The Disciple's Joy

Call to Worship: Psalm 96:7-9 // Prayer

Adoration: Lord, this morning we bring to you a sacrifice of praise. Your glory is endless, and your sovereign power over all things is totally uncontested. We rejoice and tremble before you.

Confession: And yet, in our lives, we have failed to honor you as holy. We’ve preferred our own comfort and thought highly of ourselves. We’ve acted as though the world revolves around us. We’ve failed to humble ourselves and seek the joy of others. Father, forgive us, for we have sinned against you.

Thanksgiving: But in your Word you have said that there is, now, no condemnation for those who are in Christ by faith. You have condemned our sin in him, as he carried it in our place. And so you’ve set us free—forgiven forever, accepted as your children.

Supplication: So we pray: give us lowly hearts which hunger and thirst for righteousness, so that we might grow in purity, and behold your glory; for the men in our congregation: may we learn our manhood from Jesus—may we be courageous and loving in a world that wants us to be selfish and cowardly; for those of us with families—please, give us grace to lay down our lives every day for them, for your glory, and to raise our children in the gospel // we pray for CTC in Uganda: may the eyes of their hearts be all the more enlightened, that they might know the hope to which you have called them… etc.; that you might supply Arthur’s needs (vehicle, leaky roof, $$$ for pastor training) // in our own country, we lift up to you the scourge of racism—we ask for healing; but much more, we ask that your church be cleansed and protected both from racism and from godless ways of trying to deal with it—may it be only the gospel of Christ Crucified which brings and keeps unity among us! // and now, as we open Your Word… please teach us the true path of discipleship, that might learn to follow more faithfully in Jesus’ footsteps.

Family Matters

Children’s ministry change

Membership conference

Benediction

Colossians 3:15–17 ESV

And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Sermon

Read: Matthew 5:1-12

Intro

What is the good life?

Every one of us has a picture in our heads of what the good life looks like—life as it aught to be lived—life as it was meant to be. And every one of us is wrong. And that’s a problem. Because whatever you think the good life is, that’s what you chase after. That determines the path you walk.

In the passage Brian just read, we heard the word “blessed” over and over again. And it’s one of those spiritual words we say. But what does it mean? Well, in this passage, it means: “Here’s the good life. This is what the good life looks like.”

But our problem is that Jesus is not the only one out there saying, “Here’s the good life. Here’s what the good life looks like.” Even more so in our day, there are a thousand competing pictures of “the good life,” and we buy into them all the time, without even realizing it. That’s our problem. And so, the life of blessing that we are supposed to have as Jesus’ disciples slips through our fingers.

Picture a Tech exec.

He flies in on luxury jet, and greets his family. He’s dressed in cloths you couldn’t buy with a year’s salary. His wife is deeply in love with him. His kids go to the best school in town, and still think he’s a cool dad. His family gathers naturally around him, and the press takes pictures. Maybe those who know him best whisper about his cocky attitude… but what’s a little sin the life of such a great man?

And tomorrow, there will be an article in the Oregonian praising him for his business savvy and his open-hearted giving to charitable causes. And so when the world looks at him, they say, “that’s the good life.” Or, “if only I had that man’s life. That’s the pinnacle of living.” And next year, he’ll publish a book on how people can be successful, by imitating his life. How they can be blessed, just like him.

Now, that’s a fictional character, but a lot of books like that have been published. And people buy them and read them by the millions—books that tell you, “Here’s what the good life looks like. Here’s what you need to do to be blessed like me.” And they usually look very different from Jesus’ teachings.

And it’s not just books. Advertisements—“Buy our product and you’ll have the good life—the life you’ve always wanted.” Or politics: whatever words politicians use, so often they basically promise: “Elect me, and I’ll restore the good life that we ought to have in this country.” And it’s there in social media, in shows, movies, novels, podcasts—so much of it says to us, here’s the good life, “Here’s the good life. Follow me.”

And all these competing pictures really know how strike us in just the right spot, and wind their way into our hearts. And usually, the picture that they give is very different than the one Jesus gives, in these Beatitudes. Usually, it’s distorted, twisted.

And what that means for us, is that we desperately need Jesus’ picture, in order to clear our vision—in order to clean these false pictures of the good life out of our hearts.

So then, what is Jesus’ picture of the good life? What is the path that HE teaches for his disciples? What we’re going to see this morning is that it has nothing to do with the size of your bank account, or whether you have the family you wanted, or whether the world honors you, or anything like that. Instead, Jesus’ picture of the good life is a path that goes from repentance to humility to Christlikeness.

Walking Down: Repentance

**So, the first leg of this path is repentance. Look at how Jesus describes this in verses 3 and 4**

Matthew 5:3–4 ESV

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Now, we talked about these verses last Sunday. Being poor in spirit and mourning means seeing the hideous nature sin—especially the sin in your own soul—and instead of ignoring it, confessing it to God in deep sadness. Repentance.

