Who is Blessed?

Welcome/ Prayer/ Intro

Good Morning Church! How is everyone doing this morning? I am excited to talk about the Kingdom of God this morning!

We are continuing our “Serious Conversations with Jesus Series” Where we look at what Jesus did and said, with a serious commitment to understand, but to apply it to our own lives. Last week we were challenged by Jesus’ mission and challenged to think about how we interact with the world around us as Christians. Today, we are going to look at who Jesus says is blessed in the Kingdom of God.

Prayer- King of the Unseen Kingdom. Creator of the Universe, we come before you this morning in awe of your majesty. King Jesus you truly are alive among us this morning. Let us hear your words this morning as if you are speaking them today. Let our lives be transformed and our hearts captured once again by you beauty and grace. Open our hearts and eyes to see your Kingdom Come.

Intro- Tim Mackie- bible project - describes the beatitudes as a swimming pool on one level you they simple you get in and move around and you are wet. But then you start to ask deeper questions

What does it actually mean to blessed?

Who was Jesus actually talking to?

Why do the poor deserve the Kingdom?

What in the world does meek mean? Do people even use that word anymore?

Who can actually see God?

Are these promises for us today or proclamations made in the past?

One second your in the swimming pool getting wet and the next youre in over your head drowning in questions. These 9 blessings are not so simple after all and they speak volumes on what it actually means to follow Jesus!

Transition: This morning we are going to explore these 9 blessings that Jesus proclaims in Matthew 5 and reflect on how these blessings are still not only true, but challenge the way we live our lives today.

Walking Through the Text

Context: What is going on when Jesus gives this sermon? Where is it? Who is Jesus preaching to and why is it important for us to know?

Place: side of a mountain with plenty of open space with enough space for massive crowds to be gathered.

People: Do you ever wonder who was there that day? Well, it was not who you might have expected. It was the day laborers that didnt find work that day and the beggars, people that went job to job, the unemployed, the sinners, the people that didnt have a job to go to. Lowest on social ladder.

People in that society were considered trash. they could be used and abused they werent worth anything. These people even might have though of themselves this way.

Thats what makes these blessings so radical is Jesus is not saying this to people that “deserve” blessing or even gone to synagogue, but hundreds, maybe thousands of unimportant people

Blessing: What does it mean when Jesus says “Blessed” it is not a verb as in these people will be blessed or a identity of these are blessed, but a statement of reality, its more like “oh the blessedness of...” or “How blessed is...”

I.e. Its similar to what we see in Psalm 1, “Blessed is the one, who does not walk in the way of the wicked

It is a state of existence in relationship to God in which a person is blessed from God’s perspective.

If you would now turn in your bibles to Matthew 5 starting at verse 3, we will unpack these verses one blessing at a time and hopefully be more blessed by the end then we are right now!

Blessed are.... (Poor in Spirit, Mourn, Meek, Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness, Merciful, Pure in heart, Peacemakers, Persecuted, insulted)

Blessed are the Poor in Spirit (Slide)

What does poor mean here? Is it economic or spiritual?

Well if we look at the greek it is saying one thing, but we have to remember Jesus wasnt speaking in greek, What was he speaking in?

Greek Word: it doesnt just mean lacking wealth- it refers to the absolute and abject poverty, the kind of poor where you know what its like to go hungry, not knowing where you would get your next meal

Arimaic Word: a person who has no earthly resources whatsoever and depends on God to provide everything for them. This is the person that would pray, “give us our daily bread literally”.

Their reward: the Kingdom of Heaven- Since these people have absolutely nothing and depend on God for everything they are in perfect position for God to give them exactly that an immaterial kingdom not founded on wealth or accumulation. There is a profound yet simple beauty to that Amen?

Blessed are Those who Mourn.. (Slide)

Question: What are things that make us mourn?

Blessed are those who weep because of the broken and messed up world around them. We mourn because of loss and brokeness.

We mourn when we know that this isnt the way its supposed to be...

When someone looses a life-long spouse

When a child dies

When a friend is lost

When a relationship is broken we are mourn..

Jesus is saying that these people are blessed because they see a world that isnt the way its supposed to be and long for something better...

The Reward: Comfort- this is a promise that we can cling to in times of mourning for both personal mourning and global mourning. Knowing that God will bring us comfort and peace, but that God will also bring the world comfort and peace!

Blessed are the Meek for they will inherit the Earth (Slide)

Lets pause here: who has used the world meek in their vocabulary in the past year, raise your hand?

Brother Steve could you look up the definition of meek on Google for us?

Those are great definitions, but one i have come to appreciate is unimportant.

Meek are the ones are who are not focused on status or title.

This is completely upsidedown in Roman society, the meek are the dust of the earth, ones to be conquered trampled and destroyed.

