Blessed are the Pure in Heart, the Peacemaker, those Persecuted for Righteousness

Sermon: FCC Marianna 1-30-2022 The Beatitudes - "Blessed are the pure in heart, the peacemaker, and those persecuted for righteousness" Scripture: Matthew 5:8-12 Today we continue our survey through Matthew 5-7, the Sermon on the Mount. Remember, surveying the Scriptures is the idea of digging into the Word, examining what ends up in our hands, then sifting through it to find the nuggets of truth and wisdom that the Holy Spirit is sharing, and storing those things away for further examination later on. The Sermon on the Mount is divided into distinct parts: * the Beatitudes * the Believers' impact on the world * the Believers rejection of old teaching and practices * Jesus' calling to the Listener. Today we wrap up this first section of the Sermon on the Mount: the Beatitudes. Today we continue our examination of what it means to be a Beatitude man. Remember, being a Beatitude man means that we live in such a way that these characteristics, these attributes of Jesus that He also wants to see in us, are clearly evident in us! We live so that we are clear reflections, clear representation, of Jesus! No one should be able to look at us, we who claim the discipleship of Christ, and wonder at where our lives belong. They should be able to look at us in the very worst circumstances and see poor in spirit, meek, merciful, hungry for righteousness, and say "Yep, that one is surrendered to Jesus." There is a reason that Jesus gives us this list of attributes of His to reflect. Read Matthew 5:8-12 here: Pray here! Main point: The Beatitudes are the recipe, the equation, that adds up to who Jesus is. He has written out the equation so that we can follow it and be a reflection of who He is. We no longer have any excuse as to why we, if we are authentically going to be His disciples, that we would not develop these attributes that He has given us to follow. Jesus wants you and I, as we surrender our lives to His Lordship and as we begin to grow everyday toward God's holiness, to become better reflections of who He is, because we are the image of Christ to the world! The Jesus that they will come to know is the Jesus that they will see in you and me! We see this reflected in 2 Corinthians 2:14-15: "But thanks be to God, who always puts us on display in Christ and through us spreads the aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. For to God we are the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing." We also see it in Paul's letter to the church at Colossae: "I have become its servant, according to God's administration that was given to me for you, to make God's message fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to His saints. God wanted to make known among the Gentiles the glorious wealth of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We proclaim Him, warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ." (Col. 1:25-28) We are the proclamation of Christ to the world! What image, what fragrance, of Jesus are people receiving when they examine your life? Today, as we wrap up this first section of the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, with the last three of these characteristics of Jesus, remember the important point that we've been covering over these last several weeks: if we desire to be good, growing disciples of Jesus who are effective in growing the Kingdom of God, we must master these characteristics! We must become clear, purposeful reflections of Jesus and following this list is the way to accomplish this! Point #1 Blessed are the pure in heart. They will see God. A pure-hearted person is one whose motives are unmixed, whose thoughts are holy, and whose conscience is clear. The Greek word for pure here has a variety of meanings, but the basic meaning here is unmixed, unadulterated, or purged. The word is used to describe cleanliness, like when describing a soiled garment that has been washed clean. It can also be used to describe corn that has been husked and cleansed of any chaff. In the same way, it can describe gold that has been refined in the fire and all impurities removed. And it can be used to describe a group or organization that has been purged of all discontented troublemakers or those who are divisive. It is the term used to describe the cathartic health that comes after removing the old, unhealthy, toxic thing that was causing sickness or death, like a tumor being removed. So, a more apt translation of the verse could be: Blessed is the man whose thoughts are fixed on God's purpose and whose motives have been completely cleansed, and are now completely unmixed and have been purged of any falsehood. -This Beatitude comes with the inherent question built into it: why are you doing what you are doing? If you are striving to be a disciple of Jesus, volunteering in the church, striving after God's holiness, etc, what is your motive? Are you doing it for some kind of personal gain? For recognition from others? For power or authority of some kind? Simply to keep yourself out of hell? If you are doing this Christian life for any reason other than because you want to honor the God who has saved your soul, because you want to be a good reflection of Jesus, and because you want to show others how to be disciples for the Kingdom of Heaven, as well, then your motives are not pure in heart. If you're serious about being a disciple of Jesus, about being a Beatitude man, then you need to be self-examining regularly to make sure that your motives are pure. It's not as simply as