In a dozen different ways, we all hear:
If you want to make it,
you’re going to have to show me what you’ve got,
think positive,
stick up for yourself,
and make it happen.
But then we hear Jesus say:
On your worst day,
when you have nothing to offer,
are hopelessly sad,
feel too timid to stick up for yourself,
and you are completely aware of it…
you are blessed.
Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount begins with words of blessing to those who need to hear them most. Let’s hear them again, afresh.
Podcast: Download (Duration: 44:41 — 30.7MB)
Downloads
Notes Transcript Video Audio iTunes
Sermon Transcript
Grace Fellowship Church
Jon Stallsmith
Series: Kingdom Come: Sermon on the Mount
June 22, 2014
Receive
Matthew 5:1-12
If you have your Bibles, go ahead and open them up to Matthew, chapter 4. If you don’t have a Bible, slip up your hand and we will put one in your hand and you can follow along with us. Also, if you need a sheet to jot down some notes, you’re welcome to get one of those from our Bible cart crew.
We’re in the second week of our summer time together, a series called Kingdom Come. We’re going through the Sermon on the Mount. We’re calling this summer the “Summer on the Mount.” Our heart is that together we would just be with Jesus this summer, listening to his words and letting those words create new vistas and power and life in our souls, lives, and communities.
Last week we were looking at Matthew, chapter 4, and the prelude to the Sermon on the Mount, because Matthew sets the stage so beautifully for what Jesus is going to say in Matthew 5-7. As Matthew is setting the stage, he’s quoting from the book of Isaiah. He talks about how the people who were dwelling in darkness saw a great light. We talked about how that word dwelling in darkness literally means sitting or stuck in darkness.
Matthew is giving us a picture of the kingdom of this world, the way of life that is wrapped in darkness, where people just don’t know what to do or where to go, to the point they’re simply immobilized and the things they try to do come to nothing. Into that comes Jesus, the light, piercing the darkness, taking back that occupied territory that had belonged to God from the beginning.
Then he calls disciples to himself. He calls the first set of disciples from the Sea of Galilee, two bothers, Simon and Andrew, and then James and John, in a little account there at the end of Matthew 4. What Matthew wants us to see is that Jesus’ heart for his people who are seeing the light and on the journey from that kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God…that the way out of the one and into the other is through discipleship to Jesus, following Jesus, learning from Jesus to live the way he teaches, to live the way he lived, to live in the way of God.
Then we see in verse 23 it says, “Jesus went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.” (Matthew 4:23-25)
This is a picture of how the people, as Jesus is going about announcing the good news of the kingdom of God… Remember his central message: “Repent, the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” right there in Matthew 4, verse 17. As he’s going around announcing and displaying the kingdom, people are drawn to it. It’s good news to them. It echoes what most of them would have yearned for, what they had been hoping for from the book of Isaiah.
If you read the book of Isaiah, again and again, that prophet Isaiah reveals that the heart of God is to come and restore his people, to rescue his people, to bring healing to his people, to bring them out of exile and back into the life he has called them for. One of those verses many of us are familiar with is Isaiah 52, verse 7. Isaiah says, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.'” (Isaiah 52:7)
The people who had read the book of Isaiah and had waited on the fulfillment of the promises suddenly now are seeing Jesus walk throughout Galilee, and he’s bringing good news. The broken, the insane, the demon-possessed, and the sick are being healed. This is good news of happiness. Then Jesus is saying, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” He’s actually paraphrasing Isaiah there in Isaiah 52. “Your God reigns. The reign and rule of God, the kingdom of God, is breaking in.”
This is the prelude. This is the setup for the Sermon on the Mount. You’ll see, as we go into Matthew, chapter 5, verse 1… We’re just going to take this verse by verse this morning. You see in verse 1 the link from the crowds who are gathering to him from all over the land and who are being healed and who are listening and who are just so encouraged.
It says in verse 1, “Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.” (Matthew 5:1) That phrase he went up on the mountain echoes a story from the Old Testament that some of you guys might remember. After God had delivered the people from Egypt across the Red Sea, out of slavery and into freedom, they come to the foot of Mount Sinai.
