Will you turn to Matthew 5 please. This is the first of a three-part series called “Essential Character.” There are three sections of the New Testament that have different packaging but at the center describe a very similar kind of person, a similar way of living, a similar way of carrying ourselves in the world.
The beatitudes of Jesus in Matthew 5 are the first Scripture, which we will read today. Next we will look at the fruit of the Spirit, in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. And the third will be what James calls “wisdom from above.” These three hold up much the same way of acting.
I’m doing this because we have our covenant of membership coming up on the first Sunday of November. We went over the creeds the last four weeks to remind ourselves again what we believe about the Lord Jesus. And the essential character messages will remind us how we live now that we believe in Jesus.
The Setting of the Sermon non the Mount – Matthew 5-7
Picture Jesus sitting on a hillside, with his disciples sitting around him, and a much larger crowd behind the disciples. The Sermon on the Mount answered a question that Peter and Andrew and James and John must have had: “What have we gotten ourselves into? We left our boats and nets to follow Jesus, but what does that mean? What does it mean that we follow Jesus?”
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus answering that question. And for us it answers a similar question. Jesus is not walking around on our streets anymore, asking people to come follow him. But God’s Spirit has called us and brought us to the Lord, and we also want to follow the Lord. How will that look? The Sermon on the Mount tells us, especially the beatitudes.
The Sermon the Mount, Matthew 5–7, is the foundation of discipleship. It is “Discipleship 101,” the backbone of discipleship. And the first eight beatitudes are the foundation of the Sermon. They are not just a quaint introduction. They are the backbone of the Sermon. Once we take the beatitudes to heart, there are no big surprises in the rest of the Sermon, just further explanation.
The Beatitudes – Matthew 5:3–10
Good news from God for the poor in spirit, theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Good news from God for those who mourn, they will be comforted.
Good news from God for the meek, they will inherit the earth.
Good news from God for those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, they will be filled.
Good news from God for the merciful, they will be shown mercy.
Good news from God for the pure in heart, they will see God.
Good news from God for the peacemakers, they will be called children of God.
Good news from God for those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
The Beatitudes Describe One Person and One Blessing
The beatitudes all describe one person, the child of God, the disciple who follows Jesus. They are not eight separate blessings for eight separate behaviors. The eight together are the gospel that Jesus preached. It’s just one gospel. Peter and Andew and James and John have left their boats to follow Jesus. The beatitudes tell them what they have agreed to by coming to Jesus. To the rest of the crowd, the beatitudes are an invitation, just one invitation, to the kingdom of heaven.
John the Baptist preached, “repent for the kingdom of heaven has arrived.” After his temptation, Jesus preached the same message, “repent for the kingdom of heaven has arrived.”
The first and eighth beatitudes have the same reward: the kingdom of heaven. Good news from God for the poor in spirit, theirs is the kingdom of heaven…. Good news from God for those who are persecuted because of righteousness, theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
The kingdom of heaven in the first and eighth are like a cradle for the six in between. The other blessings are just different sides of receiving the kingdom. Receiving comfort, inheriting the earth, being shown mercy, seeing God, and so on, are all included in receiving the kingdom. The other blessings show us what it means to receive the kingdom.
So now we will go through the eight beatitudes, and we will focus on six of them. The fourth and eighth speak of righteousness, and we’ll look at those two after we look at the other six. These six together give us the essential character of the beatitudes.
Good news from God for the poor in spirit
It is a kind beginning, is it not? Later Jesus said, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” We the poor in spirit have nothing to offer God, and we know it. We are helpless before God, and we know it. Good news for losers who want God.
Remember that in the Bible, “kingdom” meant nation or country. “Kingdom will rise against kingdom,” said Jesus, “and nation against nation.” Kingdom was not a fairy tale word. It was a common word, and it was political. Spiritual losers who want God: welcome to heaven’s nationality.
Good news from God for those who mourn
This has in mind the poor in spirit who need God to act, but he has not acted. They need God to change things, but he has not changed them.
They need at lot of saving, but it has not happened, and they mourn. Good news from God for those who mourn, for they will be comforted. The rewards are both present and future. We receive real comfort now, because we are God’s children and enjoy his good things. And there is a whole other wave of comfort coming toward us that we cannot imagine. We need God to act, and he will.
Good news from God for the meek
Psalm 37 reads like a commentary on this beatitude. I will read you some lines from Psalm 37.
Do not fret because of those who are evil, or be envious of those who do wrong;
Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him;
Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret—it leads only to evil.
For those who are evil will be destroyed, but those who hope in the Lord will inherit the earth.
A little while, and the wicked will be no more; though you look for them, they will not be found.
But the meek will inherit the earth (that’s the line Jesus quotes) and enjoy peace and prosperity.
Hope in the Lord, and keep his way.
He will exalt you to inherit the earth; when the wicked are destroyed, you will see it.
The meek know that things are not right, and they cannot fix it. It is too big. There is a real sense of powerlessness here. And the psalm has a call. Don’t fret, don’t be envious, be still before the Lord, wait patiently for him. Refrain from anger, turn from wrath. Hope in the Lord, and keep his way. And the meek will inherit the earth! What are the chances of that? It’s unbelievable! So not how we’ve ever seen these things work.
These first three – the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek: these people all know that God needs to do something and he has not done it. They want God to act, and they are waiting for him to act. And the good news is that God is bringing these people in. He will do everything they long for and hope for. Now we’ll go to the fifth beatitude.
