Please take your seats and turn, if you will, in your copies of God's Word to Matthew 5.
! The passage that was read for us a few moments ago.
! The Sermon on the Mount.
The word sermon certainly has negative connotations today.
Certainly that's the case outside the church, but also increasingly inside the church as well.
You can attend lots of churches across this country that
say that they believe the Bible, are committed to the Bible, and are committed to sermons.
They don't like the Word, so they call them Bible talks or that kind of thing.
We say, you see, we're told at least that we don't like the format.
But a monologue delivered with instruction about what to do, delivered with authority.
We say that, and yet there has been an explosion across the world in the popularity of monologues,
delivered with authority, telling you how to do certain things.
From TED Talks, to podcasts, to vodcasts and vlogs and all those other things.
The entire product is a person speaking with authority, telling you what to do.
And people are signing up for this, left, right, and center.
In the corporate world, actually, people will pay thousands of pounds to have their preacher
of choice come and deliver their sermon.
I think part of the growth of that is an acknowledgement that we need help in order to live well in this
world.
The current trending topics on TED, how to rebuild a broken state, what makes a good life,
lessons from the longest study on happiness.
My podcast feed, recent podcasts, Unlocking the Science of Longevity, 19 Harsh Truths About Human Nature,
Italy's Forgotten Reformation.
That one's not so popular.
It didn't have so many downloads.
These and other themes downloaded thousands, even millions of times.
What makes a good life?
Lessons from the longest study on happiness.
Forty-five million people have watched that.
We're willing to listen because we know we don't have all the answers to living well in the world.
Now, there are voices everywhere.
With all of these voices around us, preaching the sermons that they have to offer.
How do we decide which speaker to listen to?
We decide, I think, on the basis of two categories.
The first is the credibility of the speaker.
And the second is the relevance of the topic.
We'll listen to somebody that we think has something important to say,
and we'll listen if we think that their topic has something important to say to us.
Now, there may be other reasons why we would listen, but these, I think, are the main ones.
So, as we turn to our passage this morning, to something as well known as the Sermon on the Mount,
there is a danger that we might think initially, well, we know what it says.
It's really familiar in the life of the church and also actually in our culture.
Judge not lest ye be judged.
You know, back in the 300 odd years ago, that's how people spoke.
Those kinds of phrases are part of discourse.
We think we know what it says.
Or, of course, you might be here this morning.
You're standing, as it were, looking into the Christian faith.
You're assessing what you think of it, and you don't care what it says, actually,
because it belongs to a religious world, and you're not really that interested in it.
But consider the speaker for a moment.
It's Jesus.
Okay, that might be enough for most of us, I suspect, this morning.
We know that Jesus is a good man to listen to.
But I want you to see that Matthew has actually taken time up to this point in his gospel
to establish Jesus' credibility in everything that he has said so far.
He could have actually started his gospel at chapter 5, verse 1.
Jesus sitting down to preach this sermon.
But he didn't do that.
We're five chapters in.
He started in chapter 1 by taking time to tell us about Jesus' birth
and how he is descended from King David.
In chapter 2, he's recognized by King Herod as a threat to his sovereignty.
And so he has to be taken away to safety.
Herod wants to get rid of him.
Chapter 3, when he's baptized, you remember that voice from heaven?
Declares him to be,
This is my son.
He is the Son of God.
But it is that title that was ascribed to the king in Psalm 2.
And then in chapter 4, he's gone into the wilderness.
He has overcome the assault of Satan.
And he has gained power to announce with certainty.
Chapter 4, verse 17.
If you just look over back a few verses,
he is God's king, bringing in God's kingdom.
And he can declare that with authority.
And then just in case we're not sure,
at the end of chapter 4,
he demonstrates his power over sickness and affliction
by healing anybody who came near
to prove that he's God's king
and he's worth following.
So can you see, as he speaks,
Matthew has taken time to demonstrate the credibility
of the one who is speaking.
He wants us to know that Jesus is God's king.
And our passage this morning, the Beatitudes,
it is bookended by references to the kingdom.
Do you see verse 3?
Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
And at the end, verse 9,
persecuted for righteousness sake,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Here is the king speaking about his kingdom.
His kingdom in the present
and his kingdom as it will extend into the future.
