If you would take your Bible
and turn with me to Matthew chapter 5...Matthew chapter 5. And tonight,
I want to speak to you on the upside-down kingdom...the upside-down
kingdom and you'll recognize it as the Beatitudes. And in
many ways, this is Christianity 101. This is entry-level Christianity. This is foundational truth, really,
for any believer in the Lord. But I think it is good for us
to review the basics. I think it is good for us to
reestablish really a cornerstone text like this. And so tonight
I want to look at the Beatitudes, Matthew chapter 5. I want to
begin by reading the passage starting in verse 1. When Jesus saw the crowds, He
went up on the mountain. And after he sat down, his disciples
came to him. He opened his mouth and began
to teach 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 gentle, 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 have been
persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven. Blessed are you when men insult
you and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against
you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your
reward in heaven is great. For in the same way they persecuted
the prophets who were before you." In these verses, we see
the greatest preacher who ever lived, Jesus Christ. Preach what I believe is the
greatest sermon that has ever been declared, the Sermon on
the Mount, on the greatest subject that there is, the kingdom of
heaven. And we see here that everything
about the kingdom of heaven is radically different from the
kingdoms of this world. And with these opening beatitudes,
Jesus in reality is turning everything upside down from what the world
would think and pursue. These beatitudes are in total
juxtaposition from the world's values, in total contradistinction. These beatitudes are entirely
counterintuitive to the natural man. And here's how inverted
the kingdom of heaven is as we look at these beatitudes. The
world says, happy are the upwardly mobile, the rich and the famous.
Jesus says, blessed are the poor in spirit. The world says, happy
are those who laugh and who are entertained. Jesus says, no,
blessed are those who mourn. The world says, happy are those
who push their way to the top, who are the movers and shakers
of this world. And Jesus says, not in My kingdom.
Blessed are those who are humble and submissive and meek and lowly. And the world says, happy are
those who have everything that they would want. And Jesus says,
no, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for what they do not
have, a righteousness not of their own. Everything in the
kingdom of God and heaven is upside down. In the kingdom of
God, those who exalt themselves are humbled, and those who humble
themselves are exalted. In the kingdom, those who keep
their life will lose it, and those who lose their life will
keep it. In the kingdom, those who live
for self will die, and those who die to self will live. in the kingdom. Those who are
strong in themselves are weak, and those who are weak in themselves
are made strong. And we see that in these Beatitudes,
Jesus just flips everything 180 degrees and turns it all upside
down. I want us to look at these Beatitudes
and remind ourselves of who we are and the kind of people we
must be to be citizens in the kingdom of heaven. Just by way
of introduction, the first four Beatitudes really stand together
as a unit. And they really mark entrance
into the kingdom. The first four Beatitudes really
define the narrow gate that Jesus will describe at the end of the
Sermon on the Mount. These four Beatitudes, the first
four, really define true saving faith. These are the distinguishing
marks of true saving faith, and in a sense, this is Jesus' fourth
spiritual law booklet. and all who enter the kingdom
in the last four beatitudes will give evidence that they have
come through the narrow gate." So this is very much a defining
passage. And this really is the record
of the first sermon to ever come from the lips of our Lord and
Savior, Jesus Christ. So let's look at these one at
a time. And starting in verse 3, I want to call it a bankrupt
spirit. In order to enter into the kingdom
of heaven, there must be a bankrupt spirit. Everything begins here. This is beatitude number one,
everything begins here. Jesus says, blessed are the poor
in spirit. Let's talk for a moment about
this word blessed. No sermon ever started more positive
than did this sermon. And it really is an echo of Psalm
1, how blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel
of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the
seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord and
His law he meditates day and night. Jesus is picking up on
even that psalm. And it is to be blessed by God
is the greatest thing that could happen to any person's life,
right? And so, what does this word blessed mean? I think it
would be too shallow for us to say, well, it's just happiness. It's a two-fold meaning, makarios,
and it begins with eternal blessedness. In other words, every person
in the world is either blessed or cursed. And those who are
blessed are those who are graced by God. They are those who are
favored by God. They are those who are in right
relationship with God through His gospel. To be blessed is
to be in the kingdom of heaven. To be blessed is the total antithesis
of being cursed and being under the wrath of Almighty God. Ephesians 1 verse 3 says, "'Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed
us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ
Jesus.'" To be blessed is to have the fullness of saving grace
be bestowed upon you. Second, not only does it refer
to eternal blessedness, but it also speaks of internal blessedness. And internal blessedness here
means to be filled with joy. to know the peace of God that
surpasses all comprehension. And even this is different from
the world in that the world may have happiness. There's a great
difference between happiness and blessedness. Happiness is
dependent upon your happenstance, your circumstances. And when
your happenings are good, you're happy. Your favorite team wins,
