The Good Life

Bethel: House of God Sermon Series

We’re asking question of what does it mean to be a part of the Kingdom of God, God’s Royal House

First week, we looked at story of Jacob’s dream, staircase with angels ascending and descending, God right there, speaking to Jacob, which revealed Kingdom of God is far more present than we realize

Last Sunday, we looked at creation story, and how God created us in his image and created us to rule, to share in his dominion over all creation, to work in cooperation with God. Question for us is whether we will join our little individual kingdoms to God’s great Kingdom.

Today, we’re going to begin looking at Sermon on Mount, where Jesus is teaching us what life looks like in Kingdom of God, what it means to be a part of Bethel, House of God - and particularly today, who is the Kingdom available to?

Prayer / Matthew 4:23-5:12

Blessed?

Let me begin this morning with asking you question…when you think of the good life, what comes to mind? What is good life? We all want it, don’t we? We all want a good life. I think there’s some things we would say, yeah, that’s part of good life.

Ability to live freely (talked it this last week, how central that it is, our personhood), ability to live enact our wills

Good life would include having things we need in life - food, water, clothing, shelter

And we might go on to say, not just basic necessities, but ability to enjoy good things in life - good health, loving relationships - friends & family, meaningful work - work that contributes to common good, it helps others in some way, opportunities to rest, relax. Enjoy nice things - good food, fine wine

To be happy, joyful, to be at peace, sense of security

You might have something on your own list that for you would make for the good life - having wealth, getting to do certain activities - like travel, having certain luxuries, nice home

In Biblical language, those would be God’s blessings, to have those things is to be blessed

So, it’s more than little strange when Jesus begins his teaching to hear him describe who is blessed

Just listen to list

Blessed are those who are poor in spirit - these are spiritual zeroes, no spiritual qualifications or abilities - Jesus says they will inherit Kingdom of heaven

Blessed are those who mourn, who are sad, grieving - people with broken hearts

Blessed are the meek, mild, walked on, intimated

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, people who have burning desire for things to be made right - because they aren’t…it’s fair to say this describes many of protesters

Blessed are the merciful, who are often people who get taken advantage of - if you’ve ever “loaned” money to friend or family member who promised to pay it back, not so much

Blessed are the pure in heart. I think there’s couple of ways you can look at this one - either people who tend toward perfectionism, live under strain and stress of trying to maintain that - or truly having purity of heart and having to live in world that is anything but.

Blessed peacemakers. This one sounds really nice, until you actually try to make peace in midst of hostile confrontation. You can’t win. I have tremendous sympathy for vast majority of police officers who are being vilified today - who really have sincere desire to keep peace.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness or because they are following Jesus. Because being persecuted is exactly what I think of when I think of good life.

There might be a few in there that you might think are desirable, but in general I think we would mostly say, no thank you. That is not good life. That doesn’t sound very blessed to me.

Often, that’s how it’s presented. I’ve presented it that way - as traits that somehow we want to emulate, postures we want to take (should be meek and mourning)

But what if Jesus is saying something different here? What if being blessed is not because of, but in spite of? That even in these conditions, we can experience being blessed by God, good life (this way of looking at Beatitudes comes courtesy of Dallas Willard)

Key here is really bracket - at both beginning and end of beatitudes: for theirs is kingdom of heaven.

You Are Blessed

Important to see context of Jesus’ teaching here in Sermon on Mount, see it here in end of Matthew 4

When Jesus begins his ministry, he makes simple proclamation: Repent (turn around, quit exiting!), for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

We see incredible example of people from all over experiencing the kingdom of heaven being at hand, right there in their midst in person of Jesus.

Jesus has been traveling all over, teaching - and healing every disease and sickness among the people.

