Beatitudes pt 1

Jesus is going to show us how the most difficult places are the places where the Kingdom of God thrives.

The next three weeks we will be looking at the beatitudes. These are 9 statements Jesus makes to help us understand who we are and who He is. They continue to give us a picture of the blessed life. This is what it looks like to be happy.

matthew 5:3 5

This morning we will look at the condition of the happy life. It is the position to the happy life.

Jesus is not saying this is what you should be, He is saying this is what you are. This is the condition in which we are found.

we can all sigh a collective sigh of relief . These are the conditions of the good life. Of the kingdom of God

Matthew 5:3–5 ESV

“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.

This is a strange starting point. We start from a broken condition, a less than position.

That is displayed at the cross. We can trust Christ’s words that life comes from loss because of His display at the cross.

The flourishing life does not come with a full tank. It comes from recieving what Christ offers. And that means recognizing where we are.

This is where the church begins.

Poor in spirit

mourn

meek

we need to keep this in mind as we wrestle with what it means to live in Christ through the sotm. Because Jesus words are going to make light work of our ego and there are going to be times when we come to the place where we do mourn our own sin or we are poor in spirit. And we remember that this is a great place to be. We don’t have to run from it. We are called to run to Him.

This is the position that everyone seems to want to run from. Why? Because it is the place that everyone has been. Everyone has experienced the discomfort of poor in spirit and mourning.

And when that happens the one thing you want is to not do that.

We respond, not by dealing with it, but by running from it. And the farther we get away, the faster we have to run to keep away from the poverty of our own soul.

There is a great definition of the soul in a short story by flannery o connor called the Life you save may be your own.

“‘Lady, a man is divided into two parts, body and spirit.” The old woman clamped her gums together. “A body and a spirit,” he repeated. “The body, lady, is like a house: it don’t go anywhere; but the spirit, lady, is like a automobile: always on the move, always…””

God is not calling us to outrun it. God is telling us He will deal with it. He interacts with it.

These are the difficult parts of humanity, the places where we run from in ourselves and the place where we point to and call ugly in others.

We avoid at all costs. What happens when we do that?

Introduce exhibit a

Show picture of Washington Bridge

Show picture of rot of bridge.

This is reality. This is the actual condition of the bridge.

It needs attention desperately.

It may look good on the top but the foundation is crumbling. Jesus is looking to everything, not just the pavement

When we outrun our poverty, our without-ness, we end up building quickly. We end up slapping together anything that works in the moment.

We build endless planes in the air.

We are without foundations.

Understanding our starting point is incredilby important to JEsus. We will keep coming back to this

Matthew 7:24–27 ESV

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

Knowing where to begin means knowing where to put the right foundation.

Christ tells us to call it what it is.

And that in Him, we don’t have to run from it, or judge others in it.

We let Christ deal with it.

This is the Gospel.

If you are poor in spirit, if you grieve, if you are meek, you are in good shape. Because you are in the condition to recieve.

Christ came to take what is ugliest in us and call it the place of mercy.

Jesus begins at the condition of the poor in spirit, those who mourn and the meek (or the humble) because they are in the right position to receive. They realize that they are not alone in the world and that they need further help. In reality they realize the true condition of our lives.

These are the foundational points in our lives that because we so easily neglect them, can begin to rot out.

The beginning of the flourishing life is to cut through the illusion of our delusion.

This is what Jesus does. The flourishing life is filled with the meaning we have been hoping for but there is a cost. It comes from receiving.

That is where the blessing lies. In the honesty of our need, and in the beauty of the gift.

That is why the poor in spirit get the kingdom of heaven, and the mourn shall be comforted and the meek get the whole earth. Because we realize that we cannot be the source of everything we have hoped for.

But it’s in that realization that what we need comes to us. When we realize what we need and realize how we have failed to actually fulfill what we itended to, we are open to something else. Maybe, at this point someone else has a better plan.

God does greater things with lesser means all the time.

The sotm is the better plan for a flourishing life. But it begins with admitting that we need a better plan.

As we transition in to communion we are going to practice that confession. Before you come to the table, spend some time with God and just be honest.

Don’t make anything up

Don’t cover anything up.

Our honesty to see our poverty in spirit (humility) our mourning and meekness is charged with the grace of God. These are the conditions in which God’s grace is prevalent.

Be honest in places you are poor in spirit or you mourn or where you need meekness. We often think that this is all happening before we trust Christ. Some of us who have followed Christ for awhile may be like, been there, done that.

But the sotm doesn’t have a statute of limitations.

We have been and are poor in spirit. There are times when we still mourn. And we haven’t figured out that meekness thing to well yet.

Don’t make anything up. Don’t cover anything up.

But trust Christ enough to be honest with Him this morning.

this is the condition often found in our lives, we are left poor in spirit

or mourning or meek.

That is condition for being happy because God does something about that. He not only speaks into that. He changes the conditions entirely.

We are not just poor in spirit, we have the kingdom of heaven.

We are not just those who mourn, we are those who have recieved mercy

We are not the meek, we have the security found in the inheriting the earth.

And we remember that life comes from loss when we participate in communion.

Communion is a great example of this. We bring whatever is broKen in us humbly and boldly before the King, recognizing that He broke for that reason. and we remember that brokenness, not to stay that way, but instead to mark the intersection between the poor and spirit and the kingdom of God. This is the precise point where things turn around.

Then come up and receive the gift of communion. Understand that He has offered you the kingdom of Heaven and comfort and security.