The Beatitudes Part 1 - January 3, 2016 As we enter this new year, I would like to share some messages from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount as recorded in Matthew 5, focusing particularly upon the Beatitudes. These Beatitudes, found in the opening verses of chapter five, are an introduction to the larger Sermon as recorded in chapters five, six and seven. While there are some differing interpretations by various theologians, I believe the beatitudes are essentially a description by Jesus of the qualities that He intends to cultivate in each of His followers as He transforms us through His Holy Spirit. Indeed, one way that we could understand the Beatitudes is that they are His call on our lives to participate in His holiness so that, in part, we may be His salt and light in this earth. I would like to consider the first four of these beatitudes today, and then the remainder next week. For those of you who might want to undertake a more in-depth study of this entire three chapters in Matthew, I recommend Martin Lloyd-Jones' The Sermon on the Mount, and Dallas Willard's The Divine Conspiracy. Both are well worth the read. I would also encourage you to spend some time in Matthew 5, 6 and 7 in your own devotional time over the next couple of weeks as we share these messages. Indeed, Jesus' Sermon on the Mount is considered one of the most profound discourses ever spoken and has life-changing ramifications for each of us. Please pray with me. "Father, would You penetrate our hearts this morning with Your word, and do so in a way that will inspire us to go deeper in realizing Your calling upon our lives. In Christ we pray. Amen." Let us consider some introductory observations about these Beatitudes: First, The word "beatitude" pertains to a state of blessedness of the highest kind -- of consummate bliss. Thus, the Beatitudes are a description by Christ of qualities He wants to cultivate in all of His followers for their ultimate good and His glory. Second, None of these qualities has anything to do with natural human temperament or ability. They are possible only by the gracious, transforming power of the Holy Spirit. Third, as we shall discover, Jesus did not speak these Beatitudes randomly, but they are stated in a specific order where one logically follows the other. Fourth, Because they are entirely a function of grace, they represent the substantial difference between the spiritually born-again believer and the non-christian. Fifth, It follows that the Christian and non-christian belong to two, completely different realms. For the Christian, the Beatitudes describe "the kingdom of God in your hearts and among you... for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" (Lk 17:2; Rom 14:17-18). This is the inner, qualitative reality of the Kingdom rather than a material reality.
Sixth, As followers of Christ, we are to grow in these beatitudinal qualities as we pursue Christ by grace-enabled faith, cooperating and remaining engaged with the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit as a life-long process. Over the centuries, a common mistake by many sincere Christians has been to strive in their own ability attempting to attain to the qualities described in the Beatitudes in order to enter into a state of perfection and blessedness. Both Lloyd-Jones and Willard emphasize that the "Sermon on the Mount," including the Beatitudes, is certainly not to be approached with this mindset. Lloyd-Jones observes: our human tendency is to rely upon ourselves to successfully practice religion in a manner that will please God. The "Sermon on the Mount" comes to us and says, "There is the mountain that you have to scale, the heights you have to climb; and the first thing you must realize as you look at that mountain which you are told you must ascend, is that you cannot do it, that you are utterly incapable in and of yourself, and that any attempt to do it in your own strength is proof positive that you have not understood it." As we consider the Beatitudes, we must understand that while Christ calls us to grow in their substance, they can be realized only through the Holy Spirit's gracious dealing in our lives. No where do we better make this point than in the first beatitude as we read in verse 3: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. As we consider this phrase "the poor in spirit," we must not take it to mean physical poverty. Indeed, there have been those throughout the centuries who have withdrawn into religious orders and taken vows of material poverty in attempting to attain to this beatitude. But this is, I believe, a terribly mistaken understanding of what Jesus means to be poor in spirit. I believe Jesus is here speaking of our recognizing that as finite, sin-contaminated beings, there is literally nothing that commends us to God. As the apostle Paul observed, I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the wishing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not... I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Rom. 7:18, 23 I have underlined the word "nothing," because it is the basis for the doctrine we call total depravity. The Belgic Confession, adopted by many of the reformed churches in Belgium and Holland in the 1500's, puts it like this: We believe that by the disobedience of Adam original sin has spread throughout the whole human race. It is a corruption of the entire nature of man. Isaiah puts it in these terms: For we have all become like one who is unclean... and all our righteousness (our best deeds of rightness and justice) is like filthy rags or a polluted garment; we all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away [far from God's favor, hurrying us toward destruction]. Isa 64:6 AMP While in today's popular culture this is not a politically correct view of human nature, it is the emphatic teaching of God's word. Without exception, each of us is contaminated at the core of our being with an inherent self-centeredness that makes even our "good works" to be rooted in the principal of human self-reliance. The world places great emphasis on self-reliance, self-confidence and self-expression. But this puts us utterly at odds with what God intended in terms of His creature being God-centered rather than self-centered. So, we could say that being poor in spirit is akin to an absence of self-reliant pride. Lloyd-Jones observes: [This beatitude] at once condemns every idea of the Sermon on
