in Matthew 23.

On the outside they were beautiful and pure and clean, but the instead held dead man’s bones, impure and unclean to a Jew.

The religious leaders portrayed themselves as righteous and godly on the outside but were full of pride and sin and greed on the inside.

Instead, Jesus says that the pure in heart are blessed.

Not the ones who put on their Sunday best and a plastic smile.

Those who had integrity in all they did, and loved God.