S.O.T.M.: Happiness is... [Matthew 5:3-12]

Stand for the reading of the word of God [Matthew 5:1-12]

We come again to the sermon on the mount. We began last week by looking at the context or background of this sermon a bit. We looked at the biblical context or where we are in the bible or in relation to the revelation of God to man and we are at the new age, with a new King, who brings a new message. We are at a new age…the NT, the OT or the book of Adam ends with a curse and the NT the book of the second Adam or the new Adam, the greater than Adam, Jesus begins with a blessing and ends with a promise, there shall be no more curse, Rev. 21.

Adam was the first king, the bible says he was given dominion over all the earth, but he disobeyed God and plummeted all mankind into sin and death, but Jesus the new king lived perfectly obediently to God’s will and abolished sin upon the cross and defeated death through the resurrection.

The new message this new king brought was one of happiness, true happiness, not happiness the world offers which is vain and fleeting, but true happiness and his first sermon displays that perfectly. The new message king Jesus brought was completely contrary to the worlds view of happiness and offers a true peace, a true contentment, found nowhere in the world…only in Him, the true king, the Lord and Savior Jesus can this be found.

We saw the political context, that the Jews where looking for a political and military kingdom, but Jesus brought word of a spiritual kingdom, not one consumed with political and social issues but a kingdom based on what a man is not what a man does. The sermon on the mount is not a great ethical teaching for the world…it’s marvelous spiritual truth for all those who will believe.

We saw the religious context, primarily focused on the factions of the Jews. Those factions were… The Pharisees thought happiness came through the keeping of tradition, the Sadducees thought happiness came through liberalism, the Essenes through happiness came by separation, and the Zealots thought happiness came by overthrowing government…Jesus came in and showed that they were all wrong…happiness is only found in Jesus Christ alone!

We saw the audience context, the multitudes where gathered to hear as Jesus sat to teach the disciples. While Jesus sat and taught the disciples, the multitudes heard as well and even though the message of true happiness was only a realization to those who were true followers of Jesus, the multitude heard this message as well. i.e. while the message of true happiness is available to all, it can only be realized and obtained by those in whom Christ Jesus has changed. This is the MI for our message today… The only person that can be truly happy is the person who has been truly changed by Jesus.

Last week we looked at context today’s message is going to be an introduction into the introduction. This morning I want to take some time and look at the beatitudes as a whole before we begin to look closer at the parts. This is just a good rule of bible study, pay much attention to the whole before focusing on the parts…nothing leads to error or heresy easier than neglecting the whole and focusing on the parts first. People are tempted, especially with the sermon on the mount to focus on the parts first and neglect the whole message or neglect the beatitudes…for example.

People will say, tell me about going the extra mile, what about divorce, what about not judging others, etc. etc. You can’t pull these topics out of the whole of the context and you can’t get to these topics without going through the beatitudes. So we will spend much time going through the beatitudes one by one for they are key to understanding the whole. But first we’ll focus upon them as a whole today and then begin to go through them one by one in more detail. I will give you the natural progression of them in a little bit. Here’s what happens, when we focus upon the parts and skip the whole... we tend to focus on what a man does…but that is not the intent of the sermon at all…Jesus is making crystal clear…it’s not about what a man does…it’s about what a man is! The only kind of person who is truly blessed, that is truly content, that is truly happy is the man who has been truly changed by Jesus…we could say then happiness is... only found in Jesus Christ!

The word ‘blessed’ [makarios] means happy, it’s from the root [makar] which is a state of happiness that is not dictated nor changed by circumstance. That’s why last week and this week’s message has been focused upon happiness. Happiness is the great question confronting mankind. We have books on that… “Happiness is...” The whole world is longing for happiness. Just look at the state our world is in right now, what is it people are searching for??? Happiness. The tragic thing is the way in which the world seeks to find happiness…the vast majority of people seeking to find happiness are doing so in a way that actually is bound to produce misery. The things people think will bring them happiness, wealth, health, and fame tend to cause more harm than good…not to mention they are temporary. You can’t find true happiness through the things of this earth.

