24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
5:1 Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.
The Beatitudes
2 And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons1 of God.
10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
5:1 Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.
The Beatitudes
2 And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons1 of God.
10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Joel Brooks:
So last night, I got to perform a wedding here. I'm actually still a little sore from the dancing, which says more to my age than my love for dancing. But I love weddings, and one of the reasons I do is because of the picture that we have of our wedding to come. And and really, a good wedding theology points you towards the Ascension. Today is the day in which we celebrate the ascension of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:
And it's important to know not just that He ascended, but how He ascended. Jesus ascended as a human, wearing His human flesh. And this has extraordinary, it's extraordinarily important for us. Whenever I do a wedding, one of the things I talk about is I read through Genesis 2 and how Adam, even though he was in the midst of paradise, something was missing. And God created for him a wife.
Joel Brooks:
And He said, at last, this is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. Well, now Jesus has ascended, and He is in heaven, clothed in human flesh. So He is in the midst of paradise, and yet something is missing. Us. But someday, we will be resurrected and we will be given a resurrected body just like Jesus.
Joel Brooks:
And then when our wedding with Him comes, Jesus will actually look at us and say, at last, this is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. And we will be united with Him forever. And I love the picture of that that we get to see every wedding. I mentioned last year on Ascension Sunday that, for some reason Ascension Sunday's just kinda fallen through the cracks among the other Christian holidays. I mean, it's nowhere near as popular as Christmas or Easter.
Joel Brooks:
And, and perhaps the reason for that is, well, you just really can't commercialize the Ascension. How many of you have ever seen, you know, an Ascension Day mattress sale? Alright. You don't have those. But you have all types of Christmas sales or Easter sales.
Joel Brooks:
Even even unbelievers can celebrate those holidays. I mean, you you have to water down kinda the Christian theology some in it, but you can celebrate Christmas. Just say it's about goodwill to men, peace, hope, all those things, and then, of course, giving gifts to one another. Or Easter. Well, Easter, you could just kinda spin it as a time of new beginnings, turning over a new leaf, springs in the air, go hunt some eggs, you know, different things like that.
Joel Brooks:
But what do you do with the ascension? I mean, you either believe that Jesus rose from the dead, ascended, and is seated on the throne, currently reigning the universe, or you don't. There's no way you put a a toe into that one. There's no way you can market that. You're either in or you're out.
Joel Brooks:
Has Jesus ascended or has he not? And I think it's appropriate for us to begin this new study on the sermon on the mount on Ascension Sunday, Because it's all about the Kingship of Jesus. We're gonna be looking the next 14 weeks at the Sermon on the Mount. We'll be spending 2 weeks, just on the Beatitudes beginning today. But it's tied into the Ascension because when Jesus was ascending to heaven, His last words to His disciples, we just read this, was all authority on heaven and earth has been given to me.
Joel Brooks:
Go therefore, make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. And usually, we stop right there. We say, oh, that's the great commission. It's about us telling other people about Jesus. But we forget the rest of the great commission, which is this, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
Joel Brooks:
Jesus as the ascended king made commands, and the vast majority of these commands can be found in what we know as the Sermon on the Mount. And so the great commission isn't just tell people about Jesus, but tell people about Jesus and how he is reigning and how he's king and how he has given us commandments. And when we understand that he is the king of kings and the lord of lords, we don't see these as suggestions. We see these as commandments. And so I'm looking forward to the next 14 weeks seeing exactly what the Lord has commanded for us.
Joel Brooks:
And so let's read Matthew chapter 5. I have Matthew 7 in your worship guide as well. We'll be looking there a little bit later. Matthew chapter 5, and we are about to hit a lot of red, a lot of red over the next few weeks. Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain.
Joel Brooks:
And when he had 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.
Joel Brooks:
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 utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
Joel Brooks:
Rejoice, be glad For your reward is great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. This is the word of the Lord. Our father, we pray that through your spirit, you would open up your word to us. That we would hear the king of kings and the lord of lords speaking I I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away, but Lord, may Your words remain and may they change us.
Joel Brooks:
We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. So whether you grew up in church or not, you were likely somewhat familiar with the Sermon on the Mount. There's probably certain sayings that you remember. Probably the first of the Beatitudes here, you knew.
Joel Brooks:
Blessed are the poor in spirit. Or if you wanna look at Luke's sermon on the plane, Jesus says, blessed are the poor. You might be familiar with sayings like, you are the light of the world. Or how about, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Or the Lord's prayer.