the Mount which thinks of it in terms of something that you and I can do ourselves, something that you and I can carry out... This is the starting point for all the other Beatitudes -- they are grounded in this first principle. You cannot fill the vessel which is partly filled already with old wine, until the old wine has been poured out. Martin Lloyd-Jones We as sinners will not receive the grace of God until we are convicted of our poverty of spirit, recognizing our utter sinfulness and need for the grace of God. Thus, Blessed (happy--with life-joy and satisfaction in God's favor and salvation) are the poor in spirit (those who know their utter need for God), for theirs is the inner, qualitative reality of the kingdom of heaven -- righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit! Matt 5:3 AMP; Rom. 14:17 This brings us to the second beatitude: Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Matt 5:4 This seems quite a paradox, as stated in the Amplified Translation: Blessed and enviably, blissfully happy are those who are deeply sorrowful.... How can one be blissfully happy and at the same time deeply sorrowful? I believe the answer flows out of the first beatitude -- our becoming poor in spirit: that is, as we come to comprehend our sinful brokenness before God, we then mourn and experience a deep sorrow for the reality of our sin. This is essential for our salvation, for Paul writes: the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation.... 2 Cor 7:10 This is an unpopular concept today. In much of contemporary Christianity, there is what Lloyd-Jones calls a defective doctrine of sin... and a [corresponding] shallow idea of joy, working together, of necessity produce a superficial kind of [Christian] person.... Thus, it is only when one comes face to face with the black, decaying stench of his sin that he deeply mourns its reality and falls on his face, crying out to God with Paul, Wretched man that I am, who will set me free from the body of this death? Rom. 7:24 Only such a man or woman will have a passionate sense of his need to radically repent in order to embrace Christ and His gracious forgiveness. But we must not stop at this point of merely looking to God for forgiveness. For later in this "Sermon on the Mount" we see a radical statement by Jesus that has everything to do with this second beatitude: For I say to you, that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. Matt 5:20 For the scribes and Pharisees, right standing with God was all about their outward adherence to God's moral law: "don't do this sinful thing, on the one hand, and make sure to keep this good work, on the other." Their attitude was that as long as they outwardly and technically adhered to God's Law, they were doing well. We might say that this is the characteristic of all forms of institutional religion. But Jesus exposed this hypocrisy by likening them to whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Matt 23:27-28 That is, the problem for these institutional religious leaders was that it was all about outward form and appearance. They were not poor in spirit, and, therefore, they did not mourn the reality of their inward sinful condition. We could say it like this: when we become poor in spirit and see the ugly reality of our sinful nature, we will deeply mourn it, because we will become acutely aware that while it may represent short-term pleasure and satisfaction, all sin ultimately results in death.
For many of us, we may tend to be more like the Pharisees than we realize. Like them, as long as we live a respectable religious life -- attending church, performing religious functions, living respectable moral lives -- we may tend to feel fine about ourselves. But in stark contrast, when we smell the decaying stench of our sin for what it actually is, we will not be satisfied with merely outward religious form, and we will be disgusted with our rotten, self-centered attitudes. We will not be inclined to trifle with sin, but will desire by the Spirit [to put] to death the deeds of the flesh... in order that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. Rom 8:13, 4 Mourning our sinful state takes us from institutional, outward religion into the substance of what it means to be yoked relationally with Christ, crying out to Him to renew our lives from the inside out. Thus, we could say that the man who is poor in spirit and who deeply mourns the reality of his sin, is the man who is in a position to receive the grace and mercy of God in all its depth and wonder. This same man is motivated to fling away the works and deeds of darkness and put on the [full] armor of light [and to] clothe himself with the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for [indulging] the flesh... to stop thinking about the evil cravings of his physical nature] to [gratify its] lusts. Rom 13:12, 14 AMP That is, one's attitude will not be that sin is a pleasurable indulgence that he has to forsake because of his religious duty, but that sin in any form is something ultimately cancerous that he desperately wants Christ to deliver Him from because it reeks of death. Many who struggle with on-going sin do so because they have not fully seen sin's disastrous effects; thus, they are not passionately motivated to forsake certain sins that they are holding onto. But, Jesus says, there is something far better: Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted [with a blissful happiness produced by the experience of God's favor and... the revelation of His matchless grace! Matt 5:4 AMP/Paraphrase May God help us to see the ugly reality of sin's effects within us, that we would mourn it to the point of passionately seeking to forsake it with Christ's help! Being poor in spirit and mourning the reality of one's sinful condition leads us to the third beatitude: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Matt. 5:5 While some think of meekness as a natural human temperament of being mild-mannered, Vines states that it is an inwrought grace of the soul that tempers us to accept God's dealings with us as good, without disputing or resisting Him no matter how difficult those dealings may be; it is closely linked with the word "humility" -- it is only the humble heart which is also the meek, and which, as such, does not fight against God [or] contend with Him. This is in stark contrast to the spirit of this world, where men and women put their selfagenda at the forefront and then assert themselves to advance and protect their egocentered "best interests." The philosopher Nietzsche, for example, advocated "the will to power," by claiming that asserting one's willpower and taking control of one's destiny, even if it meant stepping on others, represented one's highest good. But our [Lord Jesus Christ], who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant... Phil 2:6-7 Furthermore, though He was God the Son, His attitude was I can do nothing on My own initiative. John 5:30 Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner. John 5:19 The example
