Today we start our look at the Sermon on the Mount. And Jesus’ sermon is first of all a message to his disciples. It is not at first a word to the crowds but a word to Christ’s followers. It is thus Christ’s sermon for the church before it is a message for the world. The message is always given in the hearing of the world. Christ’s church is not a secret society, like the Masons, or Scientology. All of the church’s teachings are not ‘secrets’ but are on the public record. The world might not receive or understand them, but that is a different matter. There is no secret knowledge, no Gnosticism, but everyone has the same deposit, the faith once and for all delivered to the saints, to wrestle with and understand and indeed to defend and proclaim. But it is directed to the disciples, in the hearing of the crowds. Chapter 5 verse 1 and 2:
Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them. (NIV)
Jesus withdraws from the crowds to teach his disciples and speak specifically to them. So the message of the Sermon on the Mount is particularly for us, my brothers and sisters.
And likewise, the beatitudes, or the blessednesses, that Jesus declares, are first and foremost a word to the church, to Christ’s disciples.
The blessings Jesus bestows in the beatitude are not a personality test. They are not the ancient version of a Myers-Briggs Personality Test. It’s not that you run through to see which Beatitude applies to you. I’m a peacemaker, but not a mourner. I don’t show mercy very much, but I am poor in Spirit.
No, if you are a disciple, all of them apply to you. You have all of them, and bear fruit in all of them. They are like the fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). If you have the Spirit, you have each of the fruit, albeit in different measure. All of them, like the fruit of the Spirit, will be evident in each disciple. For all of them are different perspectives on being a disciple of Christ.
Disciples are Poor in Spirit
First, disciples are poor in Spirit. The poor are the powerless, without wealth or resources. But Jesus is not talking primarily about the materially poor, but the ‘poor in spirit’. Often they are materially poor also, but the important thing is they are powerless and afflicted.
Hannah is one of them. Hannah is poor and needy. It doesn’t mean she has no food. She actually has a double portion of Elkana’s sacrifices (1 Samuel 1:5). But Hannah is poor because she is barren, she doesn’t have a child, and her rival, the other woman, harasses and provokes her (1 Samuel 2:8). She is thought drunk instead of deeply distressed and grief stricken. And she pours her problem, which she is powerless to fix, to the LORD. That is poverty of spirit.
King David was one who was poor in spirit. Chased around Israel, with enemies around, aware of his sins past and his sinfulness in the present.[1] Aware that he was helpless to deal with his own sin and the sin of his people, though he was King and there was no one like him. Totally dependent on God for everything. That’s poverty of spirit.
Disciples are Mourners
Again, those who mourn might be thought to be those who’ve lost a close relative, or a spouse. And again, while we mourn when we are bereaved, Jesus is talking about a different mourning.
This is a word directed to the disciples. Disciples do not mourn as the rest of people, who have no hope. We have grounds for rejoicing, because Jesus rose again.
But disciples mourn because of their own sins (James 4:9). They mourn for the sins of other Christians and the church (1 Corinthians 5:2; 2 Corinthians 12:21). They bear each others burdens, to fulfill the law of Christ. And that is costly. They groan because our world is broken, sin-sick, rebellious and dying. We mourn because God and Christ are not treated properly. As Lot was tortured in the Sodom in which he lived, so are we. But the problem is not just out there, but in here, in us. There is a traitor in the camp, our flesh, our sinful nature. We mourn over the hardness of our own hearts and our lack of faith. We do what we do not want to do, and what we hate we do, because of the sin living in us. The Spirit and the flesh is in conflict within us. So we groan and mourn.
Disciples are Gentle and Meek
And just as Paul said gentleness is a fruit of the Spirit, Jesus says that his discples, the meek, the gentle, will possess the earth. They won’t take their inheritance by force, just like their master, who is gentle and lowly of heart (Matthew 11:29; 21:5; cf Zechariah 9:9). And Jesus bids his disciples learn from him and copy his gentleness. Meekness or gentleness is a refusal to use violence, force or strength of arms. Meekness is all about humility and restraint, and self control. And it is typical of all God’s people. Zephaniah says of the remnant of Jerusalem, that God ‘will leave within Jerusalem the meek and humble, who trust in the name of the LORD.’ (Zephaniah 3:12-13 NIV) The meek are those who trust not in their own strength and power, but the LORD is their strength. As Paul said, ‘When I am weak, then I am strong’. And Jesus himself, submitting to death on a cross, won a great victory over sin and death and hell for us. Since each of us knows that we are sinners before God, we will be gentle, humble, sensitive and patient in our dealings with other fellow sinners.[2]
Disciples Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness
Moreover, disciples hunger and thirst for righteousness. Righteousness is justice. Righteousness is conforming to God’s standards and God’s laws. Under Moses, righteousness was doing God’s law. So Deuteronomy 6:25 says:
And if we are careful to obey all this law before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness." (Deuteronomy 6:25 NIV)
A hunger and thirst for righteousness implies that disciples have in some way not attained to the righteousness that they seek. They are not yet filled. Somehow, their righteousness has not satisfied their hearts desire. His disciple are, as Christ has already said, mourners and poor in Spirit.
