Blessed are...

A state trooper sees a vehicle on the interstate doing 33 miles an hour and pulls the car to make sure everything is all right. When he approaches the driver he discovers that it is a group of older ladies.
"Excuse me, maam. But are you alright ?" He asked.
She replies, "Oh, yes officer. We're just fine. We are just on the way to Bible study. Was I doing something wrong?"
The officer says, "Well maam, you were traveling way under the speed limit and I was concerned that you might be having car trouble or something."
"But, officer", the lady interrupts, "I saw a sign there about a mile back that said 33, and I know I wasn't going any faster than that."
Chuckling, the trooper says, "maam, that was a state highway route marker, this is State Route 33, not the speed limit. The speed limit signs have a MPH at the bottom."
"Oh, now don't I feel foolish!", replied the lady turning red.
"That's ok, but please try to be more careful, I would hate to see you get hurt", finished the officer. Then as he turns to say good-bye to the ladies in the back seat, he notices for the first time that they are trembling violently and quite pale.
"Maam, what is wrong with your friends? Can I escort you to a hospital ?"
"Oh, no, they're all right. We just turned off of Route 150."
Not many of us our like these ladies. Following the very letter of the law.
But that’s our difficulty in life. We know what we’re supposed to do, and we think that that’s an accomplishment.
You get into a car; we’re all issued a book when we’re learning about driving. It’s called “The Rules of the Road.”
We know the book, but when an officer stops you for speeding or running a red light or something, do you ever try saying to him,
Officer, I know the book! I love the book! I agree with the book! I scored really well on my test. I was doing 55 in my heart.
Is the officer very impressed with that?
They don’t really care if you know the book. What matters is, what are you doing?
The problem is the education system in our day is largely built on the notion that what matters is that people are like empty jugs, and you just pour information into them.
And then their job is to retain the information and be able to spit back the answer you’re looking for on a test.
And if they do that, then they get good grades.
We all think we’re smart. That’s really good. Unfortunately, that’s gotten into a lot of church life, too.
A whole lot of people think growth is about just learning more and more and more and more information and being able to give the right answers.
What is usually the case is a disconnect between knowing what you are supposed to do and actually doing it.
A book was written by professors from Stanford on businesses that are ineffective.
For example, a company knows they need to improve quality control.
They know this. So, they talk about it, they listen to presentations about it, they read books about it, they look at state-of-art systems for it, they just never actually get around to doing it.
They never actually raise quality control.
Or, a company that has customer service problems.
They know they have customer service problems.
They know how important it is, they do studies on it. They appoint task forces to make recommendations.
They write “customer service” in their core values.
They just never actually do customer service. It’s a problem. It’s not a problem of ignorance.
It is not a problem of a lack of information. It’s not that they’re not smart enough.
The problem is a problem of knowing too much, but doing too little.
There is a gap that they call the “knowing/doing gap.” We know what we ought to be doing, but we’re not doing it.
We know that part of the danger of our sermon today for all of us including me is that we may hear the word but not be doers of the word.
As a matter of fact we are going to look at the greatest sermon ever preached.
This sermon is called the Sermon on the Mount.
Now before we even begin this study let us look at how Jesus ends this sermon on the Mount. It begins in Matthew 5 and ends in Matthew 7.
Jesus warns us in Matthew 7
Matthew 7: 24
24"Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock.
Jesus warns us that to listen to this sermon requires putting it into practice.
We should not just be ones that hear the word but those that do the word.
Our challenge this morning is to take the charge of Christ and take it into account as we look at the first beatitudes.
You cannot preach a sermon series about Discipleship without preaching from what was probably the closest Jesus came to issuing a manifesto on what He wants for his followers.
Today we are going to look at the Sermon on the Mount and I know that we have heard this teaching so many times that we grow numb to it.
This morning I invite you to hear these teachings brand new and here them as a summons to what life should be like in the Kingdom.
Before one can start to understand the importance of this teaching you must go back and see some of the themes of Matthew’s Gospel.
Scholars have witnessed that Matthew’s gospel shows the teachings of Jesus as a New Moses type and His work as a new Exodus.
This exodus had been predicted by the prophets.
This Exodus – Or new Exodus would bring an exodus from the power of sin and bring times of refreshing for God’s people.
In Matthew’s Gospel we notice some similarities in the life of Christ and Moses.
