The Good Life is For You - YAC

How would you describe the good life?

The Beatitudes: Matthew 5:1-12

This section is called the beatitudes. “Beatitude” comes from a Latin word meaning blessed, which is the word we hear repeated throughout this section.

I want to spend a few minutes talking about this word. We are reading this in English, but originally, this sermon was recorded by Matthew in Greek. The word he uses is Makarious (Ma-car-e-os), its use coveys a sense of being in a congratulatory state. This was a term the Greeks used to describe the gods on Mount Olympus. Another way to translate this word would be happy. But happy is something we feel, and how this is used by Jesus doesn’t mean feeling happy, it is more about being in a happy state or a happy condition. Perhaps another way to think about it is the word, fortunate, but Jesus doesn’t mean lucky. So what does He mean?

What does it mean to be blessed?

Testament. This Greek word, Makarious maps to the Hebrew word, asre (asher or ashray).

Let me show you one example from Psalm 1.

Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,    which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither— whatever they do prospers. Psalm 1:1-3 (NIV)

Imagine if you had a fruit tree whose leaves never withered here in Minnesota. That would be a good tree. It would stand out. It would be an enviable tree. If you could walk up to it in mid-February and pluck fruit from the tree you might even say that tree is blessed. Or the person who had that tree in their yard was blessed. 

Blessed = The Good Life

How does Jesus' definition of “The Good Life” challenge your perception?

Unhelpful Ways:

Unhelpful Idea #1: This is only about Heaven. Idea #2: This is only about political subversion. Idea #3: This is only for Super Christians.

Helpful Idea #1: The Good Life is for us, now! Idea #2: The Good Life happens through our relationship with God.

Kyle gave two helpful ideas:

● The Good Life is for us, now!

● The Good Life happens through our relationship with God.

Are these ideas new to you? How can you incorporate them into your life?

Matthew 5:3 NIV

3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Why do you think Jesus begins the Beatitudes with “Blessed are the poor in spirit”?

Luke 18:9–14 NIV

9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ 13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ 14 “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

What’s a way you are in need of Jesus?

What practical steps can you take this week to embrace Jesus' vision of the Good Life?

Kyle’s Version

The Good Life Is For You

Black screen, voiceover: I want you to close your eyes and for just a moment visualize, “The Good Life.” What do you see? Work comes easy. Relationships are rich and deep. You have a comfortable amount of resources. Maybe a full head of hair. Maybe you are located in a wonderful location. The temperature is perfect, the scenery is inspiring and incredible; it is like paradise! Can you envision it? Are you picturing it? Okay, open your eyes. Is this what you saw?

Cut to Kyle standing in a snow covered, empty field.

Not what you had in mind? Not what you think of when you think of the Good Life, huh? This is life for many of us. We close our eyes and dream of the Good Life, then we open them and we are in our life. And at times our life doesn’t quite seem as good. Worse yet, we can open up Instagram or hear stories at the gym from our friends who share with us portions of their life and it can feel like others are living the Good Life, just not us.

But, the surprising thing about the Good Life is it can be found here. Right here. Or right there. Right wherever you are. The Good Life isn’t based on our circumstances. The Good Life has nothing to do with how much money you have, what job you have, the decorations in your house, the amount of land you own, your marital status, how athletic you are, or what your grades in school are. The Good Life is the life Jesus invites all of us into and His invitation is for us to experience the Good Life right here and right now. But how?

To invite us into the Good Life, Jesus gives a sermon. The sermon He gave is so famous it has its own name. The Sermon on the Mount, this was because it was given while Jesus was on an elevated place, some hills likely overlooking the Sea of Galilee. The Sermon makes up chapters 5, 6, and 7 of the book of Matthew and it is this sermon we will be focusing on throughout this series. This sermon is all about what it means to actually be a follower of Jesus. If we not only listen to Jesus’ words, but put them into practice, we will begin to experience the Good Life.

Let’s begin.

Video cut, back live.

Turn open to Matthew, chapter 5. This is found on page 1473 of the blue Bible in the pew back. As you are turning there, let me set the stage. This sermon is recorded for us by Matthew as taking place on a mountain or hillside. By placing it there, Matthew is echoing another mountain scene in the Bible. When God called the people of Israel to Himself, He used a guy named Moses to teach the people His Laws from Mount Sinai. This was the moment God’s people became His people. Here Jesus is doing something similar. He is on a mount and He is calling His followers to Himself. He is declaring what it looks like to be part His crew, to be His follower.

This sermon is essential for us who follow Jesus. It shows us how Jesus invites us and expects us to live as His followers. But this sermon has captured more than just the attention of Christians. This sermon has captured much of western world. Even people who will have nothing to do with Jesus have likely heard some of the lines: “Turn the other cheek” or “Love your enemies” or “Don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing” or “the eye is the lamp of the body” or “Take the plank out of your own eye.”