whatever that would be, and you are exhilarated. But when the
circumstances turn in the other direction, happiness flees from
your heart. That's what the world has. They can be happy. It's a temporal,
shallow, superficial feeling that's dependent upon their circumstances,
but that's not what Jesus is promising here. When Jesus says,
blessed, He's not referring to happiness per se, which is fleeting. He's referring to what we would
say joy. because joy is not dependent
upon what's going on around us. Joy is dependent upon our relationship
with God through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and we can
be going through the most difficult circumstances that we could be
walking through deep valleys of trial and tribulation and
yet no joy. Think of the Apostle Paul when
he was in his first Roman imprisonment. He's chained to Roman soldiers
for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for two long years. And yet He had joy even in the
midst of the difficulty of those circumstances. Jesus had joy
the night before His crucifixion. He said in John 15 verse 11,
these things I speak unto you that My joy might be in you and
that your joy might be made full. So each of these beatitudes all
begin with this word, blessed, and we need to understand what
it truly means. It means, first of all, that
you have been graced and favored by God with entrance into His
kingdom, your sins have been forgiven, you have been clothed
with the perfect righteousness of Christ, and then second, you
are living in such a way that internally within your heart
there are these distinctives that bring about a fountain of
joy and peace that is found in the Lord Jesus Christ alone.
So, he begins by saying, blessed are, and I want to draw to your
attention this verb, it's in the present tense. Right now,
every moment of every day, when you're in the kingdom, Blessed
are the poor in spirit. He's not referring to some future
kingdom that would occur after the return of the Lord Jesus
Christ. No, this is a present reality
in your life and in my life, and it begins the moment we are
poor in spirit. This word poor is a Greek word
that really refers to being reduced to the role of a beggar, that
you actually have nothing in your hands, nothing in your pocket,
no assets that you would have to contribute to your relationship
with God. When he says poor in spirit,
he's not referring to financial poverty. He's referring to spiritual
poverty. And this word, in fact, was used
at the beggar on the side of the road. as people would be
walking by. He had no capacity whatsoever
to merit anything. He would just extend an empty
hand. He would be too embarrassed to
even look up into the eyes of those who were passing by. He
was dependent upon the mercy of someone else who would be
walking by to put into His empty hand what He so desperately needs. And what this is saying is that
we come into the kingdom only once we realize we have nothing
to bring to the table except the sin that was laid upon the
Lord Jesus Christ. And the Pharisees could never
see themselves this way. They thought they were good.
They were strutting like peacocks, assuming that they have much
to offer God. And Jesus is saying, no, anyone
who enters into My kingdom must understand you bring nothing
and you are in dire need of everything by My grace. He concludes, the
first beatitude, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs,
and that is emphatic, theirs and theirs only, is right now,
present tense, the kingdom of heaven. And the kingdom of heaven
refers to the sphere of salvation. It refers to the realm of the
rule of God in the hearts of men and women, that God invades
a person's life and God establishes His redemptive rule within the
heart and soul of the one who declares their own spiritual
bankruptcy. This is the first beatitude and
everything begins here, it is a step of humility. Nothing that you and I have can
contribute to our entrance into the kingdom of heaven, not good
works, not baptism, not church membership, not morality. We sing the hymn, in my hands
no price I bring, simply to thy cross I cling. And if you are
trusting anything that you would contribute to your salvation
and to your entrance into the kingdom of God, you are not yet
poor enough to find acceptance into the kingdom of God. Now
this is where it all begins. And it marks us not only in our
entrance into the kingdom, but it also marks our growth in grace
as we continue to die daily to self and realize we are utterly
dependent upon God's sanctifying grace and God's keeping grace
in order to advance in the kingdom. So, it begins with a bankrupt
spirit. And I want to ask you, have you
come to the place where you recognize your spiritual poverty before
Almighty God, that you have absolutely nothing to merit your standing
before God, that it is all of God's grace, that there is nothing
that we contribute or bring to Him? A bankrupt spirit. But that's not enough. Jesus
now moves to the second beatitude, and there is a logical and theological
development here in the order of these beatitudes. Second,
there must be a repentant heart. It's not enough to admit that
you have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The second
beatitude takes us in a step further. Not only must we acknowledge
our bankruptcy and our sin, but second, we must mourn over our
sin. There must be a repentant heart
over our sin. So he says in verse 4, blessed
are those who mourn. This seems so upside down, does
it not? But Jesus is promising the fullness
of His grace exclusively to the one who is deeply convicted over
their sin and who has a broken heart over their sin. And it's
not just that they're upset about the sin in the world. It's not
just that they're upset about everyone else's sin. No, it's
when we look in the mirror, we are convicted and broken about
our sin, and not just because of what it has done to us, but
because of what it does to God, that it grieves the heart of
God, that His holiness is offended when we fall short of that mark. So, blessed are those who mourn. In other words, there must be
a broken and contrite spirit for those who enter the kingdom.
