The Sermon on the Mount

Introduction

Matthew’s Gospel has been pressing upon us one great and glorious truth: Jesus Christ is the promised King. He is not merely a teacher among teachers, nor a prophet among prophets, nor a moral reformer among moral reformers. He is the Son of David, the Son of Abraham, Emmanuel, God with us. He is the long-awaited Messiah in whom the promises of God find their fulfillment. Matthew has shown us His royal lineage, His miraculous birth, His preservation by divine providence, His identification with His people in baptism, His victory over the devil in the wilderness, His proclamation that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and His sovereign call of disciples who immediately leave their nets and follow Him.

By the time we come to Matthew 5, the public ministry of Christ has begun to draw great crowds. Matthew tells us at the close of chapter 4 that His fame spread throughout Syria, that people brought to Him those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and He healed them. Great crowds followed Him from Galilee and the Decapolis, from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan. The King is now manifest before the people. His authority has been seen in His power over sickness, demons, and disease. His authority has been heard in His preaching of repentance and the nearness of the kingdom. Now, in Matthew 5, His authority will be displayed in His teaching.

The Sermon on the Mount is one of the most well-known portions of Scripture, and because it is so well-known, it is also often misused. Many admire it as an ethical masterpiece while rejecting the Christ who preached it. Some treat it as a general moral code for mankind, as though fallen sinners, by their own natural power, can simply decide to live according to its standard. Others reduce it to a social vision detached from redemption, sin, grace, and the kingdom of heaven. Still others treat it as though it has no direct word for the believer today. But our Lord is not giving us abstract morality. He is not offering sinners a ladder by which they may climb into heaven. He is not teaching men how to save themselves. He is describing the character of those who belong to His kingdom.

That is essential for rightly understanding the Beatitudes. The Beatitudes are not entrance fees that we pay in order to purchase citizenship in the kingdom. They are not natural virtues that man possesses by birth. They are not personality traits found in some and absent in others. They are the marks of grace. They are the spiritual features of those whom God has brought under the reign of Christ. Martyn Lloyd-Jones rightly wrote, “The Sermon on the Mount does not tell men how to become Christians; it describes what Christians are.” That is the proper order. Grace comes first. New life comes first. Regeneration comes first. Then the evidence of that new life appears in the character of the believer.

This is where the Sermon on the Mount strikes at the heart of false religion. False religion is always content with the outside of the cup. It polishes the visible life while leaving the heart untouched. It measures men by external obedience, religious reputation, public acts of devotion, and comparison with others. That was the great error of the scribes and Pharisees. They were not irreligious men. They were intensely religious. They knew the language of Scripture. They practiced prayer, fasting, giving, and ceremonial obedience. Yet their religion was often a monument to self-righteousness. It could regulate the hands while leaving the heart proud, angry, lustful, deceitful, and cold toward God.

Jesus begins somewhere entirely different. He does not begin with external religious performance. He begins with the heart. He begins with poverty of spirit. He begins with mourning. He begins with meekness. He begins with hunger and thirst for righteousness. Before He teaches His disciples how to pray, give, fast, resist anxiety, judge rightly, or build upon the rock, He first describes what kind of people they are by the grace of God. The King begins His sermon by showing us the character of His citizens.

Text

Please stand for the reading of God’s holy, inerrant, infallible, authoritative, sufficient, complete and certain word...

Matthew 5:1–12 LSB

Now when Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain; and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him. And He opened His mouth and began to teach them, saying, “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 lowly, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Our gracious God and heavenly Father, we come before You with reverence, humility, and thanksgiving. You are holy, holy, holy. The whole earth is full of Your glory. You dwell in unapproachable light, and yet in mercy You have drawn near to sinners through Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We confess that we do not come before You with anything in our hands to commend ourselves to You. We come needy, dependent, and poor in spirit. We come acknowledging that apart from Your grace we are without righteousness, without strength, and without hope.

Father, as Your Word has now been read, we ask that You would give us ears to hear and hearts made tender by Your Spirit. Guard us from hearing the Sermon on the Mount as though it were merely a moral lesson or a standard we can fulfill in our own strength. Show us Christ. Show us the King who speaks with authority. Show us the kingdom that is not built upon human pride, self-confidence, or outward appearance, but upon the gracious reign of God in redeemed hearts.

Lord, humble us where we are proud. Expose the false comforts we have trusted in. Strip away self-righteousness, religious presumption, and careless familiarity with holy things. Teach us what it means to be poor in spirit before You. Teach us what it means to mourn over sin, not merely because of its consequences, but because it is against You.

