The Upside-Down Kingdom // Matthew 5:1-3

Introduction

Good morning church! Turn with me in your Bibles to Matthew 5. This morning we embark on a journey through one of the most important and well-known sections of Matthew’s Gospel called the Sermon on the Mount. If you’ve been with us over the last several weeks, you’ll know we’ve been working through the first four chapters of Matthew which many understand to be a kind of “introduction” to the Gospel. It’s in this section that we encounter the early life of Jesus through the lens of the Old Testament which Matthew synthesizes into his Gospel to help guide us to a fuller understanding of who Jesus is and what he came to do.

This week, we find a notable shift in the narrative flow of Matthew — now that Matthew has laid the foundation for us to understand who Jesus is, the focus becomes on what he says. You might have studied this passage we know as the Sermon on the Mount before but even if you haven’t, chances are you’ve encountered some of the profound and well-known ideas Jesus teaches in it. Things like:

You are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill that cannot be hidden. (Matt 5:14)

If your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out (Matthew 5:27-30)

Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you (Matt 5:43-44)

The Lord’s Prayer (Matt 6:9-13)

God cares for the sparrows and the wildflowers, so seek first the Kingdom of God (Matt 6:25-34)

Do not judge so that you won’t be judged (Matt 7:1)

The Golden Rule — do unto others as you’d have them do to you (Matt 7:12)

Enter through the narrow gate because the way is wide that leads to destruction (Matt 7:13-14)

Wise man builds his house on the rock versus the fool who builds his house on the sand (Matt 7:24-27)

Just to name a few… If you go home this afternoon and read the Sermon on the Mount in full, you’ll probably quickly recognize that it seems to be all over the place. Do you have those people in your life that when they start talking you find yourself wondering where all of this is going? Those people who refuse to give even a hint of their thesis and just start talking? If we read with totally fresh eyes, blind to the broader context of Matthew’s Gospel, we might think of the Sermon on the Mount in the same way — there’s a lot of different teachings going in a lot of different directions which raises the question for us:

What is the Sermon on the Mount? Is it just a hodgepodge or moral axioms? Or is it a list of counterintuitive and provocative proverbs? Or is it like a “greatest hits” album of Jesus’s teachings compiled by Matthew? All of those questions, then, raise maybe the bigger question…

What do we do with the Sermon on the Mount? Are these teachings just moral platitudes for us to put on motivational posters to be inspired by? I’m picturing a random landscape photo (kind of like this one) that has some cool quote on it… something like “it’s better for you that you lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.” Surely, Jesus means for these to be more than inspiring quotes, right? Maybe, as Martin Luther suggested, the Sermon on the Mount represents an impossible standard of righteousness that we could never achieve to show us our need for God’s grace? Or, does Jesus actually intend for us to live in this radical, counter-cultural way?

This morning, I want to explore these questions in a way that I hope will frame the rest of the time we spend studying the Sermon on the Mount for the next few months. First, I want to introduce the idea that we might think of the Sermon as a vision of the upside-down Kingdom of God — what I mean by that is a Kingdom that neither operates nor appears to operate according to the way of the world. That’s the reason why the Kingdom of God seems counter-intuitive to our way of thinking and feels counter-cultural in the world — that’s precisely because it is.

So, this morning we will take brief 30,000 foot view of the Sermon on the Mount and then spend some time meditating on the first Beatitude — or pronouncement of blessing — in the Sermon. Let’s read our passage together:

Matthew 5:1–3 CSB

When he saw the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to teach them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.

The main idea I want us to see in our passage this morning that is one that runs counter to every cultural value and pursuit that feels right in our world… it’s an idea that runs counter to own own intuition… and it’s this:

Main Idea: In God’s upside-down Kingdom, spiritual poverty is a blessing and not a burden.

As I said before, we’ll spend a few minutes looking at v.1-2 and discuss the nature and meaning of the Sermon on the Mount. Then, I want to conclude by diving into the first of what we call the Beatitudes to consider how Jesus might call poverty of spirit a blessing.

Exegesis // Matthew 5:1-3

Understanding the Sermon on the Mount

Matthew 5:1-2

What is the Sermon on the Mount?

Starting with the most basic question — what is the Sermon on the Mount and why does Matthew include it here right at the beginning of Jesus’s public ministry? Let’s take a look at what we can understand from the setting of the first two verses:

Matthew 5:1–2 CSB

When he saw the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to teach them, saying:

Crowds — Before Matthew’s narrative includes some of the more famous miracles, we can see that Jesus had already begun to attract a crowd after he begins teaching this provocative message about the coming Kingdom and healing the sick alongside his disciples.

Disciples — That said, the audience who seems to be the focus for the Sermon is the disciples who went with Jesus up to the mountain and stood closest to him. Doubtless the crowds continued to gather around Jesus, but the narrative here is meant to create a contrasting picture between the crowds who were there to observe the spectacle and the disciples who were there to truly understand. The point we can take away is that the purpose of the Sermon on the Mount was discipleship — to instruct the disciples about the kind of righteousness that should characterize Jesus’s followers. This, of course, contrasts Luther’s view which has been influential specifically in reformed evangelical circles which would suggest that the Sermon is meant to be like the Law in exposing our sin and showing us a need for a Savior. As true as some of these premises might be, you would have to read in quite a lot to Matthew that isn’t there. Instead, we should receive it just as Matthew gives it — the Sermon on the Mount is a radical call to discipleship, teaching us to embody in our lives and in our world the Kingdom of God; that is, living by the values of Heaven.

