How Character Takes Root Pt. 1- The Blessing of Brokenness

Introduction

Read Matthew 5:2-12

Matthew 5:2–12 (ESV)

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.

Last week, we looked at the introduction to this Sermon on the Mount by looking at who Jesus is and what He is seeking to communicate through this message. This message that spans over three chapters is one unified sermon that is addressing the issue of what it means to repent and live within the Kingdom of Heaven.

And we saw that Jesus is not just another teacher coming along and giving us his thoughts and interpretations. He is God Himself and is sitting on David’s throne as King over God’s people. He has the ultimate authority and rule over His people, so if you and I are going to live in this kingdom, we would do well to listen and pay attention to what Christ has for us.

The search for Flourishing and Fulfillment

Here in these opening verses of the Sermon on the Mount are these Beatitudes. They are statements which talk about those who are blessed and why they are considered blessed.

This word blessed carries with it the idea of happy, fulfilled, or as Jonathan Pennington puts it, “flourishing.” These are the people who are experiencing life the way it was intended to be lived, who have received the blessings and joy of King Jesus.

Everyone wants to flourish and experience life the way it was meant to be lived. We are all searching for that joy and fulfillment that comes when we are living how we were made and designed to live. However, we are all searching for that blessing in different ways. We live in a culture that says, whatever makes your heart happy just do it. And we are called to simply affirm people in what they think they want.

However, Jesus is sharing with us what it truly means to be blessed and flourish.

We have to get the start of this right, otherwise the rest of the sermon will be meaningless to us.

Like we said last week, Jesus does expound and clarify the law in this sermon on the mount and He does call us to obedience, but He is not calling us to earn our salvation and right standing before God. This is not just another checklist to mark off and earn our own righteousness.

Jesus is starting with these beatitudes because these are the characteristics of those who have been brought into the kingdom of heaven and who have been given the ability and the grace to live out what Jesus is calling us towards. He is calling us to BE this kind of person before He calls us to DO anything.

We are seeing in these beatitudes where the character of a man or woman of God takes root and how it bears fruit in his or her life. And the character of a person of God begins with brokenness.

We are going to see that as your heart changes towards yourself and towards God, we will be ready to receive what only God can give and that it is only through His grace and power that we can experience the joy, the blessings, and the fulfillment in life that we are all searching for.

I. Admit that You Are Spiritually Bankrupt

Matthew 5:3 (ESV)

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

First, as Jesus dives into this sermon, He begins his list of characteristics for the blessed, happy, flourishing person as one who is poor in spirit.

And it is essential that we begin here. Jesus has a particular reason for the order He gives here in this sermon. Each of these beatitudes build upon one another and it is no mistake that He begins with this one, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.”

Poor -

First, let’s break down the term poor. When we think of the idea of poor, we think of someone who just doesn’t have a whole lot. They might have some things, but they are probably the most basic things needed for life. We think of someone who might have a little bit of food, but they do not have the ability to enjoy the finer things of life. In fact, many of us here today probably considers ourselves poor.

But Jesus is talking about someone who has nothing at all in their possession. He is saying that the one who is blessed is the one who has absolutely nothing and recognizes they have absolutely nothing.

In Spirit -

But Jesus doesn’t leave it at poor. Although in Luke’s gospel, Jesus does say blessed are the poor. But with these words “in spirit” it changes what we might consider Jesus addressing here.

He is not saying that someone simply being poor is enough to enter into this kingdom. One can be poor and still put his trust in possessions and the idea of wealth. And one can be physically rich and be able to know and understand that all they have belongs solely to the Creator.

To be poor in spirit is to recognize our spiritual bankruptcy before the Lord and that we have nothing whatsoever to be able to offer to Him. It is admitting that I am a sinner, that my whole life has been nothing but sin.

Wait a minute, everything I do is sin? Really?

Isaiah 64:6 (ESV)

We have all become like one who is unclean,

and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.

We all fade like a leaf,

and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.

Romans 3:11–12 (ESV)

no one understands;

no one seeks for God.