And yet, Father, do not leave us in sorrow without comfort. Lead us to the Savior who receives the brokenhearted, forgives the repentant, and gives the kingdom to those who come empty-handed. Magnify Christ before us now. May His Word pierce, heal, convict, comfort, and conform us more closely to His image. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

He Opens His Mouth

Matthew tells us that when Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain, and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him. That setting is not incidental. Mountains are places of revelation throughout Scripture. Moses ascended Sinai and received the Law from God. Elijah stood upon Horeb and encountered the Lord. Yet here the imagery is heightened beyond comparison. Jesus is not ascending the mountain to receive revelation from another. He ascends and teaches with His own authority. Moses was a servant in God’s house. Christ is the Son over God’s house. Moses said, “Thus says the Lord.” Christ says, “But I say to you.”

John Calvin observed that Christ “appeared in the character of a new Lawgiver” and that He taught in such a way as to assert His authority over all human teachers. Calvin was not suggesting that Jesus contradicted Moses, for Christ Himself says later that He did not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets but to fulfill them. Rather, Christ speaks as the One to whom Moses pointed. He is the substance of what Sinai foreshadowed. He is the Prophet greater than Moses, the King greater than David, the Priest greater than Aaron, and the Son in whom all the promises of God are yes and amen.

The posture of Jesus is also significant. He sits down, and His disciples come to Him. In the ancient world, a teacher sat to instruct. The seated posture communicates authority, deliberateness, and formal instruction. The crowds are present, but the disciples are especially in view. The sermon is heard by many, but it is addressed to those who come to Him as learners, followers, and subjects of His kingdom. It is a public sermon, but it is not a sermon that flatters the public. It is a kingdom sermon, and only grace can make a man receive it rightly.

The opening word of the Beatitudes is “blessed.” A word that we should not reduce to describing or defining as mere happiness. Happiness, as men commonly use the term, rises and falls with circumstances; it is an emotion. We are happy when our health is strong, finances are stable, family is peaceful, and plans are succeeding. Blessedness as Jesus describes is deeper than our circumstance. It is the condition of one who stands under the favor of God. It is covenant well-being and divine approval. It is the settled spiritual blessedness of those who belong to God, even when outward circumstances seem to go against them.

This is why the Beatitudes sound so strange to the natural man. Jesus does not say, “Blessed are the powerful, the successful, the confident, the admired, the self-sufficient, the comfortable, and the applauded.” What He says is that the blessed are the poor in spirit and those who mourn. He begins where the world would never begin. The world’s kingdom is built on pride, ambition, self-promotion, and self-confidence. Christ’s kingdom begins with emptiness, with brokenness, with dependence, and with repentance.

Blessed Are The Poor In Spirit

The first Beatitude is foundational: blessed are the poor in spirit. Everything that follows rests upon this. No man mourns over sin until he has first seen his spiritual poverty. No man becomes meek until his pride has been humbled. No man hungers and thirsts for righteousness until he knows that he has none in himself. Poverty of spirit is not one grace among many placed randomly at the beginning. It is the gateway. It is the low doorway into the kingdom, and every sinner who enters must stoop.

To be poor in spirit is not to be financially poor, though the materially poor may often be made more aware of their dependence. Nor does it mean adopting a gloomy personality or speaking endlessly of ourselves in miserable terms. It is not a theatrical humility that draws attention to itself by pretending to be lowly. True poverty of spirit is an honest, Spirit-wrought recognition of our absolute spiritual bankruptcy before God. It is the confession that we have nothing in ourselves with which to purchase, deserve, or maintain the favor of God. It is the end of boasting. It is the death of self-righteousness. It is the empty hand of faith opened to receive mercy.

Scripture is relentless in bringing us to this point. Romans 3 declares that there is none righteous, not even one. Isaiah tells us that all our righteous deeds are like filthy rags. Jeremiah tells us that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Paul says in Ephesians 2 that we were dead in trespasses and sins. Dead men do not contribute to their resurrection. Bankrupt men do not pay their debts. Guilty men do not erase their crimes by promising to do better. The sinner’s condition is not weakness needing mild assistance; it is spiritual death that requires nothing short of resurrection.