Let me just tell you this, no one giggles through the narrow
gate. No one skips into the kingdom. No one laughs their way to Jesus. No one comes into the kingdom
who is strutting. No, we all enter the kingdom
with a heart wound. We all come into the kingdom
limping through the narrow gate. We all come feeling the enormity
of our sin. sensing the sinfulness of our
sin, the magnitude of our cosmic treason and rebellion against
the rule of God over our lives. We become broken that we have
offended the holiness of God and that we have broken His Law. We come to the place where we
realize that my life has been a stench in the nostrils of a
holy God, and that it required that He would send His Son, Jesus
Christ, into this world, and that my sin would have been laid
upon Christ, and He was crucified at the cross, and that was my
sin that Jesus bore upon the cross, and it pierces my soul
at the deepest level and I am undone." No one enters the kingdom
of God without a broken and contrite heart. That's what Jesus said. And this word, mourn, is really
the strongest word for severe grief, that would have been reserved
for the death of a loved one. It was the grieving in the morning
that would take place at a funeral service when a loved one would
have been taken from your arms. It's not a shallow being upset,
but it is a crushed heart. And only the Holy Spirit can
bring about such a mourning heart. He has come into the world, John
16 verse 8, to convict the world, to be a prosecuting attorney.
to bring charges against the heart of every sinner, to bring
indictment into the heart of the sinner who has offended God
and that these charges are pressed to the heart in such a way that
as in Acts 2 verse 37 it says, they were katanuso, they were
pierced to the heart. The word was used of the butcher's
knife that would be plunged into the neck or the chest cavity
of the sacrificial animal that there would be a severe wound
that would be administered to an animal. That is the very word
that was used on the day of Pentecost when Peter stood up and as he
preached, this Jesus whom you crucified, God has raised from
the dead and He has made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus
whom you crucified. Their hearts were broken. Their
hearts were pierced to the point that they could not even wait
for the sermon to be over. They interrupted the sermon and
said, what must we do? Only the Holy Spirit of God can
bring about that kind of a broken heart where there is the sense
of one's guilt and condemnation before God. No one enters the
kingdom simply because they're lonely. or because their business
is a failure, or because they have a poor self-image and they're
trying to get it together. The only ones who enter into
the kingdom are those who declare spiritual bankruptcy before God
and who weep and mourn over their sin. In James chapter 4 and verse
8, there is a somewhat strange verse, and in James 4 verse 8,
it says, draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse
your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
Now, verse 9, be miserable and mourn. and weep, let your
laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into gloom." There's
a verse to put on your refrigerator, but what it is saying is so crystal
clear. It's not hard to understand,
it's just hard to swallow. that everyone who comes into
the kingdom are those who come mourning and weeping over their
sin. It's a part of what makes child
evangelism very difficult at times because is there a true
repentance over sin? Well, please note the result
of this second beatitude, for they shall be comforted, back
in Matthew 5 and verse 4. For they, and again it's emphatic,
they and they only shall be comforted. The reason that they would be
comforted is because the weight of their sin will be rolled off
their guilty conscience and rolled off their guilty soul. And so, I want to ask you, has
God the Holy Spirit brought this kind of heart-piercing conviction
of sin to your heart? No one is converted who is not
first convicted. Have you mourned over your sin?
