Matthew 4:23-5:12. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on December 10, 2023.
We talked last we about Jesus as King Messiah delivering the teaching in our passage. We also talked about Jesus as the Greater Moses, the greater prophet, delivering the instructions of Yahweh to God’s people.
This is how we need to see this passage from chapter 4 through the end of the Sermon on the Mount in chapter 7. Through Jesus, the promise of Abraham was even now breaking forth upon Israel. Furthermore, it will not stop until it has inundated the whole earth.
Let’s look at our passage.
Chapter four has Jesus calling the four fishermen to follow him. However, Matthew records his own call in chapter nine. The emphasis is more on his teaching and ministry to the people than it is on The Twelve who will follow him.
I mention this because Jesus is speaking to “his disciples” in Matthew 5:1. It is easy to immediately think of the 12, but Matthew purposefully puts this before mentioning any other of the twelve being called. I do not believe that Matthew means the 12, or even the 4 that we know are called at this point. I believe it refers to the larger group of those who wanted to hear what Jesus was teaching.
Notice that the ministry of Jesus leading up to this has been to the desperate multitudes that had followed him. Of course, they came to him because they were sick, lame, needy, and some even demon-possessed. However, Jesus was setting them free. Imagine if experiencing such a thing. The man is healing people, but he is also teaching and preaching about the “Gospel of the Kingdom” (4:23).
These people are not just seeing a power that was greater than any prophet before, and had not been seen in Israel for centuries. They are also hearing a different kind of teaching. It is not completely different. It talks of the kingdom as the rabbis of their day did. However, Jesus interacted with the sick and hurting different than they did.
I think this can be summed up in the rebuke of Jesus in Matthew 23:13. “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.”
Jesus is going to talk about “the narrow gate” in Matthew 7:13. He is also going to refer to himself as the door in John 10:1-10. The religious leaders of Israel were keeping people from coming into the Kingdom, but Jesus, who is the very door and gate into the Kingdom, is calling to them to come in. He is healing them and telling them that the Kingdom belongs to them. This was a very different approach from a religious leader, and it shocked them.
The image of a scary, ferocious dog comes to mind. The religious leaders were hypocrites because it was their job to help the people towards God and His Kingdom. However, spiritually they were keeping people from entering it. They wouldn’t go in and they were intimidating people not to go in.
More than that, their view of those who were sick, infirm, and demon-possessed caused them treat the people in that condition as sub-class, as if God had cursed them and didn’t care for them. The attitude projected the idea that if people were more like them, then they wouldn’t have the problems that they do. They had no problem moving on and leaving the poor and oppressed behind. However, Jesus said that they were not entering the kingdom. So, where were they progressing to? They were leaving the oppressed behind, but they were only progressing towards an imaginary kingdom of their own making.
They had a system that had been developed, and many of them had risen through the ranks of it. It was a system of theology and thinking that told them that they were God’s best and blessed. It patted them on the back and told them that they were doing good in God’s eyes. They had the right credentials hanging on their walls, and they had the right people patting them on the back. Their lives were relatively good, and so they must be God’s favorites. They could look at a person with a horrible sickness, or disability, and rejoice that God loved them more. They didn’t have a demon-possessed child, even more proof.
The problem is that, when it is your child who is sick or demon-possessed, you don’t have the luxury of just moving on. Of course, there are some people out there who disown family because they “didn’t sign up for this.” But, many a loved one suffered through with family members without knowing why this was happening to them, and yet being told by the religious leaders that they were cursed of God.
Life has a way of challenging us in ways that we didn’t ask for. Do you think any sick person wanted to be sick, or that they all somehow deserved it? What about congenital stuff that is in the DNA?
There is a certain “accident” of nature in the DNA of a man and the DNA of a woman coming together and producing a third combination. Though we can talk about the process of this, there is still a mystery in how certain genes are picked versus others. Does God completely control that? Is any of it left up to the lower natural laws that He has created, and just becomes what it will be? We must confess that there is much mystery here that we are not given the answers to.
So, life tests us. What is our choice? Do I come alongside a person in compassion, or tells myself that there is something spiritually wrong with them, or it wouldn’t have happened. Do I isolate myself because I don’t want to get it too? Who wants a leper in the Kingdom?