There is this incredible scene where Moses, the leader of God’s people, is summoned up the mountain. He is in the presence of God, speaking with God, hearing from God, and God is giving him the Law. Remember, he comes down and he has the Ten Commandments. The people are worshiping the golden calf. There’s this sense that when it says Jesus went up on the mountain, people would have heard echoes of that story.
Moses went up on the mountain, went up into the presence of God, heard the Law of God, the way of life that God calls his people to live. Now here’s Jesus going up on the mountain, but this time he’s not going up into the presence of God by himself. This time it says he calls his disciples. His disciples came to him. He’s saying, “Come with me up the mountain into the presence of God. We all need to hear the counsel of God.”
There’s this question. Is Jesus speaking to just his disciples or is he speaking to all the crowds? Well, if we read this verse, “His disciples came to him,” we think, “Oh, well, maybe this Sermon on the Mount is delivered just to the Twelve, the guys who are really committed, the super disciples, the ones who dropped their nets, but all the hungry masses just stayed down.” But if you get to the end of the Sermon on the Mount, actually in Matthew, chapter 7, verse 28, it says the crowds were astonished at his teaching.
We get this sense that the disciples came to Jesus, but maybe these disciples are not just limited to the Twelve. Maybe these disciples who come to Jesus to hear his teaching up on the mountain, to be in the presence of God, are all of those who desire to follow Jesus. Because by the end of the sermon, there are crowds there, and they’re marveling. They’re wondering, “What has he just said? This is amazing. This is beautiful.”
Then in verse 2 it says, “He opened his mouth and taught them…” (Matthew 5:2) Notice what he doesn’t say. He doesn’t say, “Now turn in your Bibles to Matthew 5,” although he will quote Scripture throughout this whole Sermon on the Mount. He doesn’t say, “Everybody get your notes sheet out.” He doesn’t say, “Hey, I’ve prepared a little three-point outline. If you don’t mind, just pull that out, and I have some blanks for you about loving your enemies and not judging people.”
That’s not what he does, actually. He just begins to speak. Yet the way he is teaching is so profound and so connected to where those crowds are living, to where those disciples are hoping to see life break in… The way he’s teaching is so transformative they remember, even without having a text in front of them or a notebook or some spare parchment on which to take key points.
As Jesus teaches, he’s teaching to transform. Even at the end of this sermon, he doesn’t say, “Blessed are you if you know everything I’ve taught you.” He says, “Whoever hears my words and does them…” Not, “Whoever hears my words and thinks about them a lot and is able to regurgitate them on a test.” He says, “No, no. Whoever hears these words and does them is like the person who builds his house on a rock.”
Jesus’ heart is that the people who hear this actually put it into practice, that it would transform their lives, that the words he speaks would lodge in their hearts and in our hearts and give us fresh power to live in an entirely different way than we’ve been living up until this point. Jesus wants us to be transformed. He’s not so concerned that everyone takes notes, because he knows that when we’re changed, when stuff impacts our lives, when our lives are changed, we remember.
I mean, I remember details from my wedding day. That was a significant day for me and for Amy. That day changed my life in a beautiful way. When your life is changed, you just remember. How many of you guys remember exactly where you were on 9/11 when you found out? Probably most of us. Why? Because it changed our lives. So here’s Jesus, and he’s teaching in such a way that people’s lives are being changed as he speaks, and they just remember.
Now part of the reason it is so impactful in their lives is that it addresses one of the deepest human concerns, one of the deepest needs, one of the things we are all concerned with. The first word of this Sermon on the Mount is blessed. We’ll see there’s a sequence of eight of these that are called Beatitudes. The word beatitude means basically supreme blessings. He says, “Blessed, blessed, blessed.”
Part of the reason this sermon is so impactful is that he’s speaking right to one of the deepest yearnings of our hearts, which is to know what is a truly blessed life. What is a happy life? Who has a good life? How can we become happy? In fact, we know this is such an important question that we give this word its own unique pronunciation. I mean, nobody says, “When I got up and got ‘dress-ed’ this morning,” or “Well, I really ‘mess-ed’ that up.”