But his name shall be Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. Christ was baptized to fulfill all righteousness. Christ is all about fulfilling the law and righteousness.
And so for those who hunger and thirst, there is promised satisfaction for their desire for righteousness. Christ has come, and as he lives out Matthew’s Gospel, Christ himself will become their righteousness (1 Corinthians 1:30). Though all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, though we lack the righteousness that we need to stand before God on the day of judgment and so we hunger and thirst after righteousness, Jesus Christ will prove himself as a result of Matthew’s Gospel to be that righteousness. He came to fulfill all righteousness. And so those poor in Spirit disciples, who mourn, and who lack righteousness, will be filled.
Disciples are merciful
Blessed are the merciful, for they too will be shown mercy. God in the Old Testament reveals himself as full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger and abounding in love, forgiving wickedness and rebellion and sin (Exodus 34:6; Neh 9:17; Ps 86:15; 102:8; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2).
There is only one way for someone to be merciful. And that is for them to have received mercy. And if we know that God is merciful and full of compassion, and are confident of his fatherly loving kindness towards us, we will be empowered to be merciful to others. As Jesus says in Luke 7, the one who is forgiven little loves little, and the one forgiven much loves much.
Here, in the beatitudes, Jesus puts the matter the other way around. Being merciful to others shows that you have understood that God is merciful to you, and you will receive his mercy on the last day.
Jesus throughout Matthew’s Gospel will shower his mercy on many people who ask for it. The two blind men ask Jesus for mercy, and receive their sight (Matthew 9:27). The Canaanite woman begged for mercy for her daughter (Matthew 15:22), so too the man whose son has seizures (Matthew 17:15), and the two blind man of Jericho (Matthew 20:31).
And you and I, brothers and sisters, once disobeyed God, once had not received mercy, but now have received mercy through faith in Christ (Romans 11:30ff; 1 Peter 2:10). So now, having received mercy through the forgiveness of our many sins, how much more will we receive judgment if we don’t forgive and be merciful to others? If we fail to extend the mercy of forgiveness to others, is not God just to say, in the words of Matthew 18:32-35?:
'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' 34 In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. 35 "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart." (NIV)
Every time we pray the Lord’s prayer, we say, ‘Forgive us our sins, but only as much as and to the extent that we forgive those who sin against us’. So let us pray to know that our sins in truth have been forgiven, and thus be generous and extravagant and overflowing with our mercy and kindness and forgiveness.
Disciples are Clean in Heart
Disciples are also pure or clean in heart. Of course, we are not that by nature. Our hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. And in my sinful nature, even now nothing good lives in me.
But Christ has come to sanctify as well as justify. And he wants us to be clean on our insides (Matthew 23:26). The external washing of baptism points to an internal washing away of sin, both its penalty and power, and eventually, its presence. Jesus in the sermon wants us to take a deeper view of our sin. We must see that sin is not just outward acts but heart attitudes. Jesus will point out the adultery in our hearts (Matthew 5:28), the love of earthly treasure in our hearts (Matthew 6:21), evil thoughts in our hearts (Matthew 9:4), the secret anger that is murder and lack of forgiveness in our hearts (Matthew 18:35), the need for the love of God in our hearts (Matthew 22:37). Sadly our mouths speak from the overflow of our hearts. So all that rotten stuff we say sadly evidences the wickedness of our hearts (Matthew 12:34; 15:18-19). Our hearts, or at least one element of it, remain deceitful and desperately wicked all through life. Yet without holiness no one will see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14). We won’t take such wicked hearts into heaven with us. Good thing too.
So now is the time to put to death the sinfulness of our hearts. And the wonderful thing is, God will do it. In 1 Thessalonians 5:23-25, Paul prays:
23 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it. (NIV)
The pure in heart will see God. God will not only justify you, and give you the righteousness that you hunger for as a gift (Romans 5:17). He will also cleanse and purify your heart through and through. He will keep you blameless because of his faithfulness. And that work He has begun in us now, to will and to work according to his good purpose, this God will continue until it is perfected at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, when he raises us from the dead. So now, work out cultivating that pure, clean heart. It involves confessing our sins, confessing what is there, wrestling with indwelling sin, and asking God to finish his new creation in us. This is our fight, our jihad, our battle, taking place within ourselves.
Disciples are Peacemakers
Disciples are also peacemakers. James obviously learnt from his older half brother here. James says:
16 For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. 17 But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. 18 Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness. (James 3:16-18 NIV)
Of course, we cannot say ‘peace, peace’ where there is no peace. Peace-making involves not just the wish for peace, but the working for peace.
In the church, peacemaking involves putting to death selfish ambition and vain pride. It involves tolerating slights and insults and wrongs. It involves recognizing selfish ambition when it raises it’s head, confessing it, repenting, and putting it to death.
In our world, broken and divided as it is, we seek peace for it. We are urged to pray for government:
‘that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness’ because ‘This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4 who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.’ 5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all men (1 Timothy 2:2-6 NIV).
