The Kingdom Is Available NOW to YOU

INTRO.

Welcome back to my favorite day of the week! If we’ve never met before, my name is [Student Pastor Name], I’m the Student Pastor around here. It’s really good to see you, I’m really glad you’re here tonight.

Now, fair warning, I’m about to ask you a very controversial question. In fact, some of you might be triggered by this question. It’s ok if you are, but I just need to know: who is your favorite superhero?

There was a poll that was taken in the UK that asked different age groups who their favorite superhero was. Do you know what Gen Z’s answer was? Spiderman. [Spiderman Slide]

Why do you think they like Spiderman so much?

I think it’s because he’s young, he’s awkward, he messes up…in other words, he’s RELATABLE!

Interestingly enough, in that same poll, do you know who is becoming increasingly LESS popular? Superman and Wonderwoman.

Why do you think they don’t like Superman and Wonderwoman?

I think it’s because they’re strong, flawless, untouchable. In other words, we don’t relate to them because we’re not that!

TENSION.

The heroes we love the most are usually underdogs.

And I think that’s because we see ourselves in them.

We long for the good life—and we aim our lives toward what we believe that is. But for a lot of us, even though we WANT the good life, we don’t really believe that life is available to someone like us.

We feel like it’s reserved for other people:

The successful.

The impressive.

The crazy talented.

The attractive.

The naturally confident.

Meanwhile, we feel… average. Anxious. Overlooked. Messy.

So we escape into stories—like Spiderman’s—because they help us imagine what the good life could look like... if it were actually possible for people like us.

And so it begs the question: what is the good life? And who is it available to?

That is a great question – and one that Jesus gives a surprising answer to in Matthew 5.

TRUTH.

Matthew 5 is the beginning of the most famous sermon of all time, called the Sermon on the Mount. This sermon is Jesus’ teaching masterpiece – He’s laying out His vision for what the good life looks like and who it is available to. Some of the most famous, well-known passages of Scripture come from this sermon: the Lord’s prayer, the Golden Rule, the story of the two houses that were built on the rock and the sand. All of those are included in this one sermon in Matthew 5-7.

But all of it begins with a section called the Beatitudes, and they pick up in Matthew 5:1.

5 Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them.

He said:

3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Now, when I first hear the Beatitudes, I think “oh that’s sweet.” It’s sort of easy to gloss over them and move onto the next section. But the more I thought about it, the more confused I got. Why would Jesus start His most famous sermon like this?

Because I believe Jesus is a good preacher, and good preachers aren’t boring preachers They give you a reason, usually early on in their sermon, to want to keep listening.

Which means, there’s something inherently compelling about what He said in the Beatitudes. There’s something there that is supposed to grab our attention, make us lean forward in our seat, and keep listening to what else He has to say. And so the question is, what about the beatitudes is so compelling? In order to answer that, we have to understand the meaning of the word “blessed.”

When we hear the word “blessed,” we think of it as a gift—something given by God. But the word Jesus uses here—Makarios—isn’t about giving a blessing.

It’s about recognizing someone who’s already in a good place. A better translation of what Jesus is saying might be: “Congratulations!”

So, when Jesus says, “blessed are the poor in spirit” He is not declaring that God’s divine favor is now on those who are poor. He is saying, “congratulations to the poor! The Kingdom of heaven belongs to you!”

Suddenly, the beatitudes become VERY compelling, because that doesn’t make sense. Jesus is saying something new, something we’ve never heard before.

So now that we understand why they’re compelling, we need to understand what they are doing. And what I believe they are doing, along with the rest of the Sermon on the Mount, is developing the main idea of all of Jesus’ teaching. What is that main idea?

Matthew 4:17 tells us.

17 From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

The Sermon on the Mount was Jesus’ most FAMOUS teaching, but it was not His FIRST teaching. The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus explaining what His original message that He taught in Mathew 4:17 means and how it is to be applied.

But at the core of that original teaching is Jesus’ answer to the question we asked in the beginning: what is the good life and who is it available to? For Jesus, the good life is captured in the phrase “the kingdom of heaven.” The good life is a life lived the way life in heaven is lived.

So, how is life in heaven lived?

Simply put, life in heaven is life lived in right relationship with God that leads to living in right relationship to everything and everyone else that leads to flourishing.

Psalm 1, which is a passage I believe Jesus had in mind when He was teaching this, describes the good life this way:

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, 2 but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. 3 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.

So what is the kingdom of heaven? I love how simply New Testament scholar, N.T Wright says it:

“The Kingdom of [heaven] is what things look like when Jesus is running the show.”

Up to that point in human history, that kind of life was only lived in heaven. But the good news – and Jesus’ primary message – was that the kingdom of heaven has come NEAR.

The good life that often feels so inaccessible, so theoretical, like a pipe dream, has all of a sudden been made possible, not just when we die in heaven, BUT RIGHT HERE ON EARTH.

The good life and that life is available NOW.

So, if that life is available now, who is it available to? That is what Jesus is clarifying in the beatitudes. Because, we have a good guess as to who that kind of life is available to:

The rich

The beautiful

The driven

The charismatic

The talented

The successful

The spiritually elite

Our guess is that Jesus’ version of the good life is available to the same list of people that other versions of “the good life” are available to.

And that was also the guess of the people listening to Jesus as He preached the Sermon on the Mount. And I believe it is exactly why Jesus began with the Beatitudes.

