YOU HAVE HEARD IT SAID Beatitudes Micah 6:1-8, I Corinthians 1:18-31, Matthew 5:1-12 February 4 & 5, 2017

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1 1 YOU HAVE HEARD IT SAID Beatitudes Micah 6:1-8, I Corinthians 1:18-31, Matthew 5:1-12 February 4 & 5, 2017 Today is the beginning of a new series entitled, You Have Heard It Said. Jesus took common sayings that had become common knowledge to the people of His day and added light to them. Many times He completely contradicts the popular consensus of what was thought as good and right and taught a new concept of what was good and right in God s eyes. So I want to lift up these comparisons of Jesus over the next few weeks in order to get us to begin to see the value of being different than what our own society deems as good and right, according to these teachings of Jesus. Now if you were to go to Universal Studios, either in Florida or in California, they will [more than likely] take you on a tour in a tram through their movie lots. In these movie lots you ll see western towns and modern-day types of towns where films are made. The tour guides will explain to you as you drive through that what you are looking at is a façade. The external [portion of the set] may look like it s a town or a city, but if you were to go on the other side, [the back side of that set], there s nothing there. There s no reality behind what you see. It looks good, but there s nothing else there. The lots are simply there to create an impression of a town or a city for the purpose of the film. Unfortunately today, much of what goes on in the lives of Christians is not a reflection of true blessings but more like a façade. Beyond the external, their lives have nothing solid on the other side. 1 It is not a true representation of the whole person, or the whole church on a larger scale. The work of the Lord to bless us goes much deeper than just the surface of our lives, but so often we live only on the surface and neglect to go deeper into how our God desires that we conduct our lives in the light of our world today. So I invite you to turn in your Bibles to Matthew 5 and we ll focus on the first 12 verses 1 (Tony Evans, Tony Evans Book of Illustrations, [Chicago, IL: Moody Publications, 2009] pg. 26, #44)

2 2 today. (READ Matthew 5:1-12) This is what is known as the Beatitudes, the blessings of God on those who conduct themselves according to His viewpoint. At first look you could easily say to yourselves, You ve got to be kidding? I have to do THIS to be blessed? You re out of your mind Pastor Warren! This won t get me anywhere in the world today! And you would be speaking correctly according to what you ve heard and learned from the teachings of our society. Everything here seems to be up-side-down compared to what our common culture says today. It doesn t take us too much time to see that we ve been taught completely opposite of these things in terms of how we become truly blessed. Yet it is not only possible but beneficial to live our lives in line with these blessings of Jesus. So let s go through them and see what Jesus is really teaching. To begin with, we see that Jesus has gone up into the mountainous region west of Lake Galilee and has probably found a fairly flat area where the people following Him can settle down for a while. This would give explanation for Matthew s use of Jesus going to teach on a mountain, and Luke s use of Jesus teaching on a plain. The plain would be a flat, level place in the midst of the mountains of Israel. It is here that Jesus begins to teach about how His followers are to live and conduct themselves. Now, something very important to look at is the use of the word Blessed. In our Bible translation in the pew Bibles we see the use of the word, Happy. The Greek word for blessed is makarios, and it usually describes the person who is singularly favored by God, and therefore [is] in some sense happy But the word for happy, which is eulogetos, is not found in Matthew Attempts to make makarios mean happy and eulogetos blessed are futile and will not do for the Beatitudes, having been devalued in modern usage. 2 Therefore I have broken with the use of the Good News Translation (GNT) of the pew Bibles on the projection, with that 2 (Frank E. Gaebelein, editor, The Expositor s Bible Commentary, vol. 8, [Regency Reference Library, 1984]pg.131)

3 3 of the New International (NIV) version. We re not talking about an inner feeling that is happiness, but rather a static condition referring to the whole person involved, blessed. Feelings of happiness come and go, but the condition of blessing remains constant. So Jesus begins by saying that it is the poor in spirit who are blessed. To be poor in spirit is not to lack courage but to acknowledge spiritual bankruptcy. It confesses one s unworthiness before God and utter dependence on Him. 3 Those who are self-assured, selfsufficient and self-satisfied are not the ones that inherit the kingdom of God, for they have no real need for God, since they are self made; but those who recognize that they by themselves can achieve nothing, they are the ones that are blessed. The kingdom of heaven is for those who have come to a point that they depend completely upon the goodness and love of God. To be poor in spirit is to understand that we have nothing to offer because of our own merits, so we turn to the Lord God and cry out for His mercy. It is the spiritually poor who receive the kingdom of heaven since they turn to the Messiah, Jesus, and live with the blessings that only He provides. And we begin to see that these beatitudes are really normal kingdom standards that followers of Jesus are called to live in while here on the earth. The second beatitude, blessed are those who mourn, goes right along with this concept of being spiritually bankrupt. The godly remnant of Jesus day wept because of the humiliation of Israel, but they understood that it comes from personal and corporate sins [So] it is not enough to acknowledge personal spiritual bankruptcy with a cold heart. Weeping for sins can be deeply [bitter] and can cover a global as well as personal view of sin and our participation in it. 4 So it is those who cry out desperately for the mercy of the Lord God who find God s comfort and forgiveness of those sins. It is not the self-righteous or the proud that seek God s mercy, for they have everything in control and have no need for forgiveness in their own eyes. It is those who 3 (Ibid., pg. 132) 4 (Ibid., pg. 133)