We must be submissive in the church and to the government in all things not sinful, so that we can preserve peace.
And all this flows from Jesus Christ. Jesus by his life, death and resurrection brought us peace. He himself is our Peace. He brings us peace with God, by nailing our sin to the cross. He brings us peace with each other, by tearing down the dividing wall of hostility between Jew and Gentile, and making the two one. He is called the Prince of Peace. And so, as we preach the gospel of peace to our dying world and live out its implications in the church, we are peacemakers.
But being a peacemaker by preaching the gospel and living out its implications comes at a cost. Verses 10 to 12:
10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:10-12 NIV)
Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. The name of Jesus will offend. Notice that important qualifier at the end of verse 11, 'because of me'. People will say evil because they hate Jesus Christ. Standing with Jesus doesn’t mean you will have peace. Jesus wants us to make peace and have peace, but warns of the reality that ‘In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.’ (John 16:33 NIV).
So that is why we need to be peacemakers. Because peace needs to be made where there is much trouble. We will have all manner of trouble in this world on account of the name of Christ. When we come to Christ, we still have the troubles common to humanity, but we also have the additional burden of enmity with the world, the flesh and the devil. Consider the recent events with the Charlie Hebdo massacre and French cartoon in response? What has been the outcome? Not peace, but more fighting, destruction and bloodshed. We have less, not more, peace.
Indeed, sadly I heard recently that in 214, so called Christians violently attacked Muslims in the Central African Republic. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/tens-of-thousands-of-muslims-flee-christian-militias-in-central-african-republic/2014/02/07/5a1adbb2-9032-11e3-84e1-27626c5ef5fb_story.html
This should not be. We must mourn and condemn this violence on Muslims by those who bear Christ’s name. This does awful harm and damage to the name of Christ. We need to show restraint. Father have mercy, and let us love our enemy and pray for those who hate us.
The way of wisdom in our world is survival of the fittest. It is might makes right, and only the strong survive. Unless you howl with the wolves, you will be taken as lambs to the slaughter. But we are Christ’s sheep! We have a good shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ. He has taken it on himself to shepherd and protect us. We need to trust him and his provision for us.
And he calls on us to be different in the way we live. Opposites attract. When the church is absolutely different to the world, she invariably attracts it.[3] And so the two final parables show us how our holiness, our discipleship, our difference to the surrounding world, has an evangelistic focus. Notice verse 16. Jesus unashamedly says:
In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven. (NIV)
Our light, our good works which spring from our faith in Jesus Christ, cannot be hidden. It is impossible to hide good works. For that reason, neither should they be trumpeted. Because they come out anyway. Our good deeds or good works, which are the outworking and production of our faith, are meant to bring praise not to ourselves but our Father. We bear the name of Father and Son, praise God. Our watching world will judge us. We want to bring the world to praise the Father. So that means we need to make it clear that our good works are not from ourselves, our own power and strength and might and morality, but are done in God. We need to have these good works, which are the fruit of faith. And we must bring all the praise for these good works to God our Father.
So the final challenge Jesus leaves us with today is that we are to be salt and light. Verse 13:
You are the salt of the earth. But If the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? (NIV)
We must maintain our difference, maintain our tang, our zest, our moorish attractiveness. We won’t win the world by becoming the same as the world in its sins. We will win the world to Christ by becoming more like Jesus. Again, verses 14 and 15:
You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. (NIV)
Our difference needs to be plain and palpable. Like Christmas beetles to an inside light, we need to draw people to Christ by our good deeds, and our words that point them to him. May it be said of us, that we exhibit the qualities of the beatitudes. May we continue to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, because it is God who works in us to will and to work according to his good purpose (Philippians 2:12-13).
Let’s pray.
[1] Psalm 25:1-22 is a Psalm of David who comes to God with the sins of his youth (v7), and God instructs sinners in his way (v8) and guides the humble (v9). The poor is the one who asks for forgiveness for his great iniquity (v11). The one who fears the Lord, his descendants will inherit the land (Psalm 25:13). Thus, Psalm 25:16-22 shows the spiritual nature of this poverty. 16 Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted (o[ti monogenh.j kai. ptwco,j). 17 The troubles of my heart have multiplied; free me from my anguish. 18 Look upon my affliction and my distress and take away all my sins. 19 See how my enemies have increased and how fiercely they hate me! 20 Guard my life and rescue me; let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in you. 21 May integrity and uprightness protect me, because my hope is in you. 22 Redeem Israel, O God, from all their troubles! Also consider Psalm 34:6, This poor man called (o` ptwco.j evke,kraxen), and the LORD heard him; he saved him out of all his troubles. This is David in need before Abimelech, where he feigned insanity. Likewise Psalm 40, esp v17, Psalm 69, esp vv29, 32; Psalm 70, esp v5; Psalm 86, esp v1. David asks for an undivided mind ‘Give me an undivided mind to fear Your name.’ (Psalm 86:11). The arrogant have attacked David, and that is why he comes to Yahweh in prayer.
[2] Stott, Christian Counter-Culture, 43
[3] D M Lloyd Jones.