Somehow we know this is important. Bless-ed. This is the word Jesus begins this Sermon on the Mount with. What does it mean to be blessed? It’s interesting, because these days in most of our culture, we come up with a pretty quick list of what most people think it means to be blessed. You have enough money. You look a certain way. You have the right job. You have the right friends. You’re able to have the right leisure time and enjoyment, vacation. You get to golf a certain amount of time.
There are all sorts of measures, and none of those in and of themselves are bad measures. But what does it mean to be happy? Most of us today in our culture hear a message that says, “Happiness is feeling good about my situation, my life, and myself. I’m really happy when I’m good, all around me is good, and my life is good.”
The interesting thing is when they’ve done studies of happiness in people and have asked them, “What does it really mean to be happy in today’s culture?” one of the things they’ve found is that happiness is generally relying on comparison to others. It’s largely comparative. We become happy by comparing ourselves to others with less.
Another thing they found is that oftentimes we define happiness by the stuff we have. So our lives, our situations, everything around us… The happiness from that situation comes from what we possess. Then, as they’ve studied it more, they’ve found that the more stuff you accumulate beyond the basic necessities, the less happiness it brings. In other words, owning a yacht is not as awesome as we all think it is. (Though having a friend with a yacht could be pretty awesome. Just saying, if any of you are yachting this summer.)
There’s evidence to show that sometimes a lot of this sense of happiness, as we were defining it right now, comes out of genetic makeup. They’ve studied twins and how twins experience happiness in the world. People who are genetically wired to be more sociable, active, and conscientious typically tend to display more happiness.
This is another interesting thing. When they’ve surveyed and looked at happiness through life, they’ve found that happiness kind of starts fairly high in our lives. As little kids, often the majority of us are pretty happy people. Then it’s kind of a long slow descent, and they’ve found that the lowest point of happiness by age in people is the age of 44.
So if you’re about to celebrate your 44th birthday… That’s not a curse. It’s just like, “Hey, be aware of that.” It’s kind of like 5:15 or 5:30 in the afternoon, right before you eat dinner. There’s a high possibility you might be a little bit down. You just want to have some nuts and some protein, maybe a little sugar to help your blood sugar out. So if you’re about to turn 44…
Then they found after 44, in general (this is not everybody), there’s this sort of ascent toward the blissful end of our lives in happiness. This is interesting research about happiness. It’s even interesting to me that the secular world is so consumed with figuring out how happiness works. Is it a genetic thing? Is it something we can achieve? How do we actually become happy? Because it’s so important. We want to know, “What does it really mean to be happy?” Or even as Jesus is saying here in a deeper sense, “What does it really mean? Who is blessed?”
The great problem with the current prevailing cultural definition of happiness is that if my happiness depends on my situation, my life, my surroundings, well, pretty soon, whether it’s in my life or in the life of someone I know or it’s just something in the surroundings around us, we come face to face with the harsh reality that the world is terribly broken.
If our happiness hinges on everything being just so, well arranged, well managed, well fed, well kept, it’s impossible to maintain that in our world. You look around and there are people who are starving. There’s brokenness in our families, rebellion among our kids, waywardness in our own hearts. Suddenly, that sense of happiness becomes more and more difficult to maintain, because we’re building on a foundation that rests on a broken kingdom.
So here Jesus is saying, “Let me redefine for you what it means to be blessed.” If we think it’s hard to maintain a sense of external happiness these days because the world is a messed-up place… All you have to do is watch the news or look at your own life. We think it’s hard these days. At the time of Jesus, it was perhaps even harder.
The way the culture shook out in Jesus’ day is that about 80 percent of the people would have been part of the lowest sort of peasant class. They were people who were artisans, like carpenters, people who worked with their hands. They typically did not make a massive wage. They probably lived very close to subsistence.
A great chunk of them would have been tenant farmers, which means they didn’t own their own land. They farmed someone else’s land. They had to pay, actually. They had to rent the land in order to farm it. Then they were also taxed on top of that. The estimates are that roughly two-thirds of what any tenant farmer produced went straight out the door to taxes and tariffs and to paying for his land.
