The Blessing of the Kingdom

Since the beginning of the year, we’ve been on this quest to understand what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. We started that quest by defining what a disciple is, how we grow as a disciple, and the way of life that a disciple is to walk. This morning, I want to begin to turn in our study from definitions to application. To begin that journey, over the next ten weeks or so, we are going to study the Beatitudes of Matt. 5:1-11.

The Beatitudes are a beautiful set of paradoxical blessings that Jesus announces at the beginning of his teaching ministry. These blessings are the introduction to his famous “Sermon on the Mount”, and they are given as the very first words of the very first sermon recorded in the New Testament. But, what are they, exactly? Some read the Beatitudes (and the whole of the sermon on the mount, for that matter) as a set of required attitudes that the disciple of Christ is to have. In other words, if you want to be a disciple of Jesus, you better force these attitudes upon yourself. Others view the Beatitudes and Sermon as a future reality for the end of times. They would say, there is no way to live by these attitudes and laws that Jesus gives, until he returns, so that must be what they are for. But, I think both of those views are wrong because they miss what Jesus is doing here. The beatitudes are not commands or a future reality. They are a pronouncement of the blessings of the new kingdom to those on whom the kingdom is bestowed. To see that, let’s read Matt. 5:1-3 together. In this passage we will see the Benevolent King and the Blessed of the Kingdom.

First, consider the benevolent king. To understand what Jesus is doing in the beatitudes, we must first catch some important imagery in verses 1 and 2. I want you to catch imagery given in four phrases: “crowd”, “mountain”, “sat”, and “mouth”. We must start by asking, who is this crowd to whom Jesus is preaching? If you look back up in verses 23-25, you’ll read that Jesus has just begun his ministry, and he kicked it off with a whirlwind tour of Galilee. He has gone throughout the villages of Galilee healing, casting out demons and preaching. You can imagine, at every stop along this journey, he has picked up followers. Some were those who had been healed. Others were those who saw the miracles. Still others were the curious, the offended religious leaders, or the grifters who thought they could make a little coin off the spectacle. Jesus amasses this crowd, likely in the thousands, from all over the middle east (Syria, Galilee, Judea, and “beyond the Jordan”). If you are student of the OT, perhaps a light bulb has gone off in your head. Where else do we see a large, mixed crowd who saw miracles and were led out of pagan lands and into the wilderness? Well, that would be the Israelites who were led out of Egypt by the miracles of God, performed by Moses, and into the wilderness of Sinai.

But, the connections are even stronger than that. Notice, the second word here: “mountain.” When we read this word, we could think that Jesus is just being practical (he’s finding a good vantage from which he can preach). But, I don’t think this word is just a matter of practicality. Jesus leads this crowd to a mountain to make a connection. Again, remember the story of Israel’s Exodus: Moses leads the people out of Egypt and to Sinai, a mountain on which the people would worship the Lord.

And, if that isn’t enough, consider the third word: “sat”. Why does Jesus sit when he has thousands to preach to? If you’ve ever spoken or sung to a crowd, you’ll know that the sitting position isn’t the best way to project your voice. So, why does Jesus sit? Jesus sits because this is the position of a Rabbi. Rabbis were the great teachers of the OT law, and they did not stand when they taught – they sat. So, Jesus leads a crowd to a mountain, and he sits like a great teacher over his people.

We have one more word that connects this all together: “mouth”. Matthew draws our attention to the act of Jesus’s speech – “he opened his mouth and taught.” So, the crowd is like the Israelites who were delivered through God’s miracles and led into the wilderness to a mountain. Jesus is like Moses, the great teacher and lawgiver. But, Jesus is more. When Moses got to Sinai, did he stand up on the mountain over the people and preach the law to them? No! This is something we often get wrong in our remembering of the story. Exodus 20 begins with this: “And God spoke all these words, saying…” When the people of Israel got to Mount Sinai, God gave them the Ten Commandments directly from his own mouth. It was only later, after God’s voice terrified the people, that Moses went on the mountain and received the tablets of stone. But the people had already heard the law of God directly from the mouth of God. So, back to this mountain in Galilee. Jesus isn’t just a greater Moses who teaches his people. Jesus is the very Word of God! Not once in the whole Sermon on the Mount does Jesus say, “Thus says the Lord.” No! Jesus says, “You have heard it said, but I say!”