This is why the gospel is so offensive to proud flesh. We wants to bring something. We wants to bring morality, sincerity, religious heritage, church attendance, baptism, knowledge, or tears; some kind of individualized effort that we can point to in an effort to take credit for the work. Truly being poor in spirit, however, says, “Nothing in my hand I bring.” Make no mistake, this does not deny the necessity of our obedience in the Christian life, but it refuses to credit our acceptance with God upon that obedience. It does not despise good works, but it knows good works are the fruit of salvation, not the root. It looks away from self entirely and rests upon Christ alone.

Charles Spurgeon, preaching on the Beatitudes, said, “The way to rise in the kingdom is to sink in ourselves.” That is exactly the opposite of the world’s thinking. The world says that the way up is self-assertion. Jesus says the way up is lowliness. The world says, “Believe in yourself.” Jesus says, “Deny yourself.” The world says, “Trust your heart.” Scripture says the heart is deceitful. The world says, “You are enough.” The gospel says Christ ALONE is enough!

We see this poverty of spirit in Isaiah when he beholds the Lord high and lifted up. Before that vision, Isaiah was already a prophet. He was not an outwardly immoral pagan. Yet when he sees the holiness of God, he cries out that he is undone. He sees himself as a man of unclean lips dwelling among a people of unclean lips. The sight of God produces the sight of self. That is always the order. We think highly of themselves because we think lightly of God. But when God’s holiness presses upon the conscience, our self-confidence collapses.

We see it also in Peter. After the miraculous catch of fish, Peter falls before Jesus and says, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” He is not giving a systematic theology lecture. He is responding to the sudden awareness that he is standing before divine majesty. Christ’s power exposes Peter’s poverty. The same thing happens with Job. After all his speeches, after all his suffering, after all his questions, when God reveals Himself, Job says that he despises himself and then he repents in dust and ashes. The presence of God humbles the soul.

Thomas Watson, the Puritan, wrote in The Beatitudes, “Till we are poor in spirit, we are not capable of receiving grace.” He did not mean that poverty of spirit earns grace. He meant that the proud man will not stoop to receive what grace gives. Pride fills our hands with imagined treasure, but humility opens them to Christ. A man who thinks he is rich will not beg. A man who thinks he can see will not cry for sight. A man who thinks he is righteous will not flee to Christ for righteousness.

This is the tragedy of Laodicean religion. In Revelation 3, the church says, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,” but Christ says they are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. Their assessment of themselves was the exact opposite of Christ’s assessment of them. That is the danger of self-deceived religion. We can sing, serve, give, and speak Christian language while remaining blind to its true condition. Poverty of spirit is mercy because it brings us out of delusion and into reality.

This also explains why Christ says that theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The promise is not given to those who claim worthiness, but to those who confess their need. The kingdom does not belong to the self-righteous Pharisee standing proudly in the temple, rehearsing his religious achievements. It belongs to the tax collector who will not even lift his eyes to heaven but beats his breast and cries for mercy. Jesus says that man went down to his house justified. Why? Because God justifies the ungodly who cast themselves upon His mercy in Christ. The poor in spirit receive the kingdom because they receive the King as their only hope.

This poverty of spirit must not be confined to the beginning of the Christian life as though we graduate from dependence. The Christian never outgrows grace. We grow in grace, but we do not grow beyond it. The longer a believer walks with the Lord, the more deeply he understands his dependence upon Christ. Spiritual maturity does not make a man boastful. It makes him grateful. It does not make him say, “Look how far I have come.” It makes him say, “By the grace of God I am what I am.” The saint nearest to Christ is the one most aware that every breath, every act of obedience, every victory over sin, and every persevering step is mercy.

Many believers are troubled because the longer they walk with Christ, the more clearly they see sin remaining in them. They expected maturity to make them feel stronger in themselves, but instead they feel more aware of weakness. Yet that awareness, when joined with faith in Christ, is not evidence that grace is absent. It is often evidence that grace is at work. The Spirit reveals sin not to drive the believer to despair, but to drive us again and again to Christ. Poverty of spirit is not unbelief. It is the soil in which faith grows.

Blessed Are Those Who Mourn

From poverty of spirit, Jesus moves naturally to mourning. The second Beatitude declares that those who mourn are blessed because they shall be comforted. At first, this sounds contradictory. Mourning seems to be the opposite of blessedness. The world avoids mourning at all costs. It distracts itself with entertainment, noise, humor, busyness, pleasure, and denial. It does not want to feel the weight of sin, death, judgment, or eternity. But Jesus pronounces blessing upon mourners.

