The Beatitudes

Mountains Contrasted

Moses on Sinai

God spoke down on Sinai from Heaven and gave his Law, “Thou Shall” was the central word that resounded from heaven.

In response to the word from heaven the nation of Israel begged for God to stop talking to them lest they die. Exodus 20:18–23 “18 All the people perceived the thunder and the lightning flashes and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood at a distance. 19 Then they said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen; but let not God speak to us, or we will die.” 20 Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid; for God has come in order to test you, and in order that the fear of Him may remain with you, so that you may not sin.” 21 So the people stood at a distance, while Moses approached the thick cloud where God was. 22 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘You yourselves have seen that I have spoken to you from heaven. 23 ‘You shall not make other gods besides Me; gods of silver or gods of gold, you shall not make for yourselves.”

“Shall” is a verb in the “Imperfect” mood

Definition of "Imperfect (yiqtol)"

Generally designates an action which is continuous, incomplete, or open-ended. Rather than depicting an action as a single event, the imperfect depicts it as a continuing process. It is therefore typically translated as a present “He is running” or a future “He will be running,” although it can sometimes be translated as a continuous past “He was running.” The meaning of the imperfect therefore has more to do with how an action took place than with when it took place. The imperfect is most often treated as a present or future because it is easier to think of present or future events as incomplete and open-ended than it is to think of past actions that way

Jesus on Mount of Beatitude

Jesus the Man from heaven speaks from the mountain to his disciples

God in the flesh spoke from the mountain words of Blessing to His kingdom people and those who heard it marvelled at the beauty of His words. Matthew 7:28–29 “28 When Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were amazed at His teaching; 29 for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.”

Amazed at his teaching. The greek word that is translated amazed here in v. 28 is used 13x in the NT and all but one of them are in response to Jesus’ teaching. The one exception is to Him healing a man in Mark 7:37.

Mat. 13:54, 19:25, 22:33. Mark 1:22, 6:2, 10:26, 11:18. Luke 2:48, 4:32, 9:43. Acts 13:12.

It is striking that as we follow the biblical data those who heard Jesus, whether they be disciples, crowds, or religious leaders are amazed by the Words that He spoke. Jesus, the Word of God, spoke the word of God in such a way that the only appropriate response to His teaching was to be Amazed for no one had ever spoken like this Man.

John’s testimony to the greatness of Jesus’ teaching

John 7:40–46 “40 Some of the people therefore, when they heard these words, were saying, “This certainly is the Prophet.” 41 Others were saying, “This is the Christ.” Still others were saying, “Surely the Christ is not going to come from Galilee, is He? 42 “Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the descendants of David, and from Bethlehem, the village where David was?” 43 So a division occurred in the crowd because of Him. 44 Some of them wanted to seize Him, but no one laid hands on Him. 45 The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees, and they said to them, “Why did you not bring Him?” 46 The officers answered, “Never has a man spoken the way this man speaks.””

Thats right, no man has ever spoken like this Man. This is the Man who came down from heaven and in our text in Matthew the Heavenly man is speaking blessings from this mountain top.

If you desire blessing, come near to this mountain!

Kingdom’s Escalating Blessing

Citizens of a Heavenly Kingdom

The Beatitudes are bracketed by “the kingdom of Heaven”

The Kingdom of heaven has broken into the visible, even though it is invisible, heavenly.

Aliens in a foreign land

Philippians 3:20 “20 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ;”

The beatitudes are situated in such a way to immediately draw our attention to their other worldliness. After all those who are Poor and Persecuted belong to the Kingdom of heaven. These two Beatitudes bracket everything that goes between. They are present tense blessing of belonging to the kingdom of heaven and the Beatitudes that are between have future tense blessings promised to them. This structure fits well with an Already Not Yet structure that we see repeated in the Scriptures and is vital to understanding this passage as a whole. These words are from a different world which is why this world ultimately rejects the ones who live in a manner consistent with this Heavenly ethic

Escalation of Blessing

As was noted before in our studies through the beatitudes we see that there is an escalating progression to the beatitudes. They start from the individuals relation to sin, that leads to repentance and humility, and stir in us a hungering after righteousness and mercy toward others born out of a pure heart that strives for peace in all areas of life who are ultimately persecuted for the heavenly lives they live in this present evil age.