Joel Brooks:
Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. We're at least somewhat familiar with those. The most famous of all of the sayings Jesus gives in the Sermon on the Mount is this. Judge not lest you be judged. Just about every unbeliever knows that one.
Joel Brooks:
So so we're all familiar, at least to some degree of the sermon on the mount, but when it comes to explaining what the sermon on the mount is actually about, that's where we falter. What what does it actually mean? And and some people think that really it wasn't a sermon. It's really just a collection of a bunch of sermons or a bunch of writings from Jesus, just kinda put together together in a random way. But, not a cohesive message.
Joel Brooks:
But it is a sermon, thoughtfully put together. And there is a definite theme and this theme is woven throughout and and every every paragraph and this is like another brick being laid, building something beautiful. The theme is this, the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven. This is all throughout this sermon.
Joel Brooks:
This language of the kingdom of heaven. And not just here, Jesus actually talks about the kingdom of heaven more than 70 times in his gospels. And he mentions it here in the very first beatitude. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. He mentions it in the last beatitude.
Joel Brooks:
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And over and over he's talking about this kingdom of heaven. Now what you won't find Jesus saying throughout this sermon, you you won't find any language like this. You need to invite me into your heart. You need to accept me as your personal savior and Lord.
Joel Brooks:
That language exists nowhere in the Sermon on the Mountain. Matter of fact, it exists nowhere in the gospels or in the New Testament. Jesus did not talk that way. Even the times where we think, certainly this is what Jesus was getting at. Maybe passages like when he was saying, you must be born again.
Joel Brooks:
When he's talking to Nicodemus. Certainly that's about accepting Jesus into your heart, but Jesus says you must be born again if you wish to enter the kingdom of heaven. He's always talking about the kingdom of heaven. When Jesus began preaching in Matthew chapter 4, Matthew summarizes His entire sermon by saying, Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And then the Sermon on the Mount is a explanation.
Joel Brooks:
He expounds on what Jesus means by this kingdom of heaven. So what does it mean? What does the kingdom of heaven mean? It's really not that different than we would think of any other kingdom. If there's a kingdom, well, there's there's a king.
Joel Brooks:
There are laws within that kingdom and there are people within that kingdom. And the kingdom of heaven is no different. There's a king, there's laws, and there's people. Jesus is the king. Jesus is the one who gives new laws, and we as His people obey them.
Joel Brooks:
And when we obey those laws, Jesus says, We will flourish. We will flourish and we will bring life into this world. Jesus gives us a vision for an entire new way of living in the Sermon on the Mount. Stanley Hauerwasi wrote a famous commentary on the Sermon on the Mount and he summarizes Jesus's vision for humanity as this. When Jesus called his society together, Jesus gave its members a new way to live.
Joel Brooks:
He gave them a new way to deal with offenders by forgiving them. He gave them a new way to deal with violence by suffering. He gave them a new way to deal with money by sharing it. He gave them a new way to deal with problems of leadership by drawing on the gift of every member, even the most humble. He gave them a new way to deal with a corrupt society by building a new order and not smashing the old.
Joel Brooks:
He gave them a new pattern of relationships between man and woman, parent and child, master and servant. And which was made a concrete radical new vision of what it means to become a human person. Jesus, he gives us a vision for an entirely new way to live and and it's a radical vision. Honestly, it's a vision that will not sit well with American middle class suburban Christianity. It's gonna settle unwell if that's the type of Christianity like like I had growing up, if that's what you grew up in.
Joel Brooks:
A matter of fact, I have found that the more you have been in church, the harder it is for you to hear the sermon on the mount. But if you're a new Christian or even a unbeliever, you read this a lot of times, you get it off the bat. This radical new way of living is one of the things that actually bothers us as we read through this sermon. Because we begin to wonder as we're reading all of these things, are we in the kingdom? Or are we out of the kingdom?
Joel Brooks:
I mean, I always thought I was in the kingdom, and now I hear what Jesus is saying, and I'm wondering am I out of the kingdom? And we begin to wonder that as we actually hear Jesus speak. I was at a social gathering not too long ago and, I do what introverts do, which is immediately just kinda gather away and just find a seat away from everybody, or a task. But there I just sat away from everybody. But but but soon, I was surrounded by a group of people, and, I thought, okay, you know, this is fine.
Joel Brooks:
And so we're we're we're talking and the conversation begins with coffee. It's a bunch of hipsters who really love drinking gourmet coffee. Some of them talk about how they roast their own beans. And they're going on and on and they ask me, so what do you drink? I'm like, 8 o'clock bean.
Joel Brooks:
Whatever's on sale at Walmart. And they're like, oh, that's cool. Yeah. And so they move on. And then they begin talking about all the books they're reading.
Joel Brooks:
You know, Pulitzer Prize this, you know, Pulitzer Prize that. They're so happy that they're taking these to the beach, and they can read through this stack of books, and they're like, What are you reading? I'm like, Jack Reacher novel. Like, who's Jack Reacher's? Like, I don't know.
Joel Brooks:
He's like a wanderer who does justice. Like, that's that's great. That's good. And, then they started talking about what beard wax they used and, and and when when they went there, it hit me. I'm I don't belong with these people.
Joel Brooks:
Like, the whole language, everything they're talking about, like, I don't belong here. Now warning, there's gonna be some topics and some things that Jesus is gonna bring up and he's gonna say some things and where before going into this conversation, we're like, I belong in this group and all of a sudden he's gonna hit you, wait a second. Are these my people or not? Like, do I belong in here or not? The more we listen to Jesus, the more bothersome His words actually become.
Joel Brooks:
And if you have not been bothered by His words yet, trust me, you haven't read the Sermon on the Mount. Because once we get to the place where Jesus says, have you ever called your brother a fool? Well, you should go to hell. Have you ever lusted? Well, you've committed adultery.
Joel Brooks:
You're gonna start getting bothered then. And so what happens, and we've seen this over the last 2000 years of church history, people go out of their ways. Scholars go out of their ways, preachers go out of their ways to try to soften the blows. They soften Jesus' words. They reduce His words.
Joel Brooks:
They recontextualize things. Sometimes they even outright abandon what he says. And you're gonna find that as you listen to this sermon, you're gonna do everything in your power to try to domesticate Jesus. You don't want that wild Jesus. You want Him tame.
Joel Brooks:
You wanna remove everything that's shocking, everything demanding in this sermon. You are going to do your best to render Jesus harmless to you. I was surprised at my own reaction to the Sermon on the Mount. I've been studying this now on and off for the last few months. And I would come across something Jesus said and it'd be so demanding, yet so direct.
Joel Brooks:
I'd say, wow. I mean, well, Jesus, I hear you saying this, but but what do you really mean? I mean, what are you what are you really trying to say here? And I would start doing some mental gymnastics, some spiritual gymnastics, tryin' to move the words around, so it didn't hurt my soul so much as I read them. I was trying desperately to find ways to soften the blows.
Joel Brooks:
The best commentary that I have read on the Sermon on the Mount, the commentator said something to this effect. He said, at some point along the way, I realized that I was no longer nodding. I was no longer nodding. And as we read this sermon, we move from nodding to wondering, it's possibly disapproving. So I I know we're not a amen church.
Joel Brooks:
Can I get a amen? Amen. Prove my point? I mean, honestly, the the pews, they their creaks are louder than the verbal response that I get. Jeff, when he talked, you know, a couple weeks back about he comes in here sometimes in the week and it's just so empty and quiet.
Joel Brooks:
I'm like, you mean on Sundays? Now feel freedom. I would love some kind of response. You know, I love the amens, the the, you know, go, whatever you wanna say, stand up, cheer, clap. But I realize we're not that.
Joel Brooks:
But if we were, and Jesus was preaching through the Sermon on the Mount, you'd be going amen at the start. Amen. And then there'd be this, By the end, there'd be silence. Silence as you're trying to mesh what He said with your life. At some point, the amens would stop.
Joel Brooks:
What I want us to do over these 14 weeks, as best as we can, is actually listen to what Jesus says. Not what we want him to say. Let's listen to what he says. This is a sermon about our King making total claim on the entirety of our lives. And there is not one aspect of our lives that He does not say mine.
Joel Brooks:
It is completely His. He is the king and He is now telling us what His kingdom looks like and how the people within His kingdom should live. And He promises us, that if we obey Him and we listen to His words, we flourish. This is for our flourishing, not for our demise. This is why perhaps it's best to start the Sermon on the Mount, not with the beginning, but with Jesus' closing argument.
Joel Brooks:
And so let's read Matthew 7. It's there in your worship guide. Let's read the very last thing that Jesus says as He closes the Sermon on the Mount. Beginning in verse 24. Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock and the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock.
Joel Brooks:
And everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell and great was the fall of it. Let me ask you the question. What words shaped you this week? What words did you build your life upon this week?
Joel Brooks:
It doesn't matter how much time, energy, and money you spilt on whatever mansion you are trying to construct, if it's built on sand. Jesus says, hear my words. Build your entire life on them and it could withstand anything. Alright. So let's actually look at his words.
Joel Brooks:
Let's let's look at what Jesus says in this. The context of the sermon is this. In chapter 4, Jesus launches his public ministry. He just called his disciples, and now he's journeying all throughout Galilee, and it says that he is proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and he is healing people of every disease and every affliction. Everybody within that region has been healed.
Joel Brooks:
And as a result of it, Jesus is becoming famous. His his fame is growing beyond beyond that area. It's going all throughout Syria and everybody's beginning to follow him and as they're following Jesus, Jesus leads them up to the mountain where He sits down and He gives them His law. Very similar to Moses. Moses climbing up the mountain and then he gives the new people of God the law.
Joel Brooks:
And Matthew's intentionally trying to bring that out for us. Verse 2 reinforces the extraordinary importance of this Mount Sinai like event. We read that Jesus opened his mouth and taught them, saying Matthew's just being a little redundant here as he is introducing this. Normally, Matthew would just say, he taught them or he said, but here he's saying, and Jesus opened his mouth and taught them saying, saying that these are not ordinary words. What you are about to hear is a seminal event in human history.
Joel Brooks:
These are groundbreaking, life changing, history making words that are coming out. And then the very first word that Jesus says, blessed. You should just stop and let that one word soak in. That Jesus begins this sermon with that glorious word, blessed. He does not begin with a list of demands.
Joel Brooks:
Jesus begins with blessings. He doesn't begin by pointing out all of our sins. Telling us everything that we've done wrong or everything that we thought wrong about God. Instead, He speaks this word of blessing. He doesn't tell about how you have failed as a parent, or failed as a friend or how disappointed he is with your prayer life.
Joel Brooks:
He doesn't pull out your financial records and be like, you only gave that this year? He doesn't talk about your lying or your cheating or the way that you've lusted or the way that you've been unkind. Instead, his very first word at this Sinai like event here is blessing. And you could not get a more shocking introduction to a sermon then when you see exactly who he blessed. Blessed are the poor in spirit.
Joel Brooks:
Now this is so familiar to us. It's lost most of its shock value. But really, I mean, that's pretty startling, those words. Blessed are the poor in spirit because the poor in spirit don't look very blessed. The poor in spirit are those who feel crushed.
Joel Brooks:
Those who are empty, needy, have absolutely nothing to offer. And then Jesus goes on about blessed are the mourn, those who mourn. Well those who mourn, they're the ones who have had their hearts broken, who cry themselves to sleep, who feel the brokenness of the world, perhaps through their own sin or through the sin of someone else. Then yeah, blessed are the meek. The meek are the powerless, the oppressed, the little people of the world that no one notices or cares about.
Joel Brooks:
And when you just look at those first three, you walk away going, those people don't seem in any way blessed. Doesn't look like God's favor is falling upon them, and so these words are startling to us, because that is not what we see when we look out at the world. It certainly looks like it is the wealthy and the happy and the strong that enjoy God's favor. It's the CEO's. It's it's the newly weds.
Joel Brooks:
It's the go getters in life. Those are the ones that seem to have God's favor. Not the poor in spirit. I mean, I know people who've been mourning for years without any comfort. I know people who are poor in spirit and not only did they not have a kingdom, they don't even have a voice that's heard.
Joel Brooks:
And I know many who are meek and they are just simply bullied. Those are the ones who, they have their lunch money taken away from them. They're the ones who never get a promotion. So how are these people blessed? This is a question that we have to answer.
Joel Brooks:
I guess I've just been I've I've been startled. I I've read through so many commentaries on this, and I've been startled by how many commentators, I think, completely miss how Jesus blesses these people. I mean, so much print has been spilled on this, and and and they miss what I believe is the most obvious answer, which is that Jesus blesses these people because He came to these people. He blessed them through His very presence. He came to them.
Joel Brooks:
I've actually been to the mountain where Jesus preached this sermon. My family and I, we were privileged to go to Israel a couple months ago. So we went to the Mount of the Beatitudes, which is where Jesus preached this. It's up in Galilee. It's really more of a large hill than a mountain and it overlooks the Sea of Galilee.
Joel Brooks:
And, and and from that that beautiful view that's there, you can actually see these 4 villages. You can see, Gennesaret. You can see Bethsaida. You can see Magdala. And then you can see Capernaum.
Joel Brooks:
All 4 right there, you you can see them. And what struck me as I was looking at those was how small they were. Yet, you could sum up nearly all 3 years of Jesus' ministry as taking place in those 4 villages. And they're small now. They were even smaller back then and I'm looking like this was Jesus' ministry.
Joel Brooks:
You know what we would call him today? A small country preacher. That's what Jesus was. Pouring His life for 3 years into those people, blessing those people. Of all the people on earth, that's who Jesus decided to go to.
Joel Brooks:
Out of every option out there, He could've gone to Rome. He could've gone to Athens. He could have gone to Jerusalem. But instead he decided to live and to preach among those people. Poor, uneducated, country.
Joel Brooks:
It's like, I will bless them with my presence. I will heal them of every disease. I will heal them of every affliction. I will proclaim the gospel of my kingdom to them. And change the world through it.
Joel Brooks:
And I think it's extraordinary that Jesus does this. And of course, we see this all throughout scripture. We see this amazing love and kindness that God has in which He's not so much drawn to the mother with many children. He's drawn to the mother who cannot bear children. He's not drawn to the firstborn, He's drawn to the lastborn.
Joel Brooks:
He's drawn to those who are hanging on by a thread. Those who are surrounded by their enemies. Those who feel like all hope is gone. Those who are destitute. Those who are weak.
Joel Brooks:
Over and over again, that's who we see that God is drawn to. This is extremely important for us to realize this, because 2 1000 years later, when we read these beatitudes, we immediately, we want to try and apply them to our lives. And in order to do that, we have to ascribe some kind of virtue to these things. We ascribe virtue to these to these beatitudes. And we say, well, the poor in spirit, well, those those are the people who are humble.
Joel Brooks:
So we need to humble ourselves. That's how God blesses us. Well the those who mourn, well those who are mourning over their sin, those are the people who are repenting. So if we repent, then God blesses us. Well there's the meek.
Joel Brooks:
Well, the meek are those who don't they're not the bullies. They're the ones who realize they have to depend on God for strength. And if we do that, then God blesses us. We immediately try to ascribe virtues to these beatitudes so we can be blessed. But before we do that, maybe we could just see what this says about God.
Joel Brooks:
And it says that God comes to those who are poor, who are mourning, who are weak. Of all the people on the earth, Jesus came to these people. There wasn't a principality out there that recognized that they had a kingdom. Jesus landed and he said, yours is the kingdom of heaven. It's incredible, extraordinary how Jesus blesses them with His very presence.
Joel Brooks:
Looking at this clock, we're running out of time. I wanna move forward. No, Joel, preach. Okay. Thank you.
Joel Brooks:
Thank you for the feedback. We can stay here all day. Thank you. Sorry. I was I was daydreaming for a bit.
Joel Brooks:
Let's walk through these beatitudes. In particular, we're we're looking here a couple weeks, but I want us to mostly look at what it means to be poor in spirit. It's the key to unlocking this whole sermon. There's 8 beatitudes here. The first begins with the kingdom of heaven.
Joel Brooks:
The last one ends with Jesus saying, yours is the kingdom of theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Those are the bookends, okay, to the Sermon on the Mount. There's verse 11 there that could just kind of expounds on that last beatitude. But those are the bookends. That first beatitude and that last beatitude are the only ones where Jesus talks in present tense.
Joel Brooks:
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Everything in between is future. They shall be comforted. They shall inherit the earth. They shall see God.
Joel Brooks:
I mean everything is future after this. Even when you look at the explanation, the add on on verse 11 to that last beatitude, Jesus keeps the present tense there. When he says blessed are you when others were value and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my count. Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven. Not your reward will be great, but whenever he's talking about the kingdom of heaven, it's always present tense.
Joel Brooks:
Yet there's also this future comfort. Extremely important for us to realize this as we're going through these beatitudes. What you're seeing here is this now and not yet principle of the kingdom. Jesus is saying, I'm here. I'm the king and my kingdom is breaking through now into this life.