So out of everything he grows, he gets to keep one-third. He has to set aside some for seeds the following year. Then, whatever is left, that’s what he’s feeding his family with. How’s this family feeling happy based with their situation? I mean it’s pretty unjust. Then even lower than the tenant farmers in that strata of society would have been the unclean people, the people who raised pigs or participated in some sort of thing that would have made them ceremoniously unclean in the people of Israel.
Then even below that there was a sort of untouchable class, the people who were considered expendable, the people who were lepers, the people who were unemployed and unemployable, the people who were completely rejected from society. They guess that possibly 5 to 10 percent of everyone who lived in Israel fell into this miserable category of expendable.
So here’s Jesus, and he’s surrounded by great crowds. If 80 percent of the people of Israel were in this lower, peasant, eking-it-out existence, then we can safely say the majority of people who are around Jesus are people who are just barely making it. They’re just holding on. Of course, as we just read in Matthew 4, many of them, until just recently, had been incredibly sick, demon-possessed, epileptic, had suffered from seizures.
These are not the cream of the crop gathered around Jesus. These are not the people society would look at and say, “Hey, if you really want to get someone influential, pick that guy and that lady and that king.” These are just the crowds, barely making it. They’re looking around at their lives, and they’re going, “Man, I don’t know that I’m necessarily very happy.”
They hear this message that the kingdom of God is at hand. They hear that there is this guy walking around. He’s one of them. He’s actually a carpenter. He’s a rabbi, yet he’s so much more. And people are getting healed. Then Jesus sits down and begins to speak. He says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3)
When he uses that phrase poor in spirit, the specific word he uses is the word that referred to the expendable class of society, the homeless, the lepers, the people who were unemployed and unemployable, the people who had no way of supplying their own need. They were completely reliant on the help of others. Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.”
Now there’s something we need to understand about these Beatitudes, because oftentimes we misread them. Oftentimes, rather than being good news, we can read these Beatitudes, these blessings, and feel like we don’t measure up. We can often interpret them as though Jesus is saying, “Blessed are you if you’re poor in spirit.”
So we struggle and strain and exert effort to try to become more impoverished in spirit. That makes no sense at all based on the context of what Jesus is saying. He’s not telling us to try to be poorer. He’s not telling us to do something in order to become blessed. Remember, these are “beatitudes,” speaking to where people are. They’re not “do-atitudes.” They’re not things we have to do in order to be blessed.
This is Jesus looking at the crowd. Just think about this. In the ancient world, there were a couple of different ways you could talk about blessing. There are these sort of collections of sayings that begin this way: “Blessed are, blessed are, blessed are.” Some of these actually come from what they call instructional wisdom. You get some of this even in the Proverbs. You get some of this in the Old Testament. The idea is, “People who do this will become blessed.”
So in the ancient world, there were those sorts of lists, those sorts of statements. You can find them. They’re pretty common. You know, “If you’re this kind of person, then God will love you. If you’re this kind of person, then God will bless you.” Today we have similar phrases. We say, “Oh yeah, early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” It’s one of those phrases we use, and it’s sort of an instructional type of blessing. “Do this; then God will bless you.” There is even some of that in the Old Testament.
There’s another type of list in the literature around the time of Jesus, and this was in the apocalyptic literature. Apocalyptic is kind of an intimidating big word, but basically it just means applying to the end times when God sets things right. All sorts of people around the time of Jesus were trying to figure out what God was going to do to set things right.
So in these lists, there were lists of people who were blessed, and they’re basically the people who were in really rough situations, who were being oppressed, who were really poor, who couldn’t get their lives together. The message of these apocalyptic blessings was, “Just hold on, because God is going to fix everything soon.” It wasn’t any real hope in the moment; it was more, “Yeah, we know your life is tough right now, but someday God is going to come and fix everything.”