But he isn't just shown to be God's king.
5 verse 1, it's significant that he's on a mountain.
He goes up to a mountain.
Why has Matthew told us that?
Because mountains in the Bible are also significant.
You can trace it all the way through.
Mountains are where God and man meet.
It's where life-shaking,
earth-shaking things happen.
The most notable example,
Mount Sinai.
Moses receives the law from God
and is tasked with making God's Word known.
The early readers of this,
we are supposed to read this
and we're supposed to hear an echo of that.
Here is God's ministry of revelation
being given to his king.
God's king bringing God's revelation.
Will you listen?
Matthew is teeing it up so that we will say,
here's somebody we should listen to.
And I want to suggest to you that
whatever you believe,
this sermon is for you.
Have a look again at verse 1.
Seeing the crowds,
Jesus went up on the mountain
and when he sat down,
his disciples came to him.
Two groups of people.
Crowds and disciples.
This isn't just a pep talk for religious folk.
Whatever you believe this morning,
you are in one of those two groups.
You're either in the crowds,
looking on,
assessing what you make of Jesus,
but not yet committed to him.
Or you are a disciple.
You are someone who follows him.
I want you to see
that the Sermon on the Mount is for you.
Whoever you are,
whatever you believe,
wherever you've come from,
the Sermon on the Mount is for you.
But I want to suggest
that that's especially the case
when we consider the second category.
The second category
by where we assess
whether or not we listen,
and that is the relevance of the topic.
The relevance is repeated nine times
in those verses.
Now, later in the Sermon on the Mount,
Jesus will go on to speak
of issues of anger and lust
and divorce,
honesty, truth, money,
anxiety, and wisdom.
All very relevant.
Who doesn't need help in these areas?
We all do.
That's what drives
the self-help downloads.
That's why people listen.
He's speaking to these issues.
But the repeated word,
it's as plain as a nose in your face,
the repeated word is blessed.
Jesus starts the Sermon
talking about the blessing of God.
Now, I want to suggest
that there is nothing more relevant
to any of us than that.
This is something that we all of us long for.
This is something that in the deepest parts
of our being,
we desire to live in the favor
and acceptance of God.
And the reason for that is,
that is what we were made for.
That is why you were created,
to live in the love and the favor
and the acceptance of God.
The restlessness in your heart and mine
was made to find peace only
in one place,
and that is in relationship
with the God who made you.
Now, Christians have done a good job
of making the blessed word
sound a bit bland
or worse, perhaps a bit cliche.
Well, I was blessed.
That was a real blessing.
Oh, I'm blessed.
There was a time when hashtag blessed
was a thing in social media.
What that does is
it completely evacuates
the word of its substance.
Now, partly that overuse,
I mean, it's okay to use it
if you're feeling that, you know,
God has blessed you
in a particular way, of course,
that's the right language to use,
but it's important
that we don't just see it as a cliche.
Part of the reason, though,
why we've kind of got confused about it
is because the original word
in the Greek, makarios,
is hard to translate across to English
in a way that captures
the full sense of the word.
It has a breadth of meaning.
It can mean happy.
It can mean fortunate or favored.
And there's a sense of each of those here.
But if we bring together
how the word is used
all the way through the Bible
and its Hebrew equivalent
in the Old Testament,
with the context of the day
in which this gospel was written,
the Greek wisdom, virtue,
tradition of the day,
and we consider the future focus
that the sermon has,
the New Testament scholar
Jonathan Pennington argues
that the best translation
is flourishing.
Flourishing.
So I want to suggest
that what Jesus is doing
in this sermon
is holding out a vision
of the good life.
Here is the good life.
That is what those restless hearts
that we have are looking for.
Isn't that what the advertisers
are trying to sell us?
Isn't that why they spend
billions and billions of pounds
to try and project a vision
of something that their product
will give us,
the good life?
If you have this thing,
then you'll be happy.
Then you'll be blessed.
Next,
this morning,
God's King is our speaker
and He gives us both
a description of
and an invitation
into this life of flourishing
that characterizes
the kingdom of God.
Two points.
Point number one,
description,
a description of true flourishing.
Now, I don't know
how you've approached
the Beatitudes in the past.
Perhaps you've thought about them
as a standard to reach.