Joel Brooks:
And right now I'm giving into laws to how you could go ahead and live into that kingdom. Now. It's yours. But at the same time, there's also future hopes and future comforts. The kingdom will not come in full until I return again.
Joel Brooks:
And so there's, there's this now and this not yet period that we are currently living in as we read through these beatitudes. But for those who are poor in spirit, Jesus says that the kingdom of God is theirs. The kingdom of heaven is theirs. So what does it mean to be poor in spirit? You get this right, you're gonna get the rest of the Sermon on the Mount right.
Joel Brooks:
Actually, you could even think of the title, Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit as the title to the Sermon on the Mount. The rest of it's really just gonna expound on this. There's a lot of commentaries that you could go to to talk about what does it mean to be poor in spirit, but the best commentator I have read is Jesus. Surprise, surprise. And I think he's Thank you.
Joel Brooks:
I think He expounds what it means to be poor in the spirit in Luke 18, when He gives this story. Listen carefully. Jesus also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and they treated others with contempt. He said, 2 men went up into the temple to pray. 1 a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
Joel Brooks:
The Pharisee standing by himself prayed this. God, I thank you that I'm not like other men. Extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get, But the tax collector standing far off would not even lift up his eyes to heaven.
Joel Brooks:
But he beat his breast saying, 'God, be merciful to me a sinner.' I tell you this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. The poor in spirit are those who feel that they have absolutely nothing to offer God. They know that there is no wealth to be found in the storehouses of their heart. They are empty, destitute, spiritually impoverished, bankrupt and they know it.
Joel Brooks:
They absolutely know it. They know that their only hope is for God to have mercy. Now every command that Jesus is gonna give on the sermon of the mount is gonna drive you right back to this beatitude. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Every command's gonna drive you right back there.
Joel Brooks:
Because the moment you begin to think that you're wealthy in spirit, once again, Jesus is gonna say, have you called your brother a fool? Well, you should go to hell. You committed lust, you've committed adultery. And all of a sudden you realize you're not that spiritually wealthy, but you're pretty spiritually empty. It's gonna drive you right back.
Joel Brooks:
But Jesus says, Blessed are the poor in spirit. At the moment that you begin to balk at some of Jesus' commands, Perhaps His command to love your enemies or His command to share your possessions. The moment you balk at some of those, what you're feeling in that moment is spiritually wealthy. You're beginning to think you're rich in spirit. The moment that you think you are somehow more deserving or entitled to God's blessings than that heathen who is sitting next to you, is when you begin to believe you actually have some deposits in the store houses of your heart.
Joel Brooks:
The moment that you begin to look down on those who perhaps are not as dedicated as you, don't volunteer as much as you, Have your discipline or have your spirit or your intelligence. That very moment is when you become rich in spirit and void of God's blessing. The moment you hear Jesus tell the story about the tax collector and the pharisee, and you think, well I'm so glad I'm not like the pharisee. The moment you say that, you've made yourself spiritually wealthy, and you've deprived yourself from the blessing of Jesus. We have to realize we come to him with nothing, nothing.
Joel Brooks:
Jesus came to those people who had nothing to offer and they knew it, and He still comes to those who have nothing to offer. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. This is the great reversal in which God's gonna begin turning everything up on its head. That's why when the disciples went and they were preaching, we read this in Acts, people accused them. You know what you're doing?
Joel Brooks:
You're turning the world upside down. I love that. You're like, everything we value, you devalue. Everything we have devalued, you say is priceless. You're flipping all on its head and they're like, that's right.
Joel Brooks:
What they have understood is the sermon on the mount. Blessed are the poor. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are those who meek or meek. It's this great reversal that they see.
Joel Brooks:
And what I want us to do in these next 13 weeks ahead of us, is realize that all of our wealth, all of our hope, and all of our life is completely and utterly dependent upon Jesus alone. Pray with me. Lord, do you say that when we are truly poor, we actually have the kingdom? Help us to realize our poverty. Lord, I gotta confess that I'm actually going looking to the next 13 weeks with just a little bit of trepidation.
Joel Brooks:
Because I don't know what you're gonna demand of me or of us. But right now, as much as we are able, we wanna say the answer is always yes to whatever you command. Because you are the king of kings, and you're the lord of lords, and we wanna build our lives on the rock that can withstand any storm. We want our lives to flourish for our joy and for your glory. And we pray this in your strong name, Jesus.