asking whether or not your motives were pure when you first made the decision or whether your motives were pure yesterday or this morning, but you've got to make sure that your heart is pure all the time! Part of putting the old self behind you and putting on Jesus as the new self is making sure that the motives that you have guiding you are the motives of the new self and not the motives of the old self. If the motives of the old self ever pop back up and begin taking control, then it is time for course correction. Just as being poor in spirit is the culmination of all of these characteristics of Jesus and so we can say that no one will stand beside God in eternity who is not poor in spirit because they will lack the surrendering heart necessary to surrender to Jesus, so we can also say the same thing about this Beatitude. To sit in eternity with Jesus, you must have the purity of heart that manifests correct motives, because being led by old self motives will quickly move you away from God's path and purpose for you. Point #2 Blessed are the peacemakers. They will be called Sons of God. Peacemakers- it is important to understand what Jesus is talking about in this Beatitude. The Hebrews have a very powerful idea behind the word for peace. The Hebrew word for peace, Shalom, is used in both greeting and parting; it is a blessing that is never used with a negative inference, meaning that it never means simply the absence of trouble, as if you might say "I hope you don't find trouble as you leave here." Shalom also never refers to those with a peaceful disposition or those who are simply non-combative or laisse faire, whatever happens happens. Rather, Jesus is referring to the Hebrew idea of peace that means "Everything for your highest good." When used in a greeting or parting, it is saying to someone "I pray that you will find the highest good possible as you go out from this place." When the Jews use Shalom as a greeting, they are not saying "I hope our time together is without trouble." They are instead saying, "I pray that because of our time together you will find and experience your highest good and blessings." So, this is a specific idea of peace that Jesus is referring to here. But it is also important to understand that Jesus does not refer here to peacekeepers or peace lovers, but rather to peace MAKERS. We disciples are not called to be a peacekeeping force- a superficial show of force that seeks to not rock the boat and has no authority to engage the enemy; peacekeepers can only use defensive measures, never take the fight to the enemy. This is absolutely a terrible, ineffective way to spread the Gospel or grow the Kingdom of God. This kind of seems counterintuitive, right? We are told in 1 Thess. 5:13 to "Be at peace among yourselves." and in Romans 12:18 "If possible on your part, live at peace with everyone." We are instructed as followers of Jesus to be peaceful. But this Beatitude doesn't change that command; it simply clarifies it. There is as much difference between a peacekeeper and a peacemaker as there is between a peacekeeper and a warmonger. The peacekeeper mindset is the one that acknowledges that people need to hear the Good News of salvation, but then refuses to say anything about the sins that separate them from God because talking about sin might offend them. Peacekeeping misunderstands our mission. We are here to make disciples for Jesus, the most counter-cultural religious figure of history, the one who rocked the boat because it needed to be rocked, the one who spoke the truth whether it offended or not. Consider in John 2, Jesus sat down in the temple, the holiest location in Israel and in Judaism, and crafted a whip, which He then used to drive out the money changers and those who were sinning; the priests had allowed the sinful behavior to take place, even encouraged it, but Jesus came in and made a scene because a scene needed to be made! Peacemakers are here, not to worry about rocking the boat because we don't want to offend or drive people away, but to take the fight to the enemy, to intervene in the situations that are separating people from God, and to make disciples- in order to make peace. Peacemakers seek to take positive action toward creating peace, even if it means taking abuse from others. It is using your God-given strength and power, your meekness- strength under control- to make the peace happen and THEN to keep the peace! It is the Bible-inspired foreign affairs policy of Ronald Reagan- "Peace through strength." Or of Theodore Roosevelt- "Speak softly, and carry a big stick." Peacemakers speak the hard truths of the Gospel, even when uncomfortable, not because they wish to offend or to bash someone over the head with it, but because it is the responsible, needed action and because no one will ever find peace with God without hearing it. [Example: It is the same as the officer on the deck of the ship who sees someone drowning in the sea and being faced with the decision of whether they will throw the life preserver to them. Is giving them the needed tools to find life and salvation forcing something on them? What if they don't even see the danger they are in? What if they seem to be perfectly fine, perfectly happy with their situation? Even if they refuse to grab ahold of the life preserver, even if they get upset at me for forcing my belief on them, isn't it still my job to throw it to them? Peacemakers confront the falsehoods of the enemy, because I am called to more than just keeping the peace, to more than just making sure the boat doesn't rock, more than just