The interesting thing about what Jesus is beginning to do here with these Beatitudes is that he is neither giving instructional blessing lists nor is he giving us apocalyptic, “Hold on until the end” lists. What he’s actually doing is sitting on that mountain and looking at the people who have gathered around, and he sees one or maybe many who are poor in spirit, spiritual zeroes, with nothing to offer.
They don’t have a lot of the Bible memorized. They’re not leading a small group. They’re maybe not even thinking about God regularly. They might have just ended up in that crowd because they heard somebody got healed. They’re sitting there, and they’re the kind of people that in the hyper religious society of Jesus’ time everybody would have looked down on and said, “Pfft! That guy has nothing. There’s not a religious bone in his body. Excluded, impoverished, poor.”
Poor in spirit. When Jesus says that phrase poor in spirit, it entails both the spiritual component and the literal physicality of their poverty. In Luke, chapter 6, there’s a parallel beatitude. Jesus says this again in the sermon on the plain. This time he doesn’t say, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” He just says, “Blessed are you, poor.”
Here’s what’s happening. Jesus is looking out and saying, “No, no no. I’m not asking you to become poorer in spirit, and I’m not just telling you to hold on until God does something big and then everything is going to be okay. What I’m saying is that right now, you who are poor in spirit, who have nothing to offer, you who are broken down, you’re blessed and yours is the kingdom of heaven.”
“What? I thought it was the guy who was rich. I thought it was the family that had everything. I thought it was the people who were successful or had that job or that position or sent their kids to that school. I thought that was the person who was really blessed.” Jesus is saying, “Nope. Nope, it’s you right here. You are an example of the kind of person who is blessed.”
Why? Not because you have everything to offer. Not because you have anything to offer, but simply because the kingdom of God has come near and is available to you. The reign and rule of God is breaking in. It’s open, and even those who have nothing to offer, especially those who have nothing to offer, who are poor in spirit, theirs is the kingdom of heaven. See how this is a blessing? This is good news. This is light breaking into darkness.
Next Jesus says, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” (Matthew 5:4) Once again, he’s looking out and seeing people. Maybe he knows some of their stories. Maybe as he grew up in Nazareth or maybe when he was standing in Capernaum, he got to know some of them, and he looked and saw, “There’s that woman whose husband died. She feels like she has lost everything. She feels like the grinding pain of her loss is so overwhelming she will never experience the good life again.”
Jesus says, “Do you want to know what the kingdom is like? Those who mourn are comforted. The kingdom is available to you. There’s hope in your situation.” Why? Not because she has worked really hard at being mournful, not because she has moped around or anything else, but because the kingdom authentically breaks in at those low places.
Jesus then says, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5) Meekness. Should we try to be meek? Actually, this one comes right out of Psalm 37. You might want to make a note next to the verse in your Bible or on your notes or something. Psalm 37 is the story of the people who are basically too weak to stick up for themselves. It’s the story of the people who are being run over and abused, who are not assertive, who don’t throw their weight around, who kind of just get run over.
Psalm 37 says, “You meek, the people who are getting trodden down, you are the people who will inherit the earth.” He’s looking, and he’s probably seeing in that crowd people who are meek. He says, “You, the kingdom has come near to you.” The shy people, the timid people. Jesus is saying, “The powerful cannot keep you out this time.”
Then he says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” (Matthew 5:6) The people who live in such awareness that their world is messed up. That word righteousness actually could be interpreted as justice. A lot of times we read righteousness and think of an internal sense of holiness and purity.
That may be part of what Jesus is saying here, but he’s also saying those who hunger and thirst for justice, for the righteousness of God in their communities around them, those who look around and see how they have been worn down, squeezed out, who feel like their lives depend on God changing something. Hungering, thirsting…these are survival words.