All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;

no one does good,

not even one.”

No matter how good we think we are, none of us can stand righteous before our holy God. Because we are all sinners, as Paul will go on to say in Romans 3:23

Romans 3:23 (ESV)

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

then none of us have anything that is valuable to a holy God. It is this understanding and admission that we have no goodness within ourselves to offer to God that will lead us to the blessing that we will receive as a result of this.

The blessing - We will receive citizenship within the kingdom of heaven.

What does Jesus say about those who are poor in spirit, those who know and understand they have nothing they can depend upon for their standing before God?

These kinds of people, who understand they are spiritually bankrupt and have no goodness whatsoever within themselves, are the ones to whom the Kingdom of God will be given. They are blessed because they are the ones Christ is inviting to become citizens in this new and better kingdom.

The Problem:

We do not like to hear that we are not good enough. Our natural mentality is to see the goodness in all of us.

Now, to be clear, to say that we are spiritually bankrupt does not invalidate the value of each and every human being.

God does not place value on what we have, but simply because He has chosen to place value in us.

But we all want to try and earn the value that we think we deserve. There are two ways we do this.

Self-Righteousness

Self-Righteousness is like we are better than we actually are. We adopt a spirit of legalism and self-justification to make us somehow believe that we have earned our place in God’s Kingdom.

The religious leaders of Jesus’ day fit into this model. They manipulated the law in such a way as to make it appear they were doing well. They did believe they were sinners to be sure, but they also believed their works of righteousness were enough to overcome their sin. They also manipulated the law as they compared themselves with those around them. They judged their own righteousness based on the lack of righteousness of the sinners around them.

Everyone of us are also tempted to fall into self-righteousness. We can play the comparison game and either judge ourselves to be more righteous than we really are or to compare ourselves with others and say, well at least I don’t ever do that. But we need to quit comparing our own righteousness with others and start looking at it in light of Jesus’ righteousness.

As Jesus is going to show us in the rest of the Sermon, Jesus is going to raise the standard of the law, not lower it, showing us that outside of His work and grace, there is no hope for any of us to be righteous enough.

Self-Justification

The other way that we try to earn our own value is by justifying the sins in our lives by refusing to acknowledge them as sin.

“I was born this way.” “I’m being true to myself.” “It’s just who I am.” “None of us are perfect.” “I’m following my heart.”

These are all ways of saying that my sin is not a big deal and therefore, I am a good person despite my sin because my sin isn’t really sin, it’s just a part of my personality. Instead of seeing my sin as brokenness, I’m trying to see my sin as just a natural part of who I am and therefore, I can be good enough without having to turn away from my sin.

In both of these cases, we see how we actually bring more harm on ourselves because we are rejecting the joy and blessing that comes with recognizing our spiritual brokenness.

the self-righteous are miserable because they are living to a standard that we know deep down we can never keep. And so we continue to damage relationships with others to keep my image.

The self-justifiers are miserable because they are satisfying themselves on the world’s standard of joy and pleasure that was never meant to satisfy. Sin will only bring so much joy before we need something else.

The path of blessing and flourishing comes when we recognize our spiritual brokenness and seek help from something or someone else!

II. Be Broken-hearted Over Your Sin

Next, Jesus tells us

Matthew 5:4 (ESV)

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Happy, blessed, flourishing are those who mourn? What?!?

on the outset this doesn’t seem to make sense. We are told to see happiness, laughter, entertainment and to avoid sorrow and sadness.

It’s why Hollywood has become such a booming business. It has helped us avoid the sadness and mourning that is actually healing to our souls. It’s why alcohol and drugs has such a controlling effect over so many people who try to drown their sorrows at the bottom of a bottle. It’s why lifestyles of pleasure and hedonism is so rampant, because as we turn from Christ, we have to fill the emptiness of our hearts with the temporary and worthless joys of this world.

“Inside Out” one of the last decent Disney/Pixar films to come out deals with the destructive nature of trying to avoid sorrow and suffering.