The kingdom belongs to the Poor in Spirit, but before we work our way through the Blessings of this sermon I want to remind you that these truths are all the fruit of Regeneration. These blessings do not belong to the world but to the elect of God, those who are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit

Poor were attracted to Jesus and many came after him for physical needs but that’s not good enough. Come to him because you are spiritually destitute.

When we acknowledge our spiritual bankruptcy before God, as a result of Generation, the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to us. It is not earned by us but it is ours by divine inheritance because of the work Jesus has accomplished for His people. Ephesians 1:10–12 “10b In Him 11 also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, 12 to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory.”

Mourning over our own sin is the context where you will receive the sweet Grace of God in repentance

When this passage was taught on we spoke about it under 2 headings, worldly sorrow and godly sorrow.

Worldly sorrow over sin is that which is the byproduct of regret or consequence of sin.

This is the classic false virtue that we see in the world right now. Rather than mourn over that which offends God, the world praises those who would identify themselves as victims. We have an entire class of victims that the world praises, which is their diabolical form of comfort. As the saying go’s “misery loves company.” This class of victims can be summed up as those who refuse to be comforted by the hope of the Gospel and prefer the empathy of a world who’s only solution is to encourage them to celebrate their self, after all, its their true self. To be a slave to sin, thats what the world praises.

Godly sorrow, of which God is the author of is the grace of repentance

Those who have been regenerate by the Spirit are given true repentance because they are confronted with the reality that their sins are an afront to a Holy God and forgiveness and reconciliation can only be found in the One who died for those sins, Jesus. Those who mourn and repent will find, just as David and the saints of old did, that God in Christ ever lives to make intercession for his people Hebrews 7:25 “25 Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.”

The Gentle inherit the earth, those who know they have nothing in themselves to merit God’s favor and mourn over sin are humble. They are humble because they know they stand in a place of subjection under the grace of a kind and merciful Savior who has given them of His Spirit to bring them out of darkness into his marvelous life.

Those who are kingdom citizens are placed into that kingdom by way of regeneration of the Spirit, not a result of works. Because of the nature of our citizenship in Heaven their is no room for boasting, consider your calling Brothers 1 Corinthians 1:26–29 “26 For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; 27 but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, 28 and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, 29 so that no man may boast before God.”

The only consistent posture for the people of God is meekness, humility, gentleness.

Consider Jesus, our perfect example of humility

Philippians 2:5–9 “5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,”

To be meek and gentle puts us into the greatest company one could ever imagine. This is union with Christ.

Righteousness

Those who are united to Christ and regenerated by His Spirit are given the same appetite that Jesus has.

Our brother Jai worked through this passage under 3 headings, Positional Righteousness, Practical Righteousness and Public Righteousness. I want to take a closer look at our positional righteousness. The hungering after this righteousness is easily understood when we view it in light of all that was said before. Those who are poor in spirit mourn over their sin and are humble because they know that they cannot merit a righteous standing before God. In light of that the one who has been regenerated by the Spirit of God longs for the righteousness that only Jesus can offer and the beauty of this text is that Jesus will satisfy that hunger and thirst. He satisfies this longing by giving us of his righteousness, our longings are more satisfied than we could ever hope for.

Merciful

To the one who has recieved infinite mercy from God it is only fitting that such a one would be merciful to others.

As we have worked through the beatitudes we have seen how the Spirit of God in regeneration shows us our poorness in spirit which leads to a mourning over our sin and humility before God that causes us to hunger and thirst for the all satisfying righteousness that only Jesus can satisfy. In our text before us we now transition to the outworking of all that the Spirit of God produces in the believer by union with Christ.

An Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount Chapter 3: The Beatitudes—Continued

Mercifulness, then, is a gracious disposition toward our fellow creatures and fellow Christians. It is a spirit of kindness and benevolence which sympathizes with the sufferings of the afflicted, so that we weep with those that weep

The mercy that we speak of is not something that is produced by man but is a product of the Spirit in the believer and it is not merely a feeling in the heart but it moves the person to render help to those who are in need, especially those who belong to the household of faith. Galatians 6:10 “10 So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.”

An Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount (Chapter 3: The Beatitudes—Continued)

It was “mercy” in Abraham, after he had been wronged by his nephew, which caused him to go after and secure the deliverance of Lot. It was “mercy” on the part of Joseph, after his brothers had so grievously mistreated him, which moved him to freely forgive them. It was “mercy” in Moses, after Miriam had rebelled against him and the Lord had smitten her with leprosy, which moved him to cry, “Heal her now, O God, I beseech Thee” (Num. 12:13). It was “mercy” in David which caused him to spare the life of his arch-enemy when the wicked Saul was in his hands. In solemn contrast, of Judas we read “he remembered not to show mercy, but persecuted the poor and needy man” (Psalm 109:16).