The invitation of the Sermon on the Mount for us is to be like these disciples who gather around Jesus and who are ready to be all-in on belonging to God’s Kingdom. The invitation is to answer the radical, counter-cultural, even counter-intuitive call to live by the values of Heaven in a world that is passing away.

Jesus goes up on the mountain — The obvious allusion here is to another figure from the Jewish Scripture who ascended the mountain to meet with God and receive the Law to be given to his people. Matthew again signals to the readers as he did during the infancy narrative that Jesus is in some ways like Moses who came before him; in some way Moses receiving and writing down the Law for God’s people, Israel, to observe was foreshadowing the greater Law and the greater Lawgiver who was to come. This allusion shows us that the Sermon on the Mount is in some way like the Law of the Kingdom — instructing us how to know God and live according to his ways.

Jesus sat down — This seems unusual because what we’re used to is the teacher standing up (usually with a microphone and good lighting if you can afford it) while the crowd sits down lower in the seats, but this was a common practice in the ancient world. The rabbi or teacher would sit gathered by those who came to learn from their wisdom or, especially for the Greeks, their philosophy of human flourishing. The disciples coming to Jesus shows us that they recognized what he was teaching as exceedingly wise and good for us to live our lives by.

Opened his mouth and began to teach them — Some translations drop this expression, but it’s actually another allusion to Moses who who would open his mouth to speak with the words God put in his mouth (Deut 18:15-19); of course, the contrast here is that Jesus spoke the words of God directly to his disciples. Charles Quarles points out that this should increase the sense of urgency with which we read the Sermon; it is the word of God given to us to understand, obey, and order our lives around.

Taking all of these ideas into account, what is the Sermon on the Mount? Here’s my attempt to bring it all together: the Sermon on the Mount is the broad moral vision of God’s Kingdom which teaches us as disciples how to live according to the values of Heaven.

So, that means that the vision of the Sermon on the Mount is vast because it encompasses a broad moral vision for the Kingdom of God. This means that it is not a collection of moral axioms for us to piece together in our lives like IKEA furniture, nor is it a list of moral platitudes for us to incorporate into our lives. No, it is the holistic vision for what it means to renounce our allegiance to ourselves and the kingdom of this world and to belong to the one that is coming.

There’s a sense in which it is utopian in that in describes something perfect that is breaking into the world that is broken but will never be fully realized until Jesus comes again.

Which means for us in the meantime that all of these instructive values and ethical vision is in some ways aspirational with “reach that exceeds our grasp” (France). But it is nonetheless, the very basis of what it means to follow Jesus and belong to his Kingdom. So, these aspirations are informative for how we live, what we think, what we love, and what we do.

The Beatitudes

The first section of this “greatest Sermon ever preached” is called the Beatitudes. The Bible doesn’t give us this name, but it comes from a Latin translation of the Bible and was added later as a heading.

These Beatitudes all follow a similar formula, pronouncing “blessing” for experiencing something. What is this blessing? What’s complicated is that “blessed” isn’t actually a great translation of the Greek makarios because we don’t have a perfectly similar word in English. Richard France writes how these “macarisms” are commendations of the good life. It’s kind of like saying someone is “blessed” but not in the theological sense of God’s blessing. It’s kind of like saying “happy” but not with the psychological connotation, and it’s kind of like “fortunate” but not with the luck connotation. That’s why he figures the closest translation into English might be something like the Aussies would say — “good on ya”. Some commentators suggest that it is something akin to congratulations — i.e., are you poor in spirit? Congratulations. Good for you. Are you suffering? Congratulations. Good for you.

You’re probably starting to see the obvious challenge for us to understand with the Beatitudes; how could Jesus say that the poor, mourning, humble, and meek are blessed? These things are the opposite of what is good. They run counter to everything we strive for in our comfortable 21st century world… Jesus is instead saying everything we know about satisfaction, happiness, and fulfillment is exactly backwards. The way of his Kingdom is upside-down and backwards, counter to the way of this world. Over the next several weeks, we will spend a whole week walking through one of these Beatitudes. Let’s start with the first this week to understand what Jesus might be teaching us to see:

Blessed are the Poor in Spirit

The most difficult thing in the world is to become poor in spirit.

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Welsh Preacher and Writer)

The Problem of Spiritual Poverty

What does it mean to be poor? Destitute, without hope, lack of agency to change our situation.

Poor in Spirit — to have this type of inner posture towards our lives and the world; a sense of our own hopelessness and inability to change our situation

Problem — that’s not how you get ahead in the world.

The Posture of Spiritual Poverty

Align ourselves with reality

To be poor in spirit means knowing yourself, accepting yourself, and being yourself to the glory of God.

Warren W. Wiersbe

2. Embrace our poverty — not look for answers within ourselves

The poor in spirit are divorced from themselves.

Thomas Watson

The Promise of Spiritual Poverty

Theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven! — there is a comfort, richness, and satisfaction that is coming more worth our pursuit than anything we can find in this world.

Blessed are the ones who recognize their reality and align themselves with it. Blessed are the ones who

We can’t get anything done! Loser theology, etc.

The answer is that God does send thunderbolts—human ones. He sends in the poor in Spirit, the meek, the mourners, the peacemakers, the hungry-for-justice people. They are the way God wants to act in his world.

N. T. Wright