He’s looking in that crowd, and he says, “I know some of you guys feel like, ‘When is God going to change things? When is stuff going to get set right? When is this injustice in my life going to be resolved?'” He says, “You’re blessed. Not if you do something, not if you change your behavior. Right now you’re blessed. Why? The kingdom is at hand.” He just keeps on going with these blessings.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” (Matthew 5:7) Merciful, the people who were taken advantage of, the people who have been conned or have gotten the shaft and didn’t fight back but just released it. In our world, we look at those people as weaklings. In their world, at Jesus’ time, those people who showed mercy…
“What fools! You have to get your pound of flesh back. If they hurt you, you hurt them. An eye for an eye.” Yet some refused to do it. Some people said, “Mercy. I’m not going to fight back.” Everybody looked at them and said, “You loser.” Jesus looked at them and said, “You are blessed.” On and on it goes.
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8) The ones who refuse to scheme. “You have to make it to the top. You have to scheme. You have to cheat. You have to lie. You have to steal.” The people who refuse to do that, who take a simple approach to life. Everybody looks at them and says, “Ha, you’re going to just keep getting taken advantage of all of your days.” Jesus says, “Nope, you who are pure in heart are going to see God.”
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” (Matthew 5:9) Peacemakers. You think it’s such a noble calling, but what you find is when you are an authentic peacemaker, you’re really on no one’s side. You’re caught in the cross fire. These people over here and these people over here are shooting back and forth, and you’re trying to bring them together into some sort of order or connection. Maybe you’ve had this experience in a family dispute. Unfortunately, these are fairly common.
A lot of times within families you have one side and the other side, and then sometimes there’s that peacemaker who feels like he or she is in the middle, responsible for fixing it. What ends up happening is that all of the barbs and bullets go through that peacemaker to get to the other person. Back and forth like that, and the person in the middle can just feel so unhappy as a peacemaker. Jesus says, “Nope, you’re blessed. You too are blessed. You’ll be called sons of God.”
Those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, those who are following God and everybody laughs at them for doing it. Society says, “That’s ridiculous. What a rotten way to live. Don’t you realize you’re foolish for thinking that? You believe that? I can’t believe it.” Jesus says, “You are also blessed. Yours is the kingdom of heaven. You get reviled and persecuted and people say false things about you. Rejoice and be glad. Your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
What we have to see as we read these Beatitudes is not a list of standards or ideals. Jesus isn’t saying, “Live up to this. Try a lot harder to be poor in spirit.” He’s saying, “Hey, some of you guys know you’re poor in spirit. The kingdom is available to you. Some of you guys know your hearts are sad; you’re mourning. The kingdom is available to you. It’s open. You have not missed out on your opportunity. Your life is not doomed to misery and unhappiness. It’s available.”
Who would be these people today? There is a phrase Dallas Willard uses to describe the people who are mentioned here in the Beatitudes. He says they’re the “hopeless blessables.” Who are the “hopeless blessables” today in Gwinnett County, in Atlanta, in the United States? Who are the people that if they gathered around Jesus in a crowd up in the presence of God, listening to him speak and teach…?
Who are the people he would look out and see and say, “Hey you, you’re blessed”? Who are those people, those who have access to the kingdom of God, not because they’re doing something special but because the kingdom is open, available? The kingdom of blessing is being released through Jesus.
I think Jesus would have said, “Blessed are you geeks. Blessed are you nerds. Blessed are you who take Star Wars way too seriously. Blessed are you wimps. Blessed are you who everyone calls a loser. Blessed are you who feel like a mess-up. Blessed are you who feel uncoordinated and no good at sports. Blessed are you who feel unlovely.”
How much emphasis is there in our world today on how you look, and how much pain exists in the hearts of men and women who feel like they don’t measure up? They can never be truly happy because they don’t look a certain way. Jesus, if he were here today, would look at you and say, “Blessed are you, even if you feel unlovely.”
Blessed are you who are anxious, the worriers, because the kingdom has come near. Blessed are you who are unemployed and feel like you’re never going to get another job. Blessed are you who are divorced. Especially in the church world we do this poorly. We treat people whose marriages have fallen apart for whatever reason as though they no longer have access to the kingdom or, if they do, they’re going to have to pay the price for it.
Do you know what Jesus would say? “Hey, blessed are you if you’re divorced. I know you don’t feel like it. I know you probably feel like you have a huge gaping wound in your heart, and maybe you do, but you’re blessed, because my kingdom has come near, and in my kingdom there’s healing for that. There’s restoration for that.”