In all of this we can see what Jesus is doing. Jesus is announcing the new covenant that God promised back in Jeremiah 31:31 – “Behold the days are coming when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel not like the covenant I made with their fathers… I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts… and I will be their God, and they will be my people.” In announcing these blessings, Jesus is announcing the inauguration of this kingdom. In dispensing the laws of the Sermon on the Mount, he is defining what this new covenant community will look like.

So, his first act in establishing this new covenant is to define who is in the covenant. And this leads me to my second point – the blessed of the kingdom. In verse 3, Jesus begins the beatitudes by saying, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Oh, what a beautiful statement to begin this new covenant with. Let’s consider all its parts. Consider, first, this powerful word, “blessed.” We love to use this word in the South. We have one phrase that can mean a world of things: “bless your heart.” When we say that, we could mean, “I pray that the Lord will give you strength.” Or, we could mean, “I do not like how you are acting and hope that you die!” It’s all a matter of the context and the attitude with which that one phrase is said. But, the word “bless” is not a wish for someone’s good health or a state of mind. The word “blessed” shows up in the very first chapter of the Bible, when God creates the animals and humans in Gen. 1:22-31. There, it says, “God blessed them saying, be fruitful and multiply.” We find the same thing in Genesis 9:1. After the flood, God blessed Noah and said, be fruitful and multiply. We find it in Genesis 12:1, when God called Abram to go the land of the Canaan. There he promised that he would “bless” him and make his name great. So, the word “bless” is a life-giving word. In order to be fruitful, God must bless. In order for life to be sustained and our very lungs to be filled with air, God must bless. But, blessing is not just a matter of physical life. It is also a matter of spiritual life. In Psalm 1, David writes, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked… the wicked will not stand in the day of judgment, for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.” To be blessed is to have life with God. It is to be forgiven and restored by God.

Second, notice who it is that Jesus blesses – the poor in spirit. Remember, Jesus is proclaiming this blessing over a mixed crowd of the ailing, the possessed, the crooked, the hard-hearted, and the proud. He is announcing the inauguration of the kingdom of God, and who does he say this kingdom is for? It is not for the pharisees, standing in the crowd with their arms crossed, a scowl on their face as they watch this carpenter sit like a Rabbi and act like Moses. It is not for the Sadducees, concerned about this large mass of people putting their political power at risk. It is not for the Herodians who used and abused the people over whom they ruled. It is not for the money grubbers like Judas, who would use this new movement for his own personal gain. No, the kingdom of God is for the broken. The kingdom of God is for those who lay on a bed of affliction for 30 years, praying every night to be delivered, and just barely believing that it is worth it to pray. The kingdom of God is for those the crowd does not see – the woman who has been out of church for so long because of the glares of others that now she doesn’t even know if God sees her. The kingdom of God is for those the crowd would stone if they saw behind the curtain – the woman shackled by her sins with no way of escape. The kingdom of God is for those the crowd would hang for treason – the tax collector jaded by years of compromise. The kingdom of God is for you! Are you broken by the weight of your sins? Do you recognize that there is no way of escape from the judgment of God? Do you see that, even though you might have all the riches of the world, you are a wretched sinner who cannot be worthy of God’s kingdom? If you do, then hear the blessing of Jesus today, for it is only such people that can be a part of his kingdom! It is only those who know their own inability, their own unworthiness, who are the very people that Jesus came to save. Today, won’t you repent and come to Christ that you might have the blessing of this kingdom!