4 4 recognize the fact that they can only find forgiveness from the Lord, that find His comfort. Jesus third beatitude is really difficult today, because our world relates meekness with weakness. But that is far from what Jesus intends. To be meek in Jesus explanation is to be gentle and self-controlled. To be meek toward others implies freedom from malice and a vengeful spirit We may acknowledge our own [spiritual] bankruptcy (v. 3) and morn [for our sins] (v. 4), but to respond with meekness when others tell us of our bankruptcy is far harder. Meekness therefore requires such a true view about ourselves [that it] express itself even in our attitude toward others. And [it is] the meek not the strong, aggressive, harsh, or tyrannical [who] will inherit the earth. 5 Meekness is not thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, but rather thinking of ourselves with sober judgment (Rom. 12:3). We humbly see ourselves as ones in desperate need of a Savior to free us from our sins, and this allows us to receive eternal life as we claim Jesus Christ as the One who died for our sins. And that leads us to Jesus next beatitude, hunger and thirst for righteousness. These two words, hunger and thirst, give us a great description of the desire involved in pursuing righteousness. These people hunger and thirst, not only that they may be righteous, but that justice may be done everywhere. All unrighteousness grieves them and makes them homesick for the new heaven and earth the home of righteousness (2 Peter 3:13). Satisfied with neither personal righteousness alone nor social justice alone, they cry for both: in short, they long for the [coming] of the messianic kingdom. 6 These are not the self-righteous, doing things that make them righteous in their own eyes, but those who seek God s righteousness in both their own lives and in the society in which they live. They crave God s kingdom come, God s will be done on earth as it is in heaven, as the Lord s Prayer directs (Matthew 6:10). And only upon finding God s righteousness surrounding them are they satisfied. They seek it with all their heart 5 (Ibid., pg. 133) 6 (Ibid., pg. 134)

5 5 as much as anyone would seek to satisfy a raging hunger or thirst for their own bodies. You might be noticing that these beatitudes line up with each other and lead us into a greater devotion to God and to Jesus Christ. So blessed are the merciful is integrally involved in spiritual poverty, mourning for our sins, meekness, and hungering and thirsting for righteousness. Mercy embraces both forgiveness for the guilty and compassion for the suffering and needy. No particular object of the demanded mercy is specified, because mercy is to be a function of Jesus disciples, not of the particular situation that calls it forth This beatitude, too, is tied to the context. It is the meek who are also the merciful. For to be meek is to acknowledge to others that we are sinners; to be merciful is to have compassion on others, for they are sinners too. 7 The merciful offer no condemnation or judgment, no waging finger in the face of those who are guilty, because they also recognize that they are just as guilty and in need of forgiveness as anyone else. It is the merciful who themselves receive mercy. As one begins to read down the list of beatitudes, it is natural then for Jesus to lead us to being pure in heart. If we find ourselves dependent upon God for all things, we mourn the sins that separate us from the Lord God, we humble ourselves to become gentle with compassion toward others, we strive to seek God s righteousness with all our hearts and we treat others with dignity and mercy, the next move is to set our hearts on only the ways of God, pure from any hypocrisy. The one who is [pure in heart] is single-minded in contentment to the kingdom and its righteousness, [and] will be inwardly pure. Inward sham, deceit, and moral filth cannot coexist with sincere devotion to Christ The pure in heart will see God now with the eyes of faith, and finally in the dazzling brilliance [of heaven before] whose light no deceit can exist. 8 Jesus continues, moving right on to the next beatitude blessed are the peacemakers. In the light of the gospel, Jesus Himself is the supreme peacemaker, making peace between God 7 (Expositor s Bible Commentary, vol. 8, pg. 134) 8 (Ibid., pg. 135)

6 6 and man, and man and man. Our peacemaking will include the [proclamation] of that gospel. It must also extend to seek all kinds of reconciliation. Instead of delighting in division, bitterness, strife, or some petty divide-and-conquer mentality, disciples of Jesus delight to make peace wherever possible Those who undertake this work are acknowledged as God s heirs of the kingdom who, meek and poor in spirit, loving righteousness yet merciful, are especially equipped for peacemaking and so reflect something of their heavenly Father s character It is no accident that Jesus should pass from peacemaking to persecution, for the world enjoys its cherished hates and prejudices so much that the peacemaker is not always welcome. Opposition is a normal mark of being a disciple of Jesus, as normal as hungering for righteousness or being merciful. 9 It is the peacemakers who receive the kingdom of God. So Jesus concludes these beatitudes by making a personal challenge to each of His followers, even to today. If we are diligently seeking after Him, we are to follow Jesus with such righteousness that we become VERY DIFFERENT than the rest of the world in how we think, act and speak. And since we will be different than the rest, it will come about that the world will turn against us BECAUSE OF JESUS LIVING IN US AND THROUGH US. So Jesus tells us that when the world turns against us, we are blessed because it demonstrates that we are no longer living according to the ways of this world, but are now living according to the ways of God. So WHEN persecution and ridicule and false stories about us happen, we are to be grateful for the chance to be like the prophets who lived before us. It demonstrates our allegiance to Jesus Christ is being lived before a world in such need of Christ-like witnesses. It is my encouragement, then, that you strive to become blessed in all you do as you seek to live according to these beatitudes, for they are God s desire for each of us. Live faithfully and true, to the One who first lived them for us, and then for those around us who need to see the difference that Jesus makes in all those who follow Him; in Jesus name. AMEN. 9 (Expositor s Bible Commentary, vol. 8 pg. 135)