of our Lord is one of utter meekness through submitting His life entirely to God the Father rather than relying upon His own initiative and ability. Thus, flowing out of our becoming poor in spirit and mourning our sin, we could further say that meekness is an attitude of utter reliance upon God and His sovereign will rather than any trust placed upon human self-assertiveness and ability. In other words, Apart from Him I can do nothing. John 15:5 And, whoever puts himself forward shall be abased; and he that humbles himself shall be exalted. Luke 14:11 As Vines states, the qualitative substance of meekness comes from God as a gracious work in our hearts as we Take His yoke upon us, and learn of Him, for He is meek and lowly in heart.... Matt. 11:29 I would emphasize that we do not attain to this quality through human effort, but it must come through God's dealing in our lives. An example of this is the man Moses, [who] was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth. Num 12:3 Please understand that Moses was meek because of the sovereign dealings of God in his life, which included having to flee Egypt as a fugitive and then serving as an obscure "nobody" for 40 years in the wilderness. Or we see this principle of God's sovereign work in the life of Peter, who as a type A personality, proclaimed to Jesus: "Lord, with You I am ready to go both to prison and to death! I will lay down my life for you!" Luke 22:33; John 13:38 Yet, shortly thereafter, when accused of being a follower of Jesus, Peter began to curse and swear, "I do not know the man!" And immediately a cock crowed. And Peter remembered the word which Jesus had said, "Before a cock crows, you will deny Me three times." And he went out and wept bitterly. Matt 26:74-75 After this experience, Peter was largely broken of any confidence in his own self-ability. While he probably remained a type A, assertive personality with strong leadership gifts, he nevertheless was now largely a meek type A personality who did not put any confidence in the flesh. Indeed, this was not through his self-effort, but through God's sovereignly using his failures and circumstances to produce this quality of meekness. It is ironic, too, that the meek shall inherit the earth. That is, it is not the grasping, ambitious mindset of ego-centered individuals who strive to gain status along with the riches of the world, but ultimately it is the meek who shall inherit all of this wealth as they learn to humbly submit their lives to God's good and sovereign will over their everyday circumstances. Indeed, Blessed (with life-joy in God's favor, regardless of their outward conditions) are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth! Matt 5:5 Let's draw to a close with a brief consideration of the fourth beatitude: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Matt 5:6 We are well-taught in this church that in Christ, we are made to be legally in right standing with God. By [God's] doing we are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption.... 1 Cor 1:30 This is the doctrine of legal justification that is the foundation of our salvation. But I believe this beatitude speaks to something far more organic and heart oriented than mere legal standing with God. Flowing out of being poor in spirit and mourning the depth of the sin that separates us from God, this beatitude means deeply desiring
restoration of the intimate communion and fellowship with the Lover of our souls for which we were originally created. It is to have the passionate longing that one lover has for the other. The Psalmist writes of this deep desire of the soul: As the hart pants after the water brooks, so pants my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God? Deep calls unto deep.... Ps 42:1-2, 7 This, dear brethren, is the radical departure from institutional religion, on the one hand, into the heartbeat of authentic Christianity, on the other. We could say that the progression we see in the Beatitudes is one from our realization of our utter need for God's grace into a desire to participate in the holiness of God. And holiness is not to be viewed as a pursuit of human perfection or of technical adherence to religious standards; rather, it is the brilliance of the beauty of God's righteous Being refracted in and through us as we hunger and thirst for intimate relationship with Him. The Psalmist writes: One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in his temple. Ps 27:4 True religion is seeing God for who He actually is, being caught up in the beauty of His Being, and deeply desiring to be rightly related with Him in intimacy of spirit. Lloyd-Jones writes: The man who hungers and thirsts after righteousness is the man who sees that sin and rebellion have separated him from the face of God and longs to get back into... the original relationship... in the presence of God... to be free from the power of sin... to be positively holy, even as God Himself is holy (1 Peter1:16).... It means that one's supreme desire in life is to know God and to be in fellowship with Him, to walk with God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in [His holy] light. This, dear brethren, is not dutiful religion, but organic relationship with the lover of our souls. This is what we see in the first four beatitudes. Where are you this morning, whether as a young or old believer? Is your Christianity more of a religious formalism and dutiful adherence to standards than it is a vital relationship with the Lover of your soul? And what do you do if you find that your desire is stale and your Christianity insipid at this point? How do you turn around years of neglect or being merely lukewarm? I believe the answer is simple: Respond to God's tugging at your heart by crying out for His help, and them purpose to repent and to take practical steps to reorder your priorities to make the pursuit of Christ your highest priority. To obtain this, "all the fitness He requires is to see your need of Him," nothing more. When you and I know our need, this hunger and starvation, this death that is within our old nature, then God will fill us. "Him that cometh to Me, I will in no wise cast out!" John 6:37 Blessed, then, are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled -- engorged in abundance to the point of joyous overflow! Matt 5:6 May this be our purposeful heart priority for the new year!