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October 7, 2026 | Sam Morris teaches from the opening of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:1-12), explaining the nature of true blessing as spiritual and rooted in relationship with God rather than material wealth. He highlights the characteristics of being poor in spirit, mourning, meekness, hungering for righteousness, and bearing spiritual fruit as traits of those who are blessed.
Bellevue Baptist Church Middle School Ministry
What a joy it is to be able to hear you guys worship the Lord and to be able to hear you guys say, I trust in God, my savior. It is such a joy to be able to worship together and to open up his word. And if you have a Bible tonight, go ahead and hold it up. Let me see them. And I got to tell you guys, I have been so proud of you guys with how well you've done bringing your Bibles, holding them up. So many of you have them. I'm so proud of you. So put it back in your lap and open up to Matthew chapter five. Last week, we finished up our series, The Good Neighbor, talking about what it means to love God and to love our neighbor with the love of God. We talked about the whole story of Jonah and how there is no one beyond the love of God and the bad motivation that Jonah had behind running from the Lord. And so tonight, we are starting a new series in the book of Matthew called Up on the Mountain. And we're gonna be going through different passages through what is called the Sermon on the Mount. That is Jesus' longest and most famous sermon in the book of Matthew from chapters five all the way to seven. And tonight, we're gonna be in chapter five at the very beginning of his sermon. And tonight, we're gonna be talking about being blessed. And so the title tonight is Blessed Beyond the Rest. Blessed Beyond the Rest. We're gonna be in Matthew five, verses one through 12. And before we jump into the text, I wanna ask you a question. What is it that makes you happy? What are some examples of things that make you happy? What are some things that put a smile on your face? Yes. My dogs. Your dogs. That is such a good answer, Caleb. I love that. Yes, Michael. My friends. Your friends. Another great answer. Caden. Making new friends. Making new friends. You made a new friend tonight. I love it. Yes. Chick-fil-A. Chick-fil-A. I love it. Yeah. Babysitting. Babysitting. I didn't expect that, though. That's good. Sports. Sports. I love it. Eli. Texas beating Oklahoma. Texas beating Oklahoma. Yes, all of those things are great things. Those are great things. They make us happy. They're things that we get excited about, and none of them are bad things. But tonight, looking at the beginning of Jesus's Sermon on the Mount, we are gonna look at what it means to be truly blessed, happy beyond just these things that we're happy about for a second, and then it's over. And so we're gonna start reading actually in chapter four, and then we'll get into our main text for tonight. Chapter four, starting in verse 23, says this. And he, Jesus, went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures and paralytics, and he healed them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis and from Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan. Chapter five, 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. And so as we see in the last few verses of chapter four, Jesus has been going around the area of Galilee, and he's been teaching, he's been healing, he's been meeting the spiritual needs of the people who are in that area, and people are beginning to follow him. He's beginning to build a little bit of a reputation in the area, and people are coming to him to be healed, to learn, to hear what he has to say. And so he takes this opportunity, there's many people all around him, he sees the crowds, and he sees this opportunity to teach them, and so he goes up onto the mountain, and it says that his disciples came to him. His disciples came to him. And so there's all these people who are coming to hear from Jesus. They're excited to hear what he has to say. And now, I think the majority of them wanted to learn from him about the kingdom of God. They wanted to know more about who Jesus was. But I think there were some there that they just wanted to maybe see him do a magic trick. They'd heard he'd done miracles, and they wanted to see him do one. But regardless, whether they wanted to genuinely hear his teaching, or if they wanted to see him do a miracle, they were there to hear from Jesus in the same way that we are here tonight to open up his word and hear from him. And so Jesus begins, and he opens his mouth, and he teaches them as they are with hearts ready to hear what he has to say. And so he opens his mouth, and he begins teaching, and the first thing he says is, blessed are the poor. Blessed are the poor. And I don't think that we typically think of someone who is poor, they don't have a lot of money, we don't think of them as being somebody who's particularly blessed, right? It's like, you are not as blessed as somebody else because you don't have as much. And this is because we kind of think wrongly about blessing sometimes. And Jesus is talking about a different kind of blessing. He's not thinking about it the