Solomon was perhaps the greatest example of this. Look at Solomon, he was heir to the throne, his father was king David, the greatest king of Israel. Solomon’s kingdom was the greatest in the history of Israel, it was said about Israel during Solomon’s reign that Israel was the center of the world. It was at peace with it’s enemies, it was the wealthiest in the world, it was said that silver was as common as rocks. Solomon had the finest foods, the best clothes, he was wiser than any person ever, and he had women galore, but in his musings in Ecclesiastes he said this about it, “all is vanity” the word vanity means empty. He said I had everything a person could possible want to be happy in this world and it left me empty.

When Jesus came onto the scene he brought a message of happiness, true happiness, and it’s not found on a cursed earth. That’s why Jesus’ sermon is focused on character first then conduct…so we can’t jump to conduct without first focusing on character…what a person is not what a person does. So, let’s first focus on the whole of the beatitudes and what happiness is and then we’ll begin to look at the parts next week. First lesson drawn from the whole is,

All Christians are meant to display happiness

When we read through the beatitudes, we get a description of what every Christian is meant to be, not merely a description of an exceptional few. Jesus is not painting a picture of what certain outstanding characters are going to be and can be in this world…no, it’s a description of what every single Christ should be! The beatitudes are a description of true happiness…Jesus is saying… happiness is…happiness is not meant for the spiritual elite. I pause just for a moment to emphasize this, I can’t stress it enough. These beatitudes are a description of what every single Christian should and can be…happy in Jesus.

Through the years some have suggested that these beatitudes represent two factions, as it were, in Christianity…the exceptional Christian and the ordinary Christian, the exceptional Christian is the one who has made a vocation of the Christian life, pastors, teachers, missionaries, monks, nuns, etc…the ordinary Christian is the laity, just kind of everybody else. This is completely and utterly unscriptural and destructive to true piety, and it negates the gospel all together. There is no such distinction in the bible. Happiness is not a description of offices or positions. All you have to do is read any NT epistle and you’ll find all believers addressed as what??? “The saints” yes Paul, Peter, John, James, they all address all Christians as the saints. The idea is not that only a few elite Christians reach such heights, but that all Christians are meant to display these characteristics.

Happiness is a description of character. This is what I mean by what I have already said a couple of times, that Jesus is concerned with what a man is not what a man does. The world says, happy are the rich, happy are the famous, happy are the healthy, happy are those who go and do and get what they want…Jesus says, happy are the poor in spirit, happy are those who mourn, happy are the meek, happy are those who hunger and thirst, happy are the merciful, happy are the pure, happy are the peacemakers, happy are the persecuted, happy are the insulted. As one commentator said, “It’s as if Jesus walked into the great display window of life and changed all the price tags.” Everything is turned on it’s head.

This list isn’t a description of the Hudson Taylor’s, George Muller’s, Charles Spurgeon’s of the world…it’s a description of every single Christian, we are all meant, as Christians, to conform to its pattern and to rise to its standard. second,

All Christians are meant to demonstrate happiness

Not only are the beatitudes meant for all Christians, all Christians are meant to demonstrate all of them. i.e. It’s not that some Christians demonstrate one or two characteristics, but all Christians are meant to demonstrate all of them. It’s not right to say, some are meant to be poor in spirit, some to mourn, some to be meek, etc. no no no, every Christian is meant to demonstrate all of them. You can’t go, “I like this beatitude, I’ll take some meekness, I can be a peacemaker, I can do mercy, but I’ll pass on the mourning, persecution, and the insults” It doesn’t work that way.

You can’t be poor in spirit without morning…you can’t mourn without hungering and thirsting for righteousness…you can’t hunger and thirst for righteousness without being meek and a peacemaker…when you demonstrate righteousness you will be persecuted.