Good news from God for the merciful
The first three beatitudes describe our needy relationship to God, and his huge kindness to us: the kingdom is ours, comfort is coming, and we’ll inherit the earth. The fifth to the seventh explain how we live with people.
God has been merciful to us, the poor in spirit, the powerless who need a lot of saving. So we are merciful to others. God’s kindness to us, we the poor in spirit, turns into our kindness to the poor in spirit around us. In Matthew 6 and in Matthew 18, Jesus was stern, and not just stern but actually severe, warning those who receive God’s forgiveness but do not forgive those around them.
I, the poor in spirit want God’s mercy. Then I better show it to others. Let’s pass on what we’ve received. Freely receive, freely give. Good news from God for the merciful, they will be shown mercy.
Good news from God for the pure in heart
“Pure in heart” means our actions and our motives line up. “Pure in heart” is a way of treating people. The “heart” here means the core of a person. I pretend I want to take care of you, I pretend I want to help you, but really I want something for myself, and I pretend to be good to you so I will receive from you. It is so easy to serve our own interests by hiding behind a false front.
Near the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ferocious wolves.” That’s the opposite of pure in heart. Let’s be genuine in all we do with one another.
Good news from God for the peacemakers
The way I’ve heard this, if I am a peacemaker then go to other people who are not getting along, and I help them make peace with each other. But that’s not what Jesus means by peacemaker. In the Sermon, I’m a peacemaker if I make peace with my enemies.
Later in Matthew 5, Jesus says, “If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer God your gift.” That’s a peacemaker.
Let’s step back a bit. The first three beatitudes described mostly a way of carrying ourselves before God: poor in spirit, we mourn what’s wrong with us and around us, and we carry this meekly, with patience and hope. Then we saw three that describe our human relationships: we are merciful, we are pure in heart, and we are peacemakers with our enemies.
That, people, is the essential character of the beatitudes. That is the life that brings God’s blessing, that is the life God favours, that’s the life of a follower, a disciple’s life. And God pours out all he has to give on those people. They are incredibly blessed by God.
The Two Righteousness Beatitudes
Good news from God for those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, they will be filled.
Good news from God for those who are persecuted because of righteousness, theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Righteousness” is these other six beatitudes. When you think of hungering and thirsting for “righteousness,” what exactly are you hungry for?
The most immediate answer is what we just covered, the rest of the beatitudes. We hunger and thirst for all of that, to live that way and be included in the blessing. We will be filled.
How would the beatitude life lead to persecution? It seems a pretty innocent way to live, does it not? Could it offend people? It sure could. Other people will have plans for you that mean you leave the beatitudes behind. And they can make life unpleasant for you if you don’t. It certainly happens. I taught this in a seminary class and couple students came to me after and told me about employers who required something different from their employees.
The righteousness that we hunger and thirst for, and that can get us in trouble, comes right out of the beatitudes. Don’t look farther.
Jesus said later in Matthew 5 that unless our righteousness goes past the Pharisees and law teachers, we would never enter the kingdom of heaven. The thing is, the Pharisees and law teachers had a completely different kind of righteousness. They were not pursuing the beatitude life, they did not prize the beatitude life, and they did not pretend to.
No one could beat the Pharisees at their kind of righteousness. You’ll never do what they do better than they do it. But what they hunger and thirst for is not righteousness at all. Let’s be careful what we think righteousness looks like.
Repent: both John and Jesus called us to repent. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has arrived.” Of what do we repent? We repent of not being beatitude people, of pursuing a different kind of righteousness, which is not righteousness at all.
Now, what about the ninth beatitude?
The Ninth Beatitude
The ninth beatitude begins a new section. The clearest sign of this is that Jesus changes who he’s talking to. In the first eight, Jesus was talking to “them.” They will be comforted, they will inherit the earth, they will be shown mercy, and so on.
In the ninth beatitude and from then on through the Sermon, he talks to “you.” Blessed are you, when people insult you and persecute you. Who is he talking to? Who does he mean by “you”? He means the people that the first eight beatitudes collected.
Some people hear the first eight beatitudes and they want in. This all makes sense, they want the kingdom, they will hunger and thirst for that kind of righteousness. They are in. Others are not interested. It does not sound like truth to them, they are skeptical about Jesus, and the beatitude life is not for them.
Starting with the 9th beatitude, Jesus speaks to the people who responded to the eight beatitudes. Those are now his people. Good news from God for you, when people insult you and persecute you. Rejoice and be glad. Jesus stays with “you” until near the end of the Sermon.
Most of your Bibles have a paragraph break after verse 12, titled “salt and light” or something like that. But the commentaries begin the new section after v10, after the eighth beatitude. The ninth beatitude should go with the salt and light section.
Good news from God for the poor in spirit, theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Good news from God for those who mourn, they will be comforted.
Good news from God for the meek, they will inherit the earth.
Good news from God for those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, they will be filled.
Good news from God for the merciful, they will be shown mercy.
Good news from God for the pure in heart, they will see God.
Good news from God for the peacemakers, they will be called children of God.
Good news from God for those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
PRAYER: O God, equip us with everything good for doing your will, and work in us what pleases you. Fill us with knowing your will, this wisdom that the Spirit gives, so that we will walk worthy of the Lord, and always please him. Amen.
BENEDICTION: May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. Go in God’s peace to love and serve the Lord.