When Jesus was born a leader wanted to kill him just like Moses
Jesus had to flee the country and wait until the leader that wanted to kill him had died.
Israel crosses the Red Sea and is called God’s Son.
Jesus was baptized in the Jordan and was declared God’s Son from Heaven.
Jesus is lead into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan for 40 days after His baptism.
First, Jesus is tempted by hunger, which had caused Israel to grumble against God.
Then he is dared to put God to the test, to question God’s care for him.
This recalls the Israelites’ testing of God at Meribah and Massah.
Finally, he is tempted to worship a false god, which Israel actually did in creating the golden calf.
When Jesus quotes the Bible to Satan He uses passages from the Exodus account.
God is painting us a picture and imagine what He is telling us when we learn in Matthew 5:1 that Jesus goes upon a mountain to give His teaching.
Remember Israel traveled 40 days to get to Sinai the Mountain to receive the Law.
Now Jesus after 40 days of temptation in the wilderness goes upon a Mountain to give His greatest teaching on God’s Law.
Some would even call this the giving of the Law of Christ.
Immediately after his baptism and temptation, Jesus had begun to announce the good news that the kingdom of God, that had been promised in the Old Testament era, was now on the threshold.
He himself had come to inaugurate it.
With him, the new age had dawned, and the rule of God had broken into history.
"Repent," he cried, "for the kingdom of heaven is near" (Matthew 4:17).
Indeed, "Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom" (Matthew 4:23).
None of them had to take notes or write them down because they would remember them for the rest of their lives.
When 9/11, when that attack took place, I bet everybody in this room could tell you where we were when we heard the news.
Because when something changes your life, you just remember.
OK, now. We start today with the Beatitudes, the blessed.
Nobody who was there had to write them down.
Nobody who was sitting on the side of that hill and heard those blessed statements from Jesus would ever forget them, not till they die. And I want to tell you why.
Because it is terribly important as we begin to be molded and shaped and have our lives changed by the Sermon on the Mount that we understand what’s going on when Jesus is giving the Beatitudes.
And a whole lot of people who know them and have them written down and maybe hanging up on a wall don’t understand what Jesus is doing with them.
But the people who heard them never forgot them.
And I want us to know why.
To get this, you actually have to back way up to the Old Testament, because the Prophet Isaiah is one prophet who wrote about a day that Israel was looking forward to.
What would happen for the human race on that day? This is what Isaiah said:
Isaiah 52:7
7How lovely on the mountains Are the feet of him who brings good news, Who announces peace And brings good news of happiness, Who announces salvation, And says to Zion, "Your God reigns !"
What’s coming? Good news is coming. Gospel’s coming. What is it?
Your God reigns. That’s the Kingdom. There is a Kingdom.
There is a sphere in which everything is precisely the way that God wants it to be.
God is delighted and joyful. It is the range of His effective will.
It is real, and one day, how beautiful on the mountains will be the feet of the one who comes to tell us, “It’s here.”
Whose feet will those be? Who’s going to bring that news that the human race is dying to hear?
Isaiah did.
One day somebody is going to say,
Isaiah 61: 1-2
1 The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, Because the LORD has anointed me To bring good news to the afflicted ; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted , To proclaim liberty to captives And freedom to prisoners ; 2 To proclaim the favorable year of the LORD And the day of vengeance of our God ; To comfort all who mourn,a
Jesus quotes this very passage about His mission.
Who’s bringing the good news?
The Lord’s anointed. And that meant the Messiah.
The word Christ, it’s a Greek word christos from a little verb, chrio which meant “to anoint.”
Some of you will know when Jesus got up in His home town to begin teaching ministry, those are the words that He read.
When He finished reading them, He said,
Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. It’s me. I’m the Lord’s anointed.
Who’s the good news coming to?
Well it’s kind of an odd bunch.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor, to the brokenhearted, to those who mourn, to those who grieve.
Now of course, the good news will not be that it’s good to be poor or brokenhearted or mourn or grieve.
The good news is, now the Kingdom is coming to you.
The good news will be, for poor people and brokenhearted people and mourning people and grieving people, who will say,
Not me. I lost out on the good news.
I’m an outsider. And then the Lord’s anointed will say,
No, no, no. It’s you. It’s you. It’s you. You all come in now. It’s for you.