Pure in Heart

In this passage we see that in order to be a Son of God we must be pure in heart, and for those who are in Christ this is a reality. Jesus is our pure heart, for he alone can ascend the hill of God and stand in his holy place. Jesus is our righteousness and he has given us of his divine purity by the work of Regeneration. We are united to Him by faith and we can now claim the righteousness that He alone has merited. All that he has is ours by Grace alone. This almost seems blasphemous to say if it wasn’t what the word of God has already said Romans 8:16–17 “16 The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.”

We see God in His providence over all things, where the world sees chance or fate, the child of God sees the meticulous and sovereign hand of God who controls all things and particularly works them out for the good of those who Love Him and are called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28 “28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

Peacemakers

Finishing off our beatitudes we look at the whole of the life of the Kingdom citizen on this earth. They are those who live in such a way that their lives are marked by the desire to bring peace. But what type of peace are we talking about here? Pastor Lynn showed us that this type of peace is not the kind that is cowardly or a sweeping things under the rug, but one that is bold and humble, marked by the Grace that God supplies to his children. The peacemaking in view here is the peace that the Kingdom citizen longs to see those outside the Kingdom posses, namely peace between God and man in union with Christ by Regeneration of the Spirit. The peacemakers that God has made us results in an unrelenting passion and work for the spread of the Gospel and them saving of all God’s elect. As Spurgeon once said, something like, “If sinners are to go to hell let them go over our bodies as we proclaim to them the Gospel of Jesus Christ and bid them be reconciled to God by faith in Jesus Christ.”

These are not virtues that you can achieve, but rather that the Spirit achieves in you. These are rooted in regeneration and are the fruit of the Spirit.

The kingdom of heaven is not a moralistic program to earn God’s favor and receive His Kingdom.

These Beatitudes are the possession of the Kingdom citizens of heaven on this earth.

Summary and Command

Last two Blessed's can be viewed as a summary of the type of response the believer is to expect when they live in step with the Kingdom ethic of Heaven

Those of Old

First the blessing in v. 10 is in the third person and describes those who have gone before us, this would be the group of believers that come to mind in Hebrews 11 and many more who were not mentioned. In v. 11 Jesus switches to the second person address and speaks directly to his disciples, then to us because we are disciples of Jesus as we are the fruit of the labor of those who came before us.

This last blessing is pronounced on the summary conduct of the believer who’s life is in step with the Heavenly ethic that we have in Christ. The one who is regenerated by the Holy Spirit and placed into the kingdom of heaven by faith will suffer persecution for the righteousness their lives are marked by.

It is vital that the righteousness we are persecuted for is biblically defined.

John 15:18–20 “18 “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. 19 “If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. 20 “Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also.”

Here in John it is clear that Union with Christ is the reason for the worlds animosity against Christians, we should not be surprised when the world persecutes us on account of the Word of God, we are not greater than our Master.

Listen to the words of Paul In 2 Timothy 3:12 “12 Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”

In these two passages the persecution in view here is categorical and is not limited to the religious sphere. It’s not like the christian will only be persecuted in a Mosque or when they walk into a Synagogue and the rest of the world is okay with us. The persecutions we may expect are in our homes, with family and friends, children, spouses, In the work place with bosses and co-workers and wherever we go. If our aim is to live godly in Christ then do not be surprised when persecutions for righteousness sake follow.

First imperative of Jesus’ sermon comes right at the beginning of v. 12.

Up to this point we have only had indicatives in the blessings of Christ as he speaks to his disciples. That is all the statements he has made to this point are not commands but statements of fact.

The first command the Lord gives to us is to Rejoice and be Glad when the persecution and trials come because of our union with Him. He Commands that we not lose heart in the midst of persecution because when we are cursed by the world we are blessed by the King of Heaven. Listen saints, to have the affection of the world is to be an enemy of God

1 Peter 4:12–14 “12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; 13 but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation. 14 If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.”

The Hymn “Give me Jesus”

Refrain: Give me Jesus, give me Jesus. You may have all this world, give me Jesus.

To suffer the reproaches of Christ puts us in sweet company with the prophets who came before us and in that let us take comfort. Hebrews 11:24–26 “24 By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, 25 choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, 26 considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward.”