Reward: Inherit the Earth (Psalm 37) In the kingdom of God its these ones that will inheret the Earth

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (Slide)

Question: When was the last time you were hungry and thirsty? Like a time when you couldnt immediatly satisfy those needs. Imagine feeling this way about righteousness!

righteousness is right relationship!

I.E. - to do right by someone- helping a neighbor in a time of need.

Imagine having this desire like you thirst for water and hunger for food but for every person to have right relationship with everyone

Reward: Satisfied, if you are that desperate to be in right relationship you will work your tail off for it.

Blessed are the Merciful for they will be shown Mercy (Slide)

Remember When we talk about Grace, Hebrew is Hein.

Grace is beautiful because it is an undeserved gift

it makes the one who extends it more beautiful to one who recieves. Its the same with Mercy.

Blessed are the pure in Heart for they will see God (Slide)

What does pure of heart mean?

Pure- un-mixed, undiluted untainted

One way we could look at this is having completly unmixed motives.

To be focused one thing in such a way that you have mastered it and you know it completely. The untrained eye will not be able to notice beyond the basic or rudimentary level.

if you send two people to look our at the stars one night one is an astrologer other is just an average joe. The astrologer would know so much more because his knowlege of his field has been untainted by other things.

Same thing if I went into a place that sold farm equipment my understanding and tims or gary’s would be entirely different.

Blessed are those with unmixed motives..

In religion our goal is to know God, if that is our only Goal then we will see him

yet, our faith can sometimes be diluted and mixed with other motivations

This blessing requires the most self-examination.

Blessed are the Peacemakers for they will be called the children of God (Slide)

Most of the time when we think about actually making peace between two parties it doesnt seem that fun. To get people to a place where they can understand each other.

Thats what Jesus calls us to do! Be reconcilers

We often think this means we need to be the ones to bring about world peace as Christians, but we become overwhelmed and we end up doing noting at all!

Peacemaking is the work of having and creating right relationships one step at a time.

if we would focus on being peacemakers in the relationships we do have in our lives we could change the world!

That’s what it means to be in God’s family

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness (Slide)

Because of desiring right relationship with others

NOT- stupidity or Sin, personal ideals or convictions- we in the west are not persecuted by a longshot, the church in the states has been challenged but not persecuted yet

In Jesus time conversion was costly

serve a different king when Ceasar was king of the world

Religion was different when temple sacrifice was a part of life- farming even!

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.. (Slide)

Blessed when you suffer because of me.. to suffer persecution was an opportunity to sow loyalty to Jesus

Example of Polycarp

The Gospel of Matthew, Volume 1 The Bliss of the Blood-Stained Way (Matthew 5:10–12 Contd)

One of the most famous of all the martyrs was Polycarp, the aged bishop of Smyrna. The mob dragged him to the tribunal of the Roman magistrate. He was given the inevitable choice—sacrifice to the godhead of Caesar or die. ‘Eighty and six years’, came the immortal reply, ‘have I served Christ, and he has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?’ So they brought him to the stake, and he prayed his last prayer: ‘O Lord God Almighty, the Father of thy well-beloved and ever-blessed Son, by whom we have received the knowledge of thee … I thank thee that thou hast graciously thought me worthy of this day and of this hour.’ Here was the supreme opportunity to demonstrate his loyalty to Jesus Christ.

Way of Christ is sacrificing and suffering- it connects us to our savior our reward!

The Beatitudes are powerful and profound they make us consider and reconsider what it means to be blessed in Gods sight. They paint a portatrait of the values of God’s Kingdom, but these 9 blessings create a picture too.

Application:

Picture of Jesus

We see a King- who was born in literal poverty and yet over and over again we see him depend on God for everything even to his death on a cross.

We see a man who wept for the brokeness of the World and wept with those who wept when reality wasnt what it was supposed to be (Think Mary and Martha when Lazarus dies.)

Creator made meek- a poor carpenters son from backwater nazareth. People literally said wheat Good can come from there!

We saw last week that part of Jesus’ mission was to restore right relationships between not just humans, but humans and God

Jesus is Mercy revealed!

Jesus kept a pure heart- he did what no man could- in that we saw God!

Jesus was the ultimate peacemaker

Yet he suffered the ultimate persecution.

In these blessings we see Jesus, we also see people of the Kingdom who look like him!

Beatitudes Challenge us to be those people Jesus says is blessed

Not a lets try this, but in the kingdom you will see these people

Begs the question: What changes do we need to make in our lives so that our lives look more like these blessings?

Challenge us to be with those Kind of People!

Jesus says these are the people who are blessed!

These are the people we should seek our and surround ourselves with!

Question: Think about the characteristics of those in your inner circles, are they people who are:

Poor in Spirit

Mourn for brokenness of the world

Meek

Hunger and thirst for right relationship?

Merciful

Pure in heart

Peacemakers

Close in Prayer!