We must be clear about the kind of mourning in view. Scripture certainly teaches that God comforts His people in every affliction. He comforts the grieving widow, the suffering saint, the persecuted believer, the weary pilgrim, and the brokenhearted. The God of all comfort draws near to His people in their sorrows. Yet in the flow of the Beatitudes, the mourning here is especially mourning over sin. The poor in spirit have seen their bankruptcy; those who mourn grieve over it. The first Beatitude sees sin truly. The second feels sin deeply.

This mourning is not mere regret. Regret may be entirely selfish. A man may regret sin because it damaged his reputation, disrupted his comfort, exposed his hypocrisy, or brought painful consequences. That is not the mourning Christ blesses. The mourning of the kingdom is godly sorrow. It grieves that sin is against God. It mourns not merely that consequences have come, but that holiness has been offended, love has been despised, mercy has been abused, and the glory of God has been dishonored.

David’s confession in Psalm 51 is the great biblical example. After his sin with Bathsheba and his murder of Uriah, David is confronted by Nathan. When repentance comes, David does not treat sin lightly. He does not hide behind excuses. He does not blame circumstances. He does not say, “I made a poor decision.” He sees sin vertically. Against God he has sinned. Yes, he sinned grievously against Bathsheba. Yes, he sinned wickedly against Uriah. Yes, he sinned against his household and his kingdom. But at the deepest level, sin is against God. True mourning understands that.

R. C. Sproul frequently emphasized the holiness of God as the necessary backdrop for understanding sin. In The Holiness of God, he defined sin with this statement, “Sin is cosmic treason.” That phrase is weighty because it reminds us that sin is not a small defect or a harmless mistake. It is rebellion against the Creator. It is the creature lifting himself against the Lord. When the Spirit opens a sinner’s eyes to that reality, mourning follows. Not despairing mourning that denies mercy, but repentant mourning that seeks mercy.

The Apostle Paul draws the distinction in 2 Corinthians 7 between worldly grief and godly grief. Worldly grief produces death. Godly grief produces repentance leading to salvation without regret. Worldly sorrow hates consequences. Godly sorrow hates sin. Worldly sorrow says, “I am sorry that I was exposed.” Godly sorrow says, “I have sinned against the Lord.” Worldly sorrow may weep and still cling to sin. Godly sorrow turns from sin and turns toward God.

John Bunyan understood this kind of sorrow well. In Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, he described the anguish of conscience under conviction, yet he also magnified the mercy of Christ toward burdened sinners. Bunyan knew that the burden of sin is not removed by pretending it is light. It is removed by Christ. That is the movement of the gospel. The Spirit wounds in order that Christ may heal. The law exposes guilt in order that the sinner may see the glory of grace. Conviction is bitter, but it is a bitter mercy when it brings us to the Savior.

There is an important correction here for our age. Much of modern religion wants comfort without mourning. It wants assurance without conviction. It wants forgiveness without repentance. It wants the language of grace while avoiding the seriousness of sin. But Christ does not bless the careless, the flippant, or the self-excusing. He blesses those who mourn. Grace does not make sin seem small. Grace shows us that sin is so serious that nothing less than the blood of the Son of God could atone for it.

This mourning is not limited to conversion. Just as poverty of spirit continues throughout the Christian life, so does godly mourning. The believer mourns remaining corruption. He mourns coldness in prayer, dullness in worship, pride in service, selfishness in relationships, impatience in suffering, unbelief in trials, and the ease with which the heart wanders from Christ. He does not mourn as one under condemnation, for there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. He mourns as a beloved child grieved that he has sinned against his Father.

This distinction is vital. Christian mourning is not hopeless misery. It is not the despair of Judas, who was crushed by guilt but did not flee to Christ in faith. Instead, t is the sorrow of Peter, who wept bitterly after denying his Lord and was restored by the very Savior he had denied. The tears of repentance do not wash away sin; Christ’s blood does. But the tears reveal that the heart no longer loves sin as it once did. They reveal that grace has made the soul tender before God.

Jesus promises that such mourners shall be comforted. This comfort is not sentimental. It is not a vague emotional soothing. It is gospel comfort. It is the comfort of pardon, cleansing, reconciliation, adoption, and hope. The mourning sinner is comforted when he hears that Christ came into the world to save sinners. He is comforted when he sees that the Son of God bore the curse in the place of His people. He is comforted when he understands that justification is not God pretending sin does not matter, but God declaring righteous those who are united to Christ by faith because Christ has satisfied justice on their behalf.