And we saw that this kind of crushed heart and deep sadness are actually the gateway into true life.

They are the only gateway—there is no other entrance into the good life Jesus taught—the only true good life.

What kind of person is transferred from the land of darkness into Kingdom of Heaven? “Blessed are poor in spirit, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to them”—and to no one else.

This is the necessary step one.

But notice, verse 3 and 4 don’t just describe a one-time act. They describe an ongoing attitude. An attitude in which I see sin in my own heart, and I go to God with deep sadness over it. In the path that Jesus has laid out for us, this is like walking down into a deep valley.

[Counterfeits] But very naturally, our hearts ask, “How can that be the good life? That sounds terrible!” And so, our hearts, together with the world and its king, offer us a bunch of alternative pictures:

For example, there’s defensiveness or self-pity. Maybe you see your sin, or someone points it out to you, but instantly the walls go up. “Well, I only did that because other people have sinned against me. I’m the victim here!” Or, “You don’t know how much I suffer in that area…” Or, “What do you mean sin? Stop being a legalist!” Or, “I’m trying, OK? Give me a break!” Or whatever the defense may be. But the picture here is that good life is a life where pride and self-righteousness are protected.

Or, there’s self-compassion. Maybe you’ve heard the term before. “Yes, I do wrong things. Yes, their’s sin in my heart. But you know what? I’ve learned to forgive myself. I’m at peace with myself.” The idea here is that I’m my own judge, and so with the help of a therapist, I can learn to forgive myself, and find peace. It’s a way of finding peace that cuts out the gospel. Maybe there’s a little truth in it, but ultimately, it’s a gospel-substitute. A counterfeit path to the good life—a path which avoids confessing sin to God, and finding peace in his compassion, not mine.

Or, there’s outrage. If I can spend my emotional energy angry those people over there, then I don’t have to pay attention to problem in my own heart. It makes me feel righteous. It’s another counterfeit picture of the good life.

Or, there’s the plain old blind eye. I just won’t think about my sin. I’ll fill every moment of my life with entertainment or pleasure or noise. I’ll make sure I’m never alone with my own thoughts. Because then I’ll have to look at my own soul, and it will be depressing—the opposite of the good life.

[Actual blessing] So, maybe you can see that those ways of avoiding repentance really aren’t the good life. Maybe you can see that they’re counterfeits. Maybe you’re convinced that repentance is necessary in order to live the good life. But you’re thought is still, “How can I get through this repentance as fast as possible, in order to get to the good life that Jesus taught?

If that’s how you feel, you’ve still missed the point. Weeping over your sin is not just a path that gets you to the good life—it’s part of the good life itself!

How could that be? Verse 4: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

They shall receive comfort from God! And yes, it’s in the future tense—it ultimately refers to total comfort believers will experience when Christ returns. But don’t we receive a down-payment of it now?

Isaiah 66:1–2 ESV

Thus says the Lord: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.

Our God, though he is holy beyond all praising, yet he delights to commune with the contrite in spirit—the poor in spirit. He makes himself known to us, and comforts us with the mercy of the cross, when we confess our sin in deep sadness. And so, that confession and comfort are part of the good life.

Yes, it is true that repentance and mourning are like descending into a deep valley. But it is descending to one place where we can see that Jesus, crucified for our forgiveness, is all that we have. And so, it is a place of blessing:

One puritan prayed:

“Let me learn by paradox

that the way down is the way up

that to be low is to be high

that the broken heart is the healed heart

that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit

that the repenting soul is the victorious soul.”

Repentance is the paradoxical but wonderful first leg on the journey of the good life.

Walking in the Valley: Humility + Desire for Righteousness

But repentance leads to the second leg of the journey: Humility and Hunger—as we walk along the bottom of the valley.

And the connection is simple: if you’ve just confessed your sin to God from the heart—if you’ve just wept over your sin, and thrown yourself on Christ’s mercy—you don’t come away from that proud of who you are. You come away extremely humbled, and joyful only in who God is. You come away humble, or as verse 5 says, “meek.”

Matthew 5:5 ESV

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

And what about hunger? If you’ve just come away from true repentance, you’ve seen just how little righteousness you have. And you are humbled about your own failure to get any. And so you have a holy desire for righteousness. As verse 6 says,

Matthew 5:6 ESV

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

And just like repentance, these things are an ongoing heart posture.

[Counterfeits] But very naturally, our hearts ask, “How can that be the good life? That sounds terrible!” And so, our hearts, and those around us, offer alternative pictures:

For example, there’s self-righteousness. “I’ll work myself up to a degree of goodness where I don’t have to be humbled about who I am anymore. I’ll become a good person.” The idea here is that the good life is when you are able to be live righteously apart from God’s grace… you get to keep your pride in yourself. It’s an unholy kind of self confidence:

Peter expressed it when he said, “Though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away.”