Have you been grieved over your sin? These are the only ones
who are blessed. These are the only ones who are
comforted. This leads to the third beatitude
in verse 5, Matthew 5 and verse 5, and Jesus continues to build
out this entrance into the kingdom. And He says, it's not enough
to confess your sin and it's not enough to be convicted over
your sin. There must be the submission
of your life under the lordship of Jesus Christ. You must die
to self and surrender your life in humble submission to the rule
of Christ over your life. And so, we read in verse 5, "'Blessed
are the gentle ESV translates it, blessed are the meek. The
Legacy Standard Bible, blessed are the lowly. And the idea is
those who enter into the kingdom of God are those who do not exalt
themselves. They do not promote themselves
or push themselves forward. Instead, they lower themselves
and come under the lordship of Christ. This word gentle in the
original language was used of a wild horse that had never submitted
to a rider. And the horse would be captured
by a rope and would be meeked. And to meek the horse was to
bring the horse to a place of submission where it would allow
a rider to ride on its back and for the first time to come under
the authority of a master. They would not break the legs
of the horse. They would simply reel the horse
in. He still had his kick. He still
had his fury. He still had his sprinting ability. But now, for the first time,
it has come under new management. Now, for the first time, it has
come under literally the reign of the rider. And Jesus says,
for everyone who enters into the kingdom, first you must recognize
your spiritual bankruptcy. Second, you must weep over your
sin because you've come under Holy Spirit conviction. And there
is a sense of haunting guilt that you feel in your soul. And
then third, you come to the end of yourself. and you humble yourself
beneath the mighty hand of God. This is what Jesus was saying
in Matthew 11 and verse 28, when Jesus said, come unto me, all
you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Now
listen to verse 29. Take my yoke upon you and learn
from me. What is the imagery there, to
take my yoke upon you? The imagery is of an ox submitting
itself to its master and allowing the master to put the yoke on
his shoulders and around his neck. To fail to do so, the ox
would be what we would call stiff-necked. where the ox would hunch its
shoulders up in such a way that the yoke could not be put upon
the shoulders and around the neck. And that imagery is used
in multiple places in the Bible for resisting God. You're stiff-necked. You will not allow the yoke of
the Lordship of Christ to be placed upon you, but Jesus says,
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and lowly
in heart." Why would we not submit our life to the Lordship of Christ? Because He is the only one who
knows the way, the path. He knows how to direct our lives.
He is the one who provides for us. We should so quickly take
the yoke of Christ and surrender to Him. So, to be lowly in heart,
to be meek in heart, is to submit your entire life to a new master,
Jesus Christ. So, notice the result of this
third beatitude. He says, for they shall inherit
the earth. They and they only shall inherit
the earth. And this is really a reference
from Psalm 37 verse 11 which reads, the humble will inherit
the land and will delight themselves in abundant prosperity. The land
refers to the promised land. the promised land for the nation
Israel as they crossed Jordan and entered into God's provision
for them, it was where God would bless them in the promised land. Well, here Jesus is opening this
up, they shall inherit the earth, The idea is, is that wherever
God will lead you for the rest of your life, if you will yield
your life and be meek and humble and submit to the will of God
and to the Word of God, wherever you go on this earth, wherever
the will of God will take you, the blessing of God will be unusually
upon you. So, Jesus is building out what
it is to enter into the kingdom. So not only a bankrupt spirit,
and not only a repentant or broken heart, and not only a submissive
will where you yield now to the lordship of Christ, but now fourth
in verse 6, a hungering soul. And please note the progression
here from being bankrupt in verse 3 to being broken in verse 4
to being bowed down in verse 5, now in verse 6 to be begging. Verse 6, blessed are those, and
by the way, blessed are those and those only. No one else will
be blessed. These are the only ones on planet
earth who will be blessed and favored and graced by God. Blessed
are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness." What is implied
in that is that you have no righteousness of your own, that there is a
gnawing hunger and thirst on the inside of you for what you
do not possess. You cannot work it up from within
you. It must be, as Martin Luther
called it, a foreign righteousness, an alien righteousness, a righteousness
outside of yourself that must be given to you. And you must
hunger and thirst for it with intense desire and strong craving,
with an acute longing for what you do not have. And in the New
Testament, to hunger and thirst is a metaphor for saving faith. You remember Jesus said in John
chapter 7 and verse 37, if any man thirst, let him come unto
Me and drink. And out of his innermost being
shall flow rivers of living water, and that was a call to faith
in Jesus Christ, a call from even Jesus himself. And in John 6 and verse 51, Jesus
said, I am the living bread that came down out of heaven. If anyone
eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread also which
I give for the life of the world is my flesh, verse 53. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless
you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you
have no life in yourself. But Jesus also said in John 6,
35, I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me will not hunger,
and he who believes in Me will never thirst. And so, a distinguishing
mark of true saving faith is that we yearn for the righteousness
that God alone can give to the one who is spiritually naked
before God. and hunger and thirst for this
perfect righteousness that only God can give, and this is really
what we would call justification by faith alone. It is longing
for the righteousness that Christ secured through His sinless life
and His substitutionary death upon the cross. You and I must
hunger and thirst for this righteousness. Jesus spoke of this in Luke 18
in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. And in
Luke 18 and verse 9, Jesus told this parable to some people who
trusted in themselves. They saw no spiritual bankruptcy
in their life. They certainly weren't broken
over it. They were not willing to humble themselves under the
lordship of Christ, and they certainly did not hunger for
a righteousness that they did not possess. And so, Jesus told
this parable, verse 9 in Luke 18, to people who trusted in
themselves that they were righteous. They don't hunger and thirst
for righteousness just because they perceive themselves to be
self-righteous. and viewed others with contempt."