The Beatitudes name Jesus’ list of who His good life is available to.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. 8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. 9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. 10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

If Jesus were preaching the Beatitudes today, they might sound something like this…

Congratulations to those without a 4.0 GPA, who live in an apartment complex rather than a giant house in an HOA neighborhood, and those who are spiritually simple and don’t feel like they have much to offer. The kingdom of heaven is available to you.

Congratulations to the sad, the depressed, those who are grieving an unexpected breakup, those who are grieving their friends deserting them, those who grieve their parents’ divorce, and those who still grieve their parents giving them up for adoption. The kingdom of heaven is available to you.

Congratulations to the quiet, the shy, the socially awkward, those who are neurodivergent, the badly dressed, and those with 62 followers on social media. The kingdom of heaven is available to you.

Congratulations to the messed up, those who just can’t seem to get it together, the addict, the mentally unhealthy, the suicidal, the overweight, the abused. The kingdom of heaven is available to you.

Congratulations to those who are not as good as your sibling, who are picked last, and who are bullied at school. The kingdom of heaven is available to you.

Congratulations to those who stuck in the middle, who are told their dumb for what they believe in, who experience suffering because they are unwilling to take the easy way out. The kingdom of heaven is available to you.

In other words, the Kingdom of Heaven is available NOW to YOU.

Most of us do not identify as the elite, the beautiful, the talented, or successful. And because of that, our assumption is that God’s good life is not available to us. But we are wrong – and that is good news. The kingdom of heaven is available NOW to YOU.

So, if the Kingdom of Heaven is really available now—even to the overlooked, the anxious, and the broken—how do we actually start living in it?

APPLICATION.

Jesus’ call to action in light of the kingdom of heaven coming near was to repent.

That’s not a word we use a lot outside of church. And when we do hear it, we usually imagine it’s about feeling guilty or ashamed. But that’s not what Jesus meant.

To repent means to change your mind, to turn around, to re-aim your life.

ILLUSTRATION.

[SP note: have a toy bow and arrow in your hands as you talk during this section. When you talk about our assumption of the good life, aim to one side of the room. When you talk about the good life as Jesus describes it, turn and aim at the other side of the room.]

It’s archery language. And it’s not an accident that Jesus uses archery language in Matthew 4:17 and then begins the Sermon on the Mount with the Beatitudes. In the Beatitudes, before Jesus shows us the good life, He challenges what we assume the good life even is.

We’ve all grown up with an answer of what we believe the good life is – and that answer becomes the target that we aim our lives at. For some, our life if aimed at comfort. For others, it’s aimed at success, popularity, control, freedom, or just… not being a disappointment. All of us are aimed at something, and what you are aimed at MATTERS.

STORY.

There’s a story from the 1920’s where a German professor moved to Japan and wanted to get more familiar with the culture. So, he started training in the Japanese martial art of archery, called Kyudo.

He studied under this legendary archer who spent a lot of time on teaching him the fundamentals of archery rather than letting him actually shoot at targets. His famous line was “everything is aiming.”

Now, his point was that everything, not just your eyes, but everything about you was all part of your aim.

My point is that your whole life ends up aligning with whatever target you’re aimed at.

Your mind, your heart, your choices, your emotions, your relationships, your habits, they are all pointed in the direction of the target you are aimed at. What you are aimed at MATTERS.

When Jesus begins His most famous sermon with the Beatitudes, He’s inviting us to consider if we’ve been aiming at the wrong target, and if we have, to change direction and re-aim our life at the life that is truly good. A life in right relationship with Him that leads to a right relationship with everything and everyone else.

And the rest of the Sermon on the Mount will unpack what that good life looks like in our everyday lives – but none of it will make sense if we’re aimed at the wrong thing.

So as we begin this journey through the Sermon on the Mount, let me ask you:

What is your life aimed at?

It is such an important question to begin with, because EVERYTHING is aiming. Your entire life will align and aim at what your answer to the good life is.

Because it’s that important, it’s worth a moment to slow down and actually answer that question for a moment. So pull out your phone or something to write on, and actually answer that question for yourself: what is your life aimed at?

[Give 1-2 minutes in the room for students to answer the question]

Here’s the point: Everything Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount isn’t just theory—it’s actually available to you. You can live the good life He describes, but it starts by being aimed in the right direction.

One of the best ways to keep aiming at that target is to immerse yourself in what Jesus says the good life looks like. That’s why we’re partnering with the BibleProject for a reading plan on the Sermon on the Mount. It’s short, it’s clear, and it will help you realign your aim day by day. 

The BibleProject is a non-profit that makes free resources like videos, podcasts, articles, and classes to help the Bible be approachable and transformative for everyone! So if you’ve never read the Bible before or tried but found it intimidating and difficult, this plan is designed with you in mind!

So, my challenge to you is to jump in with us and read unit 1, 2, and 3 this week. Not only will it help you “re-aim” but it will also help give context and extra insights into the Sermon on the Mount that we just don’t have time to cover on WEDENSDAYS.

You can get the links for each unit sent directly to your email every Thursday morning by texting “Bible” to 377-48, or you can find them on the BibleProject App directly [QR Code on Screen] .

I’ve got faith that God is going to do some awesome things this semester as we dive into this.

Let’s pray and ask God to use it and then we’ll head to groups.

[Prayer to close.]