Consider for moment how huge this is: health and medical issues are still so significant for us today

But think of all we have available: prescription drugs to treat symptoms, alleviate pain, address actual health problem

if you break arm, gall bladder goes bad, tooth is rotten - surgery to repair all that, those things are routinely treated today

But in those days, very limited options, you simply had to suffer through

See why word spread so quickly and why people were coming from all over

This is context of Jesus’ teaching here, these huge crowds, many of whom had just experienced power of Kingdom of heaven, which had been made available to them in Jesus, follow Jesus up mountain where he sits and begins to teach

Dallas Willard says that Jesus is essentially doing a show and tell - He could point out in the crowd how this individual who was blessed because The Kingdom Among Us had just reached out and touched them with Jesus’ heart and voice and hands.

You, even you who are poor in spirit, spiritually bankrupt - all that Kingdom is - can be yours, too.

You who are mourning greatly, you’ve experienced tragedy, sadness is overwhelming you - God’s going to comfort you. He will turn your mourning into dancing, sadness into joy.

You who are meek and forgotten and walked over - God is going to give you earth, all goodness he created here.

You who hunger and thirst for righteousness, that burning desire, you going to be filled with fullness of God.

I read story about group of people (YWAM, Circuit Riders) that had gone to George Floyd’s memorial site, spot where he had been killed, proclaiming Gospel. Very site that spur this national outcry for justice, people are coming to experience love and life of Jesus. Baptisms happening right on spot. One of the those involved in ministry wrote: It’s the epicenter of so much pain and hatred, now it is turning into a place of healing and HOPE. Right at the site of the murder - Life!

This is blessedness Jesus is talking about in Kingdom of God, people hungering and thirsting for righteousnes, being satisfied.

You who are merciful, God’s going to show mercy to you, pour it out.

You who are pure in heart, you’re going to see God in all his grace and goodness.

You who are peacemakers, you will be called sons of God.

story of 7 year old boy in city of Tulsa who had never felt comfortable praying out loud felt conviction to go and pray for police officers in Tulsa. First time, he saw officers in coffee shop, went up and asked if he could pray for them. Now he’s going to every single one(there’s 800, he’s prayed for 90 of them). A child praying for those whom Jesus says will be children of God.

You who are persecuted, just like spiritually impoverished, all that kingdom is will be yours.

How Huge This Is!

It’s all grace!! God’s power and goodness coming to us - freely, readily, no matter condition of our lives

This is what Jesus is declaring when he says Kingdom of heaven has come near.

Willard asks question of who this would apply to today, if Jesus were among us (he is), who would he hold up in his “show and tell”?

In culture so oriented towards physical appearance, the most unfortunate might be those who don’t fit that category: (Willard) And so blessed are the physically repulsive, blessed are those that smell bad, the twisted, misshapen, deformed, the too big, too little, too loud, the bald, the fat, and the old…for they are all riotously celebrated in party of Jesus.

We could say same about those who are broke, burnt out, unemployed and unemployable, drugged out, divorced, those living in streets, those swindled out of their life savings, parents with kids suffering with addictions, the desperately lonely, depressed and oppressed. - the list goes on and on.

What about moral disasters? Could Kingdom of God be available to them? Child molesters, drug lords, sex traffickers, war criminals, terrorists. The brutal and bigoted. Hard to imagine anyone more reviled than Derek Chauvin right now.

Willard: You are really walking in the good news of the kingdom if you can go with confidence to any of the hopeless people around you and effortlessly convey assurance that they can now enter a blessed life with God.

Kingdom of God immediately available to us

Last week, after worship on Sunday, I headed out of town to do short backpacking trip with John Anderson & Larry Emerson (member of PCC years ago), hiking on Peter’s mountain, right on WV/VA border

Consider backpacking for moment - whole idea is do all work yourself, carry everything you need on your back - basic necessities, food, water, shelter. It ends up being around 35 pounds and then you walk. And you walk - up and down and across the mountain. Why heck did we do that?!