Or, there’s self-esteem or self-importance. The funny thing is, even psychologists who study self-esteem—many of them no longer consider it a good thing. But it captured the popular imagination. And so, it’s a very popular, but counterfeit picture of the good life. “If only I could think more highly of myself, then I wouldn’t be so gloomy and full of problems. Then I could live the good life.”

Closely related is the gospel of self-expression or self-creation. “The only way I can be fulfilled as a human is to express my inner self—to create who I am, completely unrestrained by any outside rules.” That also is a very popular way of thinking: self-expression is the good life.

[Actual blessing] So which is the true good life? The self-satisfied, self-centered life? Or the humble life, that hungers and thirsts for righteousness? Now, if you’re a believer, you know the right answer. But why?

The dirty little secret about the self-created, self-satisfied, self-righteous life, is that it can never be bigger than the self. Your whole life is limited to yourself! And so, what promises to be comfortable and whole actually turns out to be fractured and miserable, and utterly cut off from any true experience of God.

But on the other hand, what did Isaiah 66:1-2 say? Who does God actually pay attention to, and comfort, and bless? Only the one, “who is humble, and contrite in spirit, and who trembles at the Word of God.” Or, in Jesus’ language, only the repentant, who is humble, and who hungers and thirsts for righteousness.

And what does Jesus promise to them?

Verse 5: the humble will inherit the earth—not the self confident and strong, but the humble.

Verse 6: those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be satisfied with righteousness—not those who fool themselves into thinking that they are good people, but those who know they are not and long to be.

So then, the good life begins with repentance—the walk down into the deep valley—and continues with humility and hunger—the road along the valley floor.

So, if you are a disciple of Jesus, this is your path. And if you’re not on this path, cry out to God for help… and ask an older brother or sister in Christ to help you find the way. This is the only true good life.

But what if you are that older brother or sister? What are you supposed to do, when someone you’re trying to disciple doesn’t have a humble heart? Doesn’t hunger and thirst for righteousness?

Well, always proceed with gentleness and humility, and maybe get help from a pastor or another experienced disciple.

And, spend time in prayer, for God’s wisdom and power.

But here’s what you need to see from Jesus’ teaching here: if there’s no humility or hunger for righteousness, it’s time to go back to the beginning. The good life starts with repentance from a contrite heart—so if their’s no humility or hunger for righteousness, that either means you’re looking at:

an extremely malnourished disciple—essentially, spiritually alive, but starving… or:

someone who never truly repented and trusted in Christ in the first place—they don’t act like they belong to Jesus, because they don’t belong to him. And that’s a hard truth to square with. But it’s good. Because once you realize that about yourself or someone else, then you know what is actually needed: “Repent. For the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”

Walking Up: Christlikeness

**But once repentance has had its effect, and your heart is humble and hungry for righteousness, what’s next? The third leg of the journey is up, into Christlikeness**

Here’s how Jesus said it:

Matthew 5:7–9 ESV

“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.

Merciful, Pure, Peacemaking: that is the character of the disciple who has become like Jesus. But how does it happen?

When your own heart is humbled because you’ve seen your own sin… you can’t then turn around be a harsh judge toward someone else.

You can still call sin sin… but you’ll be patient, and quick to forgive.

When someone else crosses you, or wrongs you, you won’t be harsh, or bitter, or angry—either openly or in your heart—because you remember just how much mercy you’ve received from God.

You will be merciful as Jesus has been merciful to you: you will start to live Jesus’ own mercy in the way you treat others.

And you’ll be pure.

When you’ve come to see how ugly sin is, and your heart hungers and thirsts for righteousness, the result is that you grow in purity. Your life becomes more righteous.

You begin to reflect the purity of Jesus’ own life by the way you live.

And you’ll become a peacemaker.

You’ll hunger and thirst for righteousness not only in your own heart, but also in the lives of your brothers and sisters. You’ll want to see them walking in blessing with one another, and because your heart is humble, you’ll be willing to risk pain and rejection by engaging them to make peace.

And by the way, peacemaking does not mean covering up sin, or refusing to talk about it, hoping that it will just go away. Peacemaking means addressing the sin, and seeking to apply the gospel of repentance and forgiveness to the sin, so as to bring peace and unity between believers.

But what do you do if these virtues are not in place? Back to step one!

Repent, for you have sinned against God, and your sin is far uglier than you could possibly know.

But then, know the mercy of God—that Jesus himself took the awful judgement against your sin on himself when he was crucified, that you might be forgiven and cleansed and made into his children.

This is an inexpressibly joyful thing—that the Divine King would die in your place, that you might live. But it is also a very humbling thing—and that humility is what enables you to grow like Christ.

[Counterfeits] But once again, this seems like such a hard road: (minimize these and include with next sermon?)

Power, fame, riches, comfort

Good family, health, job success

Success in endeavors

Actual blessing:

In line with reality, etc.

The honor of imitating Christ, + gospel

Conclusion

It’s a single path… and a cycle

Lord’s Table