Kingdom Mindset: Matthew 5:1-12
Notes
Transcript
CIT: Jesus starts his sermon with an explanation of how someone enters theKingdom of God and how his Kingdom citizens must live.
CIT: Jesus starts his sermon with an explanation of how someone enters theKingdom of God and how his Kingdom citizens must live.
The Beatitudes must be manifested in the life of every Christian
The Beatitudes are not natural manifestations
The Beatitudes are manifested in Christians by God’s grace alone
The Beatitudes show that Christians and non-Christians belong to two different Kingdoms
The Beatitudes must be manifested in the life of every Christian
The Beatitudes must be manifested in the life of every Christian
This is Jesus’s description of what every Christian should look like.
This is not merely a description of the Hudson Taylors, Charles Spurgeons, Mitch Evans, Justin Moreheads of this world; it is a description of every christian. We are all of us meant to conform to its pattern and to rise up to its standard.
- Martin Lloyd Jones
We do not pick and choose Beatitudes to manifest
What do each of these Beatitudes truly look like?
Poor in spirit = recognition that we have nothing to offer God, that our righteousness is like filthy rags
Mourn = mourning over our sin, others sin, sin that plagues the world
Meek = to be humble and willing to serve in light of Christ
Hunger and thirst for righteousness = a desperate desire to have the righteousness of Christ
Merciful = to withhold just punishment
Pure in heart = commitment to the righteousness of the Kingdom of God through pure living
Peacemakers = make peace wherever and whenever possible
Persecuted for righteousness = when the world hates you for living and loving like Jesus
We cannot separate these qualities, though in our still broken world we won’t always fully live out all of these, you cannot be a person that is just merciful and not a meek. you cannot hunger and thirst for righteousness without being a peacemaker. Adn if you are really living all of these out you are going to be persecuted.
When the Beatitudes are manifested in the life of a Christian, it confirms their faith.
James understood this so much that his theology was built on it!
What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.
The Beatitudes are not natural manifestations
The Beatitudes are not natural manifestations
We are not born with the Beatitudes, we are born in sin.
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Non-Christians do not desire the Beatitudes, they desire sin
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
as it is written:
“None is righteous, no, not one;
no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.”
“Their throat is an open grave;
they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of asps is under their lips.”
“Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood;
in their paths are ruin and misery,
and the way of peace they have not known.”
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
The Beatitudes are not personality traits, they are wrought in us through the Spirit by grace alone
Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.
The Beatitudes are manifested in Christians by God’s grace alone
The Beatitudes are manifested in Christians by God’s grace alone
God redeems us so that we may manifest the Beatitudes
Ephesians 2:4–10 (ESV)
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
God loves to give grace and mercy so that we may be blessed
A compassionate doctor has traveled deep into the jungle to provide medical care to a primitive tribe afflicted with a contagious disease. He has had his medical equipment flown in. He has correctly diagnosed the problem, and the antibiotics are prepared and available. He is independantly wealthy and has no need of any kind of financial compensation. But as he seeks to provide care, the afflicted refuse. They want to take care of themselves. They want to heal of their own terms. Finally, a few brave young men step forward to receive the care being freely provided.
What does the doctor feel?
Joy!
His joy increases to the degree that the sick come to him for help and healing. It’s the whole reason he came.
“Gentle and Lowly” Dane Ortlund
Jesus came to give us grace and mercy by dying on the cross to take away our sins in return for his righteousness so that we can live a life shaped by his perfect description here in Matthew 5:1-12. Why did he do this? So that we may be blessed. why does he want to bless us? Because he loves us.
The Beatitudes show that Christians and non-Christians belong to two different Kingdoms
The Beatitudes show that Christians and non-Christians belong to two different Kingdoms
The first and eighth Beatitudes have the same reward
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
This means that Christians are fundamentally different from non-christians
But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,
Only those in God’s Kingdom are truly blessed
Only those in the Kingdom of God have the pleasure of living in light of God’s commands and thus the pleasure of receiving true blessing from God.
These Beatitudes, though at first glance may appear to be hard depressing standards are actually blessings.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Martin Lloyd Jones helps summarize how we should respond to this passage with this...
But if only those in God’s Kingdom are truly blessed we must ask ourselves, “Do we belong to his Kingdom? Are we ruled by Christ? Is He our King and Lord? Are we manifesting these qualities in our daily lives? Is it our ambition to do so? do we see that this is what we are meant to be? Are we truly blessed? Are we happy? Have we been truly fulfilled in this life by looking to the life to come?
My immediate reaction to a clear presentation of these Beatitudes proclaims exactly what I am. If they feel harsh and hard, against the grain of who I am and depict a lifestyle which I dislike, then I am afraid it mean that I am not a Christian.
But if I feel that I am unworthy and yet I want to be like that, well however I may be, if this is me desire, my ambition, there must be new life in me, I must be a child of God, a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Let everyone examine themselves.
Let us examine ourselves as we sing that it is only through Christ that these Beatitudes may be made manifest.