This is how I believe Matthew is presenting Jesus as he gives his address, which starts with the “beatitudes.” They are called the beatitudes because “beati” is Latin for “blessed” and the ending “tude” simply means “thing.” These are the blessed things or blessings that Jesus declared to the people. We see this throughout the Bible. However, each of these blessings give a surprising definition to just who are the blessed in Israel that day. Let me give you a hint. None of the people in that crowd thought of themselves as the blessed, except for the fact that Jesus had just healed them. Everything else told them that they were cursed.
This surprise twist is opening the door for them to enter the Kingdom. Notice the formula first. It states that “blessed are,” and then it states a condition of life, or experience, or even a particular kind of activity. It then follows that up with a reason why they are blessed. In essence, they are things that God has planned for the people who fit the first category. They are not so much blessed by the first category, but they are blessed by what God intends and plans for those in that category. Again, they all have a surprising twist to them.
Before we look at each of them, it is important to recognize that we have a message regarding just who is blessed and it is being given by the Messiah. This is interesting because the Psalms are put in a 5 different collections that use the Covenant of David and the Promised Messiah as a call to Israel for faithful trust in Yahweh’s plan. The first two psalms give a sort of introduction to the whole collection.
The focus of Psalm 1 is on defining for Israel both the proper way to follow Yahweh and the blessing that Yahweh will dispense to them. Psalm 2 may seem to drastically change the subject as it presents the nations rejecting and conspiring against Yahweh and His Anointed One. The Psalm ends with another statement of blessing, which clearly ties back to the blessed person of Psalm 1. There are other literary ties between Psalm 1 and 2. Thus, they are intended to function together. They picture a person who does not follow the wicked, sinners, and mockers of their age. Instead, they meditate on the instruction of the LORD night and day. This causes them to become a fruitful tree, rather than chaff.
The word for blessed essentially speaks to the effect of a relationship with God. It is sometimes translated as happy, but that falls short. It speaks to the good effects in our life, and in every kind of way, because we are faithfully trusting God. This person will be able to recognize Messiah and quickly embrace him in trust, in faith (Ps 2:12).
Yet, the connection goes deeper than this. The Messiah, Jesus, is the perfect example, exemplar, of the Psalm 1 blessed person. He is the ultimate tree of life in which all the righteous are able to be fruitful. Every one of the beatitudes are exampled perfectly by Jesus throughout the Gospel of Matthew. God is not just saying that He has a plan for us and we should trust Him. Even more, He has joined us in those difficult situations and promises to lead us to that blessing that God plans for us. Jesus is not just identifying intellectually with these people, with us. He is identifying by immersing himself in the same situations.
Each one of these situations have an aspect to them that our flesh doesn’t like. Because of this, we are tempted to run from them or do what we can to avoid them. We can spend so much energy in avoiding them that we lose sight of a blessing that God is trying to give us through them.
Our flesh, the world, and the devil, can pile on when these situations are present. “If you really had God then this wouldn’t happen.” Or, “If God really loved you, was really on your side, then…” They do not appear to be blessings. In fact, notice that the condition, i.e., poor in spirit or mourning, are not themselves the blessing. They are like a present that is wrapped up and yet leads to a good thing. The blessing is the thing that God plans to do or give for those in that tough situation.
When we end up on a sick bed it is not a good thing. Yet, if we trust God and wait upon Him, He has a blessing, a good plan through it. We must be careful of letting fear cause us to flee from the very things in which God is trying to give us a blessing. I’m not saying that God purposefully causes these bad things, but that He allows them because He can overcome it and use it for the good.
We will talk about the structure of the Sermon on the Mount later, but this introductory message about being blessed by God comes in three sets of three. Threes play a big part in the structure of this sermon, so I am going to look at these in sets of three.
Let’s get into them.
The poor in spirit (v. 3) is using wealth terminology, but applies it to a person’s spirit. It is speaking of being humble as opposed to proud. Yet, it is not just talking about a moral ethic. Of course, it is good to be humble and not good to be proud. However, in our context, these are people who have been ground down by their condition of life. They have been politically dominated by successive empires. They have been religiously dominated by an uncaring know-it-all class. On top of this, they had things going on physically and spiritually in their life that brought them to very humble, very low, circumstances.