That’s what the world’s waiting for. The broken, the oppressed—and then one day, a poor carpenter who turned rabbi began to walk amongst the people of Israel on this earth and to say,
Now it’s come.
And as He’s going in their midst, He sees people who are desperately hurting, and He begins to touch them.
The bodies become made whole.
This really happens. People who have been under spiritual oppression in the grip of darkness are liberated or released.
And see, what’s happening when this is going on is, that’s the Kingdom at work.
Jesus sees the crowd that’s gathered around Him as He’s doing this and He begins to teach them, to explain what’s going on.
Now, who’s coming to hear Jesus? What’s that crowd like?
They’re nicely dressed people.
They’re successful people leading prosperous lives with happy children who get good grades and enter into nice colleges, driving hybrid cars.
And they have well-groomed pets.
Do you think? Not so much.
Not so much. [It’s] very important to understand what’s going on in this sermon.
Jesus went through Galilee teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom. Your God reigns.
This is what people have been waiting for for centuries.
The whole human race—although most people don’t know it—and healing every disease and sickness.
Now it’s no accident that He is proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom and then He begins to heal disease and sicknesses.
It’s not just like coincidental or disconnected that those two statements are right there because He proclaims good news and then He’s manifesting the realty of the Kingdom in their midst.
He is dispensing its power.
Matthew 4:24
The news about Him spread throughout all Syria ; and they brought to Him all who were ill , those suffering with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, paralytics ; and He healed them
So, you have to understand as we’re picturing this sermon, this is a motley crew gathering around Jesus.
These are not the people who could afford the best of care, the best of food, the best of medicines.
This is not a catered event aimed at a high-end crowd.
These are the poor. These are the broken-hearted.
These are those who mourn.
These are those who grieve. Jesus, the Lord’s anointed, has actually been dispensing the Kingdom, power and reality.
Up there has now been coming down here in a few lives—broken, needy lives.
And now He wants to—He has to explain what’s going on.
It’s not just random acts of power.
He has to explain about up there coming down here so the people can understand, so they can see what
God is doing, so that they can respond, so that they can join in, so that they can be a part,
so that they can become His movement, so that they can enter into the blessed life and become a blessing to a broken, needy, mourning, grieving world.
So with this Jesus says:
Matthew 5:3
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven
And now everything has changed and the world is turned upside down. Many times people hear the Beatitudes and they think,
Oh, I guess I’m supposed to try harder to be like that? I guess I’m supposed to try harder to become poor in spirit so that I can get into the Kingdom of Heaven.
I remember when I was a kid sometimes they were taught as the “Be Attitudes,” like attitudes that we’re suppose to cultivate or something. And sometimes, even though the Beatitudes say “blessed,” they actually end up making people feel guilty or defeated, because people look at them and think,
I’m not like that. I don’t know that I could ever be like that. I don’t even know that I want to be like that.
So, Jesus in the Beatitudes is not talking about what to do in order to be blessed. He is not saying,
Try hard to be poor in spirit or to mourn.
He is doing something else. And I’m not sure that I can explain this clearly, but I will give it the best shot that I can because it’s so important.
In the ancient world there were two kinds of Beatitudes or blessings sayings,
The first kind is what might be called a blessing or a saying of instruction.
And this would be worded like this, “Blessed are the wise,” or “Blessed are the obedient,” or “Blessed are the faithful.”
And the idea here is: these are statements that say,
If you do this, if you live in this way, then you will live the good life.
And then you will be blessed.
These are designed to teach, to instruct.
There’s a second kind of blessing statement, much more rare.
You see it occasionally in the century or two before Jesus came.
And these are what might be called surprise announcements
These were in a kind of literature that were called “apocalyptic literature.”
This came about when Israel was just crushed by disappointment and frustration, because it seemed that the Kingdom of God had not come and seemed farther and farther away and seemed like it was never going to come.
So, sometimes in this apocalyptic literature—very rarely—there would be these statements about who’s blessed, but they were very surprising, they were very odd.
The ones pronounced blessed are people in distress, people under severe pressure, people who look hopeless.
And there’s a promise of blessing, but in these few statements and the surprise ones, that promise was always other worldly.
It was never hope for this world, not this life.
The purpose of these surprise blessing statements was not instruction.
It wasn’t, “Try to be this way.” The purpose of these was just hold on, just don’t quit.
