Be Blessed

Matthew 5:3-12

#Blessed

A contrast in worldviews

What the world sees as blessing

Prosperity, success, acceptance, comfortable

How often does someone claim “Blessed” when sitting in a cancer ward with chemo running through their veins?

Even the prosperity gospel, God wants you healthy and wealthy

Joel Osteen - God’s blessing is an empowerment where you can live joyfully, with a spring in your step, a song of praise in your heart, despite the circumstances.

You will recover from an illness when the expert said you wouldn't. You will accomplish dreams that looked impossible. It wasn't just your talent, your skill, determination. There is a force behind you fighting your battles, opening doors you couldn't open, bringing the right people. Those weren't just good breaks. That's the blessing on your life. The blessing will cause you to prosper when others are struggling. The blessing will bring promotion when you weren't next in line. The blessing will cause people to be good to you that don't even like you.

Kingdom Blessing

Jesus opens the Sermon on the Mount with a Blessing, the Kingdom Blessing, and it turns the world upside down

The poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger for God’s righteousness, the merciful, the pure, the peacemaker, the persecuted…

This is who Jesus says is blessed: those rejected by the world, those at the end of their rope, those who long for God’s kingdom and ways. They are blessed because though they have nothing else, they have Christ, and in Him they have everything.

The Beatitudes Describes those who belong to Gdo’s Kingdom

Declaring Christ’s blessing on the people who belong to the Kingdom

Promising the reward that awaits them, and is theirs by faith.

Being Blessed in the Kingdom

Jesus Proclaims Blessing on the People who belong to the Kingdom

Inner Qualities of Kingdom People

The poor in spirit -

Not “the poor,” as if those who were financially poor had a foot up in God’s kingdom. Poor in Spirit - knowing your spiritual depravity and need, an awareness of your sin and inability to be right before God, abandoning all self-righteousness, self-assurance.

With Isaiah 6:5 - When he saw God’s glory, all he could say was, “Woe is me! For I am lost.” Poor in spirit is the realization of my own emptiness, seeing my righteousness as filthy rags.

Those who mourn

When we see our sin, we mourn it, because we know it was our sins that drove the nails into the saviors hands and feet.

James 4:8-9 Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep.

Mourning sin is a godly sorrow, it is blessed, because it leads to heartfelt repentance.

The meek

Meekness is the opposite of self-assertion, boasting, and self-promoting. The meek know their spiritual poverty, where they stand with God, and they grieve it; refusing to assert themselves or make excuses for themselves.

Poor, mourning, and meek - a picture of those who, genuinely seeing where they stand before God, humble themselves and lay themselves before Him.

The Heart of Kingdom People

The blessed are those who long for God’s Righteousness

Knowing that to be righteous is out of our reach, we hunger and thirst for God to meet our need, to provide His righteousness for us.

The Blessed are those who look not to themselves for righteousness, but to the promise of God to make us righteous, then seek to live out that righteousness daily.

Outer/Active Qualities of Kingdom People

The merciful

To be merciful is to be forgiving, gentle, patient… When you are crushed by the weight of your sin, you don’t want those sitting next to you to go to hell either.

2 Cor 5:11 knowing the terror of God we persuade men… the merciful pity those who are caught in sin, and seek to snatch them as brands out of the fire.

The pure in heart

Purity is to be without mixture. Those who are pure in heart have their heart fixed upon God alone.

Psalm 51 - cleanse me with Hyssop and I will be clean

Ezekiel 36:25-26 This is what God provides - a new heart, that has been cleansed - we can’t do this on our own

The peacemakers

Not causing division, but seeking to make peace, yes, but more.

Those who have peace with God, will share that peace with the world. The peacemakers are those who, knowing the gospel in their own lives, are committed to bringing the reconciling grace of the Gospel to others who are lost. Evangelizing - wanting the world to come to peace with God and one anotheR.

The world’s reaction to Kingdom People

When the fallen world sees those who live as genuine followers of God - they will feel convicted, and lash out

The world is fine with your being a Christian as long as it doesn’t change you, but when you go against the grain, you will get splinters.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake

You stand in good company, and you are identified with Christ.

Rejoice and Be happy - these are the only commands of the who passage.

The Blessings of the Kingdom

There is a reward, and its okay to seek it.

They shall be… they will receive that which they seek

Those who mourn their sin will have comfort; the meek will inherit the earth; those who hunger for righteousness will be satisfied; those who give mercy will know mercy, those who are purified by God will see Him, and the peacemakers will be called the sons of God.

Theirs is the kingdom of heaven

Notice that those who are poor in spirit, humbled by their own sin, and those persecuted for the sake of Christ - theirs is the Kingdom. It belongs to them now.

There is a now and not yet aspect to the rewards that Christ’s offers, but know this: those who belong to His kingdom, though they have nothing in this world, they are blessed!

Seeking the Blessing

How not to read the beatitudes

Not a to do list - what I have to do or be to get into the kingdom

I better get poor, then learn to mourn, and so on.

Moses preached the Law, do this and live. Jesus preaches blessing, this is who you are, now live.

Not a pick and choose list.

There aren’t optional features you can take or leave, these are the qualities that define those of the Kingdom.

How to read the beatitudes

This is what Jesus calls blessed

This is what Jesus calls blessed

Not imperatives, but indicatives; a picture of the Christian.

The blessings come first to those who cannot earn them.

1 Cor 1:27 God chooses the foolish things of this world to shame the wise

Above all, this is blessing because this is Christ

He humbled himself and took the form of a servant, identifying with sinners, he was a man of sorrows, he was meek and did not lash out when abused, his food was to do the righteous work of God, he was full of mercy, pure and without sin, and is the King of Peace who was persecuted by those he came to save.

The beatitudes describe Christ, and therefore also describe those who are in Christ, and who are being remade in the image of Christ by the working of the Holy Spirit.

If you seek the blessing, seek more of Christ

Humbly come to his word, repent, mourn, seek, live, share, rejoice!

Lloyd Jones…. The way to become poor in spirit is to look at God. Read this Book about Him, read His law, look at what He expects from us, contemplate standing before Him. It is also to look at the Lord Jesus Christ and to view Him as we see Him in the Gospels. Look at Him, keep looking at Him… and then you will have nothing to do to yourself. It will be done. You cannot truly look at Him without feeling your absolute poverty, and emptiness. Then you say to Him, Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to Thy cross I cling. Empty, hopeless, naked, vile. But He is the all-sufficient One Yea, all I need, in Thee to find, O Lamb of God, I come.