Here the Beatitudes drive us directly to the cross. Poverty of spirit brings us empty. Mourning brings us broken. Christ receives the empty and broken because He alone is full of righteousness and rich in mercy. At Calvary we see both the seriousness of sin and the abundance of grace. If we want to know whether sin is light, we must look at the cross. If we want to know whether grace is sufficient, we must again look to the cross. The cross tells us that sin is worse than we imagined and that God’s mercy in Christ is greater than we dared hope.

This comfort also continues throughout the believer’s life. When the Christian confesses sin, he has an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. When conscience accuses, Christ intercedes. When Satan condemns, Christ’s blood speaks a better word. When the believer mourns his weakness, the Lord reminds him that His grace is sufficient and His power is made perfect in weakness. When the saint grieves over remaining sin, he is comforted by the promise that He who began a good work will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

And one day this comfort will be complete. The mourning of the believer will not last forever. In glory, every remaining sin will be gone. The war within will cease. The temptations that weary the soul will be no more. The grief of repentance will give way to the joy of perfect holiness. God Himself will wipe away every tear from the eyes of His people. The comfort promised in Matthew 5 begins now in the gospel, but it reaches its fullness in the new heavens and new earth where righteousness dwells.

Conclusion

So we see that the Sermon on the Mount begins by overturning every natural expectation. Christ does not gather His disciples and tell them first how great they are, or flatter them with visions of earthly triumph. He does not tell them that kingdom life begins with confidence in themselves, but rather that the blessed are the poor in spirit and those who mourn. The kingdom belongs to those who know they have nothing. Comfort belongs to those who grieve over the very sin Christ came to forgive.

This confronts every hearer. Have you been made poor in spirit? Not merely religious, not merely moral, not merely acquainted with Christian language, but poor in spirit before God. Have you stopped pleading your own righteousness? Have you stopped comparing yourself to others? Have you stopped hiding behind religious activity? Have you truly come empty-handed to Christ?

And have you mourned over sin? Not merely over consequences, embarrassment, or difficulty, but over sin as sin. Does your sin grieve you because it is against the God who made you, sustains you, and has shown mercy in His Son? Do you bring that grief to Christ, or do you attempt to bury it beneath excuses?

The good news is that Christ does not turn away the poor in spirit. He does not despise the mourner. He does not crush the bruised reed or quench the faintly burning wick. The proud He brings low, but the humble He receives. The self-righteous He exposes, but the brokenhearted He comforts. The empty-handed sinner finds in Him an inexhaustible Savior.

Spurgeon said, “There are no crown-wearers in heaven who were not cross-bearers here below.” We may add that there are no citizens of this kingdom who did not first come as beggars. The way into Christ’s kingdom is not paved with human pride but with divine mercy. The first steps are low steps: poverty of spirit and mourning over sin. Yet they are blessed steps, because they lead us to Christ.

The Sermon on the Mount, then, does not begin by giving us a burden we must carry in our own strength. It begins by stripping us of the illusion that we have strength at all. It brings us low, but only so that Christ may be exalted. It wounds our pride, but only so that grace may heal. It exposes our poverty, but only so that we may receive the kingdom. It teaches us to mourn, but only so that we may be comforted by the Savior who bore our sins and conquered death.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, not because poverty itself saves, but because those who know their poverty flee to the riches of Christ. Blessed are those who mourn, not because tears atone, but because those who mourn over sin find comfort in the One whose blood cleanses from all unrighteousness. This is the character of the King’s citizens. This is the beginning of kingdom life. This is the gracious work of God in the soul. And this is the only safe place for sinners to stand: low before God, empty of self, mourning over sin, and looking wholly to Jesus Christ, the King who blesses the broken and gives the kingdom to the poor.

Closing Prayer

Father, we thank You for the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. We thank You that He does not flatter our pride, but graciously brings us low so that we might find our all in Him. We confess that we are often slow to see our poverty and too quick to excuse our sin. Forgive us for the ways we have trusted in ourselves, compared ourselves to others, and treated sin lightly.

Grant us true poverty of spirit. Make us a people who know our need and cling to Christ alone. Give us godly sorrow that leads to repentance, not worldly sorrow that turns inward and dies in despair. Comfort us with the gospel. Remind us that the blood of Christ is sufficient, that His righteousness is perfect, and that His mercy is greater than our sin.

As we leave this place, keep us low before You and near to Christ. Let the character of the kingdom be formed in us by Your Spirit. May we walk as those who belong to the King, longing for the day when mourning will cease and Your people will be comforted forever in Your presence. In Jesus’ name, amen.