As we go through this list, we should recognize that some of them present things that we should ethically try to do. However, underneath of that idea, there is the bigger issue of not even having a choice. You are humble because everything in life has ground out any pride you may ever have had.
Let’s look at the second blessing. Jesus speaks to those who mourn. Again, Jesus isn’t telling his followers that they should never be happy, but always mourning. Rather, it is about speaking to people whose life has descended into something difficult over which they mourn. This is definitely one of those things that we try to avoid in life. Yet, here is Jesus saying that God sees us when we mourn, and He has a blessing for us.
The third situation is the meek. It is sometimes translated “lowly.” We see this in Zechariah 9:9. “Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, Lowly and riding on a donkey…” This is the same word for “meek” in our passage. This word is also applied to Moses in Numbers 12:3. “Now the man Moses was very humble, more than all men who were on the face of the earth.” Again, this is the same word.
In some ways, the word meek has the concept of lowly and unimportant. However, notice that we cannot say that Moses and, even more, Messiah are not important. The word is not about your role and purpose in society. It is a word of how you carry yourself towards others. It is a person who is not seeking a position even when it is given to them. They are not desperate for everyone to see them as something great. Instead, they are lowly, humble, meek of spirit.
When I think about Moses, I believe that he is lowly because he knows that he can’t deliver Israel at all. He has no power and is no one. If it wasn’t for God, he could do nothing. When Korah, Dathan, and Abiram complained against Moses, it wasn’t Moses who rebuked them. It was God Himself who stood up for Moses and rebuked the rebels.
It is similar with Jesus, but not in the same way. Jesus is perfect and has no sin, unlike Moses. However, Jesus does not fight against his detractors. He humbly and meekly trusts in the Father to be his defense, even to the point of crucifixion.
Now look at the blessing side of these three. For those who are poor in spirit, we are told “theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” Similarly for the meek, “they shall inherit the earth.” This is Kingdom terminology. Israel had been waiting for Messiah to come and set up the kingdom, and here he is, talking with broken people and telling them how blessed they are. The Kingdom has been brought near to them and it is there for them to enter.
Yet, notice the blessing for those who mourn. It simply lets them know that they are blessed because they are going to be comforted. He is not talking about someone in this life comforting them. He is talking about God the Father. He has a plan to comfort them for the things that cause them to mourn. Instead of tying it to the Kingdom, it is simply tied to trusting God, period. In the end, God is the only true source of blessing, and if He is blessing us, then it doesn’t matter whether it is in the Kingdom or outside. It is blessed because God is with us.
The second group of three begin with those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Hunger and thirst are things that come to us because food and water are lacking. Of course, this world clearly lacks righteousness. It pictures a person with pains and panting for just a bite and a sip of righteousness in this life.
This begs the question. What am I thirsty for? There is a commercial that has the line, “Stay thirsty…” Yeah, we should stay thirsty, but we had better be careful what we are thirsting for. In a world thirsting for righteousness, it is easy for us to develop and accept worldly substitutes instead of true righteousness. Messiah is the true righteousness. However, we can be so full of eating at the trough of false righteousness that he is not palatable to us. Instead of redefining righteousness and creating a system of traditions that pats you on the back, telling you that you are righteous, (a righteousness that our flesh likes) we come to God and seek His righteousness, and wait upon Him.
Next we have those who are merciful. The merciful are generally those who have been in tough times themselves. We should seek to be a merciful person as a matter of ethics. However, the truth is that life teaches us mercy by the difficult things that we experience. We gain empathy through the things that happen to us. It slows us down and enables us to see people that we used to walk on past without a thought. The more we flee environments where we need mercy, the less we are able to hear the hurting heart of those who do.
Then, we have those who are pure in heart. We can make this more complicated then it needs to be. It is not about never making a mistake or sinning. It speaks to a singleness of purpose. I may fall into sin because of my flesh, but my heart simply, purely, wants to be right with God. For Israel, singleness of purpose meant honoring God and following His instructions. Guess what, it means the same thing for us.