So, verse 10, two men went up into the temple to pray, one
a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. If we had been standing
there that day and tried to initially size them up, we would have said,
well, the Pharisee is the one in the kingdom. The tax collector
is the one outside the kingdom. And so, Jesus continues this
parable, verse 11, the Pharisee stood and was praying this to
himself. Now, that is to indicate he has
no relationship with God whatsoever. His prayers are going no higher
than the ceiling. He's just praying to himself,
God, I thank You. Well, that sounds good. He has
a thankful spirit, but notice that for which he is thankful,
that I'm not like other people. swindlers, unjust, adulterers,
and even like this tax collector. Can you imagine someone praying
that in a public worship service and offering thanks that he's
not like you or Austin Duncan? And so, he says in verse 12,
I fast twice a week. I pay tithes of all that I get. This man is suffering from an
acute eye disease. Eye, eye, eye. He worships the
unholy trinity, me, myself, and I. So he's obviously a man who does
not hunger and thirst for righteousness. So look at verse 13, but the
tax collector. totally opposite of the Pharisee,
but the tax collector standing some distance away, and that
is reflective of how he sees himself in relationship to God. He understands that he doesn't
have a relationship with God. He understands that he's outside
the kingdom. He understands that he is a long
way away from God. and was even unwilling to lift
up his eyes to heaven. He is under such a conviction
of his sin that he recognizes that he is unworthy to even look
up into heaven. He knows he has no basis of acceptance
with God in and of himself. but was beating his breast, which
was a sign of self-humiliation, which was a sign of self-repute,
and saying, God, be merciful to me, the sinner, not just a
sinner, the sinner. He saw Himself as
the chief of sinners because He's not looking around to His
left or His right and comparing Himself with anyone else like
the Pharisee was. He was comparing Himself with
holy God in heaven. And as far as he is concerned,
no one could be more sinful than me. No one could fall short of
the mark than me. This tax collector understood
the spiritual bankruptcy of his own life. He is poor in spirit
and he is mourning over his sin because he is beating his chest
and he is meek. He will not even look up into
the heights of heaven and he is hungering and thirsting for
a righteousness that he does not have because he knows that
He has missed the mark, and He knows that His sin is exposed
before a holy God, and He knows that He has no hiding place before
God. He knows that He is exposed before
the all-seeing eyes of God in heaven, that He's been weighed
in the balances and found wanting. God, be merciful to me. He doesn't want justice. He doesn't
want what He deserves. He wants what He does not deserve. He wants mercy and grace and blessedness. He wants righteousness that only
God can give to Him. So, how does Jesus interpret
this in verse 14? Jesus gives His own explanation
of this parable. He says, I tell you. That's very
emphatic as He's telling this to the crowd that is gathered
there, I tell you. That's like saying, truly, truly,
I say to you, this man referring not to the Pharisee but to the
tax collector. this man went to his house justified,"
which means to be declared righteous. It refers to the imputed righteousness
of God through His Son, Jesus Christ. It means that the righteousness
of Christ is credited to the account of the one who is spiritually
bankrupt, who has no spiritual capital whatsoever to commend
himself to God. He understands that the wages
of sin is death. And Jesus said, this man who
walked in to this worship service, a sinner, is now going home justified,
clothed with the perfect righteousness of the one who is telling this
parable. And then Jesus concludes at the
end of verse 14. for everyone who exalts himself."