Let me give you the sequence of them, that might help our understanding of demonstrating each of them. The sequence leads from the first step of entering into a relationship with God that produces happiness and that is being poor in spirit. That is simply admitting spiritual bankruptcy or poverty of spirit. That leads to dealing with my attitude toward my spiritual bankruptcy. Spiritual bankruptcy simply means I’m in sin and nothing else, and that leads to mourning, mourning over my sin.

And the consciousness of my sin and the sorrow or mourning over my sin leads me to meekness, I feel small and insignificant in the face of a holy God. And that leads to a hunger and thirst for a righteousness I know I need righteousness and do not have. And when that righteousness manifests itself to me by grace and through Jesus, it manifests itself in mercy, purity, and peacemaking - and a willingness to suffer persecution and insult. Then you are the salt and light of the world and so on. That’s the flow of these Beatitudes each one leads to the next. It is a rich and profound sequence.

I don’t believe there’s anything more instructive in all the teaching of Jesus in the area of evangelism and entrance into the kingdom than these Beatitudes. And they’re so often just kind of thrown away as sort of ethical or social statements. They are not. They are salvation-oriented truths! And every single Christian is meant to demonstrate each one. You see what I mean by not jumping to the conduct and looking past the character. Jesus does in His sermon, what every epistle writer in the NT does, he lays down the doctrinal truth first that must be understood and then he goes into the conduct or application of that truth… friends every letter of the NT follows Jesus’ format of the sermon on the mount…that’s why we’re studying it…it’s important!

The next observation on the beatitudes or happiness is...

Happiness is a disposition produced by grace

Each one of the beatitudes are to be displayed and demonstrated by Christians, but none of these can be produced by what we might call natural tendency. Each one is wholly a disposition which is produced by grace alone and the operation of the Holy Spirit upon us. I stress that again because of it’s importance…an unregenerate person cannot produce true happiness [the beatitudes], it’s by grace alone and by the Holy Spirit working in and through us that happiness is produced in the Christian.

There is this temptation to look at the beatitudes and see natural qualities in people and make a connection between the natural man’s temperament and the characteristics of the beatitudes. i.e. some people display a natural humility, or meekness…some people tend to mourn and be merciful, there are some who are natural peacemakers and the temptation is to say, “look at that person’s temperament, they have characteristics of the beatitudes.” But that is not the case at all…this is why the look at the whole of their meaning is so important before we move into the individual attitudes.

There has been some who have made this a sort of social gospel sermon…and that’s not it at all, in fact those who believe that don’t understand the gospel at all. Let me illustrate it this way, you may find a person who doesn’t claim to be a Christian, denies the Christian faith, denies Jesus’ sacrifice upon the cross for their sin, yet displays humility, meekness, mercy, peacefulness better than many Christians. They may be an absolutely wonderful person, nice, polite, never says harsh words to others, yet denies the Christian faith all together…if we viewed the beatitudes as characteristics displayed by a person’s natural temperament, we could easily be confused to say, “well, maybe they’re a Christian but just don’t know it?” You see the problem there?

Some people are born aggressive, some quiet, some alert and fiery, some slower and patient, these are simply biological and physical and have nothing to do with the spiritual. You may be a kind of person who naturally has difficulty showing mercy or being humble. Peter was a type A personality, he was aggressive and assertive, yet when Jesus called Peter to follow him how did Peter respond, “he fell to his knees and said, depart from me Lord, I am a sinful man.” That was not like Peter, but when faced with the Holiness of Jesus, Peter suddenly had spiritual eyes and became poor in spirit. Peter thought he was happy in himself, but when face to face with the savior he saw his true need for true blessedness, true happiness.

You see the beautiful thing is not only are Christians meant to be happy, they can be happy by the grace of God. We can be truly happy by God’s amazing grace, Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, John Newton the slave trader wrote, after coming face to face with the Holiness of God. He saw his depravity and need for a savior and Jesus changed him and he became a champion to abolish slavery in England. Friends that same happiness can be ours in Jesus Christ alone.