If I can become meek,
well then I'll inherit the earth.
It's a kind of ladder
from your repentance
all the way up to perfection.
You think you can do that
and you think that
that's the way you should
kind of aim to apply them
into your life
or perhaps more likely
if you're like me,
you'll see them
as an impossible standard
that you can't reach.
That would be the way
I would lean.
And then it leaves you in despair.
So you look at them
and you think,
if I can become meek
then I'll inherit the earth.
I'm going to get after that
and I'm definitely going to succeed.
Or you think,
if I can become meek
then I'll inherit the earth.
And you think,
I'll never become meek.
Oh, well, there's nothing here for me.
But the Beatitudes,
I want to suggest,
are not at first
statements of what we are to do.
They are a description
of what we are in Christ.
They are a description
of the character
of a true disciple.
They are a declaration,
if you like,
of our status
in this new kingdom
that Jesus has brought in.
Think of it like this.
Jesus is looking at you
and He's pointing
and He's saying,
flourishing.
Flourishing.
If you're in Christ,
He's saying,
this is the good life.
Now that's a shock,
isn't it?
It's a shock
because what He describes
as flourishing
isn't what we think
when the Word is mentioned.
Verse 3,
flourishing
are the poor in spirit.
Poor in spirit
isn't talking about
the state of our bank accounts.
It's talking about
poverty of spirit
in relation to
how you view yourself
and how you view God.
The confession of sin
that we used earlier
on page 3 of the handout,
I commend that to you.
Take that home,
stick it on your fridge,
and meditate on that
this week.
Those are great descriptions
of what these things mean.
Each of the Beatitudes.
I'm sure Paul came up
with that himself.
It looks like all his own work.
Those are good things
to meditate on.
Expand the descriptions
of what I'm talking about here.
But poverty of spirit
is about how you relate
in terms of your view
of yourself and of God.
It's a recognition
that we are dust.
And we're fully dependent
on others.
And ultimately,
fully dependent on God
for our existence.
Look, we like to think
of ourselves as self-sufficient.
What did it say?
We confessed it earlier.
We have been proud in spirit
and flitted with our own
self-sufficiency.
If there is a cardinal virtue
in 21st century Westernism,
it is...
Western culture,
Westernism,
is that a thing?
Anyway,
it is self-sufficiency.
Listen to any number
of those self-help downloads,
and they are all about
becoming strong in yourself
on the basis of thinking
more sort of positively
about things
or adopting particular ways
of life
so that you can present
in a way that is
more self-sufficient.
The one thing in life
that should take the feet
out from under us
on that thought
is thinking about sleep.
When you go to bed at night,
I know some of you
with little ones
would love to be able
to think about sleep.
You dream about sleep.
It's all you think about.
But if you think about
what's actually happening,
you have no control.
You close your eyes
and you trust yourself
to the sovereign care of God.
Sleep is an act of worship.
God keeps your heart going.
God gives you every breath
through the night.
You're not even aware
that it's happening.
And He's the one
that opens your eyes
in the morning
if they open.
Poverty of spirit
acknowledges that debt.
We are dependent
when we're little.
Boys and girls,
you're dependent
on your parents
for everything.
As we grow,
we're always dependent
on others.
And ultimately,
we're dependent
on our God.
Poverty of spirit
acknowledges that debt.
And it recognizes
even more than that
that it goes deeper.
The debt is deeper.
In fact,
it goes to the point
of bankruptcy
before God
because of our sin.
Here's the thing.
When we see others,
when we see ourselves
like that,
it changes the way
that we see others.
We don't look up.
We don't look down
because we're not proud.
Flourishing are the poor
in spirit.
Verse 4,
Flourishing are those
who mourn.
This isn't just a word
to the bereaved.
That wouldn't make sense
ultimately in the context.
But the background here
is Isaiah 61
where the people of God
are mourning.
They're mourning
over their sin
and the consequences
of that sin.
and they are longing
for the future
that God has promised them.
Christians don't pretend
that their lives
are all together.
Christians don't hide
from the consequences
of sin
or shift the blame
for those things
to other people.
We lean into repentance.
That's what it means
to be a Christian.
You are a repenting person
which in turn invites
the blessing of God.
Verse 5,
Flourishing are the meek.