keeping people happy and comfortable- we are called to rescue those who are drowning in their sins- and that will take rocking the boat quite a bit. Peacemakers will be called the Sons of God. This is not a reflection of the status of our salvation; this is not saying that you lose your salvation if you struggle with being a peacemaker- we gain salvation only through Christ's redemptive sacrifice and we our held in God's grace that is poured out on us. Rather, this is referring to the special place of honor that peacemakers- those after God's own heart- will have within the family of God, as well as the blessing and responsibility within the Kingdom that peacemakers will be given. This is the purpose God has called us to and when we are faithful to it, then God will bless us with more responsibility and opportunities to make peace. Point #3: Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness and because of Jesus. Theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Some people, for whatever reason, separate verse ten from verses eleven and twelve, making two separate Beatitudes. It doesn't make any sense to me to say that blessed when persecuted for righteousness and persecuted for the name of Jesus are two separate things. If you are persecuted because of the righteousness found in you, then the persecution is because of Jesus working in you. Either way, you are persecuted because of your commitment to Christ, so I keep them combined as one Beatitude. As you remember from last week, righteousness is more than just decency or morality- it is literally being a copy of Jesus and being a good reflection of our good God and the grace He offers. Very rarely will someone persecute someone for simply being a decent, moral person- not saying it doesn't happen, but decent moral behavior is generally commendable. But for being a follower of Jesus? We know that it has happened over and over for the past two thousand years and will happen more and more as we see the day of Christ draws closer. Jesus tells us this Himself in John 15:18-19: "If the world hates you, understand that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. However, because you are not of this world, but I have chosen you out of it, the world hates you." Jesus knew that His disciples would be persecuted and mistreated because of their association with Him and their loyalty to Him. But the historical evidence for how the world has treated Christians is one of the biggest apologetics arguments for Christianity: so many Believers have died defending their faith, defending Jesus' deity; they would not have so freely given up their lives if Jesus was not authentic or the whole of Christianity was some kind of sham or trick. It seems odd, I know, for us to think about the blessing of being hurt or being discriminated against simply because of our faith- it definitely goes against our American sense of fairness- but this Beatitude, along with the church throughout the centuries, considers it a high honor to suffer for the one who suffered first for us! We struggle to see it from our place here in the post-modern west, but the early church considered it a glory to God to be able to follow in the blood-stained way of Jesus. If we could see it, we would see the wisdom of Paul in Philippians 1:21, where he states that "to live is Christ, but to die is gain." We are blessed, and God is glorified, when we are persecuted because of our faith in Christ- and especially when we stand well under the persecution. James 1:12 reminds us this way: "A man who endures trials is blessed, because when he passes the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him." Jesus, in Revelation 2:10, encourages us: "Don't be afraid of what you are about to suffer. Look, the devil is about to throw some of you in prison to test you, and you will have affliction for ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life." We know that persecution will come. How will you respond to it? How much will Christ be glorified by how you will respond to it? Or also, how many Believers of Jesus will find this characteristic of Christ, which He demonstrated faithfully on our behalf, of standing up faithfully for our faith in the face of persecution, will find in the hard moments of persecution that they are unwilling to live that much for Jesus? Standing up under persecution for Jesus is the final characteristic of the Beatitude man. Closing Question: What does this mean for you? We talked a couple of weeks ago about how you can't be a Beatitude man unless you take all the characteristics of Jesus as a whole- there is no a-la-carte menu. If you want to be a disciple of Jesus, you've got to embrace all of the Beatitudes, including the hard ones. So, what does a Beatitude man look like? What does this copy of Jesus look like? -Poor in spirit: a spirit of surrender; -Mourns appropriately & recognizes His own sin; -Meek: Power/ strength under control; -Hungry for righteousness: desires God's righteousness; -Merciful: cares for the helpless & forgives, values life; -Pure in Heart: focused on Jesus & has pure motives; -Peacemakers: makes peace, even if it rocks the boat; -Persecuted for righteousness: stands up for Jesus under persecution. It's a complete picture of what Jesus expects of us who would be His disciples. It won't be easy; nothing worth doing, let alone serving the God of the universe and the Savior of mankind, is ever easy, but it is worth it. And I know that it is the best thing that I could ever do and I know it has the biggest upside to any investment ever. Invitation: