"The Beatitudes"

A.J. Snively begins his summer Sunday night series on the Sermon on the Mount.

5/29 ‘Standing out for God’ (Matt. 5:1-16)

Jesus tells us not just what we should not do but what we should do so that God, our Father, will bless us because of our actions. The problem is that many of us are not able to see how God blesses us.

Have you ever seen a parent in the store talking to a child who is throwing a fit and the parent telling them get up off the ground or else they would be punished? How many of you have seen that? Why doesn’t it work?

Have you ever talked to someone about Christ trying to get them to decide to be saved? Have you tried telling them ‘you need to be saved or else you are going to hell’? Doesn’t work so well does it? I have tried that approach. It doesn’t work, people don’t want to hear about the punishments. So how do we get them to want to be saved?

The saying you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar comes to mind. Many times when I wanted something, I would tell my parents ‘I want this, here is what good this item will do(if there is any), and here is what I am willing to do to get you to say yes.’ If you tell someone these are the privileges of this rather than these are the bad things of not having this, we are better suited to get them to listen to us. Trying to put fear in someone is hard unless they have had some traumatic experience. Telling someone this is the rewards you can get will excite them into doing something. This works well in America because everyone is looking for what is in it for me. What do I get? When someone does something with joy their heart is more in it, they want to do it.

When you tell a child do this for me or else. They will do it but hate that they have to. If you tell them do this and then we can go get ice cream, they jump for joy, they can’t do the work fast enough. Likewise, do not show a man how to be saved, but rather describe the characteristics of one who has been saved. It is more likely that you can draw someone in by enticing them that they can get something out of it rather than escape some punishment that might be coming.

Mat 5:1-16  Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

 

• Jesus is at the height of his popularity.
• Sitting accepted posture of synagogue or school teachers

The Beatitudes:

• The norms of the kingdom (5:3-12)—great reversal—beatitudes

The opening verses of the Sermon on the Mount indicate that this message deals with the inner state of mind and heart which is the indispensable absolute of true Christian discipleship. The sermon on the mount deals with a more inner area of being a Christian. Jesus is speaking more about who the Christian really is on the inside, not what their actions are. Which truly is what Christianity is really about, where as the Jews was more of an outward, actions are who the Jew is.

It portrays the outward manifestations of character and conduct of the true believer and genuine disciple. Basically this is not something that can be just action is must have your heart in it. When you truly believe something you do it with a joyful heart, you want to do it, not because you feel you have to.

The Christian should be just showing to the world what is on the inside, what is on their heart. Not simply just going through motions.

³ “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Why would the poor in spirit be blessed? They are blessed because they are humble, they count themselves as unworthy. They confess that they are unworthy and that they depend on God. God will give them blessings because he loves those who will say I cannot do this on my own so God here I am please take care of me.

This is opposed to a rich in spirit who says God I can handle this, I am able to take care of myself, I don’t need you.

⁴ “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Why are the mourners blessed? They are people who want justice to be done on earth. They see the people who are being wronged and they want to see that being made right. They are blessed, or will be blessed, because God will deliver justice to everyone.

⁵ “Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.

Why would the gentle or meek be blessed? On the earth right now they are blessed because people who see them think they are good people. The meek are looked up to because they are gentle even when people are not gentle to them. To be meek does not mean they are weak, cowardly, or passively resigned to oppression. They will inherit the earth because of the things that they are not.

They are not strong, aggressive, harsh or tyrannical. What happens to these type of people? Other people don’t like them and try to kill them. Gentle people are not killed because these same people would look at them and say they are nice people, they don’t irritate me and I want them around. So in the end they will be the only people left.

They will also be blessed when God comes because he will get rid of all oppression. The oppressors will be removed so that the gentle are no longer oppressed.

Jesus best exemplifies being gentle.

⁷ “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

Why are the merciful blessed? One who shows mercy will often be given mercy in return. If someone does something to you, it is a natural human reaction to do unto others as they do to you. If someone is mean to you, you are mean back. If someone open a door for you, you open a door for them. If someone plays a joke on you, you try and play a joke on them. So in the same way if someone is merciful to you, you try to be merciful to them if you get the chance.

⁸ “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Why are the pure in heart blessed? Pure in heart does not mean innocent, if it was then no one could be. How do we become pure in heart? The same way we make anything pure. We take out the other things, the impurities. For our heart, we ‘simply’ have to say no I don’t want that in. I say simply because the answer is simple but the action is not. For the amount of time that I have the best answer I can give you is we need to just say no, like we were taught to do with drugs. Even if we want to say yes, we need to say no.

So we need to get the bad parts out of our lives so that we can live for God the way he meant for us to be. Just like salt, if it has impurities in it we are unable to use it for any purpose let alone the purpose we want it for. But once we extract all the impurities, it works well for our purpose. The pure heart is able to enjoy life and be free from the guilt and pain of sin. They don’t feel bad because they have no reason to feel bad. They are blessed because they have no worry of sin or going against God.

⁹ “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Why are the peacemakers blessed? They are looking to better the situation so that it will be better for everyone. If they succeed they may be honor or looked up to by the people they helped or other people who saw it happen. Peacemakers do not always get treated well, sometimes they end up being the one who is blamed. But God in heaven sees what they did and will reward them for it.

¹³ “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.

• Salt in the ancient world flavored foods and even in small doses was used as a fertilizer and above all, was used as a preservative.
• our salt cannot lose its saltiness
• Sodium chloride is a stable compound.
• most salt in the ancient world derived from salt marshes or the like and contained many impurities.

It can be derived from here that we, as Christians need to be the thing that makes this world good. Christians, like salt, are to make things intriguing, taste good. We are to be what makes people happy, what cheers people up. We are to do this so that the world will want to know why we are the way we are. Our world today has a bad taste of what Christianity is all about. They think it is just people who go to a building and sing to a deity, that they don’t know if he is there or not. Then they come out and are judgmental to everyone telling them they are going to hell, and I really don’t want to be part of something that tears people down. That is what we, as Christians, are up against. Our job is to make people want to be here, want to understand how to be free from guilt.

¹⁴ “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; ¹⁵ “nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lamp stand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. ¹⁶ “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

• Though Jews saw themselves as light of the world, they failed to function as such

The Jews were given the same job that we have only thing is they failed. Will we succeed in what God wants or will we just be happy with our traditions that we like?

• city on a hill
• could not easily be hidden.
• At night inhabitants’ oil lamps glow over the surrounding area
• As such cities could not be hidden, so also it is unthinkable to light a lamp and hide it under a peck measure (NIV, “bowl”).
• A lamp is put on a lampstand to illuminate all
• Jesus drives the metaphor home.

We are to be an example to everyone of what God wants us to be. We are to be the item that everyone wants. You see that guy, I want that, I want to be like that. He is so happy, I want to be happy like he is, not in this material I’m happy because of what things I have, but happy because of things that last.

• What his disciples must show is their “good works,” righteousness, everything they are and do that reflects the mind and will of God.

By our good works people will notice us. Then by us being real Christians and truly caring about others we will get them to want to know Jesus.

• Salt and light common substances

As Christians we are now common in this world today, but sadly many of us have lost our good taste to this world. We need to renew ourselves to be Christians who care not ones that tell others they are going to hell.

• “Nothing is more useful than salt and sunshine”

We are like sunshine. The world needs us like it needs sunshine. We are what makes things grow. We help things heal. God makes things heal and that is what this corrupted world needs is healing.

God can provide healing for everyone. He is the great counselor, the great healer. He can help you with problems in your life. He can help you get out of problems going on in your life.