This word is used
in Psalm 37
where the meek are those
who wait for the Lord
when times are hard.
In the midst of struggle,
we wait for You, Lord.
We look to You, Lord.
We don't try and take matters
into our own hands.
We accept God's providence
in the pain
and we look to Him.
Meekness is releasing
your grip
on your means
and your connections
and your self-sufficiency
and looking to God.
Jesus describes
those who are marked
by these traits
as flourishing.
It might not look like it
to others.
It might not always
feel like it to us.
But that is how Jesus
describes you
if you're in relationship
with Him.
And the reason for this
is seen in the second half
of each of those verses.
The first half of each
beatitude can't be separated
from the second.
The reason those who are
poor in spirit
are flourishing
is because they are
citizens of the kingdom.
The reason those who mourn
are flourishing
is because they enjoy
the comfort of God,
the nearness of His care,
and the certainty
of those things
in their fullness
on that future day
in glory.
The reason that the meek
are flourishing
is because they know
their place
before a holy God.
And however hard
things get,
they wait on His
good providence
knowing that one day
they will inherit
the earth.
What an inheritance!
And so it goes
with each of the Beatitudes.
When you look at all
that is not right
with the world
and you groan,
oh, come Lord Jesus.
When you see poverty
and injustice
on your news feed
and your heart
breaks another bit,
when you decide
in life
that you're going
to set aside
your ego
and submit yourself
to the providence
of God in your life,
you are flourishing
in His sight.
That is actually
what it looks like
to hunger and thirst
for righteousness.
To grieve
and mourn
over sin
in your own life
and in the world.
To submit your life
to God's providential care.
And to pray
and long
for that future day
in glory.
That is what it looks like
to hunger and thirst
for righteousness.
And so,
because of that,
as a citizen of the kingdom,
one day
you will be satisfied.
One day,
God's righteousness,
that day when God's righteousness
reigns in all things,
all your discontent
will vanish.
The pure in heart
will see God.
And the peacemakers
will be called
sons of God.
When you are
a citizen of the kingdom
through faith
in Jesus Christ,
these qualities,
these characteristics
will mark your life.
We want to see them grow.
We want to nurture them.
We want to cultivate them
by faith.
But they will mark your life.
And though,
we see it increasingly,
the culture will despise you.
Let's be honest.
Who looks at poverty of spirit?
Who looks at mourning over sin?
Who looks at pursuing
a pure heart
and thinks that you're
living your best life?
Who in our culture
goes yay
to all those things?
Very few.
So we're despised
for living like this.
But look again.
Even that
is a mark of flourishing.
Verse 10.
It's the one characteristic
that Jesus repeats
probably because
it's so hard to believe.
Blessed are those
who are persecuted
for righteousness' sake,
for theirs is
the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you
when others revile you
and persecute you
and utter all kinds
of evil against you
falsely on my account.
Rejoice
and be glad
for your reward
is great in heaven.
That looks like madness
to the world.
Jonathan Pennington
says this,
Is there any worse suffering
than being attacked
and slandered
and being cut off
from community
precisely when one
is innocent,
true,
and living according
to God's righteousness?
No.
Yet Jesus claims
this is true flourishing
because these are
the inheritors
of God's kingdom
and recipients
of a great reward.
Because of this
true promise,
those suffering
in this state
can actually rejoice
and be glad
and have a taste
of flourishing now.
Do you see how encouraging
and how strengthening
this is?
In the face of persecution,
you can rejoice.
Not just grit your teeth.
Not just,
oh, I've got to get through this.
But rejoice.
Rejoice.
At school,
when you get a hard time
from those around you
because you're a Christian.
When those in your class
laugh at you
and mock you
because of your Christian views.
Rejoice.
Smile.
Thank them for their assault.
When you get disciplined
and work because you won't
join in the great
pronoun delusion.
Or you're just going
about your business
perfectly happy
with the lanyard
that you always use.
And now you've been
called into a meeting
with HR.
Rejoice.
It sounds crazy.
But Jesus is saying,
and we need to remember this
in these days,
Jesus is saying
that in His economy,
a life lived
in the pursuit
of righteousness
is a flourishing,
blessed life.
This is what it means
for you to be
the person
that you were created to be.