Well, we know who that is. That's the Pharisee, the one
who was so thankful he's not like other people, the one he
saw himself as righteous. For everyone who exalts himself
will be humbled. He will be humbled in the final
judgment. He will be humbled into the pit
of hell. He will be humbled as a tormented soul throughout the
ages to come, but He who humbles Himself in
this lifetime, who acknowledges He's poor in
spirit, who mourns over His sin, who is meek and yielded and submissive
and yearns for the righteousness that only God can clothe me with
because I know that I have no righteousness of my own whatsoever. He who humbles himself will be
exalted, exalted to the heights of heaven, exalted into the very
presence of holy God. exalted into that place of finding
full pardon of sin and acceptance with God. All of us are going to be humble. Either we will be humble in this
life, or we will be humbled in the life to come. but no one
will escape being humbled. Everyone in heaven will be humble,
and everyone in hell will be humbled by the justice and the
righteousness of God. So, the result of this at the
end of verse 6, for they, and I want to say again, they and
they only, they and no one else, They shall be satisfied because
they will be satisfied with the righteousness that God will bestow
upon them as a gift of His grace. These are the four steps of saving
faith. It is only by faith alone that
we are saved, but it is a faith that has distinctive properties,
distinctive qualities about it. And Jesus has just defined what
those qualities are. Now, what does it look like in
a person who has now entered into the kingdom? or the last
four beatitudes mark, they really are the fruit of the one whose
root is in the kingdom. So, I want you to note in verse
7, and this is the fifth beatitude, this one will have a merciful
spirit, a merciful spirit. He says in verse 7, "'Blessed
are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.'" To be merciful
means that you show mercy to others, that you are a person
who feels compassion for those who are hurting and for those
who are destitute. To be merciful means that you
are one who long to come to the aid of someone else who is in
difficulty, that you are one who really looks away from yourself
and become focused upon the needs of other people around you, and
you reach out to those who are hurting and those who are despised,
the idea is the one who receives mercy from God is the one who
shows mercy to others. How would you know if you have
received the saving mercy of God? Romans 9, remember, God
said, I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy. How would
you know if you are one that you have received saving mercy
from God? Well, one evidence of that is
you are a very merciful person towards others. Because you have
received the love of God, you now therefore distribute the
love of God to others. You become one who shows kindness.
to those who are in need and who are down and out. You are
one who shows compassion and love to others. And it says, for they shall receive
mercy And there's really a cycle here. God shows you saving mercy. You now are motivated to show
mercy to others, and as you show mercy to others, God now bestows
more mercy on you. Not more saving mercy, but more
sanctifying mercy and more sufficient mercy, expressions of His love
towards you. Jesus said in Luke 6 verse 35,
love your enemies and do good. Lend expecting nothing in return
and your reward will be great and you will be sons of the Most
High for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. Verse
36, be merciful just as your Father is mercy. Verse 38, give
and it will be given to you. The more mercy you show to others,
the more mercy will be shown to you from God, and you cannot
outgive God. Please note the sixth beatitude,
and we'll wrap this up, a pure heart in verse 8. Those who are
in the kingdom, they will not be perfect, but they will have
a pure heart. Blessed are the pure in heart. Heart here represents all that
a person is on the inside. It's a comprehensive term. Blessed are the pure who have
a pure mind, who have pure affections, who have pure attitudes. because their heart has been
cleansed by grace. In fact, they have received a
new heart. They are cleansed from the pollution of sin, and
Jesus was after a heart religion in the Sermon on the Mount. The
Pharisees had externalized their religion and they said, well,
we haven't killed anyone and we haven't committed adultery
with anyone. But Jesus said, but you have
anger in your heart, you have murdered. And because you have
lust in your heart, you have committed adultery. Jesus was
always pressing for the purity of heart. And those who are in
the kingdom are those who have been regenerated by the Spirit
of God and their heart of stone has been removed and God has
implanted a heart of flesh. It is a new heart that now longs
for holiness and purity. And He says, for they shall see
God. I think we take that for what
it says, that these are the only ones who will go to heaven and
see God. It's the beatific vision. Revelation 22 verse 3 and 4,
for they shall see God. In other words, this is an affirmation
that you really are in the kingdom. And in ancient times, most citizens
would never see their emperor or their king. He would be behind
cloistered doors and be surrounded by multitudes of servants and
living in pomp and circumstance. Most citizens in ancient empires
never saw their king. But in the kingdom of heaven,
every citizen will see their king. And we will look upon Him
as He is, the Lord Jesus Christ at the right hand of God the
Father. And we will see the glory of God that is shining so brightly
in heaven that God will snuff out the sun, for there will be
no need for artificial illumination in the new heavens and the new
earth, that the glory of God that will come beaming forth
from His essence will light up the entire created order. We will see this glorious God
in heaven. There will be no veil separating
us from beholding our King. And we will be made like the
Lord Jesus Christ with glorified eyes that will be able to gaze
upon Him in His holiness. Then the next beatitude, verse
9, a peacemaking soul. He says, blessed are the peacemakers. for they shall be called the
sons of God." Peacemakers are those who reach out to establish
peace with other people. They are reconcilers of people. They are not those who are needlessly
offensive. They are not those who are needlessly
harsh. They are not those who are ungraciously
abrasive. There is such a new love that
has settled down into their heart that they are known as peacemakers. They are reconcilers of people
and seek to bring together those who have have had a wedge driven
between them. They are like a bridge to connect
people back together. They're not backstabbing. They're
not gossiping. They're not slandering. They're
not further dividing people one from another. No, they are those
who are bringing people together in Christ and reestablishing
broken relationships. And the greatest peacemaking
that they will ever do is to bring people into peace with
God through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and will be those
who will be sharing the gospel with Him. Therefore, having been
justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus
Christ, Romans 5 verse 1. And notice it says, for they
shall be called the sons of God. That is actually a statement
of assurance of salvation. And these are the only ones who
will be called the sons of God by God Himself. If you're not
a peacemaker, if you're a divider, it is clear evidence that you're
not a son of God, you're a son of the devil who is a slanderer. True children of God, true sons
and daughters of God are peacemakers. They are peacemakers at home.
