Kingdom Life: The Truly Blessed Life (Mt 5:1-6)
Introduction
When you think of the blessed life or happy life, what comes to mind? For most everyone in this world, including Christians, its hard not to think of someone who has everything they need who is getting to live their passions. They have lots of friends around them and no worry or fear of the future.
This morning we get to hear how our Lord defines the blessed or happy life. We get to see heaven’s perspective on this mysterious life we live.
We’re walking through the Gospel of Matthew early in the life of our church because of how it so clearly shows us that Jesus is the Messianic King bringing the kingdom of heaven to earth and giving all who follow him a way into that kingdom. So, we need to know this king intimately and set our hope on him daily. But also, we need to know the way of the king. We’re teaching this book, and particularly chapters 5-7, known as the sermon on the mount, because it carefully captures Jesus’s teaching on what life in the kingdom looks like. If you want to know God’s heart, what pleases him, look no further than these famous words we dive into this morning.
Last week we saw Jesus begin calling his first disciples. His objective is clear from the start. He wants them to come follow him as his disciples so that he could make them “fishers of men”. They were called to an apprenticeship with Jesus, and being trained to do as Jesus did. But also, he wanted them to think like he thought. He wanted them to see the world as he saw it and understand God’s heart in the matters of life. So, we’re told he taught them.
Discipleship As Learning
Look at verse 1 with me:
1 Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2 And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:
Notice that while Jesus is aware of the crowds and wants to teach the crowds, his primary audience is his disciples.
This was the common understanding of what discipleship looked like in that time. A disciple was one who learned from a teacher. The word disciple is from the Greek word μαθητής, which is defined as “one who engages in learning through instruction from another. Other words for disciple are pupil, apprentice”. (BDAG)
To be a disciple or apprentice of Jesus is to learn from him his way of life.
Jesus doesn’t depart from this understanding of discipleship but teaches his disciples as a core priority of his ministry which is why we have so much of Jesus’s teaching recorded in the Gospels.
But why is teaching so crucial in discipleship?
Repenting of our worldly thinking
We need to remember that all of Jesus’s teaching was couched in a call to repent because the kingdom of heaven was at hand (4:17).
If someone came declaring that the kingdom was here and breaking in, you would be hanging on his words wanting to know when and how. You’d be asking what does that kingdom look like (John Noland, Gospel of Matthew)?
Additionally, if someone came saying “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” you’d want to know what repentance should look like, just as the crowds did at John the Baptist’s message. They said, “What should we do then?”
If Jesus came preaching repentance even to people trying diligently to follow God’s law, the appropriate question to ask is “what are we missing?” “What does God say about how we are living”?
Church, don’t forget this. We need to know that following Jesus, to be a disciple of Jesus, is to learn from him, how to walk and how to think. Repentance of our sins and our old way of life begins with repenting from our old way of thinking, from what we believed to be true about God, ourselves, and this world. In fact, the true definition of repentance is a change of mind.
What we think informs our beliefs and shapes our values and vision for our lives. At the core of our living is heart beliefs that have been shaped by various teachings, whether from parents or culture, peers or mentors.
So, if you believe Jesus is the one bringing heaven to earth, the one we all need, humanity’s rescue, we should hang on every word he says and be ready to repent of every idea or belief that doesn’t align with his. We need his truth. Not my truth. My truth is killing me and killing you and this world. The ideas that the world, the flesh, the devil feed us are keeping us from God and unfruitful in the kingdom. But Jesus brings truth that sets free and gives life and life abundantly.
That’s what Jesus wants to show us right from the start. He starts this teaching by explaining what the “blessed” or “happy life” truly is.
Verse 2 says, “he opened his mouth and taught them.” Those words, “he opened his mouth are a Semitic idiom that give a seriousness to the moment. It’s a saying that communicates “everyone stop what you’re doing and be quiet, he’s about to speak.”
The Blessed Life
So, let’s step into that un-amplified moment with Jesus and the crowds with his disciples pressed closely around him on that sunny hillside. I imagine birds are chirping, kids are making some noise and he opens his mouth to speak.
His first words are “blessed are…”
How does Jesus fill in the blank here? How does Jesus define the blessed life, the happy life? This matters to Jesus that we get this right.
Blessing
But if blessing is what we long for, what exactly is it? What does Jesus mean by this important word?
As you study the Greek word μακάριος, it can be defined from a human perspective as happy or fortunate based on circumstances. This is how most people today define this word, like we teased out earlier. But this word has much more spiritual connotations. It is often used in ancient literature to refer to angelic beings. They are the blessed because they constantly experience the favor and presence of God.
So, the more common use of this word is not based on one’s circumstances but on the transcendent perspective. Someone is happy or fortunate or favored because of God’s interaction with them, because of his favor in their lives. The blessed life is defined by God’s relationship with you. Blessing is about having God on your side.