The trouble for us is we have heard bits of this sermon, but often we haven’t taken the sermon as a whole. Our world loves the soundbite. We love the 20-second reel. If we aren’t careful, we can assume the Sermon on the Mount was just a bunch of 20-second reels from Jesus that Matthew put together and we can just scroll through the sermon and hear an encouraging word and go on our way. But to do that misses the larger message of the entire sermon. When we sit in the message and truly listen to what Jesus is saying, we find His instruction to be far deeper, far more profound, and honestly, far more perplexing. Which is why we are going to go slow over the entire sermon.

This sermon opens with one of the most beautiful, and one of the most intriguing, and one of the most misunderstood sections of the sermon. It is called the beatitudes.

The Beatitudes: Matthew 5:1-12

This section is called the beatitudes. “Beatitude” comes from a Latin word meaning blessed, which is the word we hear repeated throughout this section.

I want to spend a few minutes talking about this word. We are reading this in English, but originally, this sermon was recorded by Matthew in Greek. The word he uses is Makarious (Ma-car-e-os), its use coveys a sense of being in a congratulatory state. This was a term the Greeks used to describe the gods on Mount Olympus. Another way to translate this word would be happy. But happy is something we feel, and how this is used by Jesus doesn’t mean feeling happy, it is more about being in a happy state or a happy condition. Perhaps another way to think about it is the word, fortunate, but Jesus doesn’t mean lucky. So what does He mean?

We are fortunate because we have more insight into this word. The New Testament was written in Greek and the Old Testament was written in Hebrew. But there is a Greek translation of the Old Testament, so this allows us to see how Greek words map onto the Hebrew words of the Old Testament. This Greek word, Makarious maps to the Hebrew word, asre (asher or ashray).

Let me show you one example from Psalm 1.

Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,    which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither— whatever they do prospers. Psalm 1:1-3 (NIV)

Imagine if you had a fruit tree whose leaves never withered here in Minnesota. That would be a good tree. It would stand out. It would be an enviable tree. If you could walk up to it in mid-February and pluck fruit from the tree you might even say that tree is blessed. Or the person who had that tree in their yard was blessed. 

In the days of Jesus, Jewish teachers would see people who were living an enviable life and they would point them out as an example. There are some Jewish rabbis around this time who were teaching, “Asre is the one who lives to see his enemy’s downfall.[1]” 

This is essentially what Jesus is doing. He is gathering His disciples around Him and He is saying, this is the blessed life. I believe the best way to read blessed in the beatitudes is to use a term R.T. France uses: The Good Life. Blessed means, “This is the Good Life!”

Blessed = The Good Life

By the way, we do the same thing. Have you seen any of the #blessed posts which are all over your social media feed?

Jessica Bennett, writing for the New York Times[2], points out the number of people who are invoking God’s blessing for a humble brag. She says, “Here are a few of the ways God has touched my social network over the past few months: a friend was blessed to get accepted to graduate school, another friend was blessed to teach yoga at a Caribbean resort #blessed in paradise, a new mom dressed her infant son with a designer outfit, #blessed after a year of waiting it finally fits him.”

So for us today and to Jesus original audience, the word blessed and the context is which it was used means, “This is the Good Life.” Here is our tension. None of the things Jesus describes feels to us like the Good Life. In fact, we see all of these as hindrances from the Good Life. Or if not hindrances, we at least would consider them to be unhelpful in achieving the Good Life.  

Can you imagine pulling up Instagram and seeing a post that says, “I have nothing to offer God, I’m a spiritual wreck, #blessed #poor in spirit”? Or how about “I found out the person who stole from me and instead of pressing charges I anonymously gave them more of my money, #blessed #merciful.” Or “I just compromised with my enemy, giving up half of what I wanted to help them. #blessed #peacemaker”?

I’ll give you an example of the reaction to the third beatitude, “the meek shall inherit the earth.” I remember in high school walking into the locker room to change for cross country practice and a few of the football guys were changing. An upperclassman had this Nike football tee-shirt and on the front it said, “The meek shall inherit the earth.” I thought, “Oh, cool! Maybe he is a Christian, I’ll invite him to FCA.” He turned around and on the back of the shirt is a football helmet with the Nike swoosh over it and at the bottom it says, “Yeah, right.” So I thought, “Never mind.” I still should have invited him, by the way!

Often, that shirt is how we approach the beatitudes. Spiritually helpful, maybe. The path to the Good Life? “Yeah, right.” 

So what is Jesus saying to us?

There are three unhelpful ways to approach these beatitudes. These ways have been people’s attempts to reconcile the tension and confusion between what Jesus says and their idea of the Good Life. These are three unhelpful ideas to avoid as we study the Sermon on the Mount.

Unhelpful Idea #1: This is only about Heaven.

Some read the Sermon on the Mount as if what Jesus is describing is totally eschatological. That is just a fancy way of saying the future. Some believe Jesus is describing what we will experience in Heaven or after He returns. No doubt, when Jesus returns and we are with Him forever, all of the promises He gives will be ours and what a wonderful day which awaits us. But, Jesus is not merely talking about the future, He is also talking about our present. The Good Life is available for us right here and right now.

Unhelpful Idea #2: This is only about political subversion.