I think it has to do with what we talked about last week - our rule, our dominion. There’s something about engaging in challenges that enables us to know power, that reign (range of our effective will) God has given us. Discover your strength (and your weaknesses). We hiked 19 miles. We carried everything we needed. Other than fuel for cooking our meals, we did it.

Do this in all sorts of ways in life: learn new skill, develop new habit in your life, take on project and see it through, organize event.

But here’s flip side. We spent what was essentially about two full days to go 20 miles (I keep adding mileage to make it sound more impressive)

Three of us could have gotten into car with all of our gear and we could have traveled 20 miles in 20 minutes - without breaking sweat.

On our own, we can do little. You start adding mechanical, electrical, chemical or atomic power - you can do a lot! Watching the SpaceX rocket launch the other weekend was incredible sight - to see what can be done with greater power.

Dallas Willard makes this point: But what we can do with these means is still very small compared to what we could do acting in union with God himself, who created and ultimately controls all other forces.

Consider for moment an atom. Center part of atom is nucleus, made up of protons and neutrons that typically balance each other out, held together by strong nuclear force. Bombard nucleus of a uranium atom with extra neutron, makes it unstable, bursts apart forming elements that have smaller nuclei (fewer protons / neutrons), as well as extra neutrons that form chain reaction - those extra neutrons bombard other uranium atoms that burst apart and so on.

I give you that very rudimentary explanation to point out to you that all that power, that energy, that can level cities, comes from tearing apart atoms, which is smallest unit that makes up every element that makes up every bit of matter in known universe.

Energy of sun is exact opposite, nuclear fusion, atoms of one element being fused together to make heavier element - vast ball of energy. It’s huge nuclear energy plant that sustains all life on earth (and sure made it hot last week!).

All that energy in single atom. Everything you see around you is make up of all elements which are all made up of millions of atoms. At center of each of those atoms is tremendous energy, power, holding it together.

And God spoke it all into being. He said the word, and all that matter and energy came into being. Every atom packed with power.

This is what Jesus was pointing to in his show and tell. Your life, no matter how bleak or hopeless it may seem, can be blessed because Kingdom of heaven is right here among you.

Dallas Willard grew up in part of southern Missouri where electricity had not yet come. It was only when he was in high school that it came available to homes in his area.

It came with promise of changing your everyday life - as he puts it: daylight and dark, hot and cold, clean and dirty, work and leisure, preparing food and preserving it, could then be vastly changed for the better. But you had to believe that it would, enter into arrangement, take practical steps in relying on it.

Repent, for the kingdom of electricity is at hand. There were some who did not accept, didn’t want to make change, didn’t think they could afford it.

This is what Jesus is telling crowd on that mountain. Kingdom of heaven and its power is right here, right now, available to you, whether you’re mourning or persecuted or hungering for righteousness, doesn’t matter.

As Willard says, It is so available that everyone who from the center of his or her being calls upon Jesus as Master of the Universe and Prince of Life will be heard and will be delivered into the eternal kind of life.

Let me finish with this: Frank Laubach lived that kind of life. He decided to engage in personal experiment of moment-by-moment submission to the will of God (he decided to live every moment as part of Bethel, House of God, trusting God’s power and presence). Wrote about in book entitled, Letters by a Modern Mystic.

In January of 1930 he began to cultivate habit of turning his mind to Christ for one second out of every minute.

After four weeks, he wrote, “I feel simply carried along each hour, doing my part in a plan which is far beyond myself. This sense of cooperation with God in little things is what so astonishes me, for I never have felt this way before. I need something, and turn round to find it waiting for me. I must work, to be sure, but there is God working along with me.

He founded Worldwide Literacy Crusade, still going today. In spite of having no political appointment, he had great influence on U.S. foreign policy after WWII. All this energy and wisdom used for good because his “practice of constant conscious interface with God.”

This is good life. The blessed life. From very center of our beings, living in trust of Kingdom of heaven among us and available to us through Jesus himself.