One more observation of the beatitudes...

Happiness shows us the difference between the Christian and the non-Christian

This is the thing that should really concern us, and I’d say it’s the most important thing to consider in the sermon on the mount. This is not just a description of what a man does; the real point is this is the difference between the Christian and the non-Christian. The NT regards that as something absolutely basic and fundamental. The first and essential need of the church is the understanding of this essential difference.

But, this has become blurred in our day…the world has come into the church and the church has become worldly. This line is not as distinct as it once was. Paul Washer said, “the idea that a person can be so heavenly-minded that they are no earthly good is wrong…it’s has always been the most heavenly minded that have been the most earthly good.” The glory of the gospel is that when the church is absolutely different from the world, she invariably attracts it.

We’ve been told and many have bought into it that the church has to make itself attractive to the man outside, the idea of seeker friendly service or to try to look as much like the world as possible so you don’t frighten people and they’ll feel more comfortable to come to church. But history has shown us, that that isn’t what draws people to the gospel, you may draw crowds to a show, but you want draw people to Christ if the theatrics are what’s on display and not the glorious gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We see this in churches today, that look more like a rock concert than a worship service, and I like loud music…but when the experience, or the entertainment is what’s on display and the message of the gospel of hope is secondary…then we’ve missed the point. You can stir emotions with a beautiful song at the right time, but friends we don’t need our emotions stirred we need our lives changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ! And when the church is displaying compassion in times of unrest, perseverance in times of persecution, love in times of hate…the world looks and says… “what is that?” “what is going on there?” and friends I do think we need to improve on this greatly! The church only needs to remember this... Jesus is the great attractor of men.

This is true of individual Christians as well as the church as a whole. Christians should not try to be as much like everyone else as possible, only Christian…rather the Christian should be different from everyone who is not Christian.

The Christians ambition should be to be like Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. It goes without saying that the more like Christ we become the more unlike ever body who is not a Christian we become. Not in pride, we’ll touch more on that with the first beatitude, but in humility we bow before the king. The idea is, as a Christian, this world may be where we live, but it is not our home…we, as Christians belong to a different kingdom, a heavenly kingdom, we are as Peter put it in 1 Peter 2:11, we are strangers and pilgrims in this world…awaiting the day of the Lord.

The essential difference between the Christian and the non-Christian is the non-Christian or the man of the world is very confident in their own capacity, “I can do anything.” The Christian, the man of God is the only one truly aware of his limitations…God I can’t do it, you’ve got to do it God. When I stand up to preach each Sunday, that’s my prayer, “God you got to do it…I know the mechanics of it, but I don’t what a mechanical message…you’ve got to do it!” Nothing I say can change a man’s heart…but God can.

The beatitudes and the entire sermon on the mount displays, more than anywhere else in the bible, the difference between the believer and the non-believer. Christian, we belong to a different kingdom…notice the beatitudes they begin and end with what??? “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” There’s the difference…as Christians, our lives, our speech, our actions should display kingdom lives, kingdom speech, kingdom actions…there’s more I could say but we’ll stop there for now…but I want to end with some questions for your consideration.

Do you see it? Do you see what Jesus is saying in the beatitudes? If you do, the vital question is,

Do you belong to the kingdom?

Are you ruled by Christ?

Is He your King and your Lord? If you said yes then...

Are you demonstrating these qualities in your daily life?

Is it your ambition to do so?

Do you see that this is what we are meant to be?

Are you truly blessed?

Are you truly happy?

Let every one of us examine himself. If you feel that you are unworthy, yet want to be like what Jesus portrays for us, guess what??? You have new life in you, you’re a child of God, you’re a citizen of heaven, and a son of God. Friends I started this series last week with my desire for us in this series…and that we would be changed. Let us pray…Lord change me, that I might know true happiness…happiness is found only in You! Amen.