Others have erred on the opposite side with the Sermon on the Mount. They have read this to be only about the here and now. They read this as a message of protest and an advocacy for certain political solutions. But that was not the point of Jesus’ message. Yes, His sermon will cause each of us to reconsider how we are living our lives, but Jesus isn’t advocating for political solutions. Nor is Jesus calling for us to embrace a life of poverty, which is another way of misunderstanding and misreading this sermon.

Unhelpful Idea #3: This is only for Super Christians.

Finally, others have misunderstood this sermon because they believe Jesus is only talking to His Apostles, or some super Christians. I love what Author and Pastor John Stott[3] said about the Beatitudes. He says they don’t describe some elite force of super Christians; they are what every disciple of Jesus ought to be. Which means this:

Helpful Idea #1: The Good Life is for us, now!

As we go throughout this series, at the end of each message we are going to be challenging all of us to let God impress on us one specific way we need to put that week’s message into practice. A mark that you are growing spiritually is that you are being more obedient to Jesus. We are to follow Jesus completely. As we hear this sermon, we will see, each week, at least one area in which we can follow Jesus more completely in our lives. As we do, we will experience more of the Good Life.

Which brings us back to the beatitudes. If these are for us, today, how do we apply them?

Helpful Idea #2: The Good Life happens through our relationship with God.

Let’s be honest, these beatitudes can feel confusing and overwhelming. We can look at them and think, “I don’t know if I want to live that way.” Or others of us think, “I can’t live that way!” This can lead us to feel a sense of guilt, shame and a heavy burden, spiritually. But the Sermon on the Mount is not salvation by works. This is what happens to us through God’s Holy Spirit.

Steph and I have been married 20 years. 20 years ago my idea of a salad was putting lettuce on my cheeseburger…with lots of ranch dressing. 20 years ago if you were to have told me the amount of vegetables I’d be eating now I wouldn’t have believed you or I would have assumed my life got worse. What happened is over these 20 years I’ve changed because of my relationship with Stephanie. This is what she likes and since she is my favorite person in the world, I like what she likes.

This is what happens to us in our relationship with God. His Holy Spirit starts to help us like what He likes. The beatitudes, and really the whole of this Sermon, is what the Holy Spirit will do within us if we let Him. What we find is when that starts to happen, we begin to experience the Good Life!

We won’t have time to go over each of the beatitudes, but that is okay. I just want to focus on the first one because as Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones[4] teaches, the first beatitude serves as the gateway for the rest and it illustrates how this brings the Good Life.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. –Matthew 5:3 (NIV)

Jesus is not focused here on the economic state of our lives, this is about our spiritual lives. But poverty is a helpful illustration. Poverty is defined by someone who doesn’t have enough to cover their basic needs. Spiritually speaking, that is us. We lack what we need, spiritually, to cover our basic needs. We don’t have sufficient spiritual resources to cover the debt we owe to God because of our sin.

This beatitude runs counter to our self-help society. What the world will tell us is “Blessed are the affirmed in spirit, for no one can tell them they are wrong.”

Charles Taylor is a philosopher who has stated we are living in the “Age of Authenticity” our world tells us that nothing should challenge your own sense of authenticity: “You do you, follow your heart, what you feel is who you are.” But none of that has helped our society experience the Good Life. Have you noticed with the rise of this sense of the Age of Authenticity so has issues of mental health? It is because the Good Life is found, not in people telling you that you are good just the way you are, but in realizing, we have some stuff that isn’t right within us, but by God’s grace we can be changed.

Jesus actually provides a wonderful illustration of this in a parable He teaches.

Luke 18:9-14

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

What Jesus is teaching us here is that self-awareness of our condition is the first step in being part of God’s Kingdom. None of us earn our way in, we have all been invited by God’s mercy. When we realize what God has done for us and what He invites us into, we start to experience what the Good Life is actually all about.

When you know you have been made right with God, it gives us a peace and an assurance that becomes a foundation for our lives which leads to the Good Life.

Each of these beatitudes leads to the Good Life, not because of the first condition, but because the first condition leads to the second. The Good Life isn’t because we are Poor of Spirit. Being Poor of Spirit allows us to receive God’s Grace and Mercy and that allows us to become part of His Kingdom. The Good Life is found in being in God’s Kingdom.

I want to end this message with a brief spiritual practice for us to follow this week. Let me explain it and then we will experience it together and I then invite you to replicate this during the week this coming week.

First, to come before God with humbleness and being poor in Spirit. Take a moment of silence before God and simply say to Him, God, have mercy on me, a sinner. If you have specific areas of sin, to confess them to God.

Then, to remember God has given His Spirit to us if we have said Yes to Jesus. This means we have been born again of God’s Spirit. We are no longer as we were. We are now God’s Kingdom people.

Then, read over the beatitudes and ask the Holy Spirit to create these attributes within you. 

Let me lead us through this as we pray.

[1] The Bible Project podcast on the Sermon on the Mount series, episode “Blessed.”

[2] Jessica Bennett. “They Feel ‘Blessed.’” The New York Times. May 2, 2014

[3] John Stott. The Message of the Sermon on the Mount.

[4] D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Studies on the Sermon on the Mount.