way that we do. We think of blessing or someone being blessed in terms of material possessions, stuff that we have. I have a phone, so I'm blessed. I have a big house, so I'm blessed. I have brand new trendy shoes, so I'm blessed. Jesus is not talking about that kind of blessing. Our worldly blessedness is dependent on things and on circumstances, and Jesus is referring to a deep and unwavering happiness of the soul that's not dependent on circumstances. Even when things are hard, there's a state of being blessed that a follower of Jesus has, because the blessing that we have is reliant on God and not the stuff around us. And so the first thing I want you to see from Jesus' teaching tonight is that you are spiritually blessed when you know your need for God. You're spiritually blessed when you know your need for God. Starting in verse three, he says, "'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.'" So the first of those three is the poor, and this is not talking about somebody who's financially poor. The word poor can refer to that sometimes, but what Jesus is talking about here is that someone has an understanding that they are spiritually poor. It says the poor in spirit. This is somebody who understands their need for God, that they are spiritually poor, they are far from him, and that they have nothing to offer a holy God, and that it is by the grace and the mercy of God that we have the opportunity to know him. Romans three, verse 23, says, "'For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.'" All means what? All. All of us. Every single one of us has sinned and has fallen short of the glory of God, and so we have nothing to offer him. He loves us anyway, because the next part of that verse says, "'But are justified by his grace as a gift.'" Because he loves us. And so there's no one who's truly rich in spirit, apart from God. But those who are willing to admit that they are spiritually poor, to admit that they need God, they are spiritually blessed, and they can find their joy, they can find this blessing in God, because he is the one who meets their spiritual needs. Ephesians two, verses eight through nine says, "'For by grace you have been saved through faith, "'and this is not your own doing. "'It is a gift of God, not a result of works, "'so that no one can boast.'" We desperately need God. We don't deserve to be spiritually wealthy, but we are given the free gift of grace because of God's love for us. It is a gift that we receive, it is not a claim to fame, and we can't take any credit for it. And so blessed is the one who is poor in spirit, understanding that they have a
spiritual need for God. The second one he points out is the mourning. The one who mourns, blessed are those who mourn. And this is referring to people who are burdened, heavy hearted and broken, but broken particularly over their sin. And when I think about people who are broken over their sin, my mind immediately goes to King David after he sinned and committed adultery with Bathsheba. And he goes and he writes Psalm 51. And he's crying out to God, asking the Lord for forgiveness, asking the Lord to have mercy on him. And he's broken over his sin. And in verse 16 through 17 in Psalm 51, he says this, talking to God, he says, for you will not delight in a sacrifice or I would give it. You will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices pleasing to God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart. Oh God, you will not despise. The sacrifice that is pleasing to the Lord is a broken heart and a humble spirit. Someone whose heart is broken over breaking God's heart. That's exactly what sin does. When we sin and we rebel against God, it breaks God's heart because we are his children and he loves us and he wants us to live a life that's honoring to him. It breaks his heart when we walk away from him. And so the person who is broken over breaking God's heart, broken over their sin, they are blessed because they again are reminded of their need for God. Someone whose heart is broken, they will be comforted by God. They will receive grace from God with open arms. And then the last of the three is the meek. The humble, the lowly, the least. Somebody who's not seeing themselves as the top dog in the room. Somebody who is not trying to be the greatest. They don't see themselves as great and powerful, but instead they see themselves as needy for God's strength. That they can't do anything of their own power and their own strength. They are servants of God and they are servants of the people around them. Mark 9 verse 35 says, if anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all. The powerful and the proud are not going to inherit the earth. It is the humble, it is the lowly, it is the least of all who will be first in the kingdom of God. And those are the ones who will be blessed. And so I want you to imagine that you have a friend who's desperately trying to fix a flat tire on her bike. And she is struggling with it really hard. She's having a hard time. She doesn't have the tools to fix it. She has never replaced a flat tire on a bike before. And you go and you do have tools and you've changed a few bike tires before. And so you go and you're like, hey, can I help you? And she