I find it interesting that, in this central group of three, the blessings do not mention the Kingdom. We can put so much emphasis on ruling in a Kingdom with Messiah that we can lose sight of what is most important, and that is a relationship with God that is good. Can I be satisfied in this life before, or without, the Kingdom? Can I be merciful? Jesus was all of these things even though his life was tough, and he laid the throne of Israel and the world on the altar before God and allowed it to be burned to powder at the cross. God’s people being free from their sins and truly knowing God the Father was more important than a thousand years of ruling on this earth.
Thus, the hungry and thirsty will be satisfied by God. When, LORD, when will you do this? This cry of our heart can overwhelm God’s promise that He will satisfy us, both in helping us to be righteous and in making this world a righteous place one day. The merciful will be shown mercy by God. Imagine crying out for righteousness and then standing before God and finding out that you yourself were not righteous, were not merciful. Imagine hearing the words, “Depart from Me. I never knew you.” The pure in heart, those who keep singularly focused on God’s purpose and will, will find a day when they see God. This is not just talking about judgment day, but beyond. We will one day dwell in His presence never to be separated again!
It has been said that God whispers to us in our pleasures, but He shouts to us in our pain (C.S.Lewis). Can I hear what God is saying over the din of my own heart, the world, and the devil? May God help us to trust Him. None of these central blessings mention the Kingdom because the Kingdom is just a part of God’s plan of blessing for us. Even now, He has a blessing for us in the midst of our difficulties.
This is why Job could give the cry of faith in Job 19:25-26. “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at the last [day] on the earth; and after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God!” Wow, what a statement of faith in the midst of difficulty. His only hope is to simply see God and be received.
The final three begin with the peacemakers. There is no more thankless job than getting in the middle of two people who are angry with each other. If you really care about reconciling them, you may find both of them turning their proverbial guns upon you. In fact, even Christians can do this. When we are offended, we can demand that the people around us pick our side, or die. You have to agree with me to be right. The heart of a peacemaker cares about both people and both sides of the issue. In general, both sides will have something to work on.
The ultimate peacemaking is to mediate between God and the lost. Very few people will thank you for trying to reconcile them to God, unless they actually are reconciled to God. Jesus says that the peacemakers are blessed because they will be called the sons of God. Who is going to call them that? It won’t be the world. It will be God who calls us the sons of God.
It may not be manifest to the world that we are the sons of God. In fact, they may accuse us of being the sons of the devil. But, it will be manifested one day. It won’t be an in-your-face celebration because that isn’t the heart of Jesus for the lost. He is the ultimate peacemaker, and he did so by laying down his life. He suffered that we might be able to reconcile with God. No, we will have tears of joy that God has fulfilled His promise, and tears of sorrow for those who never believed.
The last two blessings are sometimes looked at as the same. They are both about being persecuted, but the difference is why you are persecuted.
Those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness (doing/trying to do the right thing) are first in view. We can notice that the tight formula that Jesus has been using opens up to greater commentary, even instruction, by him. This is interesting because persecution has a way of breaking down our formulaic approaches to life, and gets us real with people and God very quickly. These are blessed because “theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” This is the same blessing as the first beatitude and points to the kingdom again.
The Kingdom is important to God, and there will be a literal rule of Jesus physically on this earth. God is not a liar. He will keep His promises to the saints. However, keep that in mind as we go to the next blessing.
Those who are persecuted for the sake of Jesus are the last we see. This is parallel with the Old Testament saints who were persecuted because they were faithful to Yahweh (sometimes even by apostate Israelites). Such are blessed because their reward is reserved for them in heaven. This does not just mean heaven itself is the reward. It is a recognition that your reward cannot be touched by anything in this world. It is held firm, reserved, secure in heaven for you.
If you truly understood God’s heart for you in the midst of the difficult things you are going through, then you would rejoice and be exceedingly glad. Perhaps, Jesus is laying it on a little thick? Listen, this is the One who went to the cross, into the grave, and trusted God to overrule His treatment in this life. He trusted the Father to be the only source of blessing that He would cling to. Like Jacob wrestling with the Lord, Jesus becomes the ultimate Israel, “One who has Power with God!”
May God help us to also keep our eyes upon Jesus. If we are persecuted for doing the right thing, and especially for trusting Jesus, then we can rejoice that we are taking our place among the many saints in the Bible, and the countless saints throughout all of time. Let us follow Jesus, the ultimate blessed one, and learn of him the path of blessing.