They are peacemakers at church. They are peacemakers at work.
They are peacemakers wherever they go. And then finally, in
verses 10 through 12, a persecuted life, Jesus intentionally places
this final beatitude eighth because it is the climactic consummation
of the first seven beatitudes It's somewhat of a bottom line
that if you live like the first seven Beatitudes, the result
will be the eighth Beatitude. And so, in verse 10, blessed
are those who have been persecuted. This persecution, the word persecution
means to be put to flight, to be driven away. The idea is you're
run out of your circles of relationships. You are considered really almost
nonexistent from your previous relationships. You may be put
out of the circles within your family. You may be put out of
circles with your previous friends. It may be you're even run out
of town, or you may be run out of a church. That's what it is
to be persecuted. And this persecution, he says,
is for the sake of righteousness. It's not because you are a provocative
person unnecessarily. It is because you are such a
peacemaker, you are persecuted. It is because you are so pure
in heart that you're persecuted. It is because you are one who
shows mercy you are being persecuted. It is because you are meek and
have humbled yourself in the midst of an arrogant world. You
stand out like bright stars on a dark night. And you probably
rub people the wrong way because you don't just fit in with those
out in the world. And whether they feel somewhat
convicted by that, or whether they just don't want to have
to see your lifestyle and your manner of life, whatever that
is, you are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, and that
becomes really a validation that you have received righteousness.
in justification by faith. 2 Timothy 3 verse 12, all who
desire to live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. It's par for the course. All
citizens in the kingdom of heaven are those who are rubbing those
in the world the wrong way. And so, he goes on to say in
Matthew 5 and verse 11, and we'll wrap this up, he says, "'Blessed
are you when people insult you. They insult you for your faith.
They insult you for your convictions and for your values. and persecute
you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of
me." They exaggerate. They conspire accusations against
you. They misinterpret what you say
and why you say it and how you live and why you live a certain
way. To their eyes, you come across
as, yeah, you're better than other people. You're looking
down your long nose, self-righteous nose at others. That's how they
perceive it. And they say, all kinds of evil
against you because of me. And it starts in the home many
times. As Jesus said in Matthew chapter 10 later, He says, I've
come not to bring peace on the earth, I've come to bring He
said, I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against
her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and
a man's enemies will be the members of his own household. What is
this ax that's laid to the root? What is this wedge that would
separate a father from a son or a mother from a daughter?
And it is the possession and profession of Jesus Christ. that
you are now light exposing what is in darkness, and it creates
conflict, it creates controversy. And that's what Jesus said is
the result of the first seven beatitudes. And then in verse
12, this sounds so odd, so unusual. He says, rejoice. You ought to be happy about this.
Rejoice and be glad, not because you have rubbed others the wrong
way. He says, for this reason, your
reward in heaven is great. I think of Stephen who stood
before the Sanhedrin in Acts chapter 7. And he brought that
tour de force of a message, a walk through the Bible that concluded
in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ and how they
rose up and stoned Him to death for that sermon. And right before
He died, the heavens were opened and the enthroned Christ actually
stood and rose from His throne of sovereignty and stood in heaven
for Stephen. And the implication is, son,
if you'll stand for me on the earth, I will stand for you in
heaven. And our reward is the approbation
of the Lord Jesus Christ, that we would please Him more than
we would desire to please men or please this world. then he
adds at the end of verse 12, "'For in the same way they persecuted
the prophets who were before you.'" That's a great reward.