goes, no, I'm gonna fix this myself, right? And so she goes back to struggling with the bike tire and she's just having a really hard time. And you know that you have the tools, you know that you have the understanding to be able to do it. And little does she know that you can help her. And the truth is that sometimes help is right under our noses, but we have to be humble enough to ask for it. We have to be humble enough to go and to say, I need help. I have a problem and I need help. And so whether you grew up in church or this is your first time setting foot in a church, whether you know a lot about the Bible or this is your first time even hearing from the Bible, the truth is that every single one of us has a desperate need for God. We have a desperate need for God. But Jesus says that the ones who are willing to admit that, to say, God, I need you, I need help. I need to have my spiritual needs met and I can't do it myself. I need you to help me. Those are the ones who are blessed with this unwavering happiness of the soul. This unchanging blessing that is apart from our circumstances and apart from the things going on in our life despite the way we really feel. And so do you understand the poverty, the poorness of your spirit apart from God? Do you get heartbroken over the ways that you sin and rebel against God each and every day? Do you have the humility that it takes to confess these things to God and to admit that you need him? You're spiritually blessed when you understand that you need God. The second thing I want you to see in this text is that you are spiritually blessed when you want to be more like Jesus, when you want to be more like Jesus. Verse six says, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the people who, because they know they fall short of the glory of God, because they understand how much they need him, they chase after him with their whole heart. They have a hunger for his word. They have a hunger to be more like Jesus. They have a hunger to live their life in a way that honors and pleases him. They want God to come into their life and to change them, to make them whole, to clean up the mess in their life. They know how much they need God and they are seeking after him because they know that he's the one that can meet those needs. And so every single one of us was created by God with careful attention to detail. He made you specifically on purpose and there's specific things for you to do that maybe I'm not supposed to do. But what is true for all of us is that we have been created with a need to know God and to be known by him. That is core to who we are. Our souls long to know God and to be known by him. And so that creates a hunger and a longing in our souls for God. But the thing is, we can choose how we try to satisfy that hunger and that longing. We can go to God and we can seek him to satisfy the needs of our heart or we can turn to every other thing to try and satisfy the needs of our soul. We can satisfy it in a sinful way. And so after the mix tonight, when I go home, I'm gonna be starving. I'm so hungry after the mix every night. And so I could go home and I could make a nice, nutritional, healthy meal. Or I could go and eat an entire bag of Miss Vickie's dill pickle kettle chips. Yeah, hey, y'all know about it. Those are fire. But is that a good nutritional meal? What? Listen, I love, listen, I love me some Miss Vickie's but it is not a nutritional meal. It is fried, greasy potatoes. The point I'm making is, we can choose how we satisfy the hunger that we have. We have the hunger either way. And we choose how we satisfy that. We can satisfy our hunger with a good meal or we can satisfy it with something like a bag of chips. And so for us, the question for us is, what are we satisfying our hunger with? Are we going to focus on the future and satisfy ourselves with a good meal or are we gonna get a quick fix that doesn't pay off in the long run? What are you turning to when you are trying to satisfy the hunger and the longing in your soul that we all have? Are you turning to the fleeting things of this world or are you turning to Jesus? Psalm 61 verse one and verse five say this. Oh God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you. My soul thirsts for you, my body faints for you as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips. The truth is, the things of this world will never satisfy the deep longing and hunger that we have in our souls because we were created to know God. We were created to love him. We were created to be satisfied by him and by nothing else. And so we can try and we can try and we can try to satisfy ourselves with every other thing in our lives but it will never measure up to the satisfaction that we get from knowing God. And so there is a blessing and there is a deep satisfying happiness unwavering in our souls when we seek God, when we hunger and thirst for his righteousness, that we're not turning to the things of this world, we're turning to him. The things of God will give us deep unwavering soul happiness that Jesus is talking about. It's in a relationship with Jesus that can allow us to have that kind of blessing, to be blessed like that, to receive that kind of satisfaction. It's because it's what we.