But Jesus says, blessed are those who mourn.

Mourn about what? Is He talking about any kind of mourning? No.

There are many kinds of good and necessary mourning that we need to go through. Mourning the loss of a loved one is a good thing. Mourning the loss of a job or opportunity is necessary. But Jesus does not have these kinds of mourning in mind.

The mourning Jesus is talking about here is directly tied to the first Beatitude of being poor in spirit. When we recognize our spiritual standing before God and that we have nothing to offer Him, that we are sinners who deserve nothing but eternal separation from God, this realization should lead us to mourn over our desperate state.

This is not a mourning over the consequences of our actions.

One can mourn about being caught in a crime, but have no sorrow about actually committing the crime.

The sorrow Jesus is calling us to is a sorrow over our sin and rebellion.

2 Corinthians 7:10 (ESV)

For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

This is what Paul is writing about here in 2 Cor. 7. Worldly grief does not produce repentance. It is merely sad over having been caught. Godly grief is sorrow over the sin that has separated us from God.

This godly grief is demonstrated in the life of Ezra and Nehemiah.

After Nehemiah and God’s people were allowed to return back home from Babylon per the decree of Cyrus the king, they rebuilt Jerusalem and the walls surrounding the city. After the wall was finished, Ezra read God’s law to the people to remind them of His statutes and the commands they had broken which had led them into exile. Ezra spent about 6 hours teaching the people God’s law. After he was finished, the people began to weep as they realized all they had done in rebellion against the Lord. They were not weeping because of the punishment, which they had already experienced. If nothing else, there should have been joy because they were back home. Yet, there was still mourning because they realized their sin before God and they did not want to keep on rebelling like they had.

This godly grief is what Jesus is telling us should come as a result of our recognition of the spiritual bankruptcy we are all in. Because of our sin and rebellion, we should be people who mourn.

The Blessing -

What is the blessing that is promised when we mourn? And not just mourn, but truly mourn over our sin. When we mourn for repentance, Jesus says we are blessed because we will find comfort.

The godly grief that comes to God’s people will not be a grief that lasts forever. It is a grief that will end because when we turn to God in confession and repentance from our sin, He will give us the comfort of His forgiveness. Mourning will turn to laughing. Psalm 30:5

Psalm 30:5 (ESV)

For his anger is but for a moment,

and his favor is for a lifetime.

Weeping may tarry for the night,

but joy comes with the morning.

Yes, God is right to be wrathful against sin. But His anger is but for a moment for His people, but His favor, His grace is for a lifetime. Why?

Because of Jesus. Jesus took on our brokenness and shame, He took on our sin and rebellion and faced the infinite wrath of God against our sin so that we might receive His righteousness and the Father’s favor towards us.

Yes, there is mourning and there should be mourning as we continue to exist in this life of sin and brokenness. Let the mourning of this life turn your heart towards God in repentance. But let the promise of the cross be like the dawning of the sun as it ushers in a new day of joy, knowing that we have received grace and forgiveness of sin.

After Ezra read God’s law to the people, the people wept and mourned over their sin. They repented of their sin to begin a new life with God.

But after their weeping, Nehemiah came to them and said,

Nehemiah 8:9–10 (ESV)

“This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people wept as they heard the words of the Law. Then he said to them, “Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

Nehemiah wanted the people to understand that they had received the mercy and forgiveness of God.

They experienced the truth that John the Apostle would write to believers centuries later,

1 John 1:9 (ESV)

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Conclusion

Jesus begins His sermon by showing the heart and the character of those who belong to the Kingdom of heaven. And it is not those who believe they have earned or deserved entrance into the Kingdom.

On the contrary, it is those who know they cannot ever earn it or deserve it. It is those who recognize their utter hopelessness and those who desire to be forgiven and made new by Christ.

In Christ alone will we enter the Kingdom of Heaven and find the comfort our souls are longing for.

Jesus is inviting us into this life by recognizing our true position before God and coming to Him in mourning and repentance.