Jesus is about to show the type of person who are the truly blessed based on God’s perspective. But it’s not just for the future, it’s a present reality. It’s blessing right here and right now. Even if someone in these categories doesn’t feel like the happy or truly blessed in life, Jesus wants a perspective shift for them. He wants them to know God’s perspective of true blessing now in relationship with God, even if God’s plans for them are for better. In other words, someone is blessed not just because of their circumstances (from their perspective), but even more because of God’s perspective, what God thinks of them, what his plan is for them. Someone is blessed now, or happy now when God says they are.
Let’s listen to how Jesus defines the blessed life:
English Standard Version Chapter 5
3 “Blessed [now] are…the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 “[Happy now] are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. 5 “[Good fortune now] to the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. 6 “[Truly blessed] are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Right from the jump these words are shocking because Jesus talks about life with a perspective that majorly contrasts what people believed to be true.
The four characteristics mentioned here: the poor in spirit, the mourning, the meek, those hungering for righteousness would never be categorized as being blessed. These would be seen as those under the curse or disapproval of God!
But even more, they would never be categorized as the ones who would inherit the earth and to whom belongs the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus hits people hard with God’s perspective on the world and I think every listener would have been even more locked in even if just in outrage. What is he saying?
For the poor in the crowd, the person who feels unworthy, the one who feels powerless, these words would have instantly brought a sense of hope. But for the accomplished, the spiritual elites, the one’s who feel like they are winning in life, it would have felt incredibly jarring. The though would cross their mind, “They’re blessed? No, I’m blessed. Heaven is for people like me. I’m sure I’m on the right path.”
Have you every asked someone if they died today if they think they would be in heaven? 9 out of 10 people you ask will say, yes, probably, because they’ve been a good person. That’s really another way of saying, “I’m blessed and I will be blessed”. God’s favor is on me and will be on me.
Or if you ever talk to someone about a death, almost nobody talks about someone as going anywhere other than heaven regardless of the life they led.
This I believe, is in part, because of a belief that this blessing word, that we all so desire, is on us. It’s ours. We’re living in it. This is also often a result of affluence.
But the kingdom of heaven looks at the kingdom of the earth and says, you rich and powerful don’t understand how pitiful you truly are because this stuff is your reward it is pitifully temporary and small. But the one who hungers, who is poor in spirit, the meek, these long for a Savior and it is these who are the truly happy, the truly favored.
God’s perspective is different than ours. He shows us his heart in these words. He shows us the kingdom of heaven and welcomes us to repent of our worldly perspective of happiness and success.
Aligning with God’s heart
What then does God favor? What does his heart desire according to Jesus?
English Standard Version Chapter 5
3 “Blessed [now] are…the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Keeping in mind all we’ve discussed about blessing, we need to understand why the “poor in spirit” affords God’s true blessing.
Poor In Spirit
Matthew 1–7: A Commentary on Matthew 1–7 Interpretation: Matthew
“…The “poor in spirit” are then “those who in regard to their inner lives stand before God as beggars … with the feeling of their inability to help themselves.”
The Gospel of Matthew B. Good News to the Poor in Spirit (5:3–10)
The poor in spirit will be those who sense the burden of their present (impoverished) state, and see it in terms of the absence of God; who patiently bear that state, but long for God to act on their behalf and decisively claim them again as his people. To people like this belongs the kingdom of heaven which has now drawn near.
Jesus is showing us the way into the kingdom of heaven.
He wants to show us the type of person his heart moves towards. It is the humble in heart with regards to God.
He wants to show us the heart posture that pleases him and gains his favor.
Fringe of his garment were healed. Such a good picture of someone poor in spirit.
The promise: open door to the kingdom of heaven.
This is most likely teaching that Jesus repeated in various settings on multiple occasions. Luke records a sermon on the plain with almost identical content, leading me to believe that Matthew may have had the opportunity to record these words with such precision because he heard them regularly and had opportunity to converse with Jesus about them.
Those Who Mourn
English Standard Version Chapter 5
4 “[Happy now] are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
What is it about the mourning that secures God’s blessing?
The promise: comfort.
The Meek
English Standard Version Chapter 5
5 “[Good fortune now] to the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
What is it about the meek?
Meekness is typically defined as mildness, gentleness, lowliness. This implies a powerlessness.
The promise: land.
Those Who Hunger and Thirst For Righteousness
English Standard Version Chapter 5
6 “[Truly blessed] are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
The Gospel of Matthew B. Good News to the Poor in Spirit (5:3–10)
‘Righteousness’ here has been variously taken as referring to (a) right (individual) behaviour, as doing what God requires; (b) a just social order as something to be worked for in the present; (c) a just social order as eschatologically achieved; (d) the vindication of God’s people; (e) the free gift of justification; or (f) something which combines human and divine activity: the human doing of God’s will and God working out his own saving purposes in grace and mercy.
The promise: satisfied with righteousness
Our heart posture before God
Is this who you are?
Do you identify with Jesus’s definition of blessed? Or does this grate at your definitions and identity?
In what ways do you think this teaching connecting with Jesus’s focus on loving and caring for the poor in Scripture? Being near the poor helps us connect with reality and God’s perspective.
“I don’t have much. But I have a heart that beats for you.” - Mission House