made for. We were made to know Him and to be known by Him. And so blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness and nothing else, because they will be satisfied. And so we find spiritual blessing when we choose to pursue Jesus and we seek to be hungry and thirsty for righteousness. The last thing I want you to see here is you're spiritually blessed when God produces fruit, spiritual fruit, in your life. Verse 7 says, 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. These last four, to me, sound a whole lot like Jesus, don't they? It sounds like a description of Jesus, right? Merciful, pure in heart, a peacemaker, persecuted. Looks like Jesus. The happiest people in the world are those whose hearts and lives reflect God. I think about the Christians that I've met in my life that go through really, really hard seasons, really hard circumstances, and yet they still are full of joy, and they still are so faithful to God, and they still have this joy and happiness that just can't be explained. That is the work of God in their lives. John 15 5 says this, I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. We can do nothing apart from God, but when we understand how desperately we need him, when we hunger and thirst for his righteousness, when we are close to him, when we abide in him, he produces in us a fruit that we could never produce on our own. We cannot produce spiritual fruit in our lives apart from God in the same way that a branch cannot produce fruit if it's disconnected from a tree. I have never seen a branch of an apple tree produce an apple disconnected from the tree. I've never seen it. So we cannot produce fruit apart from God, and the truth is, apart from God we are not endlessly merciful people. Apart from God we are not pure of heart. Apart from God we disturb the peace rather than make it. But when we abide in him, he produces in us a fruit that we cannot produce on our own, and that is the the kind of thing that we see in these few verses. That the kind of person who has this spiritual blessing on them, it is because God is producing in them the fruit of his spirit. When we walk closely with him, when we are humble and we are surrendered, he produces in us much fruit, and we are blessed because we get to experience the joy of God doing a good work in us. And so the question I have for you is, can you see the work of God in your life? Can you see the fruit that only God can produce in your life? Is it evident? Can people see it? And so often, like I said, we think of blessing in terms of the stuff that we have. We are truly, deeply, and unwaveringly blessed because of who God is, and who we get to be because of him and his love, and not the things that we can receive. Not even the things that we receive from God. We're not trying to do all of these things. We're not trying to be more poor in spirit. We're not trying to mourn better, or to be more meek, or to be more merciful, or pure in heart, or a better peacemaker, or hunger and thirst more for his word, or to be persecuted so that we can receive blessing. It's we are blessed because those things are already true because of our relationship with God. And so deep, unwavering, soul happiness comes as a result of a relationship with God. We are spiritually blessed when we understand how much we need God, when we desire to be more like him, and when he produces in us a fruit in line with what he wants us to be as his children. As obedient and faithful followers of him. And so I don't know what the response is for you tonight. Maybe it's that you have been walking in a season of arrogance. That you feel like you don't need God. That you don't need to have your spiritual needs met by him. Maybe you have been spiritually hungry and you've been looking to satisfy those longings and those desires in ways that are not honoring to God. That you're looking to things other than God to satisfy the deepest longings of your soul. Or maybe you've never acknowledged that you are a sinner and that you need God. You need his grace, you need his mercy, and you need his love. And you need to tonight begin a relationship with Jesus. It may be none of those, but I want you to take a second and I want you to ask God what it is that he wants you to do. What it is he wants you to take away from his word tonight. What is, what needs to change in your heart and in your life because of his word tonight. So take a second and be quiet. Be still. You can write things down. You can sit and close your eyes and think about what we've heard in God's word tonight. But just take a moment and ask God what it is he wants you to learn from his word tonight. And what he wants you to do about it. And so take a second and then I'll pray and then we're going to worship.