Even in the struggle,
this is what it means
for you to be
the person
that God wants you
to be where you are
as you live
for the age to come.
So the Beatitudes
are a description
of true flourishing.
But they're not just that.
Their positioning
in the sermon
and the evocative way,
I suppose,
that they describe
the life of the kingdom,
it serves to draw us in.
We're supposed to
read these things
and to choose this life
and to pursue
and to grow
in these qualities
more and more.
They're there
to draw us in
to say,
come, come, come.
This is the good life.
So in that sense,
they serve as,
secondly,
point number two,
an invitation
into true flourishing.
If they, first of all,
are a description of it,
secondly,
they are an invitation
into true flourishing.
Jesus is calling us
into a way of life.
What He's doing,
He's showing us
a kingdom
where there is comfort,
an amazing inheritance,
satisfaction,
mercy,
and joy
in knowing
and seeing God.
It is a spectacular vision
of a life
that is good
in the truest sense
of the word.
Now, there is
a present aspect
to this.
You become a citizen
of God's kingdom
when you humble yourself
before Him,
when you put your faith
in His Son,
when you receive
His salvation.
At that point,
yours is the kingdom
of heaven.
At that point,
you see God
by faith.
In fact,
speaking of that
present experience,
Sinclair Ferguson,
he describes
his experience
of knowing
the peace of God
and then seeking
to be a peacemaker
himself.
He says this,
quote,
I frequently experience
this at the Lord's Supper.
I don't think
it's a strange
Scottish emotion,
but because at the Lord's Supper
we have these
physical expressions,
physical expressions
that through Jesus Christ
we have peace with God
and we've been reconciled
to Him.
What I would like to do
at the end of the service
is just to go around
the congregation
hugging everyone
and saying to them,
let's live in this peace.
If you have anything
against me,
pardon me.
If I have anything
against you,
I freely forgive you.
We have tasted this peace
and so we want to become
peacemakers.
I like that.
When we gather in worship,
as we do like this
this morning,
we do get a foretaste
of these things.
When we come to the Lord's
table in particular,
that sense of putting
right wrongs before we come,
that sense of being united
as one body,
we do taste those things.
And yet,
it will always have a sense
of feeling incomplete.
Because our full experience
of this flourishing,
your full experience
of your sonship,
lies in the future.
There is a tension
until Christ consummates
His kingdom
and sets the world
to rights.
And that's why
this point
is so important.
Because between now and then,
there is a struggle.
There is hardship
and persecution.
Verses 10 and 11.
Because these values
contrast sharply
with the values
of the world
that we live in.
I've said already,
our society encourages
self-promotion.
We are champions
of self-confidence.
We live in a culture
that is increasingly proud
and harsh
and ambitious
and self-serving.
And the invitation
into the kingdom
and to a life of flourishing
is an invitation
to self-denial.
Each of these traits,
each of these qualities
and characteristics
reflect the same
selfless attitude.
Indeed, there is something
of a flow.
Did you notice that
as you go through?
Blessed are the poor
in spirit.
As you see yourself
accurately before God,
what happens?
You mourn
for your sin.
It's part of why
the worship service
is organized
the way that it is.
We sing these songs
of the majesty
and the character
and the perfection
of God.
And what does that do?
It causes us
to see ourselves
as we truly are.
And so we move
to confess our sins.
We mourn
when we are poor
in spirit.
And as you mourn
for your sin,
there's a makeness
then
that grows up.
And a right makeness
is characterized
by a desire
to live a righteous life.
That's what happens,
isn't it?
When we mourn
over our sin,
we resolve
with God's help
to hunger
and thirst
for righteousness,
to live differently,
to put that sin
to death.
What then happens
is that knowing
in Christ
that we've been given
the righteousness
of God
as a gift,
we look at ourselves
and we think,
oh, there I go again.
I've failed again.
And Christ says,
you're righteous
in me.
I give this to you
as a gift.
God made Him
who had no sin
to be sin for us
so that in Him
we might become
the righteousness
of God.
When you know
that you've been given
that right standing
as a gift,
when you know
that you've experienced
His mercy,
it makes you
a merciful person
to others,
makes you one
who longs
to live
to please God.
That is,
gives you a pure heart.
Such a person
having given peace
with God
through Christ
will live,
will seek to live
at peace with others
and want others
to know this peace,
even those
who persecute them.