Just don’t give up, just believe. Just hang in there, be encouraged, be consoled.
Now, when Jesus gives His blessings in the Beatitudes, He is not doing this. He is not giving advice.
You actually see this most clearly in Luke 6.
Identical situation. Jesus has been healing and delivering, a motley crowd has gathered around him and he then explains what it is that’s going on.
In Luke 6, the Beatitudes look like this.
Luke 6:20-22
Blessed are you who are poor…Blessed are you who hunger now…Blessed are you who weep now…Blessed are you when people hate you.
(Not because it’s good to be poor or hungry or weepy or disliked, but because the Kingdom of God has now become available to you through Jesus.
Now in Matthew the same thing is going on. The wording is a little different. Matthew says,
Blessed are the poor in spirit… (Matthew 5:3)
These are the spiritually impoverished.
These are people who include the materially poor, as well.
They are sometimes called the “people of the land.” They didn’t really know or do Torah.
They had no spiritual qualifications. They had no credentials. They were religiously illiterate. [There are a] lot of folks like that in our day, maybe you are one of them.
Now, it will help, I think, to get the picture if you imagine that Jesus is talking about somebody individually that He has just now helped, because that may well be what He did.
Jesus would very often, when He’s teaching, do this. Because He teaches to change lives, he teaches right out of a situation that’s going on around Him.
So, let’s say that Jesus sees in the crowd someone that has been brought to Him that He’s just helped.
Maybe it’s a man who was brought to Jesus because he had been demon-possessed, emotionally tormented, out of his mind, a spiritual zero.
Never part of a faith community; nobody would ask him what does he think about God. Now he’s calm and in his right mind. Why?
Because even though he had done nothing to deserve it, a merit, Jesus just comes up and touches him, and heals him.
This is a message of Grace – have we ever considered that the Beatitudes are a message of Grace and Hope.
They are not to be read as something that I have to do to merit God’s favor.
Jesus is giving grace to those that no one cares about and no one really wants to be like.
That is why these people will never forget this message of Jesus.
They are thinking:
One of us is blessed? Nobody’s ever told us that one of us could be blessed, before.
Jesus continues to give this upside down sermon on who is blessed – he says:
Matthew 5: 4
4"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Want to know who’s blessed? Blessed are those who mourn.
Not because it’s a good thing to mourn, but because the reality of the presence of the Kingdom is coming down to the mourning, and they shall be comforted now.
He is not doing this, he is not saying mourning is a good thing. He is not saying,
Blessed are those who mourn over their sin.
For the longest that is how people have read this beatitude but there is no contextual evidence to think this.
It actually follows with the other earlier beatitudes is that these people are actually in mourning because they have been left out.
Blessed are those who thought they had missed out;
who thought they had lost out on the good life, because now, through me, here is the Kingdom. If you want it, come right on in.
And everyone in the Beatitudes involves situations of dire human needs that left people hopeless, thinking they were forever outside.
Blessed are the meek. These are the people who have been pushed around.
This comes right out of Psalm 37:11. Psalm 37 is the story of the struggle between the meek and the powerful. And it says in Psalm 37,
The meek will inherit the earth. (Psalm 37:11)
The meek in Psalm 37 are the powerless and the land-less.
They were the peasants. In Jesus’ day—and it still is true in the Middle East—who owns the land, that’s a pretty big deal. The Romans and the wealthy had seized the whole thing.
And the vast majority of everybody listening to Jesus, they’re in this category. They’ve got no hope, they’re never going to have land.
Blessed are the shy, Blessed are the timid. Blessed are those who have no leverage and no connections and who are not assertive.
Today I want you to see what type of Savior that we have.
We have one that is meek, gentle and loving – This is the God that you serve. A God that cares for those that are poor in spirit, destitute.
Those that are mourning over all the things that grieves those that have nothing to look forward to.
A God that cares for those that are meek and kicked around.
Folks this is a message of love – pure grace – A God in Heaven that will look down on people hurting, poor, mourning and destitute and call them Blessed.
He can call them blessed because he is a God of unmerited favor – one that wants to lavish you with His love in Christ.
Our call to discipleship is one that calls you to follow a Savior like this.
A compelling message – this message is one that you want to share with others that God calls us to a Kingdom that is upside down –
God wants to bless those that no one else cares about.