Jesus will say some really powerful things about the importance of marriage as this sermon goes on, but his first word of the Sermon on the Mount is grace. It’s not “Do something.” It is “Recognize that God is doing something, that your hearts merely have to receive what he’s doing, and there are none of you who are outside of that reach of grace.”
Blessed are you who are homeless. Blessed are you who are sexually addicted. Blessed are you who are sexually frustrated. Blessed are you who are parents who feel like you’ve failed and you’re never going to be happy again. Blessed are you who are pregnant out of wedlock. Blessed are the dropouts, the failures, the mess-ups. Jesus is looking out at everybody with all of their junk, all of their mess, all of their spiritual poverty, all of the mistakes they’ve made, and he’s saying, “You’re blessed, you’re blessed, you’re blessed.”
Last night I was just reading. You know, I have had the privilege of being in this passage all week, so I’ve just been reading it, and it has been touching my heart so deeply. Last night I was doing the dishes after dinner, kind of thinking about these, because of course I had to preach this morning. I was thinking about your prayer requests, because we read these prayer requests every week.
So many of you are so vulnerable. Sometimes you don’t even put your names, but that’s okay. We still pray for you. I see the stuff that is breaking up your hearts. We pray for those needs, but I know that among us there are those who feel like they have nothing to offer. There are those who feel like they’ve messed it all up, that they’ll never be happy again. They feel like whatever it is they’re doing or have done is excluding them from the kingdom of God.
I’ve prayed with some of you. I’ve talked with some of you about the situations you’re going through, the hardships you’re facing. Sometimes the biggest barrier is right there, that heart level. “Does God really want to bless me? Is God punishing me? Is God on my side, or is he against me?” We’ll get into this more, but as I was thinking about all of those and all of this that Jesus is saying, releasing grace, “You’re blessed, you’re blessed,” I started to cry, just doing the dishes.
Amy was in there studying her nursing. She goes, “Are you okay?” I brokenly said, “Yes, I’m fine.” This blessing is so beautiful, so powerful. Jesus is not setting up a standard to which we will never attain. Jesus is saying, “That which you thought you could never attain…actual happiness, actual joy, actual blessedness…is available through me.” The blessing, the grace, is being released. Can you receive it?
In fact, if you study the teachings of Jesus, you see that kingdom of God is available to everyone. In fact, the only people who miss out on the kingdom are those who feel too good for it. Even those who reject Jesus do not reject him because he has made them feel unwelcome or unwanted. They’ve rejected him because they don’t want his kingdom. They’re not willing to enter in that kind of life.
Okay, that happens. But never, ever did anyone come to Jesus and he didn’t say, “You know, my kingdom can crash into your life. That place where you’re mourning, that place where you’re yearning, that place where you’re broken, that place where you have nothing to offer, actually qualifies you as a prime recipient of grace.
Just this January I was in Austin, Texas. I was teaching at some Perspectives courses with some churches there in Texas. I stayed with a host family, and they were hydrogeologists, which is an interesting profession. I was talking to them, and they studied the water table out in West Texas, you know, how much water is coming and going and everything else.
They were really concerned, because there hasn’t been a lot of rain out there, so the water tables are all going down lower and lower. Now the wells are beginning to go dry. It’s a seasonal thing and everything else. I was thinking about that this week, even as I was reading, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.”
Maybe you’re like me, and maybe there are times when you feel like the reservoirs, the aquifers, of spiritual capacity under the surface in your heart are pretty dry. You feel like you’re standing up on the surface and pumping that hand pump, just waiting for the water to come out. Your arm is getting tired, and you have nothing.
I feel that way sometimes. I felt that way this week: spiritually poor, with nothing to offer. The well has run dry. Here’s what Jesus is saying: “That’s okay. The rains will come. In my kingdom the rains come and that well gets refilled.” Blessed, blessed, blessed. The people you think are way out, excluded, who have messed it up so badly they could never be right with God again. Jesus is saying, “Actually, my kingdom has come specifically for you.”