Here is the paradox
of the kingdom,
the path
of true flourishing.
is walked
in selflessness.
Get yourself
out of the way.
At home,
in your relationships,
in work,
get off the me train.
So difficult,
the culture is telling us
to go completely
the opposite way.
Live for yourself.
That's where
true flourishing lies.
Put yourself
at the center
of everything.
No!
That is the way
to dissatisfaction
and death.
Get yourself
out of the way.
And the more
that we embrace
this pattern
for our lives,
the more
we will flourish.
flourish.
And here's the reason
that we know this.
Because the most
fully human person
that has ever lived,
the most vivid
example of human
flourishing
that has ever been
was the one
who embodied
these beatitudes
perfectly.
The Lord Jesus Christ,
the one who was
gentle and lowly
in heart.
That's meekness.
The one who humbled
himself down
from heaven
to earth
in order to win
peace with God
for all
who would trust Him.
To live
like this
is to live
like Jesus.
And that is to live
therefore in the
epicenter
of the blessing
of God.
It is to live
life in all
its fullness.
But also,
inevitably,
it is to live
life in the
crosshairs
of persecution.
We've touched
on it already.
Belonging to Jesus
means that we
should expect
to suffer
as He did.
And the question
is,
are you prepared
for this?
Does your
Christian life
have a category
marked
obedience
no matter
what the cost?
Or a category
marked
conviction
no matter
what they
say?
This is where
the Beatitudes
end.
And on the one
hand,
it's the hardest
bit to stomach,
but on the other
hand,
I want us to see
that these verses
put steel in our
spine as we
seek to live
for Christ
in our day,
wherever He
has placed us.
When you're
misrepresented,
when you are
reviled,
when you're
lied about
because you
follow Christ,
you do not
need to worry.
It was this
way for the
prophets,
it was this
way for Christ
Himself,
and it will
be this
way for all
who will
flourish in
the sight
of God.
So rejoice.
When you
get a hard
time because
you say
or do
dumb
things,
don't rejoice.
Change
your behavior.
He's not
talking about
that.
But when you
get a hard
time from
your colleagues
or your
friends,
even your
family,
because you
are living
your life
for Jesus,
give the
burden of
it to
the Lord.
And remember
his verdict
on this
situation.
Blessed.
You're
flourishing.
He has
you where
he wants
you.
It's
okay.
And we
will only do
this if we
place our
happiness
beyond this
world.
If we
calibrate our
definition of
flourishing to
Christ's.
You know,
if we think
flourishing involves
having a
lifestyle that
our magazine
or the blog
or the
Instagram feed
of choice
preaches to
us about,
if we're
getting our
definition of
flourishing from
the sermons that
come to us
that way,
then joy will
always,
always elude
us.
It'll come
and it'll
go.
Because when
we get some
of it,
it won't
satisfy and
when trials
come,
they will
crush us.
Because we
think flourishing
is this
picture that's
normally always
made up.
But if we
see flourishing,
if we calibrate
our definition
of flourishing
to Christ's
as these
qualities of
the soul,
not as
external things
that we might
want to have,
but as
qualities of
the soul,
we can rejoice
whatever is
going on around
us.
However hard
it is,
when we lose
our job,
or our
health,
or our
reputation,
or anything
else,
we don't
get defensive,
we don't
get angry,
and we
don't despair,
we receive it
from the Lord
with confidence,
and we can
even have
joy in the
midst of the
pain because
we know it's
from God's
good hand,
and it's
always,
only temporary.
There will
be,
in a little
while,
comfort,
satisfaction.
We'll see
God,
and nothing
else will
matter.
let's
pray.
Let's
pray.
Our
Father,
and our
God,
we praise
you.
for the
Lord Jesus
Christ,
and the
life of
flourishing
that he
has purchased
for us.
And amidst
confliction that
we feel with
our sinful
hearts,
with a world
that is opposed
to you,
and with all
of the
struggles of
life in a
broken world,
God,
we thank
you that in
obedience to
Christ,
in union
with him,
we have a
life of
true flourishing.
Help us to
live in the
light of that
this week,
we pray,
because we
ask it in
Jesus'
name.
Amen.
Let's
sing.
The church
is