On Sunday, the 26th of January, we learned that the poor in spirit are blessed:
Matthew 5:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
We talked about the woman with the issue of blood, and how her faith in Jesus' divine power healed her. And we reflected that those who are poor in spirit are people who are in need of healing — physical, emotional, spiritual.
On Feb. 2nd, we learned that:
Beattitude Two: Matthew 5:4 -- 4 Happy are people who grieve, because they will be made glad.
At its simplest, a beatitude is a declaration of divine blessing. What is a Divine Blessing? Definition: A divine blessing is a gift of God’s favor. It conveys happiness, satisfaction, or pleasure that is based on who God is, not on the contingent circumstances of the person receiving the blessing.
Matthew 5:4, the second of eight beatitudes that Jesus pronounced on God’s people, declares that the grief-stricken are blessed because they will be “comforted” or “made glad.” In reading background Scripture for the 2nd beatitude, we saw Jesus raise a recently deceased man as Jesus and His disciples were entering a city called Nain.
Jesus’ beatitudes in the Gospel of Matthew remain one of the best-known passages in the New Testament.
They are not, however, the only beatitudes in the New Testament. Four additional divine blessings
are recorded in the Gospel of Luke (6:20, 21 [2x], 22); one in Paul’s letter to the church in Rome (4:7); one in the Epistle of James (1:12); and seven in the Book of Revelation (1:3; 14:13; 16:15; 19:9; 20:6; 22:7, 14).
When added to the eight beatitudes in Matthew 5, these total to 21 beatitudes in the New Testament.
Isaiah 30:18 is a beatitude. The Psalms have more than two dozen beatitudes, such as Psalm 1:1
and 119:1-2; and Proverbs offers at least eight, such as Proverbs 3:13: “Happy [blessed] are those who find wisdom and those who gain understanding.”
One Sunday in February, we studied the beatitude found in Matthew 5:5 — 5Happy are people who are humble, because they will inherit the earth. We read about two people who went up to the temple to pray, one a tax collector who beat his breast at knowing his sin, the other a self-righteous Pharisee.
It’s not that God refused to offer mercy to the Pharisee because of something the man did or did not do. For whatever reason, the Pharisee never asked for mercy. Not having asked for it, he didn’t receive it. The tax collector, on the other hand, aware of his need, asked for mercy and received it.
See how Jesus recaps this lesson on humility: look at Luke 14:11 — 11Luke 14:11 states, "For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
In studying Matthew 5:5, we acknowledged that we are prideful and sometimes put our desires ahead of God's desires for us and the world. Our prayer: save us from self-righteousness.
We have studied the 4th beatitude, found in Matthew 5:6 — 6"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled."
We saw the Pharisees seek to chastise Jesus because His followers didn't follow the rules of the elders that had been handed down. Jesus' response was: 7Hypocrites! Isaiah really knew what he was talking about when he prophesied about you, 8 This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far away from me. 9Their worship of me is empty since they teach instructions that are human rules.”
We've studied the 5th beatitude, found in Matthew 5:7 — 7Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
There again, the Pharisees were upset with Jesus and His disciplines — this time because the disciples were not washing their hands before eating.
By the first century, the Pharisees had been around for a couple of centuries and were (as we might put it) definitely gaining political traction. They were still a small sect, but their authority throughout Judea and Galilee had far outstripped their size.
A renewal movement led by laity, they desired to extend the purity codes found in Scripture to all Jews (not just priests). They called their righteousness-focused reinterpretation of Scripture “rules handed down by the elders” (Mark 7:3): 3The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders.**
The sixth beatitude, found in Matthew 5:8, states, 8"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God". We read the 6th beatitude last Sunday. Jesus and His followers have finished their last supper together, and have crossed over the Kidron Valley to a garden, where Christ would be betrayed by Judas Iscariot.
We talked about Jesus' foreknowledge of how He would be betrayed, and we saw His power when He confronted the soldiers and they fell down.
Jesus takes control of the confrontation with the temple police and the Roman soldiers, but Peter is spooked, pulls a dagger, and lunges at the nearest assailant, and cuts off his ear. He is brusquely reprimanded by Jesus, who informs him (and the rest of his disciples) that this is His time and His fight, not theirs.
With the benefit of hindsight and two-thousand years gone by, we may shake our heads at Peter going off-script, and cutting off the servant's ear. But perhaps we should, instead, sympathize with him, for we ourselves do not always recognize the will or way of God as it unfolds before us in real time, either.
Engaging in immediate (and successful) damage control, Jesus commanded Peter to “put your sword away.” He then reprimanded him for attempting to interfere with the divine significance of what was taking place: “Am I not to drink the cup the Father has given me?”
Today we turn our attention to the 7th beatitude, found in Matthew 5:9 — 9Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
As almost anyone who has experienced a conversion in life (religious or otherwise) can testify, there are almost as many things left to fix in one’s life after conversion as there were prior to conversion. That is not to make light of conversion. It is to highlight a humbling truth about ourselves. Rarely do we understand ourselves so well that we can confess and repent of all our faults in one sitting.
It may be possible to point to a moment in time when we first began the hard work of examining ourselves in light of the truth of Scripture. We are saved by repenting of our sins, believing upon Christ and His resurrection, and admitting our need for a Savior, not just to ourselves but publically. We must profess Christ. That's salvation.
But, sooner or later, it probably dawns on us that conforming ourselves to Christ will remain a lifelong
process. It’s not that we are hesitant to address or even to acknowledge our faults; it’s that some
(if not many) of our faults don’t even become clear to us until we experience significant spiritual growth &mdash and that can take years, decades.
The older I have gotten, the more in awe I have become of God's graciousness and love in saving me. The older I've become, the more I've come to notice all the flaws and short-comings that Christ overcame for me, at the cross.
The more we grow spiritually, the more certain it is that we will view some of our personal beliefs, characteristics, and acts as problematic, as sinful matters that need to be rooted out.
In our Bible Study this past Wednesday night, among other things we talked about how nowhere in the New Testament are Christians called to be militant, to take up arms, to engage in violence. Christ could have conquered, but He chose to let them nail Him to a cross. As Christians, we are called to peace.
Yet, I can remember growing up playing imaginary “shoot-’em-up” games involving “cowboys
and Indians” and never experienced any pangs of conscience about them or even thought twice about what my friends and I were doing. It was only as an adult, when a more enlightened friend wondered aloud to me why I didn’t also play “Nazis and Jews” as a kid, that my inability to think critically about such “innocent games” was exposed and I became capable of thinking differently.
God in Christ calls us to be harmless as doves. Matthew 10:16 says 16“I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves."
The words we speak are to build others up. Ephesians 4:29 reads 29Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. Sometimes I fail at this.
As peacemakers, we’re to have nothing to do with malice or envy or slander. 1 Peter 2:1 — 1Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind.
Next Sunday we will conclude our study on the beatitudes from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. The 8th beatitude is found in Matthew 5:10-12, and states "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven".
We haven't yet begun to suffer serious persecution. We've been very blessed and sheltered in our particular location in the world, and at this particular time in history. But at some point, Scripture tells us, that will change. Here is a thought to ponder:
The person “who will endure hardship rather than weakly abandon his convictions is happier than the one
who will yield his convictions rather than suffer.”