You got in the right line. You're in line with the prophets,
Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, those who are persecuted for saying,
thus says the Lord, great is your reward in heaven." So, these beatitudes are really
a call to be different from the world. Too often as Christians,
sometimes we're tempted to try to blend in And there is bridge
building, and there is connecting, and there is networking so that
we can bring the gospel to people, but we're just wired completely
different. We have a totally different set of values. We are
totally, distinctly different people on the inside. We are those that are described
in these Beatitudes. And chiefly, we are different
internally. And not merely externally, like
we come across looking as an odd person. No, we're different
on the inside. When you lift up the hood of
our life and you look down into the engine, there in our heart,
we are totally, completely different. We are being driven by the Lord
in a totally different way. And so, these Beatitudes are
a call for us to recognize the radical difference that it is
for us to be in the kingdom of heaven. So, as you've been sitting
there so attentively and as you have listened to this, I wonder
how this has struck you. I wonder what thoughts have been
in your mind and in your head. I wonder how you have been processing
this. Does this profile match up with
the profile of your life? Is this, in a sense, autobiographical? Is this a description of your
life? It is for everyone who's in the
kingdom of God and in the kingdom of heaven. And we know that we
can only be this by the grace of God and grow in this as we
are dependent upon the Lord to be at work within us, both to
will and to work for His good pleasure. But this is a clear
line in the sand. This is a clear black and white
statement that separates the wheat from the tares, that separates
those who are in the kingdom from those who are outside the
kingdom. Those who are inside the kingdom,
theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Not anything else, theirs is
the kingdom of heaven. And as you would see God working
this in your life, it ought to bring great assurance to your
salvation. It's not just that I prayed a
prayer or joined a church or was baptized. Do I see these
distinctive qualities in my life? If you are in the kingdom of
God, you will see these. And if these are not present,
you yet need to enter through the narrow gate and come into
the kingdom of heaven because everyone who is in the kingdom
is profiled here and described here as those who have become
very different from what they once were. The old things have
passed away. Behold, new things have come.
And if you have never come into the kingdom of heaven, there's
only one way to enter into the kingdom, and that is to take
that decisive step of faith and to enter through the narrow gate. And it is such a narrow gate,
you're going to have to leave all this other stuff on the outside,
strip down, humble yourself, declare bankruptcy, weep and
mourn, and Come under the yoke of Christ and hunger and thirst
for what you do not have, the righteousness that only God can
give you. That's what it is to be in the
kingdom. And no one skips into the kingdom. No one giggles into
the kingdom. We all come with a heart wound.
We have been pierced by the Word of God and by the Spirit of God,
and we cry out, God, have mercy upon me, the sinner. May this
be your testimony tonight. May you say, yes, this is what
God has done in my life. God found me out, and His Holy
Spirit worked this in me. And if this has not happened
in your life, May this be a night in your life for you to awaken
out of the slumber of your sin and come to the realization that
I must come all the way to faith in Jesus Christ. I must repent
of my sin. I must humble myself beneath
the mighty hand of God and cry out to God for mercy. And here's the good news. is the friend of sinners. He says, I've come not for the
righteous. I've come for the unrighteous.
He's a physician who's come not for those who are well. He's
come for those who are sick. And He says to everyone who's
outside the kingdom, Him who comes unto Me, I will in no wise
cast out." He will receive you. He will take you into His arms
of mercy. The narrow gate is an open gate
tonight. And if you are sensing the conviction
of sin in your heart, Jesus says, come unto Me. all
you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take
my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in
heart, and you shall find rest for your souls. For my burden is easy and my yoke is light. and He
is inviting you to come to Himself. The gates of paradise are swung
wide open tonight, and He will receive you into His kingdom.
If you will come with a humble heart, confessing your sin, acknowledging
your poverty of spirit, and come with a broken heart,
and be meek in hunger and thirst for what
only God can give you, to clothe you with His perfect righteousness. He who has ears to hear, let
him hear what the Lord says to the church. Let us pray. Father, thank You that when You
sent Your Son into this world, on His way to the cross, You
made Him a preacher, and He preached the truth. And He began with what we looked
at tonight. This is front-loaded truth that
Your Son preached first, because it's of first importance for
entrance into the kingdom. Lord, I pray for us here tonight,
for those who have entered the kingdom, that You would give
us a fresh and new gratitude for what You've done
in our life. And Lord, here tonight for anyone,
everyone who is outside the kingdom, May they not remain in the kingdom
of darkness. May they take that decisive step
of faith and come through the narrow gate
that leads to life. Lord, we ask that you would have
mercy upon many people here tonight. In Jesus' name, amen.